I will not, at this period of my story, record the artifices I used to penetrate the asylum of the Tuileries, or give what would be a tedious account of my stratagems, disappointments, and perseverance.  I at last succeeded in entering these walls, and roamed its halls and corridors in eager hope to find my selected convert.  In the evening I contrived to mingle unobserved with the congregation, which assembled in the chapel to listen to the crafty and eloquent harangue of their prophet.  I saw Juliet near him.  Her dark eyes, fearfully impressed with the restless glare of madness, were fixed on him; she held her infant, not yet a year old, in her arms; and care of it alone could distract her attention from the words to which she eagerly listened.  After the sermon was over, the congregation dispersed; all quitted the chapel except she whom I sought; her babe had fallen asleep; so she placed it on a cushion, and sat on the floor beside, watching its tranquil slumber.

I presented myself to her; for a moment natural feeling produced a sentiment of gladness, which disappeared again, when with ardent and affectionate exhortation I besought her to accompany me in flight from this den of superstition and misery.  In a moment she relapsed into the delirium of fanaticism, and, but that her gentle nature forbade, would have loaded me with execrations.  She conjured me, she commanded me to leave her—­ “Beware, O beware,” she cried, “fly while yet your escape is practicable.  Now you are safe; but strange sounds and inspirations come on me at times, and if the Eternal should in awful whisper reveal to me his will, that to save my child you must be sacrificed, I would call in the satellites of him you call the tyrant; they would tear you limb from limb; nor would I hallow the death of him whom Idris loved, by a single tear.”

She spoke hurriedly, with tuneless voice, and wild look; her child awoke, and, frightened, began to cry; each sob went to the ill-fated mother’s heart, and she mingled the epithets of endearment she addressed to her infant, with angry commands that I should leave her.  Had I had the means, I would have risked all, have torn her by force from the murderer’s den, and trusted to the healing balm of reason and affection.  But I had no choice, no power even of longer struggle; steps were heard along the gallery, and the voice of the preacher drew near.  Juliet, straining her child in a close embrace, fled by another passage.  Even then I would have followed her; but my foe and his satellites entered; I was surrounded, and taken prisoner.

I remembered the menace of the unhappy Juliet, and expected the full tempest of the man’s vengeance, and the awakened wrath of his followers, to fall instantly upon me.  I was questioned.  My answers were simple and sincere.  “His own mouth condemns him,” exclaimed the impostor; “he confesses that his intention was to seduce from the way of salvation our well-beloved sister in God; away with him to the dungeon; to-morrow he dies the death; we are manifestly called upon to make an example, tremendous and appalling, to scare the children of sin from our asylum of the saved.”