THE dreadful scenes of the French Revolution send a chill of horror to our souls as we read of them, but we realize with more painful clearness the direful deeds of those bloody days when some eye-witness of those awful, heart-rending times pictures for us some individual doom and some particular scene. The following narrative of the death of Mesdames d’Ayen and de Noailles by M. Carrichon, priest of the congregation of the Oratory, will give a most vivid idea of the sufferings of these women, who, with Madame de La Fayette, must be classed amongst the most illustrious heroines of the French Revolution. “The Maréchale de Noailles, the Duchesse d’Ayen, her daughter-in-law, and the Vicomtesse de Noailles, her granddaughter, were detained prisoners in their own house from November, 1793, till April, 1794. The first I only knew by sight, but was well acquainted with the two others, whom I generally visited once a week. “Terror and crime were increasing together; victims were becoming more numerous. One day, as the ladies were exhorting each other to prepare for death, I said to them, as by foresight: ‘If you go to the scaffold, and if God gives me strength to do so, I shall accompany you.’ “They took me at my word, and eagerly exclaimed: ‘Will you promise to do so?’ For one moment I hesitated; ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘and so that you may easily recognize me, I will wear a dark blue coat and a red waistcoat.’ After that they often reminded me of my promise. “In the month of April, 1794, during Easter week, they were all three conveyed to the Luxembourg. I had frequent accounts of them through M. Grellet, whose delicate attentions and zealous services were of such service both to them and to their children. I was often reminded of my promise. “On the 27th of June, on a Monday or a Friday, he came to beg of me to fulfil the engagement I had taken with the Maréchal de Mouchy and his wife. “I went to the Palais de Justice, and succeeded in entering the court. I stood very near, with my eyes fixed upon them during a quarter of an hour. M. and Madame de Mouchy, whom I had only seen once at their own house, and whom I knew better than they knew me, could not distinguish me in the crowd. God inspired me, and with His help I did all I could for them. The Maréchal was singularly edifying, and prayed aloud with all his heart. “The day before, on leaving the Luxembourg, he had said to those who had given him marks of sympathy: ‘At seventeen years of age I entered the breach for my king; at seventy-seven I mount the scaffold for my God; my friends, I am not to be pitied.’ “I avoid details which would become interminable. That day I thought it useless to go as far as the guillotine; besides, my courage failed me. This was ominous for the fulfilment of the promise I had made to their relations, who were thrown into the deepest affliction by this catastrophe. They had all been confined in the same prison, and had thus been of great comfort to each other.