This speech operated like an electric shock upon the Convention, the members rose _en masse_, and called for _the question_. This proposition was then decreed: ROYALTY IS ABOLISHED IN FRANCE. Thus vanished the prospects of Orleans and his abettors, and so was a Republic established in France. The fears and listlessness of Louis XVI. were the proximate causes which led to his ruin and overthrow. As a corroborating proof of this statement I give the evidence of a young and beautiful but fanatical girl, Mademoiselle Thérouanne de Mirecourt,[1] who has repeatedly declared to me _que c’était la poltronnerie seule du tyran qui sauva la France_. [A] See Appendix. Before I quit this subject I cannot avoid noticing the character of this young woman. During the attack upon the Tuileries she headed a body of pikemen and showed absolute fearlessness and marvellous courage. I have often been in her company, and remarked that she possessed by nature a fund of humanity and a tolerable share of information; but that vanity, desire of popularity and fanaticism made her wild, savage and ferocious. One day she invited me to breakfast with her, and on my entering her apartment I beheld a pike, a sword, a brace of pistols, and suspended over the chimney-piece the _bonnet rouge_; scattered about the floor lay above a hundred books and pamphlets, on her bed newspapers, on her table Marat’s _Ami du Peuple_. On my inquiry why a lady of her charms kept such dreadful instruments in her room, she replied: “No compliments, Citizen. Society is undergoing a change, a grand re-organisation, and women are about to resume their rights. We shall no more be flattered in order to be enslaved, these arms have dethroned the tyrant, and conquered freedom. Sit down and take your chocolate.” With all this severity of character she possessed some attractions and captured the heart of John Sheares,[1] who was executed for treason during the late rebellion. His affection for her was so great that he proposed marriage to her. Had he been gratified in his inclination there is good reason to suppose _he_ might have been now alive, and _she_ in a happy situation. For he often assured me that should his suit prove successful he would abandon politics altogether and retire into private life. He was one of the finest young men I ever beheld, and a handsomer pair would have rarely been seen. But fortune decided their fate should be disastrous. When he tendered his proposals she pulled a pistol from her pocket and threatened to shoot him if he said another word upon the subject. _He_ returned to Ireland, to fall a victim five years later to offended justice. _She_ is now in a miserable state of insanity, confined in a madhouse in the Rue de Sèvre, Faubourg S. Germain. [Sidenote: KNIGHTS OF THE POIGNARD]