though Gratitude embraces him, in this fearful hour, and will die for him; it avails not. Brothers, your wrath is cruel! Your Place de Grève is become a Throat of the Tiger; full of mere fierce bellowings, and thirst of blood. One other officer is massacred; one other Invalide is hanged on the Lamp-iron; with difficulty, with generous perseverance, the Gardes Françaises will save. the rest. Provost Flesselles, stricken long since with the paleness of death, must descend from his seat, "to be judged at the Palais Royal, "-alas, to be shot dead, by an unknown hand, at the turning of the first street!

O evening sun of July, how, at this hour, thy beams fall slant on reapers amid peaceful woody fields; on old women spinning in cottages; on ships far out in the silent main; on Balls at the Orangerie of Versailles, where high-rouged Dames of the Palace are even now dancing with double-jacketed Hussar-Officers;-and also on this roaring Hell-porch of a Hôtel-de-Ville ! Babel Tower, with its confusion of tongues, were not Bedlam added with the conflagration of thoughts, was no type of it. One forest of distracted steel bristles, endless, in front of an Electoral Committee; points itself, in horrid radii, against this and the other accused breast. It was the Titans warring with Olympus; and they, scarcely crediting it, have conquered: a prodigy of prodigies; delirious, as it could not but be. Denunciation, vengeance; blaze of triumph on a dark ground. of terror: all outward, all inward things fallen into one general wreck of madness!

Electoral Committee? Had it a thousand throats of brass, it would not suffice. Abbé Lefevre, in the Vaults down below, is black as Vulcan, distributing that "five thousand-weight of Powder;" with what perils, these eight-and-forty hours! Last night, a Patriot, in liquor, insisted on sitting to smoke on the edge of one of the Powder-barrels: there smoked he; independent

of the world,―till the Abbé "purchased his pipe for three francs," and pitched it far.

Elie, in the grand Hall, Electoral Committee looking on, sits with drawn sword bent in three places; with battered helm, for he was of the Queen's Regiment, Cavalry; with torn regimentals, face singed and soiled; comparable, some think, to "an antique warrior;"-judging the people; forming a list of Bastille Heroes. O Friends, stain not with blood the greenest laurels ever gained in this world: such is the burden of Elie's song: could it but be listened to. Courage, Elie! Courage, ye Municipal Electors! A declining sun; the need of victuals, and of telling news, will bring assuagement, dispersion: all earthly things must end.

Along the streets of Paris circulate Seven Bastille Prisoners, borne shoulder-high; seven Heads on pikes; the Keys of the Bastille; and much else. See also the Gardes Françaises, in their steadfast military way, marching home to their barracks, with the Invalides and Swiss kindly enclosed in hollow square. It is one year and two months since these same men stood unparticipating, with Brennus d'Agoust at the Palais de Justice, when Fate overtook D'Espréménil; and now they have participated; and will participate. Not Gardes Françaises henceforth, but Centre Grenadiers of the National Guard: men of iron discipline and humour, not without a kind of thought in them!

Likewise ashlar stones of the Bastille continue thundering through the dusk; its paper archives shall fly white. Old secrets come to view; and long-buried Despair finds voice. Read this portion of an old Letter: "If for my consolation Monseigneur would grant me, for the sake of God and the Most Blessed Trinity, that I could have news of my dear wife; were it only her name on a card, to show that she is alive! It were the greatest consolation I could receive; and I should

forever bless the greatness of Monseigneur." Poor Prisoner, who namest thyself Quéret-Démery, and hast no other history,-she is dead, that dear wife of thine, and thou art dead! 'Tis fifty years since thy breaking heart put this question; to be heard now first and long heard, in the hearts of men.

But so does the July twilight thicken; so must Paris, as sick children, and all distracted creatures do, brawl itself finally into a kind of sleep. Municipal Electors, astonished to find their heads still uppermost, are home: only Moreau de Saint-Méry of tropical birth and heart, of coolest judgment; he, with two others, shall sit permanent at the Townhall. Paris sleeps; gleams upward the illuminated City: patrols go clashing, without common watchword; there go rumours; alarms of war, to the extent of "fifteen thousand men marching through the Suburb Saint-Antoine," who never got it marched through. Of the day's distraction judge by this of the night: Moreau de Saint-Méry, "before rising from his seat, gave upwards of three thousand orders." What a head; comparable to Friar Bacon's Brass Head! Within it lies all Paris. Prompt must the answer be, right or wrong; in Paris is no other Authority extant. Seriously, a most cool clear head;-for which also thou, O brave Saint-Méry, in many capacities, from august Senator to Merchant's-Clerk, Book-dealer, ViceKing; in many places, from Virginia to Sardinia, shalt, ever as a brave man, find employment.

