of the besiegers, which was honorable, if it could have been useful. The Lyonnois, at the same time, still endeavored to make fair weather with the besieging army, by representing themselves as firm Republicans. They celebrated as a public festival the anniversary of the 10th of August, while Dubois Crance, to show the credit he gave them for their republican zeal, fixed the same day for commencing his fire on the place, and caused the first gun to be discharged by his own concubine, a female born in Lyons. Bombs and red-hot bullets were next resorted to, against the second city of the French empire; while the besieged sustained the attack with a constancy, and on many parts repelled it with a courage, highly honorable to their character.

But their fate was determined. The deputies announced to the Convention their purpose of pouring their instruments of havoc on every quarter of the town at once, and when it was on fire in several places to attempt a general storm.— "The city," they said, "must surrender, or there shall not remain one stone upon another, and this we hope to accomplish in spite of the suggestions of false compassion. Do not then be surprised when you shall hear that Lyons exists no longer." The fury of the attack threatened to make good their promises.

The sufferings of the citizens became intolerable. Several quarters of the city were on fire at the same time, immense magazines were burnt to the ground, and a loss incurred during two nights' bombardment, which was calculated at two hundred millions of livres. A black flag was hoisted by the besieged on the Great Hospital, as a sign that the fire of the assailants should not be directed on that asylum of hopeless misery. The signal seemed only to draw the Republican bombs to the spot where they could create the most frightful distress, and outrage in the higher degree the feelings of humanity. The devastations of famine were soon added to those of slaughter; and after two months of such horrors had been sustained, it became obvious that further resistance was impossible.

The military commandant of Lyons, Precy, resolved upon a sally at the head of the active part of the garrison, hoping that, by cutting his way through the besiegers, he might save the lives of many of those who followed him in the desperate attempt and gain the neutral territory of Switzerland, while the absence of those who had been actual combatants during the siege, might, in some degree, incline the Convention to

lenient measures towards the more helpless part of the inhabi tants. A column of about two thousand men made this desperate attempt. But pursued by the Republicans, and attacked on every side by the peasants, to whom they had been represented in the most odious colors by the Jacobin deputies and who were stimulated besides by the hope of plunder, scarcely fifty of the devoted body reached, with their leader, the protecting soil of Switzerland. Lyons reluctantly opened her gates after the departure of her best and bravest.

The paralytic Couthon, with Collot D'Herbois, and other deputies, were sent to Lyons by the Committee of Public Safety, to execute the vengeance which the Jacobins demanded. The principal streets and buildings were to be levelled with the ground, and a monument erected where they stood, was to record the cause;-"Lyons rebelled against the Republic-Lyons is no more." The impotent Couthon was carried from house to house devoting each to ruin, by striking the door with a silver hammer, and pronouncing these words, "House of a rebel, I condemn thee in the name of the Law." Workmen followed in great multitudes, who executed the sentence by pulling the house down to the foundations.This wanton demolition continued for six months, and is said to have been carried on at an expense equal to that which the superb military hospital, the Hotel des Invalides, cost its foun

der, Louis XIV. But Republican vengeance did not waste itself exclusively upon senseless lime and stone-it sought out sentient victims.

The deserved death of Chalier had been atoned by an apotheosis, executed after Lyons had surrendered; but Collot D'Herbois declared that every drop of that patriotic blood fell as if scalding his own heart, and that the murder demanded atonement. All ordinary process, and every usual mode of execution, was thought too tardy to avenge the death of a Jacobin proconsul. The judges of the revolutionary commission were worn out with fatigue-the arm of the execu tioner was weary-the very steel of the guillotine was blunted. Collot D'Herbois devised a more summary mode of slaughter. A number of from two to three hundred victims at once were dragged from prison to the Place de Brotteaux, one of the largest squares in Lyons, and there subjected to a fire of grape shot. Efficacious as this mode of execution may seem, it was neither speedy nor merciful. The sufferers fell to the ground like singed flies, mutilated but not slain, and imploring their executioners to despatch them speedily. This

was done with sabres and bayonets, and with such haste and zeal, that some of the jailors and assistants were slain along with those whom they had assisted in dragging to death; and the mistake was not discerned, until, upon counting the dead bodies, the military murderers found them amount to more than the destined tale. The bodies of the dead were thrown into the Rhone, to carry news of the Republican vengeance, as Collot d'Herbois expressed himself, to Toulon, then also in a state of revolt. But the sullen stream rejected the office imposed on it, and heaved back the dead in heaps upon the banks; and the Committee of Representatives was compelled at length to allow the relics of their cruelty to be interred, to prevent the risk of contagion.

The extraordinary criminal Court, better known by the name of the Revolutionary Tribunal, was first instituted upon the motion of Danton. Its object was to judge of state crimes, plots and attempts against liberty, or in favor of royalty.

This frightful Court consisted of six judges or public accusers, and two assistants. There were twelve jurymen; but the appointment of these was mere mockery. It may be sure the jurors and judges were selected for their Republican zeal and steady qualities, and were capable of seeing no obstacle either of law or humanity in the path of their duty.

