Là, pressant sous ses pieds les nuages humides,
Il hérisse les monts de hautes pyramides,
Dont le bleuâtre éclat au soleil s'enflammant,
Change ces pics glacés en rocs de diamant.
Là viennent expirer tous les feux du solstice.
En vain l'astre du jour embrasant l'écrevisse,
D'un déluge de flamme assiége ces déserts;
La masse inébranlable insulte au roi des airs.
Mais trop souvent la neige arrachée à leur cime,
Roule en bloc bondissant, court d'abime en abîme,
Gronde comme un tonnerre et grossissant toujours,
A travers les rochers fracassés dans son cours,
Tombe dans les vallons, s'y brise, et des campagnes
Remonte en brume épaisse au sommet des mon-
tagnes.

M. AIMER CHARLES MARIE NICOLAI Had been before the revolution President of the chamber of accounts, and in 1787 was a member of the assemby of notables, and though he does not appear as a literary aid-de-camp to the sect of the new system, yet he was, according to the fashion of that day, strongly tinctured with their prevailing tenets. It was no wonder therefore that he should enter a little into the spirit of the revolution, and that he should find his way to the scaffold; "for," as Marmontel says, speaking of him, "not only men of distinguished merit like Nicolai were sent "there, but those also who were merely rich; hence the venerable M. Magon's solitary answer was, before the revolutionary "tribunal, when they put interrogatories to him, and demanded his name:-I am "rich."

In the plenitude of Robespierre's power, when, as the Abbé de Lille expresses it in his Malheur et la Pitié,

La hache est sans repos, la crainte sans espoir,
Le matin dit les noms des victimes du soir :*

M. Nicolai was thrown into the Luxemburgh,

* Alluding to the newspapers that reported an account of the deaths of the victims, sometinies in the morning, sometimes in the evening, for they were occasionally guillotined by torch light. One morning 81 were guillotined:-30 or 40 a day was merely a common Occurrence. Nor can this be wondered at, when "with a perfidious and equivocal lan"guage an hypocritical quackery instituted the jurisprudence and arbitrary proceedings "of our criminal tribunals-no proofs-no "witnesses the conscience of the juries "was all that was necessary; and of what juries?—the organs and supporters of Robespierre, Lebon, Carrier, Francastel, "and so many other tigers insatiate of human “blood.”—Mémoires de Marmontel, Vol. IV. p. 266.

at that time converted into a prison because all the prisons in Paris were already filled with victims; he was shortly after condemned to death by the revolutionary tribunal, under pretext of being an accomplice in the conspiracy of that prison, and guillotined at the age of 47-His eldest son was sacrificed with him under the same pretext, after having been confined in the Luxemburgh also; he was 24 years old.

M. FELIX VICQ-D'AZYR,

Was physician to the Queen of France, member of the French royal academy, and of the royal academies of sciences, medicine, &c. &c. He was born at Valognes in 1748, where his father practised as a physician. He finished his philosophical studies at Caen, and wished to become a member of the ecclesiastical order; but, in compliance with his father's predilection for his own profession, he studied physic: and arrived in Paris in 1765 where he finally established himself as one of the most eminent of the faculty.

His profession and many other circumstances caused Vicq-d'Azvr to form numberless connections in society. He passed successively from the sittings of the academy to the court, and from the most princely, brilliant, and lively circles to the bed of sickness, to hold consoling conversation with the dying, to whom his professional aid was not less salutary than his soothing eloquence, in dispersing that anxiety and fear which frequently attend the approach of death. Sometimes he purposely sought the company of the literati, to whose conversation he listened with such close attention on every occasion, that he obtained a variety of anecdotes and materials for his historical culogia which he wrote in honor of so many eminent men. When mixing in the world, and sometimes even in the midst of pleasure, he discovered sources of instruction as numerous as pleasing, and it may truly be said that he studied books, nature, and society, with equal spirit and advantage. Many of those hours which men in general rob existence of by wasting in sleep, Vicq-d'Azyr devoted to close application, and gave himself up to the exercise of his profession and all the avocations which particular circumstances required of him, without even abandoning his favorite literary studies. His numerous occupations, and the effects of an irregular and painful life, united to a mind extremely irritable, produced a severe attack upon his health, and the Revolution encreased his sufferings by the cruel calamities it heaped upon him.

