dren, my beloved ones: I am going to your father!" Thus she perished, in her thirty-eighth year, October 16th, 1793.

In the gayety of youth and the sunshine of prosperity, Marie Antoinette had exhibited some foibles amid many virtues. In the beginning of her trials, she displayed, as well as those around her, serious mistakes of judgment; but in the dark hour of adversity, she exhibited a spectacle of truth, firmness, and dignity, hardly less than sublime. When confined with her family in the prison of the Temple, with only a glim mering ray of light stealing through the iron bars. she displayed the utmost calmness, cheered all around with her counsel and example, and taught them to disregard privation, sickness, and suffering.

When her husband told her that he was condemned to the scaffold, she congratulated him upon the speedy termination of an existence so painful, and the unper ishing reward that should crown it. Before the Rev. olutionary Tribunal she was unabashed, and, when accused of a horrid crime, she put her traducers to shame by exclaiming, "I appeal to every mother here whether such an act be possible! In solitude, and in the depths of a damp and loathsome dungeon, where she was confined for weeks, she was still serene and uncomplaining. In parting with her son; in taking a last adieu of the palace which had witnessed her triumphs; in facing the scaffold, and the wretches around it; and in bidding a final farewell to life, Marie Antoinette evinced that patient, deep, and touchng heroism which a woman and a Christian alone can display.

MADAME ROLAND.

WHEN, in May, 1793, Robespierre and the Mountain effected the final overthrow of the Girondists the moderate party of the French revolutionists — M. Roland, who had recently resigned his office in the ministry, was forced to flee, and his wife was thrown into prison. To solace the sad hours of her captivity, she began to write her own Memoirs. "I propose to myself,” she says, "to employ the leisure hours of my captivity in relating the history of my life, from my infancy to the present time. Thus to retrace the steps of one's career is to live a second time; and what better can a prisoner do than, by a happy fiction, or by interesting recollections, to transport herself from her prison ?

Her Memoirs are dated at the "Prison of St. Pelagie, August 9th, 1793," and she thus commences: "Daughter of an artist, wife of a philosopher, who, when a minister of state, remained a man of virtue; now a prisoner, destined, perhaps to a violent and unexpected death, —I have known happiness and adversity; I have learned what glory is, and have suffered injustice. Born in an humble condition, but of respectable parents, I passed my youth in the bosom of the arts, and amidst the delights of study; knowing no superiority but that of merit, no grandeur but that of virtue."

Her father, Gratien Philipon, was an engraver. During the early years of Manon's life, he was well off, employing many workm.en under him. His wife possessed little of what is called knowledge, but she had a discerning judgment and a gentle and affectionate disposition. By her example, as well as by the course of education which her disposition led her to pursue, she formed in her daughter the same gentle, feminine spirit which she herself possessed.

"The wisdom and kindness of my mother," says Madame Roland, "quickly acquired over my gentle and tender character an ascendency which was used only for my good. It was so great that, in those slight, inevitable differences between reason which governs and childhood which resists, she had need to resort to no other punishment than to call me, coldly, Mademoiselle, and to regard me with a severe countenance. I feel, even now, the impression made on me by her look, which at other times was so tender and caressing. I hear, almost with shivering, the word mademoiselle substituted for the sweet name of daughter, or the tender appellation of Manon. Yes, Manon; it was thus they called me: I am sorry for the lovers of romances, the name is not noble; it suits not a dignified heroine; but, nevertheless, it was mine, and it is a history that I am writing. But the most fastidious would have been reconciled to the name, had they heard my mother pronounce it, or had they seen her who bore it. No expression wanted grace, when accompanied by the affectionate tone of my mother; when her touching voice penetrated my soul, did it teach me to resemble her? Lively

without being ever rompish, and naturally retiring, I asked only to be occupied, and seized with quickness the ideas which were presented to me. This disposition was so well taken advantage of, that I do not remember learning to read: I have heard that I did so before I was four years old, and that, after that time, nothing more was required than to supply me with books."

Her passion for these was subjected to little guidance or control; she read whatever chance threw in her way; they were, for the most part, of a serious character - Locke, Pascal, Burlamaque, Montesquieu; relieved, however, by works on history, the poems of Voltaire, Don Quixote, and some of the popular romances; but, as these were few in number, she was compelled to read them often, and thus acquired a habit of thought. When she was nine years old, Plutarch's Lives fell in her way, and more delighted her than any romance or fairy tale. The book became her bosom companion; and from that moment, she says, "she dated the ideas and impressions which made her a republican without her knowing that she was becoming one."

"But this child, who was accustomed to read serious books, could explain the circles of the celestial sphere, could use the pencil and the graver, and at eight years old was the best dancer in a party of girls older than herself, assembled for a family festival. The same child was often called to the kitchen to prepare an

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omelette, wash herbs, or to skim the pot. ture of grave studies, agreeable exercise, and domes. tic cares, ordered and regulated by the wisdom of my

mother, rendered me fit for all circumstances, seemed to anticipate the vicissitudes of my fortune, and has aided me in bearing them. I feel nowhere out of place; I can prepare my soup with as much ease as Philopemon cut wood, though no one seeing me would deem that such a task was fitted for me."

The study of Plutarch and the ancient historians was not, perhaps, favorable to the happiness of Mademoiselle Philipon. She regretted that her lot had not been cast in a free state, which she had persuaded herself was the only nursery of virtue, generosity, and wisdom. She contrasted the state of society, as she saw it around her, with the ideal state of its existence in ancient Greece and Rome. She had once paid a visit of eight days to Versailles, and witnessed the routine of the court. How different were the weak and dissolute actors upon that tinsel and tawdry stage from the heroes and philosophers with whom she was wont, in imagination, to associate! She "sorrowfully compared the Asiatic luxury, the insolent pomp, with the abject misery of the degraded people, who ran after the idols of their own creating, nd stupidly applauded the brilliant shows for which they paid out of their own absolute necessaries.' Sometimes she was taken to visit certain ladies who called themselves noble, and who, looking upon her as an inferior, sent her to dine with the servants. But their airs of condescending kindness were even yet more offensive, and made her bosom swell with indignant emotion. She acknowledges that this feeling made her hail the revolution with greater transport.

The daughter of a prosperous tradesman, she had