de Greve, to the ‘Lanterne,’ Lamp-iron which there is at the corner of the Rue de la Vannerie; pleading bitterly for life,—­to the deaf winds.  Only with the third rope (for two ropes broke, and the quavering voice still pleaded), can he be so much as got hanged!  His Body is dragged through the streets; his Head goes aloft on a pike, the mouth filled with grass:  amid sounds as of Tophet, from a grass-eating people. (Deux Amis de la Liberte, ii. 60-6.)

Surely if Revenge is a ‘kind of Justice,’ it is a ‘wild’ kind!  O mad Sansculottism hast thou risen, in thy mad darkness, in thy soot and rags; unexpectedly, like an Enceladus, living-buried, from under his Trinacria?  They that would make grass be eaten do now eat grass, in this manner?  After long dumb-groaning generations, has the turn suddenly become thine?—­To such abysmal overturns, and frightful instantaneous inversions of the centre-of-gravity, are human Solecisms all liable, if they but knew it; the more liable, the falser (and topheavier) they are!—­

To add to the horror of Mayor Bailly and his Municipals, word comes that Berthier has also been arrested; that he is on his way hither from Compiegne.  Berthier, Intendant (say, Tax-levier) of Paris; sycophant and tyrant; forestaller of Corn; contriver of Camps against the people;—­accused of many things:  is he not Foulon’s son-in-law; and, in that one point, guilty of all?  In these hours too, when Sansculottism has its blood up!  The shuddering Municipals send one of their number to escort him, with mounted National Guards.

At the fall of day, the wretched Berthier, still wearing a face of courage, arrives at the Barrier; in an open carriage; with the Municipal beside him; five hundred horsemen with drawn sabres; unarmed footmen enough, not without noise!  Placards go brandished round him; bearing legibly his indictment, as Sansculottism, with unlegal brevity, ’in huge letters,’ draws it up. (’Il a vole le Roi et la France (He robbed the King and France).’  ‘He devoured the substance of the People.’  ’He was the slave of the rich, and the tyrant of the poor.’  ’He drank the blood of the widow and orphan.’  ‘He betrayed his country.’  See Deux Amis, ii. 67-73.) Paris is come forth to meet him:  with hand-clappings, with windows flung up; with dances, triumph-songs, as of the Furies!  Lastly the Head of Foulon:  this also meets him on a pike.  Well might his ’look become glazed,’ and sense fail him, at such sight!—­Nevertheless, be the man’s conscience what it may, his nerves are of iron.  At the Hotel-de-Ville, he will answer nothing.  He says, he obeyed superior order; they have his papers; they may judge and determine:  as for himself, not having closed an eye these two nights, he demands, before all things, to have sleep.  Leaden sleep, thou miserable Berthier!  Guards rise with him, in motion towards the Abbaye.  At the very door of the Hotel-de-Ville, they are clutched; flung asunder, as by a vortex of mad arms; Berthier whirls towards the Lanterne.  He snatches a musket; fells and strikes, defending himself like a mad lion; is borne down, trampled, hanged, mangled:  his Head too, and even his Heart, flies over the City on a pike.