I appeared, they all retired, the king shut his door, and I remained with him.

I was at first overcome by a flood of tears; I bathed the king's hands with them, and fell prostrate at his feet, and having raised me, he embraced me tenderly and led me to his private closet.

While proceeding to reach it, I recovered my spirits, and with them some hopes. I informed his majesty of those of his faithful friends, and entreated him to oppose no obstacles to them. He consented at my solicitation, giving me at the same time to understand, that his sole hope must now remain with God alone.

We afterwards conversed upon the actual state of things, the royal family, and the future situation of France.

"However terrible, however unheard of may be the approaching catastrophe, said the king, it is probable, that far from being the end of the crisis, it is only its introduction, and as it were, its mere prognostic. I have always been of opinion, that, if the faction gave to Europe the spectacle of a king expiring on the scaffold, it was with a view to inure it to see gradually

the fall of those heads which mar its projects. What will they dare to say, in fact, what blood will rise and cry for vengeance, when that of the monarch shall have been shed without exciting a murmur. Tomorrow then, tomorrow, as I have said more than once, I shall commence this funeral procession, where you will see in succesion all those, whose virtues, talents, and wealth, excite the fury of tyranny. Fatal omen! Dreadful futurity! How many dungeons crowded with victims! How many scaffolds drenched in blood! The cannon of the warrior will no longer be pointed against the enemies of France, it will pierce the bosom of her children! Informing will become a duty, assassination a virtue! Unnatural sons will proscribe the authors of their days, barbarous mothers will tender their offspring to the knife. Premature death will reap unripened youth; the fury of conflagrations, the ravages of water shall concur to annihilate the present generation, and rivers will reascend towards their source, as apalled at the sight of the carcases, which shall impede their current.".....I stood motionless with horror and astonishment, hearing the king's horrid pre

dictions. Until then I knew him to be possessed of solid good sense, extensive knowledge, an excellent memory, and a correct judgment, but I was not aware, that he also possessed those great talents, which command persuasion, convince, impel, and which constitute the orator. Yet he had just displayed them; was he indebted for them to nature, or had opportunity unfolded them of a sudden.

He continued with more composure....." But those excesses will cease on account of the horror they will inspire to the sufferers, and on account of the lassitude, which the perpetrators will at last experience. They will return to the path of virtue, less from a love for it, than from an abhorrence for crime. This generous, but volatile people, feeling, but inconstant, for whom murder shall have been a fashionable exhibition, will require less ferocious diversions. They will detest, they will destroy those, who have so shamefully imposed upon them; perhaps even, and this hope alleviates my dying pangs, perhaps they will shed tears on my grave. They will say, Louis, who was accused of lavishing the blood of the French, was not a wicked

man. If he was guilty, it was of weakness; those, who succeed him, have been intentionally wicked, they were so from choice and propensity.

"Such is, my dear abbé, continued Louis after a short pause, such is, I fear, the fate reserved by ambition for our distracted country. Have I not great reasons to thank Providence for removing me from the horrid scenes, which are approaching? May celestial goodness foster under its mysterious wing some fortunate genius, as it sometimes sends forth, in barbarous ages, a shining light, and one who may unite, to a burning heart for his country, an understanding highly cultivated, and one acquainted with men and events! May he, with the same arm, which will scatter the enemies, which the internal disorders of ambition may have suscitated to France, unite all parties in the general welfare, and so combine the rights of the people with his own obligations, that they may never enjoy liberty without, at the same time, being convinced, that she is only distributive and universal justice. "My imagination is delighted with this prospect of my fancy, which my heart loves to embellish; it con

soles me with future hope under the agonies of the present trial. The recollection of my family alone puts my coure to the most severe test.....exhausts my constancy. No, continued the king, with eyes filled with tears, no, I cannot endure the image of my poor wife, my dear children, my beloved sister, languishing until relieved by death in this horrid dungeon, dying in misery for want of a common support, or perhaps led, on the footsteps of their wretched chief, to a scaffold !" .....Sire, answered I, there still exist feeling souls, could they....." Oh M. de Fermont, interrupted Louis, kings have but few friends, when they are powerful, but none, when they are unfortunate! What has become of all the great, the pontiffs, the nobles, the innumerable retinue of servants, whose existence I provided for, whose power and rank I maintained? What has become of their oath to die for me ? Before I was in the hands of my enemies, they fled from me. I alone fulfil my oath; perhaps, when they hear of my death, they will shed a few sterile tears, and blush for their perjury!"