In that deluge of overwhelming horrors, Vicq-d'Azyr found numberless sources of grief and misery. Among those who suffered

during the system of terror, discovered a courage equally heroic, if not superior, to the most undaunted of the men. But above all, the Queen's magnanimity ought never to be orgot. The dignity with which she conducted herself on her trial deserves the greatest honour, and was at once a proof of the falsities of the scandal and opprobrium with which she had been libelled; it may be truly said that she never appeared greater than when before the blood-distilling revolutionary tribunal. After treating with the utmost contempt the silly miserable charges against her, she thus concluded: “I was a Queen, and you dethroned me-I was a Wife, and you murdered my husband-I was a Mo"ther, and you took my children from me. -Nothing now remains for you but my "blood; glut yourselves with it, then-but "do not make me suffer any longer."

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M. JAQUES CAzotte,

Author of the poem d'Olivier, and of the romances le Diable amareux, le Lord Impromptu, and a number of little pleasing pieces, previous to the revolution had been commissary of the marine in the West-Indies. He retired to live at Pierry in Champagne, with a numerous family of which he was the only support. He had been long celebrated in Paris in the conversazioni of the great for his pleasing discourse, and the smartness of his repartees, and as M. de la Harpe very justly observes, for his "original turn of mind,

and for his infatuation with the reveries of "the illuminati." At midnight of the 21st August, 1792, he was arrested in his bed, in consequence of the domiciliary visits, and committed to the prison of the Abbaye at Paris, under the pretence of being suspected of attachment to royalty. He remained there until the massacres of the prisons of the 2d and 3d of September; most dutifully attended "for the sum; but go instantly to the Du"chess de Mortemart and save her: you will "find her concealed in a garret in a certain "house in Calais." The priest, after urging Madame du Barry, in vain, to seize the opportunity of escaping from her fate, yielded to her generous resolution, took the money, proceeded to Calais, drew the Duchess de Mortemart from her asylum, disguised her as a woman of ordinary rank, and made her travel with him on foot, saying, as he passed along, that he was a poor constitutional priest, and that the Duchess was his wife. They were hailed by the people with testimonies of joy; and in this manner they travelled through

the French armies, and arrived at Ostend; from whence the priest passed into England with Madame de Mortemart, whom I have since seen in London.

by his amiable daughter Elizabeth, who was only 17 years of age, and who never quitted him an instant. After the horrid assassination of the faithful Swiss guards in that prison, and that of the Count de Montmorin, and several other noblemen, M. de Cazotte was brought forth, and in the revolutionary jargon ordered à la Force-that being their phrase for instant murder. The moment the monsters were beginning their horrible butchery, his daughter threw herself round his neck, clung to his body, and prevented the uplifted instruments of death from falling on him, exclaiming, No, you shall not touch him until you have taken all my blood. Her youth, her innocence, her beauty, and her piercing cries, together with the venerable appearance of her father, quite disarmed the cut-throats, who were so much affected that they unanimously cried out, "let's save him, let's save "him," at the same time demanding of him where his enemies were that they might render him justice. Poor Cazotte was quite overcome at such unexpected conduct, and uttered, with tears streaming down his aged cheeks, and falling upon his daughter, "I

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cannot have any for I never did harm to any body."

It is very singular that the same night Mlle. Sombreuil saved her father by the their ages should be exactly the same; M. de same means, at the same prison, and that Cazotte was 74 and M. de Sombreuil the same, (vide Panorama, p. 752.) and what is more dreadful to relate they both were afterwards sent to the scaffold by the revolutionary tribunal.

