Chapter 11

WE HAVE DONE WITH TEARS AND TREASONS

"Here is a letter from Arenta!" repeated the Doctor to his wife, who was
just entering the room, "Come, Ava, and listen to what she has to say. I
have no doubt it will be interesting." Then Cornelia read aloud the
following words:

MY DEAR FRIEND CORNELIA:

If to-day I could walk down Maiden Lane, if to-day I could see you and
talk to you, I should imagine myself in heaven. For as to this city, I
think that in hell the name of "Paris" must have spread itself far and
wide. Indeed I often wonder if I am yet on the earth, or if I have gone
away in my sleep to the country of the devil and his angels. Even as I
am writing to you, my pen is shaking with terror, for I hear the tumbrel
come jolting along, and I know that it is loaded with innocent men and
women who are going to the guillotine; and I know also that it is
accompanied by a mob of dreadful creatures--mostly women--for I hear
them singing--no, screaming--in a kind of rage,

"Ca ira les aristocrates a la lanterne!"

Do you remember our learning in those happy days at Bethlehem of the
slaughter of Christians by Nero? Very well; right here in the Paris of
Marat and Robespierre, you may hear constantly the same brutal cry that
filled the Rome of the Caesars--"DEATH TO THE CHRISTIANS!" Famine,
anarchy, murder, are everywhere; and I live from moment to moment,
trembling if a step comes near me. For Athanase is imprudence itself.
His opinions will be the death of him. He will not desert the
Girondists, though Mr. Morris tells him their doom is certain. Marat is
against them, and the Jacobins--who are deliriously wicked--are against
them, and the mob of the Faubourgs is against them; and this mob is
always of one mind, always on the spot, and always hungry and ready for
anarchy and blood. Besides which, they are already accused of having
sold themselves to Mr. Pitt. Very often I have heard my dear father
talking of universal suffrage as the bulwark of liberty; well then, we
have now, and here, an universal suffrage that is neither a fraud nor a
fiction; and as Athanase says, "it is expressing itself every minute, in
the crimes of the Holy Guillotine."

And yet Paris makes a pretence of being gay and of enjoying itself. We
go to the theatre and the opera, and we dance, as it were, red, wet-shod
to the hideous strains of the Carmagnole. It is indeed a dance of death.
The other night we were at a reception given by Madame Talma to the
victorious General Dumouriez. All the Brissot party were there. Your
father will remember Brissot de Warville very well. He was greatly
petted by Mrs. Jay and the aristocracy of New York and Philadelphia.