s and note the rapidly throbbing pulse, the wild ravings of the disordered brain, and, frightened and despondent, would hurry away to consult with his brothers what should be done. But never t

es was called, and a thousand different opinions were given, a thousand different cures tried. And when all was seen to have been in vain, her tortured children, in their despair, left her and turned upon the false physicians, putting them to death and with ferocious joy avenging her agonies. And

r ably manned ship of state, had blown across the Atlantic and was beating upon the unprotected shores of France. The storm was gathering fast in that most famous year of 1789-the alpha and omega of French history, the ending of all things old, the beginning of all things new, for France. Two years before the bewildered Assemblée des Notables had met and had been dismissed to spread their agitation and disaffection throughout all France

and king what grievances they found there. What wonder that when the ashes were raked from the long-smouldering fires of envy, of injustice, of oppression, of extortion, of misrule of every conceivable sort, they sprang into fierce flame? What wonder that when the bonds of silence were loosed from their miserable mouths, such a wild clamor went up to Heaven as made

tire misconceptions of the truth. And, if they had been so mistaken about the facts of physical science, might they not be equally mistaken about theology, about law, about politics? Everywhere was doubt and questioning. R

ts by the members of the diplomatic corps in this volcanic year of 1789. The ministers of Louis's court, being at their wits' end to know what was to be done to allay the disturbances, were of the mind that they could and would, at least, enjoy themselves. The King having always been at his wits' end was not conscious of being in any unusual or dangerous position. As short-sighted mentally as he was physically, he saw in the popular excitement of the times nothing to dread. Conscious of his own good intentions toward his people, he saw nothing in their ever-increasing demands but evidences of a spirit of progress which he was the first to applaud. Unmindful of the fact that "the most dangerous moment for

mous winter of 1789-that winter of merciless, of unexampled, cold for France. And in the heat of that long summer and in the cold of that still longer winter, the storm ga