And had the flight of time wrought no change in the fortunes of _the boy of the wreck_? In a land like ours, industry and perseverance eke out their reward, and fostered by the liberal and equalizing spirit of our institutions, Harwood's concentrated energies found ample opportunity to develop themselves. His tale won for him the favorable notice of a philanthropist, and his integrity and devotion to the sternest duties, gained him his friendship—so that the homeless, beggared stripling of a few years past, found himself embarked upon the sea of commerce, aided by friendly winds, on his course to fortune and esteem; and although he could urge no pretensions to ancestral honors, yet in republican America, where aristocracy is but the idle misnomer of faction, and man is judged by the standard of his moral excellence, Harwood became one of her genuine aristocracy—one of her merchant nobles! The bells that rung out the consummation of the nuptial rites, tortured not the ears of the jilted lover—he was ploughing the waves on his return. CHAP. III.—REVERSES. “For mortal pleasure—what art thou in truth? The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below.” There was slaughter in the streets of Paris! Revolution,—not the revolution of a shackled and indignant people rising to assert their rights,—but of a wild mob, “The scum That rises upmost when a nation boils,” stalked in the palaces of the mighty, desecrating their ancestral domes, and treading down with demoniac fury the trophied honors of their sires. Faction—lawless and unprincipled faction—usurped the tribunals of justice—its acts were the dethronement of kings, ratified in the blood of princes. The headless trunk of the Bourbon was cast beneath the feet of his people in their fury, and to weep for him was to share his fate! The regal Antoinette too—the fairest, yet alas! the most hapless of the daughters of Lorraine—was dragged to the accursed block, and in rapid succession her chivalrous defenders kissed the guillotine, reeking with the blood of their sovereigns. The fell tiger Anarchy, was abroad in Gallia, and his fangs rent asunder the {499} life-strings of all who owned not his sway, while the wild shouts that ushered in the blood-washed republic was mingled with the wail of France for her slaughtered and dishonored chivalry. Marmonti witnessed the decapitation of his royal relative, and heard from his cell the cry that told the murder of the queen. A blank of a few days ensued—he was dragged from his dungeon—a dash in the records of the criminal tribunal, and all that remained of Frederick, Duke of Marmonti, was his lifeless and mangled corpse. Did the wife of Marmonti share the grave of her lord?