love and duty, which he owed to his family; and even told him, that if they must perish, they ought to die with honor, and not wait, and let their enemies come and strangle them both, upon the floor of their apartments. If, as is observed by an ancient writer, a brave man struggling with the storms of fate, and greatly falling, with a falling state,' is a sight worthy of the gods, it must also be admitted, that there are few objects more painful to contemplate than a good, but weak man, placed in circumstances to which his character is unequal, and involving himself, his friends, and his country, in one common ruin, by the mere exercise of the same qualities, that, in a different position, would have procured him universal esteem and love.

The following anecdote strongly illustrates the contrast that existed between the characters of the king and queen.

'The two body guards, who had been wounded on the 6th of October, at her majesty's door, were Messieurs du Repaire and Miomandu de Sainte Marie. On that terrible occasion the second of these gentlemen took the place of the first, after the latter was disabled. He afterwards resided at Paris, in habits of intimate association with another of the guards, named Bernard, who was wounded the same day, in another part of the castle. These two officers were insulted, as they were walking together in the Palais Royal, and the queen thought that it would not be safe for them to remain at Paris. She commanded me to write to M. Miomandu, and request him to call upon me at eight o'clock in the evening, that I might advise him, from her, to leave the city. She also desired me to offer him any sum of money, for which he might have occasion, not as a reward for his services, but as a friendly aid from a sister to a brother. M. Bernard was invited to accompany him on this visit.

A

At the time fixed, the two guards came to my apartment in the palace. They accepted about two hundred louis each. few moments after their arrival, the queen entered the room, accompanied by the king and Madame Elizabeth. The king remained standing before the chimney, the queen and Madame Elizabeth sat upon the sofa, I stood behind them and the guards, facing the king. The queen then said to them, that the king had wished to see, before their departure, two of his subjects who had given such proofs of their courage, and attachment to his person. Miomandu replied in the language naturally suggested by so flattering an address. Madame Elizabeth spoke of the king's sensibility. The queen then spoke to them again on the subject of their departure. All this time the king kept silence, although his

emotion was visible, and the tears were starting in his eyes. The queen then arose, and the king went out, followed by his sister. The queen stopped a moment, and said to me in the recess of a window, "I regret that I brought the king here, and I am sure that Elizabeth thinks as I do. If the king had said to those brave fellows a quarter of what he feels for them, they would have been in raptures; but he cannot overcome his timidity."

The following details are given by Madame Campan respecting the life and opinions of her brother, M. Genet, so well known to the American public by his diplomatic mission to this country.

'My brother began his diplomatic career with favorable prospects. At the age of eighteen he was attached to the embassy at Vienna, and at twenty was appointed first secretary of legation at London, after the peace of 1783. Soon after this he addressed a Memoir to M. de Vergennes, intended to shew the impolicy of the treaty of commerce, which was concluded at that time with England. This Memoir gave offence to M. de Calonne, and especially to M. Gerard de Rayneval, principal secretary in the department. But as the minister, M. de Vergennes, was known to be my brother's protector, all was well as long as he lived. After his death, M. de Montmorin, his successor, who was wholly unacquainted with the details of the office, was obliged to depend very much upon M. de Rayneval. Under the influence of the latter, a bureau, which had been placed under my brother's direction, was suppressed, and he was left without employment. He departed for St Petersburgh with strong personal recommendations to the minister at that court, Count de Ségur, and through his influence was appointed secretary of that legation. After his return from Russia, he was named minister to the United States by the party of the Gironde, then dominant. Soon after, however, he was recalled by the faction of Robespierre, which obtained the ascendency on the 31st of May 1793, and was commanded to appear at the bar of the Convention, that is, to mount the scaffold. His crime consisted in having executed the instructions, which he received from the ruling faction at his departure. Vice President Clinton, then governor of New York, offered my brother an asylum in his house, and the hand of his daughter Cornelia. He established himself in America, and has lived there ever since, much respected as a wealthy cultivator, and a valuable citizen.

'My brother left Versailles, when he went to Russia, with a feeling of strong indignation, at having lost an honorable provision for life, because he had written, with the best intentions, a Memoir, which subsequent events proved to be as judicious as it was well After his appointment to Petersburgh, I perceived from

meant.

various hints in his letters, that he was inclining to the new opinions, and was just beginning to feel some alarm upon the subject, when he wrote me a letter, in which he avowed explicitly that he had embraced the constitutional party; that the king, when he accepted the constitution himself, had given him his orders to that effect; and that he should execute these orders with sincerity, because all disguise in such a case would be fatal. He also thought it for the king's interest to look only to the interior of France, and not to trust at all to foreign powers, who would always be governed by their own reasons of state. He added, that he should serve the constitutional king with the same zeal, as heretofore the absolute one; and begged me to inform the queen of his intentions and opinions. Upon receiving this letter, I immediately entered the queen's apartment, and handed it to her. She read it with attention, and then said to me, "This letter is the production of a discontented and ambitious young man. I know that you are not of his opinions, and you need not be afraid of losing my confidence." I offered to desist from all correspondence with my brother, but she said that this would be dangerous; and I then proposed to communicate to her the letters which should pass between us; to which she consented. I strongly dissuaded my brother from the resolution which he had adopted, transmitting my letters by safe private hands. He always answered by the post, and touched only on domestic affairs.

