With Barbaroux’s Note of Introduction, and slight stock of luggage, we see Charlotte, on Tuesday the ninth of July, seated in the Caen Diligence, with a place for Paris.  None takes farewell of her, wishes her Good-journey:  her Father will find a line left, signifying that she is gone to England, that he must pardon her and forget her.  The drowsy Diligence lumbers along; amid drowsy talk of Politics, and praise of the Mountain; in which she mingles not; all night, all day, and again all night.  On Thursday, not long before none, we are at the Bridge of Neuilly; here is Paris with her thousand black domes,—­the goal and purpose of thy journey!  Arrived at the Inn de la Providence in the Rue des Vieux Augustins, Charlotte demands a room; hastens to bed; sleeps all afternoon and night, till the morrow morning.

On the morrow morning, she delivers her Note to Duperret.  It relates to certain Family Papers which are in the Minister of the Interior’s hand; which a Nun at Caen, an old Convent-friend of Charlotte’s, has need of; which Duperret shall assist her in getting:  this then was Charlotte’s errand to Paris?  She has finished this, in the course of Friday;—­yet says nothing of returning.  She has seen and silently investigated several things.  The Convention, in bodily reality, she has seen; what the Mountain is like.  The living physiognomy of Marat she could not see; he is sick at present, and confined to home.

About eight on the Saturday morning, she purchases a large sheath-knife in the Palais Royal; then straightway, in the Place des Victoires, takes a hackney-coach:  “To the Rue de l’Ecole de Medecine, No. 44.”  It is the residence of the Citoyen Marat!—­The Citoyen Marat is ill, and cannot be seen; which seems to disappoint her much.  Her business is with Marat, then?  Hapless beautiful Charlotte; hapless squalid Marat!  From Caen in the utmost West, from Neuchatel in the utmost East, they two are drawing nigh each other; they two have, very strangely, business together.—­Charlotte, returning to her Inn, despatches a short Note to Marat; signifying that she is from Caen, the seat of rebellion; that she desires earnestly to see him, and ’will put it in his power to do France a great service.’  No answer.  Charlotte writes another Note, still more pressing; sets out with it by coach, about seven in the evening, herself.  Tired day-labourers have again finished their Week; huge Paris is circling and simmering, manifold, according to its vague wont:  this one fair Figure has decision in it; drives straight,—­towards a purpose.

It is yellow July evening, we say, the thirteenth of the month; eve of the Bastille day,—­when ‘M.  Marat,’ four years ago, in the crowd of the Pont Neuf, shrewdly required of that Besenval Hussar-party, which had such friendly dispositions, “to dismount, and give up their arms, then;” and became notable among Patriot men!  Four years:  what a road he has travelled;—­and sits now, about half-past seven of the clock, stewing in