their way into the city and carrying off the prisoner." Marceau started.—. He recognised Tinguy, exchanged a glance with him full of meaning, and then sprang with his friend into the carriage. "To Paris!" he cried to the postilion, as he dropped a few pieces of gold into his hand, and the horses darted forward with the speed of the wind. Throughout the journey they travelled with the same rapidity; he lavished money at every station, and received the promise that horses should be ready for the following day, and that nothing should hinder his swift return. About eight in the evening they reached Paris. Marceau left his friend, and went without delay to Robespierre's dwelling. He ascended three pair of stairs, and was admitted to the presence of the dictator. A bust of Rousseau, a table with a few books, and a chest of drawers, were the only ornaments of the neat chamber. Robespierre saw the impression which this produced upon the general. "This is the Cæsar's palace," he said, smiling;-"what would'st thou of the dictator ?"

"The liberation of my wife, condemned to death by Carrier."

"Thy wife condemned to death by Carrier ?-the wife of Marceau, the true republican-the Spartan soldier! What then is he about in Nantes ?" "Committing atrocities!" Marceau then sketched a picture of his deeds in that city. Robespierre moved restlessly upon his chair, but did not interrupt his narration.

66

"Thus I am ever misinterpreted, then!" cried the latter, with a harsh voice, when Marceau had ended; everywhere, where my eyes cannot see and my hands reach, useless bloodshed! Much blood, indeed, must inevitably flow, for we are not yet at the end."

"Well, then, the liberation of my wife?"

Robespierre took a sheet of paper." Her family name?" "Why do you wish it?"

"It is necessary, in order to establish her personal identity." "Blanche de Beaulieu."

"The daughter

Robespierre dropped the pen which he held in his hand. of the Marquis de Beaulieu !-the leader of those banditti ?" "Blanche de Beaulieu, the daughter of the Marquis de Beaulieu.". "And how comes it that she is your wife?" Marceau related all that had occurred.

"Young fool!" said Robespierre, "durst thou—”

Marceau interrupted him. "I desire neither reproaches nor counsel, but barely my wife's freedom.-Will you grant it?"

"Marceau, will family ties-will love, never lead you to betray the republic?"

"Never !"

"If you should find yourself, weapon in hand, face to face with the Marquis de Beaulieu ?

"I would fight against him, as I have done hitherto.”

"And should he fall into your hands?"

Marceau reflected for a moment. "I would send him to you, and you would decide upon his fate."

"Will you swear this ?"

"By my honor."

Robespierre took up the pen again. "Marceau," he said, "you have had the good fortune to keep yourself, thus far, pure in the eyes of all. I have watched you for a long while; for a long while I have wished to see you. Should I one day fall, let me not curse you in my last hour. Here is your wife's pardon. You must now hasten, for there is no time to be lost. Adieu!"

Marceau pressed his hand in silence, for his voice was stifled by emo tion, and then hurried down the stairs. In descending, he met General Dumas. "I have her pardon!" he exclaimed, embracing him—“ I have her pardon! Blanche is saved!"

"Wish me joy also," said his friend. "I am appointed to the command of the army of the Pyrenees, and I am on my way to tender Robespierre my thanks." They embraced again, and Marceau hastened to the carriage, which was waiting for him.

What a burden was removed from his heart! What happiness awaited him after so many moments of anguish! His fancy pictured the futurethe moment when, at the threshold of her dungeon, he should exclaim— "Blanche, thou art rescued by me! Come, Blanche, and pay the debt of thy life with thy love!" But, from time to time he was seized with an indescribable anxiety; a chill of terror thrilled his very heart. He urges on the postillion by promises-by gold. The carriage flies-the horses' hoofs scarcely touch the ground, and still to his impatience their speed is slow. At every station horses stand in readiness; nowhere does he meet with the least delay. In a few hours he has passed Versailles, Chartres, Le Mans, La Fleche. He comes in sight of Angers, and suddenly he feels a fearful shock; the carriage is overturned and broken. He rises, half-senseless and bleeding; with a stroke of his sabre he cuts the traces of one of the horses, mounts it, reaches the next post-house, takes a fresh steed, and pursues his journey with increased rapidity. He dashes through Angers, Varades, Ancenis. His horse is covered with blood and foam. At last he sees Nantes, -Nantes, which contains his soul-his life-his all. Yet a few moments and he will have reached the city. Before the door of the prison his horse falls dead. What matters it to him?-the goal is reached!

"Blanche! Blanche!" he cries.

"Two carts have just left the prison," answered the jailor," she is in the first.

"Death and hell!" exclaimed Marceau, and hurried on foot towards the crowd, which was thronging to the place of execution. He reached the hindmost car; one of the condemned turned and recognised him. “General, save her! save her!-1 could not-I was arrested. Long live the king and the good cause!" It was Tinguy.

