situation, startled the youth; he inquired whither they were going to take him, He could not make himself understood, as he did not speak French. At that instant, Suedaeur overwhelmed with an agony of grief, came up to him. This agitation of the Doctor's increased his distress; he asked hastily, "Doctor Suedaeur! what are they going to do with me?" Suedaeur, quite overcome and bursting into tears, answered, 4 My poor lost boy, I am come to bid you farewel, you are going to instant death." "To death!" said he, with the quivering lip of youthful innocence, "I have not been tried." Then wringing his hands, he exclaimed, Oh! God, Oh! God! and swooned away in the arms of Suedaeur. While in this condition, he was torn away, and thrown into the cart. He recovered, however, before he reached the scaffold, and cried most bitterly. Colonel New ton, (who had long served under Suwarroff, and received twelve wounds at the storming of Ishmael, and who was Colonel of the regiment of dragoons which guarded the king to the scaffold) pitying the distress of the youth, forgot himself, and employed the last moments of his existence in administering comfort to him. But nature was uppermost; the misery of his afflicted mother rushed into his mind, nor did he cease to exclaim " my poor mother! my poor mother!" until the fatal axe closed his eyes upon upon this world. The spectators pitied him, for his person was extremely prepossessing, and I am sure, his innocent countenance was enough to have wrung a tear from an heart of stone. He was only eighteen years of age at the time of his murder, and a considerable fortune awaited him, had he attained to maturity. On the disconsolate mother, thus bereft of her only child, the tearful eye of pity, casts a sympathizing look; and should this sad tale of the fate of her beloved offspring fall into her hands, I wish her to be assured that the recorder of it, while com miserating her mourning life, and dropping tears of agony upon the page, discards every sentiment, that may add to that consuming grief which is too rapidly hurrying her to a premature grave. In this narration, my only motive is, to arouse humanity, and to implore in the awful name of God, the avenging justice of mankind, against a people, who are in continual hostility against the peace, the innocence, and the happiness of every part of the animated world., MISS Helen, or Madam Helen María Williams, for I know not by which of these titles to qualify her, lives at the Hotel of Alexander Berthier, the minister of war; and in despight of all my inquiries, I cannot discover on what account the She-Saint has contrived to establish herself there. It cannot be for her having alternately admired and noted every Punch and Joan of the Revolutionary shew; because Madame Genlis, who detests the Republic, and whose husband was beheaded, is allowed free apartments in the National Library. However, Helen is a personage, and at the ministry of war she holds her court. The notorious Mr. Stone, a married man, who has driven away, and cruelly used his wife, lives with Helen in virtuous, philoso phical, platonic friendship. It is not a little singular, that this spiritual damsel, should harbour and entertain such a friend, of whom no one, even in Paris, speaks a good word. I am at a loss in what manner to describe his services; his functions being so variously com 8 pounded pounded of the German Squire, the Italian Cecisbeo, the English master of the ceremonies, and the French perroquet*. He acts also as her Secretary, her garde des archives, and her chambellan.—In short, he is a man of all work. These things give no offence in this easy capital, in which it is common for a man to sit down at table with his wife and children and his mistress, and so vice versa. I have been present more than once at these happy meetings, or as they are here called, mélanges morales. A Parisian man of fashion told me one day in the presence of his wife, a very handsome woman, that after the first child, he thought both parties were at liberty to do as they pleased. This would have been a good plea before an English jury in mitigation of damages. In Paris, they are more enlightened, and what is an unanswerable proof of the exalted felicity to which the connubial state has attained in it, is, that you never hear of a single action for crim. con., from the beginning of the year to its end. When will the blue-eyed matrons of the Island When the French Republican Ladies keep a fellow to puff them in the Journals, and to sound their praises in every company, he is called a perroquet. › (See a learned dissertation on the etymology of this word, by the members of the National Institute, in the new Dictionary they are going to publish). imitate We are, imitate the innocent chastity of the Parisian fair, and their husbands the virtuous ease and nonchalance of the Parisian men! alas! two centuries behind them in moralitythey are making rapid strides towards the perfectibility of natural philosophy! Nothing demonstrates this awful truth more fully than the dinner given the other day by Madame Tallien, who has been long parted from her loving husband, and now lives with a rich merchant, whom I mentioned in a former letter, as the present proprietor of Rincy. There were sixteen persons at table, exclusive of Madame, and her cher ami; and who do you think was one of the sixteen ?-Tallien himself! He sat on the left-hand of his ci-devant rib, and was engaged with her in a true spousal tête-àtête, after the manner of Adam and Eve in Eden's blissful garden, thus, He on his side Leaning half rais'd, with looks of cordial love, Then she, O sole in whom my thoughts find all repose, VOL. II. Thy |