precious!

[Pg 713]

'The Marchioness, recovering her strength with her hopes, seized the arm of the messenger of this heavenly news, hurrying him along with a force nearly supernatural, and calling out aloud herself, from the instant that she entered the market place, "Un sursit! Un sursit!"[11]

'"Now, then," cried the commissary, "come with me to the mayoralty;" and was taking my no longer withheld, but shaking hand, when some soldiers abruptly informed him than an insurrection had broken out at ——, which demanded his immediate presence.

'I caught this moment of his engaged attention to find my way down stairs, and into the market-place: but not with a view to escape; every feeling of my soul was concentrated in the safety of the Bishop. I rushed forward, I forced my way through the throng, which, though at first it opposed my steps, no sooner looked at me than, intimidated by my desperation, or affected by my agony, it facilitated my passage. Rapidly I overtook the Marchioness, whose age, whose dignified energy, and loud cries of Reprieve! made way for her through every impediment, whether of crowd or of guards, to the scaffolding. How we accomplished it, nevertheless, I now wonder! But a sense of right, when asserted with courage, is lodged in the lowest, the vilest of mankind;—a sense of right, an awe of justice, and a propensity to sympathize with acute distress! The reprieve which our cries had[Pg 714] anticipated, and which the man whom we accompanied confirmed, was received by the multitude, from an ardent and universal respect to the well known excellencies of the Bishop, with shouts of applause that exalted our joy at his deliverance into a felicity which we thought celestial! At his venerable feet we prostrated ourselves, as if he had been a martyr to religion, and already was sainted. He was greatly affected; though perhaps only by our emotion; for he looked too uncertain how this event had been brought to bear, to partake of our happiness; and at me he cast an eye so full of compassion, yet so interrogative, that mine sunk under it; and, far from exulting that I had thus devoted myself to his preservation, I was already trembling at the acknowledgement I had to make, when I was suddenly seized by a soldier, who forced me, from all the tenderest interests of my heart, back to the stormy commissary. Oh! what a change of scene! He roughly took me by the arm, which felt as if it were withered, and no longer a part of my frame at his touch; and, with accusations of the grossest nature, and vows the most tremendous of vengeance, compelled me to attend him to the mayoralty; deaf to my 

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