in whose midst that Guillotine is butchering its hundreds and thousands, remember also to gaze upon yonder balcony, projecting from the wall of the Palace of the Kings of France ?

Well-what of that balcony

Why, my friends, on that balcony, not a hundred years ago, stood Royal Charles of France, while the darkness of night was broken by the flames of St. Bartholomew !

Yes, there he stood, gazing with a calm religious joy, upon the murder old men, women, little children,--going forward in the streets below! Yes, there, with that Woman-Fiend, Catharine of Medici, by his side, there stood the King, with his musquet in his hand, shooting down his own peopleand as that old man is writhing there, as that woman falls, crushed by his shot-while the groans of three hundred thousand human beings, murdered in a single night, between the setting and the rising of the sun, go up to Heaven, He, the King, solemnly calls upon Jesus and on God!

Multiply the victims of the French Revolution by ten myriads, and they will not make a mole hill, beside the mountain of victims of Religious bigotry, who have been murdered in the name of GOD.

XIII. THE REIGN OF THE KING OF TERROR.

BUT while the orgies of the Revolution are filling Paris with horror, let us search for Thomas Paine !

He is not in his home--nor in the Convention, nor in the streets-then where is he?

Come with me, at dead of night, and I will show you a strange

scene.

In the central chamber of yonder Royal palace, a solitary, dim, flickering light burns in the socket.

Yes, a solitary light stands in the centre of that chamber, stands on the table there, flinging its feeble rays out upon the thick darkness of that room.

It is a spacious chamber, but you can discover nothing of its lofty doors -nothing of the tapestry that adorns its walls-for all save that spot in the centre of the chamber, where the light is burning, all is darkness.

I ask you to steep your souls in the silence, in the gloom of this place, and then listen to that creaking sound of an opening door-that low-stealthy footstep.

Behold a figure advances-stands there with one hand on the table

It is the figure of a slenderly formed man dressed in the extreme of dandyism a jaunty blue coat-spotless white vest, lined with crimson satin-a faultlessly white cravat.

There is a diamond on his bosom-ruffles round his wrists.

Look for a moment at his face-the features small and mean—the hue a discolored yellow; the eyes bleared and blood-shot. Who is this puny,

trembling dandy, who stands here, with that paper in his hand at dead of night?

That puny dandy, is the King of King Guillotine, that is Maximilian Robespierre! The paper that he grasps in his sallow hands, is a letter from King Robespierre to King Gullotine! Eighty victims are to feed the sawdust and the axe to-morrow: their names are on that paper.

And now as we stand here in this Palace Hall, gazing upon this Bloodthirsty dandy, let us look at his malicious lip, how it writhes, at his bloodshot eye, how it gleams with spite and hate. These eighty victims sacraficed; eighty of the noblest and the best of France; then the Guillotine can be locked up forever, then the name of Robespierre, will be lost in the name of his supreme equality, Maximillen, the First, King of France!

And as he stands there, the full light of the lamp, streaming over his discolored face; let us look over his shoulder; let us read the names on this death-scroll!

There are the names of Hero-men, of Hero-women, and first in the scroll, you see the names of Madame La Fayette and THOMAS PAINE.

Yes, the eye of Robespierre gleams with a terrible light, as he it rests upon that name; the name of the most determined foe.

Thomas Paine ! To night he paces the damp floor of his sleepless-cell -to-morrow into the death-cart, and on to the Guillotine--ho, ho, so ends the Author-hero, Thomas Paine !

XIV. THE FALL OF KING GUILLOTINE,

LET us take one bold look, into the Hall of the National Assembly, on the next day! What see we here?

Here are the best, the bravest, aye and the bloodiest of all France, sitting silent-speechless-awed, before that orange-visaged dandy, who crouches on the Tribune, yonder!

Not a man in that crowd, dares speak! Robespierre-the Guillotine, Terror, have taken fast hold upon their hearts! Every man in that densely-thronged hall looks upon his neighbor with suspicion; for every other man, there is already singled out as the victim of the orange-faced King, in the snow-white vest! It is not known who the next victim shall be; where the tyrant will next strike and kill!

