The Manchester Examiner. — 1848-06-17 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

THE PROGRESS OF ENTHUSIASM.-At the period when monasteries were suppressed, Charlotte Corday was nineteen years of ye. The penury of her fathers home had increased with time. Her two brothers in the king's service had emigrated • one of her sisters was dead, the other managed her father's' poverty-stricken home at Argentan. Madame de Bretteville, the old aunt, received Charlotte into her house silence which hardly allowed the nearest at Caen, though, like her family, she was poor, living in that s obscurityanerdage and infirmities cast even a deeper gloom neighbour to be aware of the existence and name of a poor to widow. n over her condition. Charlotte aided her in domestic duties, of the ob PnallYiitilng her aunt, in the evenings, those meetings y, which the fury of the people had not wholly destroyed, anti where some remnants of the ancien rhginte were still tolerated in .their attempts to console each other, ! and in their lamentations over the state of circumstances. i Charlotte passed her days n the courtyard and garden, reading and musing. No. one interfered or directed her in any waystra de Bretteville were habits rather than convictions; and the republican sentiments of Charlotte's father had been more strained. The or less imbibed by every member of his family, inclining them all for the new ideas which had sprung up. Charlotte's frieehtleonl, religious opini and political opinions of Madame opinions, and studies were wholly unconage inclined her to the perusal of romances, which supplied visions ready drawn for unemployed minds. Her feelings led her to pursue works o f p transform Philosophy, which transfo the vague instincts of humanity into sublime theories of government; and historical productions, which convert theories into actions, and !clefts into men. She found this two-fold desire of her imagination and heart satisfied in Jean Jacques Rousseau, the philosopher of love, and the poet of politics; in Raynal, a fanatic of humanity; in Plutarch, a personification of history, who paints more than he relates, and imparts life to the events of the heroes. These three works were incessantly in her hands, whilst from time to time she read Hhloise, and works of that class. Yet, whilst her imagination was thus warmed, her mind lost none of its purity, nor her youth its chastity.. Absorbed it! the desire of loving and being loved, inspiring and sometimes experiencing the first symptoms of love, her reserve, her dependence, and destitution always repressed the avowal of such feelings. Her love, thus restrained, changed not its nature but its ideal, and became a vague, yet sublime devotion to a dream of public happiness. The passion with which she would have been inspired for some one individual consumed her in her ardour for her country, and the desire of immolating herself to this had wholly possessed h ,er —was her love or her virtue, and however bloody was the sacrifice to be, she had resolved on its consummation. She had reached that enthusiastic state of mind which is the suicide of happiness, not for the profit of glory or ambition, like Madame Roland, but for the sake of liberty and humanity, like Judith or Epichazis. She only awaited the occasion—it came, and she thought to seize it.— Lamartine's History of the Girondists.  AN