It is yellow July evening, we say, the 13th of the month. Marat sits, about half-past seven of the clock, stewing in slipper-bath, sore, afflicted, ill of Revolution fever--of what other malady this history had rather not name. Excessively sick and worn, poor man; with precisely elevenpence-half-penny in paper; with slipper-bath, strong three-footed stool for writing on the while, and a squalid--washerwoman, one may call her; that is his civic establishment in Medical-School Street; thither and not elsewhither has his road led him. Not to the reign of brotherhood and perfect felicity; yet surely on the way towards that. Hark! a rap again! A musical woman's voice, refusing to be rejected: it is the citoyenne who would do France a service. Marat, recognising from within, cries--Admit her. Charlotte Corday is admitted. "Citoyen Marat, I am from Caen, the seat of rebellion, and wished to speak with you." "Be seated, _mon enfant_. Now what are the traitors doing at Caen--what deputies are at Caen?" Charlotte names some deputies. "Their heads shall fall within a fortnight," croaks the eager people's friend, clutching his tablets to write: _Barbaroux, Petion_, writes he, with bare, shrunk arm, turning aside in the bath; _Petion_ and _Louvet_, and--Charlotte has drawn her knife from the sheath; plunges it, with one sure stroke, into the writer's heart. "_A moi, chere amie_--Help, dear!" no more could the death-choked say or shriek. The helpful washerwoman running in--there is no friend of the people or friend of the washerwoman left; but his life with a groan gushes out, indignant, to the shades below. On Wednesday evening, about half-past seven o'clock, from the gate of the Conciergerie, to a city all on tiptoe, the fatal cart issues; seated on it a fair young creature, sheeted in red smock of murderess; so beautiful, serene, so full of life; journeying towards death--alone amid the world. The executioners proceed to bind her feet; she resists, thinking it meant as an insult; on a word of explanation, she submits with cheerful apology. As the last act, all being now ready, they take the neckerchief from her neck; a blush of maidenly shame overspreads that fair face and neck; the cheeks were still tinged with it when the executioner lifted the severed head, to show it to the people. "It is most true," says Forster, "that he struck the cheek insultingly, for I saw it with my eyes." MADAME DE STAEL. [BORN 1766. DIED 1817.] JEFFREY.