Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 6.djvu/68

 246 WORKMEN AND HEROES And now look up, daughter of the Caesars ! Thou art waked / rom dreams of hope and light, from the imaged embrace of thy beloved Louis, thy tender in- fants, by a kind voice, choked by tears. Arise ! emancipated one, thy prison doors are open. Freedom, freedom is at hand ! Immediately in front of the palace of the Tuileries scene of the short months of her wedded happiness there rises a dark, ominous mass. Around is a sea of human faces ; above, the cold frown of a winter's sky. With a firm step the vic- tim ascends the stairs of the scaffold, her white garments wave in the chill breeze, a black ribbon by which her cap is confined beats to and fro against her pale cheeks. You may see that she is unmindful of her executioners she glances, nay, almost smiles, at the sharp edge of the guillotine, and then turning her eyes toward the Temple, utters, in a few agitated words, her last earthly farewell to Louis and her children. There is a hush a stillness of the grave for the very headsman trembles as the horrible blade falls anon, a moment's delay. And now, look ! No, rather veil your eyes from the dreadful sight ; close your ears to that fiendish shout Vive la Ripublique ! It is over ! the sacrifice is accom- plished ! the weary spirit is at rest ! Let us dwell upon this last mournful pageant only sufficiently far as to imi- tate the virtues, and emulate the firmness and resignation with which she met her doom. Nothing is permitted without a meaning, all is for either warning or example ; and while breathing a prayer that Heaven may avert a recurrence of such outrages, let us remember that moral indecision, the undue love of pleas- ure, and an aimless, profitless mode of life, as surely, and not less fatally, may raise the surging tide of events no human skill can quell, as the most selfish abandonment to uncontrolled desires. ANDREAS HOFER (i 767-1810) [ndreas Hofer, a native of the village of St. Leonard, in the valley of Passeyr, was born on November 22, 1767. During the greater part of his life he resided peaceably in his own neighborhood, where he kept an inn, and increased his profits by dealing in wine, corn, and cattle. About his neck he wore at all times a small crucifix and a medal of St. George. He never held any rank in the Austrian army ; but he had formed a secret connection with the Archduke John, when that prince had passed a few weeks in the Tyrol making scientific researches. In November, 1805, Hofer was appointed deputy from his native valley at the con- ference of Brunnecken, and again at a second conference, held at Vienna, in Jan- uary, 1809.