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Conveyed back to the Conciergerie, she there passed in tolerable composure the night preceding her execution, and, on the morning of the following day, the 16th of October, she was conducted, amidst a great concourse of the populace, to the fatal spot where, ten months before, Louis XVI. had perished.
Whatever jealousy might be still cherished against the Christian name, nevertheless, individual Christians were treated with civility, and recognised as citizens; though among the populace there would be occasions, at the time of the more solemn pagan feasts, when accidental outbursts might be expected of the antipathy latent in the community, as we have been recording in the foregoing chapter.
Accordingly the princess, who possessed the most consummate skill in the art of persuasion, went immediately back through the subterranean passage; and presenting herself to the populace, from a window of the palace, began to harangue them with all the address of which she was mistress, whilst Bababalouk showered money from both hands amongst the crowd, who by these united means were soon appeased; every person retired to his home, and Carathis returned to the tower.
Old men were seen coming from the temple of Jupiter Liberator, stretching forth their hands and crying, "If thou be a liberator, save thy altars and the city!" But despair turned mainly against the old Roman gods, who, in the minds of the populace, were bound to watch over the city more carefully than others. They had proved themselves powerless; hence were insulted.
This he had arranged in order to allow the Duke of Arcos time to reach the plains, where he was to be joined by the horse from Murviedro. But Peterborough's machinations had been effectual; the Spanish officer, on his return, informed his countrymen that Mahony had betrayed them, and the troops and populace became enraged against the unfortunate Irishman and threatened his life.
When I objected to the platform in general, because it would tend to destroy representative government and substitute therefor the whims of the populace at the moment, he replied that we had no representative government. "I can name forty-six Senators," he said, "who secured their seats and hold them by the favor of a Wall Street magnate and his associates, in all parts of the country.
"Where is he now, this enemy of our Tiberius that hath thus stirred up the populace?" "To the barracks of the Tower of Antonio they have taken him for the flagellum horrible." "And will they be long in laying open the flesh of his back?" "Nay, for twelve brawny armed and deaf to the cries of pity will lay on the scourge. Soon will he be brought again before Pilate."
Their declared object was, to reduce the Catholics of Ireland to a miserable populace, without property, without estimation, without education. The professed object was, to deprive the few men, who, in spite of those laws, might hold or obtain any property amongst them, of all sort of influence or authority over the rest.
Lefebre was not known in Rouen, and his attitude during the trial had aroused no sympathy; the others were but vulgar actors in the drama, and only interested the populace hungry for a spectacle on the scaffold. The executions would take place immediately, the judgments pronounced by the special court being without appeal, like those of the former revolutionary tribunals.
This stream of people came from every quarter, as if impulse had unlocked flood-gates, let flow waters of whose existence he had heard, perhaps, but believed in never. This, then, was the populace, the innumerable living negation of gentility and Forsyteism. This was egad! Democracy! It stank, yelled, was hideous! In the East End, or even Soho, perhaps but here in Regent Street, in Piccadilly!
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