We now plunged into the darkness of a vast pile, evidently once a convent, and where the chill of the massive walls struck to the marrow.  I felt as if walking through a charnel-house.  We hurried on; a trembling light, towards the end of an immense and lofty aisle, was our guide; and the crowd, long familiar with the way, rushed through the intricacies where so many feet of monks had trod before them, and where, perhaps, many a deed that shunned the day had been perpetrated.  At length a spiral stair brought us to a large gallery, where our entrance was marked with a shout of congratulation; and tumbling over the benches and each other, we at length took our seats in the highest part, which, in both the club and the National Assembly, was called, from its height, the Mountain, and from the characters which generally held it, was a mountain of flame.  In the area below, once the nave of the church, sat the Jacobin club.  I now, for the first time, saw that memorable and terrible assemblage.  And nothing could be more suited than its aspect to its deeds.  The hall was of such extent that a large portion of it was scarcely visible, and few lights which hung from the walls scarcely displayed even the remainder.  The French love of decoration had no place here; neither statues nor pictures, neither gilding nor sculpture, relieved the heaviness of the building.  Nothing of the arts was visible but their rudest specimens; the grim effigies of monks and martyrs, or the coarse and blackened carvings of a barbarous age.  The hall was full; for the club contained nearly two thousand members, and on this night all were present.  Yet, except for the occasional cries of approval or anger when any speaker had concluded, and the habitual murmur of every huge assembly, they might have been taken for a host of spectres; the area had so entirely the aspect of a huge vault, the air felt so thick, and the gloom was so feebly dispersed by the chandeliers.  All was sepulchral.  The chair of the president even stood on a tomb, an antique structure of black marble.  The elevated stand, from which the speakers generally addressed the assembly, had the strongest resemblance to a scaffold, and behind it, covering the wall, were suspended chains, and instruments of torture of every horrid kind, used in the dungeons of old times; and though placed there for the sake of contrast with the mercies of a more enlightened age, yet enhancing the general idea of a scene of death.  It required no addition to render the hall of the Jacobins fearful; but the meetings were always held at night, often prolonged through the whole night.  Always stormy, and often sanguinary, daggers were drawn and pistols fired—­assassination in the streets sometimes followed bitter attacks on the benches; and at this period, the mutual wrath and terror of the factions had risen to such height, that every meeting might be only a prelude to exile or the axe; and the deliberation of this especial night must settle the question, whether the Monarchy or the Jacobin club was to ascend the scaffold.  It was the debate on the execution of the unhappy Louis XVI.