Some days later we visited Versailles together, and as we were contemplating the scenery of the beautiful garden at Petit Trianon, laid out by the Queen, he went to the top of the look-out, fell upon one knee, and exclaimed, drawing a dirk: “By heaven! I’ll thrust this dirk into the heart of the man who shall dare to propose the least injury to Marie Antoinette.” His brother, who was of a more cool and less enthusiastic temperament, immediately observed, “You had better set off post to Paris and take her out of the Temple.” It may appear incredible to those who have been unconnected with any of the agents of those convulsions which have disturbed the world for the last twelve years, that men previously distinguished for the sensibility of their natures and for their humanity, have proved, when immersed in the Revolution whirlpool, the most cruel and inexorable of incarnate devils. Carrier, Robespierre, Foquet-Tinville, and most of those exterminating furies who thinned the best part of the population of France, are instances in point. [9] A peculiar motive, which I shall not here explain, obliges me to omit the insertion of the case alluded to, but I have given the beginning, which contains an account of Mr. Paine’s mode of life before he was sent to prison, and the conclusion. [10] This passage and the following, which I have marked in italics, deserves the solemn reflection of every one who formerly entertained a favourable prepossession in behalf of the French Revolution. [11] At this period the French talked of the “Rights of Man,” of the Republic one and indivisible, democratic and imperishable; and branded English people with the epithets of English slaves, serfs of George, &c. &c. [12] Of the Committee of Public Safety, at that time the executive power of France in every sense of the word. For the benefit of the Great Nation they pocketed £400 for signing these very passports, permitting two of the “serfs _of George and agents of Pitt_” to escape from France. [13] So that the £400 these Public Safety scoundrels had touched would have caused their murder had they delayed their departure for a few hours, as Barrère wisely observed, “dead men tell no tales”--it would have been vain to plead the bribe; this plea itself would have been such an outrage to the Majesty of the Republic that it alone would have satisfied the consciences of the jury of the Revolutionary Tribunal. [14] The use of packs of cards with figures of royal personages, _i.e._, the kings and queens of hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades, were forbidden by the revolutionary authorities as being emblems of royalty, and those who used them were condemned as Royalists. Transcriber’s Notes: 1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected silently. 2. Where hyphenation is in doubt, it has been retained as in the original. 3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have been retained as in the original.