before me; I have been a faint and slow follower of that glorious freedom which now calls aloud on all her worshippers for the most entire devotion; and yet I have shrank back from the appointed duty. Amalie, come with me—be my inspiration; feel as I feel, think as I think, cast aside the idle prejudices of a selfish and profligate court, and be repaid by passion as fervent, as fond, and as faithful as ever beat in man's heart for the woman of his first and only love."
"This is really too much of a good thing," thought the countess, whose mind wandered from the love before her to the scandal and ridicule likely to be caused by her flight. "Il faut respecter les convenances," was her chilling reply.
Julian dropped her hands, and approached the door; he opened it, but he lingered on the threshold. "Do you let me go, Amalie?" whispered he, in a scarcely audible voice.
"I am sure," replied Madame de Boufflers, pettishly, "you have not been so agreeable that I should wish to detain you."
The door closed, and his rapid steps were heard descending the narrow staircase; at length they died away.
"I really must put an end to this affair, it is becoming troublesome; my young republican is growing pedante et despote. He has none of the graces of my cousin Eugene." And Madame de Boufflers threw herself into the fauteuil, and indulged in a discontented reverie, in which Julian’s faults and Eugene’s merits occupied conspicuous places; together with the garniture of a new species of sandal which she meditated producing. In the meantime Julian pursued his way through the dark and dreary streets, suffering that agony of disappointed affection which the heart can know but once. Love is very blind indeed, but let the veil once be removed, though but for a moment, and it never can be replaced again. Then how quicksighted do we become to the errors of our past worship, and mortification adds bitterness to regret. “And is it for one,” exclaimed he, "who holds the factitious advantage of a name, to be better worth than my deep love, that I have sacrificed the cause to which I was vowed, and have paused on the noblest path to which man ever devoted his energies? But the weakness is over; a terrible bond shall be made with Liberty—Liberty henceforth my only hope, my only mistress!"
The evil spirit of love left his soul for a moment, but returned, though with a strange and lurid aspect, bringing with him other and worse spirits than himself—hate, revenge, blood-thirstiness—all merged in and coloured by the excited and fanatic temper of the time. He stopped before a large hotel, from whose windows the red light glared, as if it mocked the
