The novels of Charles Brockden Brown, consisting of Wieland;or, The transformation. Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the year 1793. Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a sleep-walker. Jane Talbot. Ormond; or, The secret witness. Clara Howard; or, The enthusiasm of love. With a memoir of the author.

THE SECRET WITNESS.

191

and tumult, such as Paris has lately exhibited and will
probably continue to exhibit?"
"Thou talkest, Constantia, in a way scarcely worthy
of thy good sense. Have I not been three years in a
camp? What are bleeding wounds and mangled corpses,
when accustomed to the daily sight of them for years?
Am I not a lover of liberty? and must I not exult in the
fall of tyrants, and. regret only that my hand had no
share in their destruction?"
"But a woman-how can the heart of woman be inured
to the shedding of blood?"
" Have women, I beseech thee, no capacity to reason
and infer? Are they less open than men to the influence
of habit? My hand never faltered when liberty demanded the victim. If thou wert with me at Paris, I
could show thee a fusil of two barrels, which is precious
beyond any other relic, merely because it enabled me to
kill thirteen officers at Jemappe. Two of these were
emigrant nobles, whom I knew and loved before the
Revolution, but the cause they had since espoused cancelled their claims to mercy."
"What!" said the startled Constantia; "have you
fought in the ranks?"
"Certainly. Hundreds of my sex have done the
same. Some were impelled by the enthusiasm of love,
and some by a, mere passion for war; some by the contagion of example; and some-with whom I myself must
be ranked-by a generous devotion to liberty. Brunswick and Saxe-Coburg had to contend with whole regiments of women,-regiments they would have formed,
if they had been collected into separate bodies.
"I will tell thee a secret. Thou wouldst never have
seen Martinette de Beauvais, if Brunswick had deferred
one day longer his orders for retreating into Germany."
"How so?"
"She would have died by her own hand."
"What could lead to such an outrage?"
"The love of liberty."
" I cannot comprehend how that love should prompt
you to suicide."
"I will tell thee. The plan was formed, and could