The voice of the Swiss commandant giving the word to fire was heard, and it was followed by a rolling discharge, from flank to flank, of the whole battalion.  It was my first experience of the effect of fire; and I was astonished at its precision, rapidity, and deadly power.  In an instant, almost the whole troop of the Marseillais, in our front, were stretched upon the ground, and every third man in the first line of the Sections was killed or wounded.  Before this shock could be recovered, we heard the word “fire” again from the Swiss officer, and a second shower of bullets burst upon our ranks.  The Sections turned and fled in all directions, some by the Pont Neuf, some by the Place Carrousel.  The rout was complete; the terror, the confusion, and the yelling of the wounded were horrible.  The havoc was increased by a party of the defenders of the palace, who descended into the court and fell with desperation on the fugitives.  I felt that now was my time to escape, and darted behind one of the buttresses of a royal porte cachere, to let the crowd pass me.  The skirmishing continued at intervals, and an officer in the uniform of the Royal Guard was struck down by a shot close to my feet.  As he rolled over, I recognised his features.  He was my young friend Lafontaine!  With an inconceivable shudder I looked on his pale countenance, and with the thought that he was killed was mingled the thought of the misery which the tidings would bring to fond ears in England.  But as I drew the body within the shelter of the gate, I found that he still breathed; he opened his eyes, and I had the happiness, after waiting in suspense till the dusk covered our movements, of conveying him to my hotel.

Of the remaining events of this most calamitous day, I know but what all the world knows.  It broke down the monarchy.  It was the last struggle in which a possibility existed of saving the throne.  The gentlest of the Bourbons was within sight of the scaffold.  He had now only to retrieve his character for personal virtue by laying down his head patiently under the blade of the guillotine.  His royal character was gone beyond hope, and all henceforth was to be the trial of the legislature and the nation.  Even that trial was to be immediate, comprehensive, and condign.  No people in the history of rebellion ever suffered, so keenly or so rapidly, the vengeance which belongs to national crimes.  The saturnalia was followed by massacre.  A new and darker spirit of ferocity displayed itself, in a darker and more degraded form, from hour to hour, until the democracy was extinguished.  Like the Scripture miracle of the demoniac—­the spirits which had once exhibited the shape of man, were transmitted into the shape of the brute; and even the swine ran down by instinct, and perished in the waters.

* * * * *

CEYLON[12]

    [12] CEYLON, AND ITS CAPABILITIES.  BY J.W.  Bennett, Esq.  F.L.S. 
    London Allen:  1843.  With Plain and Coloured Illustrations. 4to.