discharged, and the ball entered his side. Reginald staggered back a few paces, and a grim smile passed over the features of Dubourg.

"Oh, my God!" exclaimed Constance with a shriek of agony, and wringing her hands in despair,— "Reginald! you are murdered!—and for me!"

At

But the " avenger of blood" was at hand. that instant a troop of the royal guard rode furiously down the street, charging on all the groups they met with. They had been fired on by the populace, and were doubly irritated by opposition. The gallant young horsemen swept by Reginald and Constance, now separated from the throng, and spurred on toward the place where the multitude had turned and stood at bay.

Their leader, Dubourg, infuriated by his recent encounter, forgot every precaution, and encouraged his followers to stand their ground. The cavalry charged on them, and they were swept away like chaff before the wind. The glittering sword of a young horseman dealt justice upon the assassin. His keen blade reached the fertile brain that had so often been exercised in evil,-the guilty hand was powerless, the feet that had been "swift to shed blood" availed no longer to escape well-merited vengeance. Dubourg fell on that spot, and the whole troop charged over his lifeless body.

The scene passed like a swift and terrible vision, leaving the street blank and deserted. Not a living being was in sight, and every house was barred and bolted.

Send help to these desolate ones, oh heaven!

for there is none now for them in any man!"

"child of

Reginald pressed his hand on his wounded side. "I have strength enough left," he said, "to reach your house. Do not be so much alarmed-I am wounded, but not so fatally as you imagine."

Constance passed her trembling arm through his, and he walked on firmly for a few steps. They drew near her father's door; she felt that he tottered; his cheek grew paler and paler.

The door of the porte cochère opened, and Reginald fell bleeding and insensible into the arms of the faithful Antoine.

CHAPTER XXXI.

A BRILLIANT DESTINY.

THE remembrance of the revolution of the trois journées, which swept like a tornado over the French capital, has been, since that epoch, almost obliterated by other and equally terrible days and events. The calm which had hushed the raging elements of strife into an ominous stillness before the tremendous storm burst forth, the brilliant fêtes of the court which immediately preceded it,―proving as they did the unsuspicious security of the sovereign and his ministers,gave it a more electrical and startling effect. Had a thunderbolt from a clear sky fallen at their feet, it could not have astonished them more.

Three brief sentences, announcing as they did the beginning of the revolution to General Lafayette, who was at that moment in quiet seclusion at his château of Lagrange, will explain the causes which set fire to the train secretly prepared for many months, if not years, before the explosion.

The suspicions which the friends of the court naturally pointed against the avowed champion of Republican Government, as the author and immediate

instigator of those troubles, were unfounded. A day only had elapsed since the invitation of the king to attend the meeting of the Chamber of Deputies, couched in the ancient style of royal condescension, and beginning with "Très chère et bien aimé," had been received and read by him to a circle of his family and friends, while seated around the dinner table.

But the smile, called forth by the affectionate greeting of the king, was soon chased away by the appearance of another missive of a very different character, containing only the three brief sentences alluded to above. The sentences referred to were

"The Chamber of Deputies is dissolved;
"The Law of Elections changed;

"The Liberty of the Press is suspended."

These words, read by General Lafayette with solemn emphasis in the midst of a circle composed of his own family and numerous visitors, who had availed themselves of the hospitality of Lagrange to escape from the unusual heat of the city to the refuge of its cooler shades, had the effect of a pistol shot on the eager listeners. Ladies burst into tears and lamentations, predicting that such arbitrary measures would lead to a bloody resistance,-men knitted their brows and consulted apart in separate groups, or walked on the lawn in earnest conversation. Before the end of the following day the party dispersed, and their venerable host was on his way to the metropolis,whether to pour oil upon the waves that were already dashing with merciless fury over the devoted court and ministry, or to encourage uncompromising resistance to the measures they had attempted to carry

into execution, was hardly yet determined in his own breast.

To the exercise of an infatuated temper, without corresponding force of will and character, may be attributed the unhappy termination of the reign of Charles X. Since that epoch it has been seen that far more arbitrary measures than he ever attempted have been triumphantly carried out with hardly a show of resistance; but these arbitrary measures have been cautiously and gradually planned, and executed under the mighty protection of half a million of bayonets. In the trois journées the bayonets were either sullenly withdrawn, or turned against the breast of the sovereign. In vain did the Dauphin, enraged against the Duke de Raguse, the commander of the army, reproach him as the "traitor Marmont," and snatch the knightly sword from him, deeply wounding his own hand, as he seized the weapon by the blade in his haste to deprive the duke of his command. In vain the alarmed sovereign proposed terms of pacification to the insurgents, and abdicated his throne in favor of his youthful grandson Henry V. The fiat had gone forth; and only a precipitate flight was left for the king and his family, with the few friends who adhered to his fallen fortunes.

The events of the revolution of the three days in Paris filled so large a space in the public mind and the public journals of the time, that it would be presumptuous to record them in such pages as these. It would be a superfluous, as well as a hopeless, task to endeavor to give any adequate idea of the frightful - confusion that reigned throughout the capital in that