Robespierre has carried his list of death; has made his fiery speech: France, the people, the bloody and the brave, sit crouching in that hall, before that slender man, with blood-shot eyes!

Robespierre in fact is King-do you see, that biting smile stealing over his withered face! There is triumph in that mockery of a smile!

At this awful moment, when all is silence in the crowded hall-behold— that unknown man, rising yonder, far from the Tribune-that unknown man, who trembling from head to foot, pale as a frozen corpse,-rises and speaks a word that turns all eyes upon him:

"Room!" he whispers; and yet his whisper is heard in every heart"Room there ye dead!"

He pauses, with his eye fixed on vacancy.All is still--the Convention hold their breath-even Robespierre listens

*Room there ye dead!" again whispers that unknown man; and then pointing to the white-vested Tyrant, his voice rises in a shriek—“ Room ye Room there-Room ye ghosts-room in hell for the soul of Maximilien Robespierre !"

Like a voice from the grave, that word startles the Convention-look ! Robespierre has risen-coward as he is, that voice has palsied his soul.

But the unknown man does not pause! In that some deep tone, he heaps up the crimes of Robespierre in short and fiery words, he calls the dead from their graves to witness the atrocities of the Tyrant; trembling with the great deed he has taken upon himself, he shrieks, Go, tyrant, go! Go, and wash out your crimes on the gory sawdust of King Guillotine !"

From that hour, Robespierre the Tyrant was Robespierre, the convicted criminal! Look! Covered with shames and scorns, he rushes from the hall-Hark! The report of a pistol! What does it mean?

Let us away to King Guillotine and ask him!

Ha! Give way there Paris, give way, who is it that comes here-comes through the maddened crowd; who is it, that more dead than living, comes on, shrinking, crouching, trembling, to the feet of Holy King Guillotine?

Ah! That horror-stricken face, yes, that face with that bloody cloth bound around the broken jaw--look! even through that cloth, the blood drips slowly; he bleeds, it is Robespierre !

Grasped in the arms of men, whom the joy of this moment has maddened into devils, he is dragged up to the scaffold

One look over the crowd-great Heaven, in all that mass of millions, there is no blessing for Maximilien Robespierre !

"Water!" shrieks the Tyrant, holding his torn jaw, "Water, only a cup of water!"

Look-his cry is answered! A woman rushes up the scaffold—a woman who yesterday was a mother, but now is widowed, because Robespierre and Death have grasped her boy.

"Water?" she echoes; "Blood, tyrant, blood! You have given France blood to drink-you have drank her blood! Now drink your own!"

Look-oh, horror-she drags the bandage from his broken jaw-he is bathed in a bath of his own blood. Down on the block, tyrant! One gleam of the axe-hurrah for brave King Guillotine!

There is a head on the scaffold-and there, over the headless corse, stands that Widow, shrieking the cry she heard in the Convention to-day: "Room ye dead! Room-for the Soul of Maximilien Robespierre !"

* This phrase occurs in Bulwer's Zanoni.

XV.--THE BIBLE.

WE have seen Thomas Paine standing alone in the Judgment Hall of the French Nation, pleading--even amid that sea of scowling faces-for the life of King Louis.

We have seen him with Washington, Hamilton, Macintosh, Franklin, and Jefferson, elected a Citizen of France. With these great men, he hailed the dawn of the French Revolution as the breaking of God's Millennium; as the first great effort of Man to free himself from the lash and chain, since the crucifixion of the Saviour.

But soon the dawn was overcast; soon the light of burning rafters flashed luridly over scenes of blood; soon all that is grotesque, or terrible, or loathsome in murder, was enacted in the streets of Paris. The lantern posts bore their ghastly fruit; the streets flowed with crimson rivers, the lifeblood of ten thousand hearts, down even to the waters of the Seine. King Louis was dead; but this was not all. Liberty was dead also; butchered by her fireside.