Marceau forced his way onward; the crowd pressed-pushed-but he hurried forward with them. He reached the fatal spot, and found himself in front of the scaffold. "Pardon! pardon!" he exclaimed, waving the paper

in the air.

But scarcely had the cry sounded from his lips, when the executioner held up to the multitude the fair-haired head of a young maiden. The startled crowd turned shuddering from the spectacle, for it seemed to them as if a stream of blood issued from the mouth of that beautiful head. From the midst of that silent throng a sudden cry was heard-a cry of fury, in which all the strength of despair seemed concentrated. Marceau had recognised the red rose which that head held between its teeth. It was the head of his Blanche !

THE PRINCIPLE OF LIFE.

Is it a thing to be desired, to understand on what principle we live, and move, and have our being? As each soul alights upon the shores of time, is it worth stopping to enquire whence it came and whither it goeth? Is the passing and repassing of beings at the rate of thousands in an hour, from and to the earth, a subject of sufficient interest and importance to cause us to pause, for a single hour, to learn aught concerning it? Is it after all worth the trouble of investigation? The merchant may see in it no prospect of gain, and the mechanic no increase of hire; but not so with the eagle eye of wisdom-no, not so. It looks, it wonders, it investigates; and from the shores of Times' mighty ocean, it looks backward and forward into the long vista of the past, and its longing gaze strives to penetrate the shadowy future; it would pause, and it would search for years to learn the principle of our being, before it would fold its weary lids in repose. The enquiry-whence comes all this life and all this death? breaks upon it with startling earnestness. It knows this globe is emptied and filled every thirty years that hundreds and thousands of millions have gone hence; it knows thousands of billions are yet to tread upon it, and with a voice of thunder the cry goes forth, whence and whither go ye-ye mighty hosts? A parent has spread his sail on the unknown ocean; a sister has followed in his wake; a wife has drifted out upon the billows, her child is in her arms. On the shore stands gazing the tearful husband, the weeping and broken-hearted father; his heart is bowed down by weight of wo. He knows that it is written that "God does not willingly afflict the children of men;" he cannot understand it, to him it is a hard saying. His home is desolate his hearth is bare; and his soul cries out, "Oh, give me back my wife-my child!" Grief and despair have met together, and they play upon the unstrung chords of his aching heart, as the wind upon the strings of the Æolean harp. Time rolls on, and while the earth is filled with mourners, there are a thousand minds bent on investigating the secret causes of our state of being here. Man as yet walks the earth in the dim twilight; the shades of evening obscure his longing gaze; and as the shadows fall around him, he knows and feels that he but "sees through a glass darkly." But he sees, and he knows he sees, more than his fellows who have lived before him. He looks beyond, through the dark vista of the misty night, for the breaking of a glorious dawn; and still farther, when the dawn shall have passed into the morning, the morning into the noon-day; when, from the zenith of the heavens, there shall come a flood of light, unfolding to him the secrets of his material being-he knows that the labors of the wise are so many streams flowing into the mighty ocean of science, and that the time has come when he would turn all these streams of light towards himself, and by their application learn the nature of his being, and on what it is depending. The iron horse has done his work, and man is borne by it as on the wings of the wind, both on the land and on the sea, while his thoughts pass through space with double the rapidity of light. But this is not enough; the grand secret of his being remains undiscovered. In the earliest period of time of which any history has come down to us, we find man investigating the principle of life. Theories innumerable have been started, and even the names of their authors would fill volumes. An eminent writer 5

VOL. XXI.NO, CIX.