M. de Cazotte was immediately transported to the Conciergerie, where that example of filial piety his daughter accompanied him, administering every comfort in her power until the 25th September, when the savage revolutionary tribunal condemned him to the guillotine, and he expired at Place Louis XV. exactly four years and a half after his prophecy

of his own death.

We shall now subjoin a few particulars respecting the last person who was allowed a confessor, which was the King, as M. Cazotte foretold. (Vide Panorama, page 111.)

It is well known that the Abbé Edgeworth, an Irish priest, was chosen by the unfortunate Louis XVI. to confess and prepare him for death. This worthy ecclesiastic then resided with his mother and sister at Paris, and the following is an extract from a letter he wrote to one of his friends in England, December 21, 1792, just one month before the murder of the king.

"Paris, 21st December, 1792.-You are undoubtedly surprised, my dear and honoured friend, that while the clergy of France are flocking to England for shelter and support, I should remain here amidst the ruins of this afflicted, persecuted Church. Indeed I have often wished to fly to that land of true liberty and solid peace; and to share, with others, of your hospitable board, where to be a stranger in distress is a sufficient title. But Almighty God has baffled all my measures, and ties me down to this land of horror, by chains which I am not at liberty to shake off. The case is, the malheureux maître charges me not to quit the country; as I am the person whom he intends to prepare him for death, if the iniquity of the nation should commit that last act of cruelty and parricide. I prepare myself for death, for I am convinced that popular rage will not allow me to survive one hour after that tragic act; but I am resigned. My life is of no consequence: the preservation of it, or the shedding of my blood, is not connected with the happiness or misery of millions. Could my life save him qui positus est in ruinam et resurrectionem multorum, I should willingly lay it down, and should not then die in vain: fut voluntas tua! Receive this unfeigned assurance, perhaps for the last time, of my respect and affection for you, which I hope even death will not destroy."

We shall close with an extract from a letter the Abbé Edgeworth's sister wrote to a friend, February 10, 1793, near three weeks after the king's death.

It

King, set his affairs in order; and, not to bidding us the adieu which he supposed shock our sensibility, he departed without would be an eternal one. He had already prepared a neighbour to bring the afflicting tidings; it was then necessary I should be informed of it, as soon as he should be gone. We still concealed it from my mother, pretending he was gone to pass the night with a sick person. On the evening of January 20, he was taken from his house, and conducted to the Committee, where he was examined and interrogated whether he was willing to undertake the awful function. He was thence conducted to the sad and dark dwelling of the most innocent, as well as most unfortunate, of men. I cannot describe to you the agonies I experienced in knowing he was shut up within a hundred bolts, and surrounded by a thousand tigers. He passed the night in hearing the last farewell, or rather the cries and groans, of an inconsolable family, sufficient to pierce the most hardened hearts. would even have been some consolation to have been left without the unfeeling witnesses of their anguish, but this little boon was refused them-their guards never lost sight of them. The King once approaching my brother, said,— This is indeed a dreadful moment; yet in an instant he recovered his fortitude, and talked of different subjects, particularly of the Church of France; asked after many of its dignified pastors, expressed the most lively feeling of the generosity of the English towards them, and this with a coolness and steadiness of mind that was surprising. After which he said, he had omitted to speak of a more important affair, meaning with respect to himself. My brother reminded him that there were some preparations to be attended to:-he had no need to speak of them; all had been done. The King then went to bed, and slept some hours. Knowing that his hair would be cut off by the executioner, and desiring to avoid that indignity, he requested in the morning the attendance of a hair-dresser, but that small indulgence was also barbarously denied him. Early in the morning my brother proposed to celebrate mass; to which his illustrious disciple acceded with visible pleasure, but doubted whether permission could be obtained. My brother repaired immediately to the Council, then sitting, to solicit this privilege. They expressed great surprise, and started many difficulties, all of which my brother removed. If,' said he, a priest is wanting, I am one; if ornaments, they may

be found in the next chapel; and the Host you yourselves may furnish.' At length they consented; desiring him to write down what was necessary to be provided, for they knew nothing about it. Mass was then performed, at which the faithful Clery assisted;