In her place reigned an orange-faced Dandy, with shrivelled cheeks and blood-shot eyes. La Fayette and Paine, and all the heroes were gone from the councils of France, but in their place, aye, in the place of Poetry, Enthusiasm and Eloquence, spoke a mighty orator KING GUILLO

TINE!

For eleven months, Thomas Paine lay sweltering in a gaol, the object of the fierce indignation of Maximilien Robespierre. At last there came a day when he was doomed; when his name was written in the Judgment List of the orange-faced Dandy.

Let us go to the prison, even to the Palace Prison of the Luxemburg. It is high noon. A band of eighty, clustered around that prison door, silently awat their fate. Here amid white-haired old men, here amid trembling women, all watching for the coming of the death messenger,-here, silent, stern, composed, stands the author-hero, Thomas Paine

Soon that prison door will open; soon the death cars will roll; soon the axe will fall, and these eighty forms, now fired with the last glow of life, will be clay.

But look--the gaoler comes! A man of dark brow and savage look; his arms bared to the shoulder, displaying the sinews of a giant. He comes, trudging heavily through the crowd of his victims, the massive key of the Palace Prison in his hand. He stands for a moment, looking gloomily over. the faces of his prisoners; he places the key in the lock. Then the gloom vanishes from his rough face; a look of frenzied joy gleams from his eyes; his brawny chest swells with a maniac ́shout.

"Go forth!" he shrieks, rushing the first through the opened gates; "go forth, young and old; go forth all!-for Catiline Robespierre is dead!"

And forth-while the air is filled with frenzied shrieks of joy-forth from the Palace Prison walks the freed hero, the Man of Two Revolutions, Thomas Paine.

Now comes the darkest hour of his life. Now comes the hour when we shall weep for Genius profaned; when we shall see the great and mighty, . fallen from the pedestal of his glory into the very sink of pollution.

Now let us follow the path of Thomas Paine, as his first step is to reclaim the Manuscript of a work which he wrote eleven months ago, before his entrance into prison. He grasps that package of Manuscript again; let us look at its title: "THE AGE OF REASON."

Here, my friends, let us pause for a moment. Let us ask that man of the high brow, the eloquent eye, the face stamped with a great soul-let us ask Thomas Paine, as he goes yonder through the streets of Paris, to do a great and holy deed?

That deed-what is it?

Let us ask him to take the Manuscript in his hand, to tear it in twain, and hurl the fragments there, beneath the dripping axe of the Guillotine.

Yes, let the Guillotine do its last work upon this Manuscript of Falsehood; let the last descent of the gory axe fall on its polluted pages. For while this "Age of Reason" speaks certain great Thoughts, announcing the author's belief in a God and Immortality-thoughts derived from the Bible—it is still a jest book, too vile to name.

It is true, it speaks of God and Immortality; but it also heaps its vile jests, its vulgar scorn upon Jesus, the Redeemer of Man, and Mary the Virgin Mother.

Let me tell you at once, my friends, that I stand here to-night, a prejudiced man. Let me at once confess, that it has ever been my study, my love, to bend over the dim pages of the Hebrew volume-to behold the awful form of Jehovah pending over chaos; to hear that voice of Omnipotence resound through the depths of space, as these words break on my soul: "VAYOMER ALOHEIM: YEHEE AUR VAYEHEE AUR!"-Then spake God let there be light and light there was!"

Or yet again, to behold that Jehovah, descended from the skies, walking yonder with the Patriarchs, yonder where the palms arise, and the tents whiten over the plain. Or, in the silence of night, to look there, through the lone wilderness, where the Pillar of Fire beacons Moses the Deliverer towards the Promised Land; or to enter the solemn temple of Jerusalem, and behold the same Jehovah, shining in the holiest place, shining over the Ark of the Covenant, so awfully serene, yet sublime.

Let me tell you, that I have been with the Arab, JOB, as he talked face to face with God, and in images of divine beauty, spoke forth the writhings of his soul; as in words that your orators of Greece and Rome never spoke