At the moment when the carriages were passing, an incident occurred terribly characteristic of the time.  A man of a noble presence, and with an order of St Louis at his breast, who had been giving me a hurried and anxious explanation of the scene, excited by sudden feeling, rushed forward through the escort, and laying one hand on the royal carriage, with the other waved his hat, and shouted, “Vive le Roi!” In another instant I saw him stagger; a pike was darted into his bosom, and he fell dead under the wheel.  Before the confusion of this frightful catastrophe had subsided, a casement was opened immediately above my head, and a woman, superbly dressed, rushed out on the balcony waving a white scarf, and crying, “Vive Marie Antoinette!” The muskets of the escort were turned upon her, and a volley was fired at the balcony.  She started back at the shock, and a long gush of blood down her white robe showed that she had been wounded.  But she again waved the scarf, and again uttered the loyal cry.  Successive shots were fired at her by the monsters beneath; but she still stood.  At length she received the mortal blow; she tottered and fell; yet, still clinging to the front of the balcony, she waved the scarf, and constantly attempted to pronounce the words of her generous and devoted heart, until she expired.  I saw this scene with an emotion beyond my power to describe; all the enthusiasm of popular change was chilled within me; my boyish imaginations of republicanism were extinguished by this plunge into innocent blood; and I never felt more relieved, than when the whole fearful procession at length moved on, and I was left to make my way once more, through dim and silent streets, to my dwelling.

* * * * *

I pass by a considerable portion of the time which followed.  The Revolution was like the tiger, it advanced couching; though, when it sprang, its bound was sudden and irresistible.  My time was occupied in my official functions, which became constantly more important, and of which I received flattering opinions from Downing Street.  I mingled extensively in general society, and it was never more animated, or more characteristic, than at that period in Paris.  The leaders of faction and the leaders of fashion, classes so different in every other part of the world, were there often the same.  The woman who dazzled the ball-room, was frequently the confidente of the deepest designs of party.  The coterie in a salon, covered with gilding, and filled with chefs-d’oeuvre of the arts, was often as subtle as a conspiracy in the cells of the Jacobins; and the dance or the masquerade only the preliminary to an outbreak which shattered a ministry into fragments All the remarkable men of France passed before me, and I acknowledge that I was frequently delighted and surprised by their extra ordinary attainments.  The age of the Encyclopedie was in its wane, but some of its brilliant names still illustrated