Paris. Maignet, after the destruction of Bedouin, caused what he termed a popular commission to be erected at Orange, for the purpose of trying all the counter-revolutionists of the departments of Vaucluse, and the mouth of the Rhone, without any written evidence, and without a jury." Twelve or fifteen thousand persons are imprisoned in those departments," says Maignet in a letter to Couthon; "if I were to execute the decree which orders all conspirators to be brought to Paris, it would require an army to conduct them, and they must be billetted like soldiers upon the road." Maignet therefore obtained the sanction of the committee of public safety, which was given without the consent of the convention, to his plan of forming a popular commission at Orange.

The committee of public safety named the judges, who by their conduct justified the discernInent with which they were chosen, and proceeded with revolutionary rapidity in their work of death. *You know," says the secretary of the commission, in a letter to Payan, "the situation of Orange; the guillotine is placed in the front of the mountain, and it seems as if the heads in falling paid it the homage it deserves. Sometimes however the majority of the judges of Orange complain in their letters of two of their colleagues, whose consciences had not altogether attained the height of the revolution. Faurety, the president of the commission, says in a letter to Payan, "Ragot, Fereux, and myself are au pas* Roman Fouvosa is a good creature, but an adherer to forms, and a little off

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5 * The military› expression of marching au pas, to the beat of the drum, became a sort of cant term much in use during the tyranny of Robespierre; and adherence to the principles, and doctrines of the day was signified by saying, Je suis au pas.

the

the revolutionary point which he ought to touch. Meillerit, my fourth colleague, is good for nothing, absolutely good for nothing in the place he occupies; he is sometimes disposed to save counterrevolutionary priests; he must have proofs, as at the ordinary tribunals of the antient system.' Those troublesome scruples of two of the judges were however so completely over-ruled by the majory of their colleagues, that the departments of the Vaucluse and the mouth of the Rhone became the scenes of the most horrible outrages against humanity. Multitudes had already perished by the murderous commission of Orange, and multitudes in the gloom of prisons awaited the same fate, when the fall of Robespierre stopped the torrent of human blood.

Amidst the mass of far-spread evil, amidst the groans of general calamity, no doubt many a sigh of private sorrow has never reached the ear of sympathy, and many a victim has fallen unpitied and unknown. Some of the martyrs of Maignet's tyranny, have, however found a "sad historian of the pensive plain ;" and the fate of Monsieur de M's family, which I have heard related much in detail by an old female servant who was the companion of their misfortunes, is not the least affecting of those tales of sorrow.

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M. de M, formerly a noble, lived with his son, an only child, at Marseilles, where he was generally respected, and where during the progress of the revolution he had acted the part of a firm and enlightened patriot. After the fatal events of the 31st of May, he became suspected of what was called federalism by the jacobin party, which usurped the power in that city, and punished with imprisonment or death all those who had honourably protested against the tyranny of the mountain faction. M. de M was warned of the danger

by

'by a friend time enough to fly from the city, accompanied only by an old female servant, who entreated to share the fortune of her master. His wife died some years before the revolution, and his son, an amiable and accomplished young man of twentyfour years of age, had a few weeks before his father's flight been called upon by the first requisition, and had joined the army of the Pyrenees.

M. de M, after wandering as far as his infirmities would permit, for although only in his sixty-third year his frame was much debilitated by a long course of ill health, took a refuge in a solitary habitation at a few leagues distant from Ariquon, and in one of the wildest parts of that romantic country. The mountains seem to close the scene upon the traveller, till by a narrow cleft it again opens into a small valley, where this little hermitage, for such was the aspect of the dwelling, was placed. This unfrequented valley was rich with pasturage, and bounded by lofty hills, wooded cliffs, and in some parts by large grotesque rocks with sharp peaks, that rose above the foliage of the hanging forests. Not far from this rustic habitation a clear torrent rolls with no scanty stream down a bold rock, into which its fall had worn grots and caverns, which were luxuriously decorated with shrubs, for ever watered by the spray. The torrent not falling from a very considerable height, produced sounds more soothing than noisy, and without having the power of exciting the sensation of sublimity, awakened that of pensive, pleasing melancholy. This sequestered valley, rich in the wild graces of nature, had escaped the decorations of French art, and no jets d'eaux, clipped trees, and alleys who have brothers," deformed its solitary recesses. Far above, and at some distance, arose the lofty mountains of Ventoux, covered with its eternal snows; that mountain which Petrarch

"

climbed

climbed in spite of the steep rocks that guard its ascent, and from the summit of which he gazed upon the Alps, the boundary of his native country, and sighed; or cast his looks upon the waves of the Mediterranean which bathe Marscilles, and dash themselves against Aignes-Mortes; while he saw the rapid Rhone flowing majestically along the valley, and the clouds rolling beneath his feet. Such was the scene where M. de Msought -for refuge, and where he sheltered himself from the rage of his ferocious persecutors. He had soon after the anguish of hearing that his brother who had a place in the administration of one of the southern departments, and who had taken an active part on the side of the Gironde, had perished on the scaffold. M. de M found means to inform his sister-in-law of the place of his retreat, to which he conjured her to hasten with her daughter, and share the little property which he had rescued from the general wreck of his fortune. His old servant, Marianne, who was the bearer of this message, returned accompanied by his niece; her mother was no more, she had survived only a few weeks the death of her husband. The interview between Mademoiselle Adelaide de M and her uncle produced those emotions of overwhelming sorrow that arise at the sight of objects which interest our affections after we have sustained any deep calamity; in those moments the past rushes on the mind with uncontrollable vehemence; and Mademoiselle de M, after having long embraced her uncle with an agony that choked all utterance, at length pronounced in the accents of despair, the names of father and of mother.

M. de Mendeavoured to supply to his unfortunate niece the place of the parents she had lost, and forgot his own evils in this attempt to sooth the affliction of this interesting mourner, who at nine

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teen years of age, in all the bloom of beauty, was the prey of deep and settled melancholy. She had too much sensibility not to feel his tender cares, and often restrained her tears in his presence because they gave him pain. When those tears could no longer be suppressed, she wandered out alone, and, seating herself on some fragment of rock, soothed by the murmurs of the hollow winds and moaning waters, indulged her grief without control. In one of these lonely rambles, sacred to her sorrows, she was awakened from melancholy musing by the sudden appearance of her cousin, the son of M. de M, who, after having repeatedly exposed his life during a long and perilous campaign in the service of his country, returned-to find his home deserted and his father an exile. Such were the rewards which the gallant defenders of liberty received from the hands of tyrants. The young man flew to his father's retreat, where the first object that met his eyes was his lovely cousin, whom he had a few months before beheld in all the pride of youthful beauty; her cheek flushed with the gay suffusion of health, and her eye sparkling with pleasure. That cheek was now covered with fixed paleness, and that eye was dimmed with tears; but Mademoiselle de M had never appeared to him so interesting as at this moment.

Two young persons placed together in such peculiar circumstances, must have had hearts insensible indeed, had they conceived no attachment for each other. The son of M. de M and Ade

laide, who both possessed an uncommon share of sensibility, soon felt, that while all beyond the narrow cleft which separated the little valley from the rest of the world was misery and disorder, whatever could give value to existence was to be found within its savage boundary, in that reciprocal affection which soothe he evils of the past, and

shed