"About nine o'clock this morning the King passed by my window, moving silently along excepting now and then a few strokes on the drum, which rendered the stillness more awful through empty streets... I can scarcely tell you why, but an association of ideas made the tears flow insensibly from my eyes, when I saw Louis, sitting with more dignity than I expected from his character, in a hackney coach, going to meet death where so many of his race have triumphed... I have been alone ever since, and though my mind is calm, I cannot dismiss the lively images that have filled my imagination all the day. Nay, do not smile, but pity me; for once or twice, lifting my eyes from the paper, I have seen eyes glare through a glass door opposite my chair, and bloody hands shook at me... I wish I had even kept the cat with me! I want to see something alive; death, in so many frightful shapes, has taken hold of my fancy. I am going to bed, and for the first time in my life I cannot put out the candle."