So far from this, his moments were bitter, and his anguish would have been extreme, were it not for a high resolution which prompted him to die, as he fancied it, like _un Francais_.

The numerous executions by the guillotine had brought fortitude under such circumstances into a sort of fashion, and there were few who did not meet death with decorum.

With our prisoner, however, it was still different; for, sustained by a dauntless spirit, he would have faced the great tyrant of the race, even in his most ruthless mood, with firmness, if not with disdain.

But, to a young man and a lover, the last great change could not well approach without bringing with it a feeling of hopelessness that, in the case of Raoul, was unrelieved by any cheering expectations of the future.

He fully believed his doom to be sealed, and that less on account of his imaginary offence as a spy than on account of the known and extensive injuries he had done to the English commerce.
Raoul was a good hater; and, according to the fashion of past times, which we apprehend, in spite of a vast deal of equivocal philanthropy that now circulates freely from mouth to mouth, and from pen to pen, will continue to be the fashion of times to come, he heartily disliked the people with whom he was at war, and consequently was ready to believe anything to their prejudice that political rivalry might invent; a frame of mind that led him to think his life would be viewed as a trifle, when put in the scales against English ascendency or English profit.