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nation’s tears shed over their graves; or
stigmatized as rebels to their king and
country, and consigned to the dust, unla
mented, unhonoured and unsung.
The chapeau blanc still waved over the
turrets of the Tuileries, for Charles X.
still sat on a throne which, however, was
now momently sinking from under him.
The streets, broken up into barricades — i
alas! how many streaming with blood!
were, even at this early hour, filled with
eager groups balancing the amount of
yesterday’s strife, or speculating on the
events of the coming day. Excitement
was at its height; and to those within,
every moment brought some report of
victory or defeat, often framed less in ac
cordance with truth than the political
bias of the party who uttered it. But it
soon became evident that the time was
fast approaching when the force adverse
to the existing monarchy would triumph.
It was a day of intense and breathless
anxiety to all, to none more than to Iso
line. With the ardent vivacity of her
countrywomen, her every energy was
enlisted in the cause of libertv. Re
strained by her sex from participating in
the contest, she shared with the Sisters of
Charity the task of administering to the
necessities of the wounded and dying at
the Hotel Dieu. And no voice was
sweeter in cheering the sufferer, no hand
tenderer in presenting the medicine-cup,
or in applying the bandage. She had
obeyed the summons of humanity, when
the artillery was roaring through the
streets, and the path from her home was
beset with danger.
The evening of the 29th had arrived.
Exhausted by the fatigue of the day, sick
ened with the sights of horror which
everywhere met her view, lsoline felt
overpowered and faint. Iler pale cheek
and tottering frame attracted the notice
: of one of the physicians in .attendance at
the hospital, who was a personal friend;
he warmly urged her to leave a scene
, where Death’s darkening shadows, gath
• ering over hundreds of victims, flung a
j gloom over the spirits of all, and to re
j turn to her home.
Yielding to his entreaties, she left the
Hotel Dieu. By taking an obscure and
circuitous route, she had reached in safety
the Rue St. Ilonore. It was blocked up
by the contending parties. To escape
the balls whizzing around her, she turned
into a retired street. Even thither did
! the assailants come. The air was rent
with shouts of defiance, and thickened
with the smoke of discharged musketry.
Though thus prevented by the shades of
evening and clouds of vapour from dis
cerning objects very distinctly, she yet
observed two combatants, who fought
with a savage desperation, which told in
deed that “true foes once met part but
in death. ’ She crept under a wall, and
watched the contest with a sort of fasci-
SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE.
nated earnestness. By a sudden move
ment, she obtained a nearer view of their
faces. She looked again, with a gaze
which seemed to stretch her eyeballs to
bursting, and recognized in one of the
combatants—her father ! opposed to, as
she fatally fancied, a young officer in the
garde du corps to w hom she was secretly
betrothed.
Without waiting to ascertain if her
fears were correct, she rushed forward
with frantic eagerness. At that moment
her father’s pistol was levelled at the
heart of his adversary. She strove to
wrest the weapon from his grasp. He
turned sharply round; the pistol, by the
suddenness of the movement, swerved
from its aim, and exploded. Its contents
lodged in the heart of Isoline! One deep
groan, one low, gasping sob, and, with
the life-blood welling from her innocent
breast, she reeled towards her father, and
fell dead at his feet !
Those who were near, declare that the
shriek was scarcely human, which rent
the air when the wretched parent disco
vered that she, whose warm blood crim
soned his garments, whom he had been
accessory in forcing from time into eter
nity, was his adored and gentle child.
He refused at first to believe in her iden
tity—then denied assent to the fact of
her death. Bushing aside the clustering
ringlets from her face—lovely even in
the ashy aspect of death —he knelt by
her side, kissed her, vehemently calling
on her to come back to his arms and
love. But, when silence was the only
answer to his passionate entreaties, when
compelled to believe that she was dead
indeed—wfith a shrill piercing cry, which
seemed to condense the essence of all
human agony, he fell on her body in
merciful unconsciousness.
The beautiful cemetery of Pore la
Chaise seldom fails to obtain from stran
gers, who sojourn in the French capital,
early inspection and unqualified admira
tion. The serious and the contemplative
visit it, and find in the unbroken stillness
of its verdant paths, in the mouldering
decay of its consecrated sepulchres, food
for solemn and holy meditation. The
young and the sensitive visit it. They
from whose lips bursts the loudest laugh
of joyousness, yet who weep the readiest
and the bitterest tears ; thev go thither
to commune with the spirits of the gifted
and lovely, who lie crumbling at their
feet. Even the gay, the thoughtless and
the happy, on whom the touch of sadness
never yet hath fallen; even they, the
affluent in bliss, visit it to admire the
tastefulness of its design, the splendour
of its mausoleums, and to peruse its ten
der and affecting epitaphs, the offerings of
lavish love to the cold dust, now deaf
alike to the ban of censure and to the
voice of praise. Why is it that persons
differing in age, sex, and temperament,
yet so generally unite in deriving a mys
terious pleasure from a ramble in a
churchyard? Is it that they hope to
dive into the secrets of another world, by
hovering over the last resting places of
perished humanity? Whatever the mo
tive that leads us thitl er, the church yard
is usually the first object of a traveller’s
visit, the one in which he lingers longest.
I he Sunday succeeding the termination
of the Revolution was appointed for the
obsequies of many of its victims. The
inhabitants of Baris, obeying their na
tional impulse, which has so justly won
for them the appellation of a sight-see
ing population, thronged the Boulevards,
through which the cavalcade was to pass,
in countless masses. And it would not
have been very easy for a stranger, at
first sight, to decide whether an occasion
of joy or sorrow had congregated them
together. So alien are any fixed habits
of melancholy from the character of the
French, that their giief, extravagant in
its first outbreak over the death-bed of
their kindred, frequently has expended
itself, and settled down into comparative
indifference, before the grave has closed
over a parent or a child I may be par
doned for saying this, from witnessing
the demeanour of those who followed the
mournful procession to the place of its
destination, the cemetery of Fere la
Chaise, and grouped themselves arouud
the graves of those interred. True, there
was much gesticulation ; and there were
some stormy ebullitions of sorrow among
the few. But there was none of that ex
pression of overwhelming grief, “which
lies too deep for tears;” none of that
profound, earnest, settled anguish, either
discernible in the mourners, or diffused
among the multitude, which 1 am con
vinced a similar occasion would have
called forth in England.
The ceremony was concluded; the
crowd dispersed, and only a few strag
glers, like myself, left of the hundreds,
who, a brief time before, lined the ave
nues of Pore la Chaise.
I strolled towards the chapel, which,
erected at the highest point of the ceme
tery, commands so magnificent a view of
the neighbouring city, with all its crime
and sorrow, luxury and destitution. The
service for the dead was performing with
in the sacred edifice. My attention was
instantly riveted by a man who evidently
filled the character of chief mourner. 1
have visited many receptacles of human
suffering, and seen the desolation of the
heart reflected in the countenance, in, as
I fancied, the strongest possible aspect.
But never did I see misery—hopeless,
helpless, immediate misery—so appal
lingly developed, as in the face of that
man. He seemed to have reached the
utmost limit of human agony, to which
the smallest added pang must bring death
or insanity.
\l)eceniber 25,