How often does the eye rest unconsciously upon mute inanimate objects, which, had they voices, would utter tales of stirring remembrance, and to some eyes, perhaps, do seem to speak such tales.
I was remarking one evening to a friend of my mother’s, the extreme magnificence in the style of the still beautiful though faded furniture of the apartments she occupied in Paris, and in which, at that moment, a large and gay party were assembled. “True,” replied he, “and I have seen these rooms in all their splendour, whilst their lovely, though frail mistress, dispensed her fascinating smiles upon an admiring circle. This house was fitted up by the celebrated St. Amaranthe, whose fate offers one of the most striking instances of revolutionary despotism.
“It is well known that even the stern heart of the tyrant Robespierre had felt her power, but this was no security against his atrocious cruelty. He was one of thirteen guests assembled on the preceding night in the Rue de Gramont, where he had partaken of the hospitality of the beauteous hostess. The next morning, whilst employed in the duties of his toilette, his Secretary observed to him that he had drunk too freely the night before. ‘What leads you to think so?’ inquired Robespierre, ‘Your unguarded conversation, Citizen, which I do not think passed unobserved, either by St. Amaranthe or her guests.’ ‘It matters not,’ said the tyrant with apparent indifference, ‘they will do me no harm,’ writing at the same moment a note which he dispatched by a servant, and then with the utmost composure continued to shave himself.
“That note conveyed his orders for the arrest of St. Amaranthe and the eleven individuals who had supped with her, one of whom was her son, a boy of thirteen; and on the following day, the only two of the party of fourteen who were not led to the guillotine were Robespierre and his Secretary.
“St. Amaranthe dressed herself with peculiar care for her execution, and a person who by chance saw her pass in the fatal cart which conducted her to death, described to me the beauty and elegance of the figure, around which the most tastefully arranged draperies of yellow crape floated on the air.”