'Once, however, he wrote me, that he should never notice my observations on political topics. "Serve your august mistress," said he, "with the unlimited devotion which you owe her, and let us both do our duty. I will only remind you, that the mists which rise from the Seine sometimes obstruct the view of Paris, even from the Tuilleries; and thus I, perhaps, can observe this immense capital more correctly from my position in Russia." The queen said, after reading this letter, "Perhaps he is right. Who can say what should be done, in a case so disastrous as our own."'

The recall of M. Genet, which is here attributed entirely to the change of parties in France, must have taken place at the same time, if this event had not occurred, as it had been formally demanded by the American government. The usage of nations makes it necessary to comply with such demands, supposing them even to be unreasonable, which was not the case here. It is probable, that he did not go beyond the tenor of his instructions, in his proceedings in this country, however violent and unjustifiable. His government and himself were equally under the influence of a sincere, political fanaticism, equivalent in its effects to actual insanity.

Genet, however, whose temper was naturally violent, and whose zeal in the cause was fired by a sense of supposed personal injustice, suffered by himself under the operation of the old system, was not likely to soften the harshness of his orders by his mode of interpretation and execution. He seems to have been at bottom a sincere and good hearted, as well as a pretty able man; and it may be mentioned, as rather a singular fact, that a person possessed of so many valuable qualities, should have succeeded in making himself obnoxious as a diplomatic agent to two governments, so differently constituted, as those of Russia and the United States, and that his recall should have been formally demanded by both. He mentions in one of his printed letters to Mr Jefferson, that the Empress Catherine insisted upon this, and declared, that if her request was not complied with immediately, she would herself give him an escort to the boundary.

It is time, however, to close our extracts from this very interesting publication. We shall only add the passage in which Madame Campan describes the attack upon the palace, on the 10th of August 1792; at which she was present herself, and in imminent danger of her life. Much light has lately been thrown upon the immediate causes of this event, by the publication last year in France, of the posthumous Memoirs of Barbaroux, who claims the honor of having himself planned and directed the whole affair. We shall, perhaps, avail ourselves of a future opportunity to lay before our readers a notice of his very curious work. At present our concern is with Madame Campan, whose account of the transactions of the 10th of August is as follows.

'At length the terrible day of the 10th of August arrived. The evening before, Pétion (then mayor of Paris) informed the Assembly, that an insurrection was preparing in the suburbs for the next morning, that the alarm bell would ring at midnight, and that he was afraid that he had not the means of quelling the disturbance. The Assembly passed to the order of the day. Pétion, however, gave orders to repulse force by force. Mandat, the commandant of the national guards, received these orders, and, being thus confirmed in his attachment to the king's person, by what he considered his duty to his country, he exhibited, throughout, the most perfect fidelity. At nine in the evening, I was present at the king's supper. While his majesty was giving me several orders, we heard a great noise at the door of the apartment. I went to

ascertain the reason, and found the two sentinels, posted there, engaged in a political discussion. One asserted, that the king was a part of the constitution, and that he would defend him at the peril of his life; the other held, that he was an obstacle in the way of the only constitution consistent with liberty. They were ready to cut each others' throats. When I returned, the king insisted on being informed what was doing, and after I had told him, the queen remarked, that she was not surprized at it, and that more than half the guard were jacobins.

'At midnight the alarm bell was rung. The Swiss stood in military order, as firm as rocks. Their silence contrasted strongly with the perpetual bustle kept up by the national guard. The king communicated to M. de J. an officer in the general staff, the plan of defence, which had been prepared by General Vioménil. After this private conference with the king, M. de J. said to me, "Put your jewels and money in your pockets, the danger is imminent, and we have no means of defence. Nothing could save us but personal energy in the king, and that is the only virtue in which he is deficient." At one o'clock past midnight the queen, and Madame Elizabeth went to repose on a sofa, in a lower apartment, in which the windows opened upon the court of the Tuilleries. The queen told me, that the king had refused to wear a stuffed waistcoat, as a protection to his person. He had consented to put it on the 14th of July, when he was going to the public ceremony of the Federation, and where he might have been attacked by an assassin. But on this occasion, when his friends were to meet the revolutionary party in battle, he thought it cowardly to take any such precautions.

At this time Madame Elizabeth, who had taken off a part of her dress, in order to rest more at ease on the sofa, shewed me a carnelion pin which she wore in her handkerchief. The device was a bunch of lilies, with the legend, oblivion of offences-forgiveness of injuries. "I fear," said the virtuous princess, "that this maxim has but little weight with our enemies, but we must not respect it the less for that ourselves." The queen commanded me to sit by her side. The two princesses could not sleep, and were conversing mournfully upon their situation, when we heard the report of a musket in the court. "There is the first shot," said the queen, "but, unhappily, it will not be the last. Let us go to the king." The queen commanded me to attend her, and some of her women followed.

'At four o'clock, the queen came out of the king's apartment, and told us that she had no hope whatever; that M. Mandat had been assassinated as he was going to the City Hall for fresh orders, and that they were carrying his head upon a pike, about the streets. It was now day light. The king, the queen, and Madame Eliza