remarks, that, "of the innumerable theories that have been started upon this subject, the three following are those which are chiefly entitled to our attention, namely: life is the result of a general harmony, or consent of action between the different organs of which the vital frame consists; second, life is a principle inherent in the blood; third, life is a gas or aura, communicated to the system from without. Each of these theories has to boast of a very high degree of antiquity, and each, after having had its day, has successfully yielded to its rivals, and in its turn has appeared under a different modification in some subsequent age, and run through a new stage of popularity." Aristoxenius, one of the Grecian philosophers, and pupil of Xenophylus, and Erythraca of Lamptus, and Aristotle, conceived the principle of life resulting from "the system of harmony." His theory met with much favor both at Athens and at Rome. In the writings of Lactantius we find him thus speaking of it: "As in musical instruments an accord and assent of sound, which musicians term harmony, is produced by the due tone of the strings, so in bodies, the faculty of perception proceeds from a connexion and vigour of the numbers of organs of the frame."-Vol. 5, p. 140. Sir Humphrey Davy supposed the principle of life, or life itself, to consist in a "perpetual series of corpuscular changes, and the substrata or living body as the being in which these changes take place." Mr. John Hunter, the distinguished physiologist, regarded the blood itself as the principle of life, and treats the subject very ably in his work entitled, "Hunter on the Blood." Lavoisier sprang up with his brilliant powers of investigation, and pronounced oxygen to be the principle of life. Magendi, Dumas, Bichat, and Richerands, had all their peculiar theories, and their genius and ingenuity have given a probability at least to their various hypotheses. But no demonstrative proof has yet been given, capable of substantiating any theory ever yet advanced. When reduced to a tangible form, they really mean nothing; we are as much in the dark as ever. Harmony may be the result of life, and the blood is necessary to its support, and oxygen for our existence; but they are not the principle of life itself. Harmony is there, the blood is there, the oxygen is there, and death ensues— and we have heretofore stood in the dark, with every theory crumbling into ashes. No theory is of real value unless it is susceptible of mathematical demonstration; and the author of the following, advances his only on the ground of his belief, that the proof of it exists in every thing that we behold in the material world. The principle of life exists in the essential properties of matter, and it results from, or is caused by, the action of one thing upon another; and why one thing, or substance, or element, acting upon another in a certain way, should produce life and sustain it, is no more a mystery, than why oxygen and hydrogen, in certain proportions, form water, or why anything is as it is. It is the result of properties of being sustaining in their movements their relations to each other, and nothing more. And the various theories that have been taught as to the principle of life, from Aristoxenius, who believed it proceeded from the system of harmony, down to the present day, must give way to the great fact, that the principle of life exists neither in the blood nor in the brain, nor in the nerves; but that the substance of our being is depending upon the essential properties of the relationship of matter only, and which will be made self-evident from the following remarks, namely: We know that every elementary principle in the universe has an identity which distinguishes it from every thing else; we know that it has properties; we know that the principle of its being is action; for the Deity reposes never; neither do any of his works. We know that this disposition for every element to act, produces a combined action; we know that this combined action produces all that

exists. We know that certain elements and substances have an affinity for certain other elements and substances; that affinity, drawing these together, produce in their union new formations. And it is on this same great principle of action that life is produced and re-produced. We are composed of elements; these elements are in continual action from the instant we spring into being until we cease to be, when they start back to their original forms, and continue their action under some other manifestation. Not one instant do they repose; and it is this great principle of action that is constantly producing and destroying. A certain action produces life-a certain action destroys it. Certain food which, of course, is composed of elements, supports life; certain minerals destroy it. Thus we come to see, that in the great progression of things, it is their essential properties of being to act upon one another, so as to produce and destroy-to form and re-form-to repeat again and again to enter into combinations and separate-a continuous succession of changes. The production of to-day ceases to exist to-morrow; it has entered into something else. The vegetable has ceased to be a vegetable, and a part of its elements is flowing in our veins. It speedily will leave these and pass into new forms, and thus, throughout the whole universe of God, the order of its arrangement is motion, and from this inherent property of motion proceeds all that is. But this subject is susceptible of still further and more familiar proof. Take, for instance, a grain of corn placed in a vacuum; it would undergo no change whatever, because it cannot act upon itself. Place it, however, in the earth, and it at once undergoes a change. And what is this that we call a change? Simply the action of one element upon another, and without such action no change would be produced whatever; and herein is a familiar proof. This action is called life, and the change produces growth, and its cessation thus to act, death; and precisely so in relation to ourselves-our being is commenced, continued and ended, by the action of one thing upon another.

What is the great cause of the changes that are constantly taking place in all that exists? Why does not anything remain as it is? The flower that is so beautiful, so perfect in all its parts,-why does it not remain a flower? The fruit so attractive to the eye-why does it decay? The young, the gay, the beautiful, why do they grow old? Why do the fairest things fade-why do the leaves fall in autumn ?—why do the winds blow? -why does the rain fall ?—why does any thing take place that does take place? It may be answered, they are the operations of nature. But this answer defines nothing. What is it? Where is the grand principle? In what consists this ceaseless, eternal change? It is all brought about by the action of one element upon another, which action is the inherent principle of their being, (and here the reader must not take exception by endeavoring to separate this great action from its great author, but is requested to bear in mind what has previously been said on this subject.)* And if we reflect only for a few minuets, every object that we behold around us is indebted to this great law for its present form. There is nothing which has material being that is not composed of elements; and that which has caused these elements to act one upon another, so as to produce the given manifestation of any body, is their inherent principle of being. And although man has not heretofore understood the great cause of the existence of things, he has nevertheless acted upon it daily, and is a practical observer of the relationship of matter. For instance, the farmer sows his seed in the earth and enriches his soil, and waits for his crop, knowing he has acted in accordance with what he has always observed to produce crops heretofore; whereas, if he had laid his seed upon a rock, he would have had no hopes of a crop, because, the relationship of a seed to a * Referring to a work now in the course of publication.