The Revolutionary Tribunal was in a short time so overwhelmed with work, that it became necessary to divide it into four sections, all armed with similar powers. The quantity of blood which it caused to be shed was something unheard of even during the proscriptions of the Roman Empire; and there were involved in its sentences crimes the most different, personages the most opposed, and opinions the most dissimilar. When Henry VIII, roused the fires of Smithfield both against Protestant and Papist, burning at the same stake one wretch for denying the King's supremacy, and another for disbelieving the divine presence in the Eucharist, the association was consistency itself compared to the scenes presented at the Revolutionary Tribunal, in which Royalist, Constitutionalist, Girondist, Churchman, Theophilanthropist, Noble and Roturier, Prince and Peasant, both sexes and all ages, were involved in one general massacre, and sent to execution by scores together, and on the same sledge.

We have mentioned the murders committed at Lyons; but even these, though hundreds were swept away by vollies of musket-shot, fell short of the horrors perpetrated by Carrier at Nantes, one of the "Commissioners of Public Safety,"

who, in avenging the Republic on the obstinate resistance of La Vendee, might have summoned hell to match his cruelty, without a demon venturing to answer his challenge. Hundreds, men, women and children, were forced on board of vessels which were scuttled and sunk in the Loire, and this was called republican baptism. Men and women were stripped, bound together, and thus thrown into the river, and this was called republican marriage. But we have said enough to show that men's blood seems to have been converted into poison, and their hearts into stone, by the practices in which they were daily engaged. Many affected even a lust of cruelty, and the instrument of punishment was talked of with the fondness and gaiety with which we speak of a beloved and fondled object. It had its pet name of the little National Window, and others equally expressive; and although saints were not much in fashion, was, in some degree, canonized by the name of the Holy Mother Guillotine. That active citizen, the Executioner, had also his honors, as well as the senseless machine which he directed. This official was addmitted to the society of some of the more emphatic patriots, and shared in their civic festivities. It may be questioned whether even his company was not too good for the patrons who thus regaled him.

The reader need not be reminded, that the three distinguished champions who assumed the front in the Jacobin ranks, were Marat, Danton and Robespierre. The first was poinarded by Charlotte Corday, an enthusiastic young person, who had nourished, in a feeling betwixt lunacy and heroism, the ambition of ridding the world of a tyrant. Danton and Robespierre, reduced to a Duumvirate, might have divided the pow er betwixt them. But Danton, far the more able and powerful minded man, could not resist temptations to plunder and to revel; and Robespierre, who took care to preserve proof of his rival's peculations, a crime of peculiarly unpopular character, and from which he seemed to keep his own hands pure, possessed thereby the power of ruining him whenever he should find it convenient. Danton married a beautiful woman, became a candidate for domestic happiness, withdrew himself for some time from state affairs, and quitted the stern and menacing attitude which he had presented to the public during the earlier stages of the Revolution. Still his ascendancy, especially in the Club of Cordeliers, was formidable enough to command Robespierre's constant attention, and keep awako his envy, which was like the worm that diet not,

though it did not draw down any indication of his immediate

and active vengeance.

On the morning of the 31st of March 1794, the Parisians and the members of the Convention hardly dared whisper to each other, that Danton, whose name had been as formidable as the sound of the tocsin, had been arrested like any poor ex-noble, and was in the hands of the fatal lictors.

There was no end of exclamation and wonder; for Danton was the great apostle, the very Mahomet of Jacobinism.His gigantic stature, his huge and ferocious physiognomy, his voice which struck terror in its notes of distant thunder, and the energies of talent and vehemence mingled, which supplied that voice with language worthy of its deep tones, were such as became the prophet of that horrible and fearful sect. Marat was a madman, raised into consequence only by circum stances, Robespierre, a cold, creeping, calculating hypocrite, whose malignity resembled that of a paltry and second-rate fiend, but Danton was a character for Shakspeare or Schiller to have drawn in all its broad lights and shades; or Bruce could have sketched from him a yet grander Ras Michael than he of Tigre. His passions were a hurricane, which, furious, regardless and desolating in its course, had yet its intervals of sunshine and repose. Neither good by nature, nor just by principle or political calculation, men were often surprised at finding he still possessed some feelings of generosity, and some tendency even towards magnanimity.

Danton, before his fall, seemed to have lost much of his sagacity as well as energy. He had full warning of his danger from La Croix, Westerman and others, yet took no steps either for escape or defence, though either seemed in his power. Still his courage was in no degree abated, or his haughty spirit tamed; although he seemed to submit passively to his fate with the disheartening conviction, which often unmans great criminals, that his hour was come.

Danton's process was, of course a short one. He and his comrades, Camille Desmoulins, Westerman and La Croix, were dragged before the Revolutionary Tribunal. As judges, witnesses, accusers and guards, Danton was now surrounded by those who had been too humble to aspire to be companions of his attrocities, and held themselves sufficiently honored in becoming his agents. They looked on his unstooping pride and unshaken courage, as timid spectators upon a lion in a cage, while they still doubt the security of the bars, and have little confidence in their own personal safety. He answered