The entire population of the capital and its environs, from the highest to the lowest condition of life, of both sexes, and of every profession, was engaged, from day to day, and from week to week, in carrying on the excavation. The academies and schools, the official bodies of every description, the trades and the professions, and every class and division of the people, repaired, from morning to night, to take part in the work, cheered by the instruments of a hundred full orchestras, and animated with every sport and game in which an excited and cheerful populace gives vent to its delight.

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It was the perfect saturnalia of liberty; the meridian of the revolution, when its great and unquestioned benefits seemed established on a secure basis, with as little violence and bloodshed as could be reasonably expected in the tumultuous action of a needy, exasperated and triumphant populace. The work was at length completed, the terraces were raised, and 300,000 spectators were seated in the vast amphitheatre. gallery was elevated in front of the military school, and in its centre was a pavilion above the throne. In the rear of the pavilion was prepared a stage, on which the queen, the dauphin, and the royal family were seated. The deputed members of the federation, eleven thousand for the army and navy, and eighteen thousand for the national guard of France, were arranged in front, within a circle formed by eightythree lances planted in the earth, adorned with the standards of the eighty-three departments. In the midst of the Champs de Mars, the centre of all eyes, with nothing above it but the canopy of heaven, arose

a magnificent altar-the loftiest ever raised on earth. Two hundred priests, in white surplices, with the tricolor as a girdle, were disposed on the steps of the altar, on whose spacious summit, mass was performed by the bishop of Autun. On the conclusion of the religious ceremony, the members of the federation and the deputies of the assembly advanced to the altar, and took the oath of fidelity to the nation, the constitution, and the king. The king himself assumed the name and rank of chief of the federation, and bestowed the title of its major-general on La Fayette. The king took the oath on his throne, but La Fayette, as the first citizen of France, advancing to the altar, at the head of 30,000 deputies, and in the name of the mighty mass of the national guard, amidst the plaudits of nearly half a million of his fellow-citizens, in the presence of all that was most illustrious and excellent in the kingdom, whose organized military power he represented as their chief, took the oath of fidelity to the nation, the constitution, and the king. Of all the oaths that day taken by the master-spirits of the time, his was, perhaps, the only one kept inviolate.

The powers of Europe at length roused themselves to action, and began to draw their threatening armies around France. Armies were raised by the latter country to meet them. La Fayette was charged with the command of one of them. At his head quarters at Sedan, he heard of the bloody tragedy of the 10th August, and the imprisonment of the royal family. Agents were sent to the departments; the bloody scenes of Paris were enacted there. The reign of terror was now established, and commissioners were

sent to the army to arrest the generals, and La Fayette among the rest. He had no choice but to deluge the country with blood by resistance, or to save himself by flight. He adopted the latter course, but was taken by a military force at Liege, and being dragged from fortress to fortress, was at last lodged in the dungeons of Magdeburg. From this place, he was transferred to the emperor of Germany, and immured in the gloomy castle of Olmutz, in Moravia.

Cut off from all the world, and closely confined, the health of the noble captain gave way, and it was not till several unsuccessful efforts had been made, that a mitigation of his sufferings was allowed. He was now permitted to take the air, and this afforded an opportunity to effect his liberation. Dr. Eric Bollman, a young German physician, and Mr. Huger, of South Carolina, engaged in this chivalrous enterprise; and, through their exertions, he made his escape. But a series of unfortunate accidents occurred, and he was retaken and carried back to Olmutz. Bollman and Huger were also taken, and confined in close prisons for six months, when they were set at liberty. La Fayette was now treated with double severity; he was stripped of every comfort; denied decent clothing; kept in a dark room; fed on bread and water; and told that he was soon to be executed on the scaffold.

Nor were these personal sufferings his only source of anxiety. No tidings were permitted to reach him. from his wife and children; and the last intelligence he had received from her was, that she was confined in prison at Paris. There she had been thrown during the reign of terror. Her grandmother, the

Dutchess de Noailles, her mother, the Dutchess de Argen, and her sister, the Countess de Noailles, had perished in one day on the scaffold. She was herself reserved for the like fate; but the downfall of Robespierre preserved her. During her imprisonment, her great anxiety was for her son, George Washington La Fayette, then just attaining the age at which he was liable to be forced by the conscription into the ranks of the army. The friendly assistance of two Americans saved him.

Relieved from anxiety on account of her son, the wife of La Fayette was resolved, with her daughters, if possible, to share his captivity. Just escaped from the dungeons of Robespierre, she hastened to plunge into those of the German emperor. This admirable lady, who, in the morning of life, had sent her youthful hero from her side, to fight the battles of constitutional freedom, beneath the guidance of Washington, now went to immure herself with him in the gloomy cells of Olmutz. Born, brought up, accustomed to all that was refined, luxurious and elegant, she went to shut herself up in the poisonous wards of his dungeon; to partake his wretched fare; to share his daily repeated insults; to breathe an atmosphere so noxious and intolerable, that the gaolers, who brought them their daily food, were compelled to cover their faces as they entered their cells.

Landing at Altona, on the 9th September, 1795, she proceeded, with an American passport, under the family name of her husband, (Motier,) to Vienna. Having arrived in that city, she obtained, through the compassionate offices of Count Rosernberg, an inter