Besenval has decamped, under cloud of dusk, “amid a great affluence of people," who did not harm him; he marches, with faint-growing tread, down the left bank of the Seine, all night,-towards infinite space. Resummoned shall Besenval himself be; for trial, for difficult acquittal. His King's-troops, his Royal-Allemand, are gone hence forever.

The Versailles Ball and lemonade is done; the Orangerie is silent except for nightbirds. Over in the

Salle des Menus, Vice-president Lafayette, with unsnuffed lights, "with some Hundred or so of Members, stretched on tables round him," sits erect; outwatching, the Bear. This day, a second solemn Deputation went to his Majesty; a second and then a third: with no effect. What will the end of these things be?

In the Court, all is mystery, not without whisperings of terror; though ye dream of lemonade and epaulettes, ye foolish women! His Majesty, kept in happy ignorance, perhaps dreams of double-barrels and the Woods of Meudon. Late at night, the Duke de Liancourt, having official right of entrance, gains access to the Royal Apartments; unfolds, with earnest clearness, in his constitutional way, the Job's-news. "Mais," said poor Louis, "c'est une révolte, Why, that is a revolt!""Sire," answered Liancourt, "it is not a revolt,—it is a revolution." —F. R., P. I., B. V. 6, 7.

AS IN THE AGE OF GOLD.

MEANWHILE to Paris, ever going and returning, day after day, and all day long, towards that Field of Mars, it becomes painfully apparent that the spade-work there cannot be got done in time. There is such an area of it; three hundred thousand square feet: for from the École Militaire (which will need to be done up in wood with balconies and galleries) westward to the Gate by the River (where also shall be wood, in triumphal arches), we count some thousand yards of length; and for breadth, from this umbrageous Avenue of eight rows, on the South side, to that corresponding one on the North, some thousand feet more or less. All this to be scooped out, and wheeled up in slope along the sides: high enough; for it must be rammed down there, and shaped stair-wise into as many as "thirty ranges of convenient seats," firm-trimmed with turf, covered with enduring timber;-and then our huge pyramidal

Fatherland's-Altar, Autel de la Patrie, in the centre, also to be raised and stair-stepped. Force-work with a vengeance; it is a World's Amphitheatre! There are but fifteen days good: and at this languid rate, it might take half as many weeks. What is singular too, the spademen seem to work lazily; they will not work. double-tides, even for offer of more wages, though their tide is but seven hours; they declare angrily that the human tabernacle requires occasional rest!

Is it Aristocrats secretly bribing? Aristocrats were capable of that. Only six months since, did not evidence get afloat that subterranean Paris,—for we stand over quarries and catacombs, dangerously, as it were midway between Heaven and the Abyss, and are hollow underground,-was charged with gunpowder, which should make us "leap?" Till a Cordeliers Deputation. actually went to examine, and found it-carried off again! An accursed, incurable brood; all asking for "passports," in these sacred days. Trouble, of rioting, châteaux-burning, is in the Limousin and elsewhere; for they are busy! Between the best of Peoples and the best of Restorer Kings they would sow grudges; with what a fiend's grin would they see this Federation, looked for by the Universe, fail!

Fail for the want of spadework, however, it shall not. He that has four limbs and a French heart can do spadework; and will! On the first July Monday, scarcely has the signal-cannon boomed; scarcely have the languescent mercenary Fifteen Thousand laid down their tools, and the eyes of onlookers turned sorrowfully to the still high Sun; when this and the other Patriot, fire in his eye, snatches barrow and mattock, and himself begins indignantly wheeling. Whom scores and then hundreds follow; and soon a volunteer Fifteen Thousand are shovelling and trundling; with the heart of giants: and all in right order, with that extemporaneous adroitness of theirs: whereby such a lift has been given,