THREE:All this was little less than madness on the part of the royal family. They knew that the army at large was disaffected to royalty, and of what avail were two regiments? If they really sought to escape, it could only have been done by the utmost quiet and caution. The Flanders regiment could have guarded them. But now the certain consequence must be to rouse all the fury of Paris, and bring it down upon them. This was the instant result. Paris, in alarm, cried, "To Versailles!" On the night of the 4th of October the streets were thronged with excited people; the National Guard were under arms everywhere, and maintained some degree of order. On the morning of the 5th the women took up the matter. They found no bread at the bakers', and they collected in crowds, and determined to march to the H?tel de Ville, and demand it of the mayor. The women had refused to allow the men to join them, declaring that they were not fit for the work they were going to do; but numbers had followed them, better armed than themselves, and they now assisted them to break open doors, where they obtained seven or eight hundred muskets, three bags of money and two small cannon. As they were proceeding to make a bonfire of the papers, which would probably have burnt the whole place down, the commander of the National Guard gave up the matter in despair; but one Stanislas Maillard, a riding-messenger of the municipality, with more address, called out to them to desist; that there was a much better thing to do��to march at once to Versailles, and compel the Court to furnish bread, and that he would be their leader. He seized a drum and beat it; the women cried lustily, "To Versailles!" Some ran to the tower of the H?tel and sounded the tocsin. The bells soon began to ring out from every steeple in Paris; the whole population was afloat; the men and women, armed with all sorts of weapons, followed their new leader, who had been one of the heroes of the[368] Bastille, and he marched them to the Champs Elys��es. There he arranged his motley and ever-increasing army: the women in a compact body in the middle, the men in front and rear. Horses, waggons, carriages of all kinds, were seized on wherever they were seen; some of these were harnessed to the cannon, and then Maillard, drumming at their head, put his army in motion, and on they went towards Versailles, stopping every carriage that they met, and compelling even ladies to turn again and accompany them.

THREE:The name of the prisoner was Edward Oxford. He was about eighteen years of age, and of an[472] unprepossessing countenance. He was a native of Birmingham, which town he had left nine years before. He was last employed at a public-house, "The Hog in the Pond," at the corner of South Molton Street and Oxford Street. His trial for high treason was begun in the Central Criminal Court on Thursday, July 9th, and ended next day. The judges were Lord Denman, Baron Alderson, and Justice Patteson. The jury returned the following special verdict:��"We find the prisoner, Edward Oxford, guilty of discharging the contents of two pistols, but whether or not they were loaded with ball has not been satisfactorily proved to us, he being of unsound mind at the time." An argument followed between counsel as to whether this verdict amounted to an absolute acquittal, or an acquittal on the ground of insanity. Lord Denman said that the jury were in a mistake. It was necessary that they should form an opinion as to whether the pistols were loaded with bullets or not; but it appeared they had not applied their minds to that point, and therefore it would be necessary that they should again retire, and say aye or no. Did the prisoner fire a pistol loaded with ball at the Queen? After considerable discussion upon the point, the jury again retired to consider their verdict. During their absence the question was again argued, and it appeared to be the opinion of the judges that the jury were bound to return a verdict of "Guilty" or "Not Guilty" upon the evidence brought before them. After an absence of an hour they returned into court, finding the prisoner "guilty, he being at the same time insane." The sentence was that he should be imprisoned during her Majesty's pleasure, according to the Act 40 George III., providing for cases where crimes were committed by insane persons.

THREE:The Swiss acted a more cautious part. Fearful that Napoleon might yet, by some other wonderful chance, regain his power, they summoned a Diet, passed an order for the neutrality of the cantons, and issued an order calling on the Allies to respect this, and not attempt to march troops through their country. This would have suited Buonaparte extremely well, as it would have closed his eastern frontiers to the Austrians, who were marching that way under Count Bubna; but the Austrians informed the Swiss authorities that they should certainly march through; and the Allied sovereigns dispatched Count Capo d'Istria and Herr Lebzeltern to Zurich to state that the power of France over Switzerland was at an end, and to desire them to send deputies to meet them, and to establish an independent government for Switzerland. Thus assured, the greater part of the cantons sent their deputies to Zurich, who proclaimed the restoration of national independence, and gave free consent for the armies of the Allies to march through the country.The conduct of the Government in reference to the Congress was the subject of an animated debate in the House of Commons, which began on April 28th and lasted three days. It was on a motion for a Vote of Censure for the feebleness of tone assumed by the Government in the negotiations with the Allies, an amendment having been proposed expressive of gratitude and approbation. In Mr. Canning's speech on the third day there was one remarkable passage, which clearly defined his foreign policy, and showed that it had a distinct purpose, and aimed at an object of the highest importance. He said:��"I contend, sir, that whatever might grow out of a separate conflict between Spain and France (though matter for grave consideration) was less to be dreaded than that all the Great Powers of the Continent should have been arrayed together against Spain; and that although the first object, in point of importance, indeed, was to keep the peace altogether, to prevent any war against Spain, the first in point of time was to prevent a general war; to change the question from one affecting the Allies on the one side and Spain on the other, to a question between nation and nation. This, whatever the result might be, would reduce the quarrel to the size of ordinary events, and bring it within the scope of ordinary diplomacy. The immediate object of England, therefore, was to hinder the impress of a joint-character from being affixed to the war, if war there must be, with Spain; to take care that the war should not grow out of an assumed jurisdiction of the Congress; to keep within reasonable bounds that predominating areopagitical spirit which the memorandum of the British Cabinet of May, 1820, describes as beyond the sphere of the original conception and understood principles of the alliance��an alliance never intended as a union for the government of the world, or for the superintendence of the internal affairs of other states; and this, I say, was accomplished."

THREE:The next great architect of this period is Sir John Vanbrugh, who, when in the zenith of his fame as a dramatic writer, suddenly started forth as an architect, and had the honour of erecting Castle Howard, the seat of the Earl of Carlisle; Blenheim House, built for the Duke of Marlborough, in reward of his victories; Duncomb Hall, Yorkshire; King's Weston, in Gloucestershire; Oulton Hall, Cheshire; Grimsthorpe, in Lincolnshire; Eastbury, in Dorsetshire, now destroyed; and Seaton Delaval, in Northumberland, since partly destroyed by fire. Besides these, he built the opera house, also destroyed by fire. In all these there is a strong similarity, and as a general effect, a certain magnificence; but, when examined in detail, they too frequently resolve themselves into a row of individual designs merely arranged side by side. This is very much the case with the long fa?ade of Blenheim. There is a barbaric splendour, but it has no pervading unity, and only differs from the Italian manner of Wren by a much bolder and profuser use of the Grecian columns and pilasters. In fact, the architecture of the whole of this period is of a hybrid character, the classical more or less modified and innovated to adapt it to modern purposes and the austerity of a northern climate.