and country, has traversed to the end of Europe, in Puschkine's Hymn to the Poniard.

Brutus, the old patron of heroic murders, the dim remembrance of a far off antiquity, found himself changed henceforth into a new divinity, more powerful and fascinating. The young man who dreams after reading Alibaud or Sand, what are his visions now? What does he see? Is it the ghost of Brutus? No; the charming Charlotte, as she appeared in the sinister splendor of her red mantle, heightened by the purple setting of the July sun.

CHAPTER XX.

THE PALAIS ROYAL IN '93.-THE SALONS.-HOW THE GIRONDISTS WEAKENED THEMSELVES.

THE too lively emotions, the violent changes, and great vicissitudes, had broken the moral fibre amongst many men; but it seems to have dulled the one feeling, which survives all others, that of life; it appears as if it would be very strong in those men who so blindly revel in pleasure; but it was often the contrary. Many, tired and disgusted, and not desiring life, adopted the pleasure of suicide. This has been observed, from the commencement of the Revolution. In proportion as a political party became weaker and approached destruction, the men which composed it thought of nothing but pleasure; it was seen in Mirabeau, Chapelin, Talleyrand, Clermont, Tonnere, and the Club of '89, which met at the first restaurateur of the Palais Royal,

near the gambling-room; the brilliant coterie was but a company of players. The centre also of the Legislature and Convention, so many men thrown in the course of fatality, went to console and forget themselves, in these houses of ruin. This Palais Royal, so lively and dazzling, with light, luxury, gold, and beautiful women, who come to you, praying you to be happy, to live, what is this, in reality, but the house of death? It was there, under its most rapid forms. On the first flight of steps, were the sellers of gold; in the galleries of wood, women. In the corners of the first were the venders of wine, and owners of little coffee-houses, who offered you means of ruining yourself at a cheap rate. Your pocketbook, filled with money, leaves a good part of its contents on the first flight, another part in the coffee-houses, then in play, on the first story, and the rest on the second. At last it is dry; all is evaporated. It was not like the first days of the Palais Royal, when these coffee-houses were the churches of the growing Revolution, when Camille, in the coffee-house of Foy, preached the crusade. It was no longer this age of Revolutionary innocence, when the good Fauchet, in the

Circus, professed the doctrine of Friends, and the philanthropic association of the Circle of Truth. The cafés and restaurateurs, were sad, but greatly frequented. Some of the famous shops were becoming funereal. Saint Fargeau was killed at the Restaurant Février; and near it, at the café Corraza, the destruction of the Girondists was plotted.

Life, death; rapid, gross, violent, and exterminating pleasure, behold the Palais Royal of '93! They must have gambling, and many found their ruin at the first throw of the card.

They must have women; not this puny race which we see in the streets, useful only to confirm men in continence. The girls whom they bought were chosen, if we may say so, as the gigantic animals were in the Normand pasturages, flourishing with flesh and life, to show in the carnival. With their breasts, shoulders, and arms naked, in the depth of winter, and their heads set off with enormous bouquets of flowers, they governed all these crowds of men. Old men recall having seen at the Palais Royal, from the Reign of Terror to the Consulate, four very tall blonds, enormous creatures, true atlases of prostitution, who, more

than all the others, have borne the weight of revolutionary orgies. With what contempt they saw in the galleries of wood swarms of milliners, whose sprightly manners and lively glances were but little redeemed by their meagreness.

We have seen the visible side of the Palais Royal. But whoever has crossed the two valleys of Gomorrah, which go all round, and ascends the nine stories of the Radziwil, a true tower in Sodom, would have found an entirely different thing. There were many, who loved better these obscure dark holes, small gambling-houses, closets, alleys, with no thoroughfare, and cellars made as light as day, by lamps, well seasoned by the close smell of an old house; even Versailles, in the midst of all its pomps, took its odor from below stairs. When the old Duchess of D-, returning to the Tuileries, in 1814, was congratulated, on the good times having entirely returned, "Yes," said she, sadly, "but we do not find the smell of Versailles here."

Behold this dirty, infectious, and dark world, enjoying shameful pleasures, where crowds of men had taken refuge, some contra-revolutionists, and others, tried, disgusted, and shaken by events,