"Citizens, the tyrant is fallen under the sword of the law. This great act of justice has struck consternation to the hearts of the aristocracy, annihilated the superstition of royalty, and created the Republic. It imparts a character of grandeur to the Convention, and makes it worthy the confidence of France. The imposing and majestic attitude of the people in this solemn hour will cause the tyrants of earth more terror than even the death of their fellow. A profound silence surrounded the scaffold up to the moment the head of Louis XVI fell. That instant, the air shook with the unanimous shout of a hundred thousand citizens, 'Long live the Republic!' It was not the barbarous curiosity of men who came to feast their eyes on the death of a fellow-being; it was the powerful interest of a people, impassioned for liberty, and assuring itself of the fact that royalty had breathed its last.... Formerly, when a King died at Versailles, the reign of his successor was immediately ushered in to the tune of 'The King is dead, long live the King!' as if to make the nation understand that despotism was immortal. This time, a whole people, with a sublime instinct, acclaimed: 'Long live the Republic,' to teach a universe that tyranny had died with the tyrant." May the same lot be reserved for all the Kings. CHAPTER XX. MARRIAGE OF JOHN LEBRENN. Under date of January 26, 1793, the diary of John Lebrenn bears the record, without comment: "To-day I espoused Charlotte Desmarais." Despite the circular addressed by advocate Desmarais to his colleagues in the Convention, and in which he fixed as the date for his daughter's wedding the day of the tyrant's death, Charlotte, without regard for her father's very lively disappointment, and unmindful of his reiterated importunities, would not consent to be married until the 26th of January. With his habitual calculation, considering the union merely as a precaution, the lawyer had chosen Robespierre and Marat as witnesses to the ceremony; those selected by John Lebrenn were Billaud-Varenne and Legendre. The municipal officer of the Section received the vows of the young couple in his office on the evening after the Convention session of January 26. John Lebrenn had several days previously obtained from his old employer, Master Gervais, the deed of his smithy and the lease of the house. The preparations, the modest embellishments of his future home, were finished on the eve of his marriage. After returning from the offices of the Section, the young couple received the pledges and felicitations of the witnesses, and presently were left alone with Madam Desmarais and her husband, who said to John: "My dear son-in-law, I leave you an instant to go to look up my daughter's dowry and present it to you." When Desmarais left the room, his wife addressed her daughter and new-found son: