“We thought you were going to seclude yourself tonight,” said Lebas, “and we were regretting it.”

“What have you done with Eleanor,” said Madame Duplay, “that she does not come down to us?”

“I thought to have found her here,” answered he; “she left me some minutes since.  She was not in good spirits, and has probably retired for the night.  Tell me, St. Just, do they talk much of tomorrow’s trial?”

Robespierre alluded to the trial of Marie Antoinette, as the cruel farce, which was so called, was then to commence.  The people were now thirsty after her blood, and thought themselves wronged in that she had been so long held back from their wrath.

“They speak of her execution as of a thing of course,” said St. Just; “and they are right; her sand has well nigh run itself out.  I wish she were now at her nephew’s court.”

“Wish rather that she had never come from thence,” said Couthon.  “She has brought great misfortunes on France.  Could she die a thousand deaths, she could not atone for what she has done.  Not that I would have her die, if it were possible that she could be allowed to live.”

“It is not possible,” said Robespierre.  “To have been Queen of France, is in itself a crime which it would have been necessary that she should expiate, even had she shown herself mistress of all the virtues which could adorn a woman.”

“And she is not possessed of one,” said Lebas.  “She was beautiful, but her beauty was a stain upon her, for she was voluptuous.  She was talented, but her talents were all turned to evil, for they only enabled her to intrigue against her adopted country.  She had the disposal of wealth, with which she might have commanded the blessings of the poor, and she wasted it in vain frivolities.  She was gracious in demeanour, but she kept her smiles for those only who deserved her frowns.  She had unbounded influence over her husband, and she persuaded him to falsehood, dishonesty, and treachery.”

“Do not deny that she has courage,” said St. Just.  “She has borne her adversity well, though she could not bear her prosperity.”

“She has courage,” said Lebas, “and how has she used it? in fighting an ineffectual battle against the country who had received her with open arms.  We must all be judged by posterity, but no historian will dare to say that Marie Antoinette did not deserve the doom which now awaits her.”

How little are men able to conceive what award posterity will make in judging of their actions, even when they act with pure motives, and on what they consider to be high principles; and posterity is often as much in error in its indiscriminate condemnation of actions, as are the actors in presuming themselves entitled to its praise.

When years have rolled by, and passions have cooled, the different motives and feelings of the persons concerned become known to all, and mankind is enabled to look upon public acts from every side.  Not so the actors; they are not only in ignorance of facts, the knowledge of which is necessary to their judging rightly, but falsehoods dressed .in the garb of facts are studiously brought forward to deceive them, and men thus groping in darkness are forced to form opinions, and to act upon them.