Whole families have come.  One whole family we see clearly, of three generations:  the father picking, the mother shovelling, the young ones wheeling assiduous; old grandfather, hoary with ninety-three years, holds in his arms the youngest of all:  (Mercier. ii. 76, &c.) frisky, not helpful this one; who nevertheless may tell it to his grandchildren; and how the Future and the Past alike looked on, and with failing or with half-formed voice, faltered their ca-ira.  A vintner has wheeled in, on Patriot truck, beverage of wine:  “Drink not, my brothers, if ye are not dry; that your cask may last the longer;” neither did any drink, but men ‘evidently exhausted.’  A dapper Abbe looks on, sneering.  “To the barrow!” cry several; whom he, lest a worse thing befal him, obeys:  nevertheless one wiser Patriot barrowman, arriving now, interposes his “arretez;” setting down his own barrow, he snatches the Abbe’s; trundles it fast, like an infected thing; forth of the Champ-de-Mars circuit, and discharges it there.  Thus too a certain person (of some quality, or private capital, to appearance), entering hastily, flings down his coat, waistcoat and two watches, and is rushing to the thick of the work:  “But your watches?” cries the general voice.—­“Does one distrust his brothers?” answers he; nor were the watches stolen.  How beautiful is noble-sentiment:  like gossamer gauze, beautiful and cheap; which will stand no tear and wear!  Beautiful cheap gossamer gauze, thou film-shadow of a raw-material of Virtue, which art not woven, nor likely to be, into Duty; thou art better than nothing, and also worse!

Young Boarding-school Boys, College Students, shout Vive la Nation, and regret that they have yet ‘only their sweat to give.’  What say we of Boys?  Beautifullest Hebes; the loveliest of Paris, in their light air-robes, with riband-girdle of tricolor, are there; shovelling and wheeling with the rest; their Hebe eyes brighter with enthusiasm, and long hair in beautiful dishevelment:  hard-pressed are their small fingers; but they make the patriot barrow go, and even force it to the summit of the slope (with a little tracing, which what man’s arm were not too happy to lend?)—­then bound down with it again, and go for more; with their long locks and tricolors blown back:  graceful as the rosy Hours.  O, as that evening Sun fell over the Champ-de-Mars, and tinted with fire the thick umbrageous boscage that shelters it on this hand and on that, and struck direct on those Domes and two-and-forty Windows of the Ecole Militaire, and made them all of burnished gold,—­saw he on his wide zodiac road other such sight?  A living garden spotted and dotted with such flowerage; all colours of the prism; the beautifullest blent friendly with the usefullest; all growing and working brotherlike there, under one warm feeling, were it but for days; once and no second time!  But Night is sinking; these Nights too, into Eternity.  The hastiest Traveller Versailles-ward has drawn bridle on the heights of Chaillot:  and looked for moments over the River; reporting at Versailles what he saw, not without tears. (Mercier, ii. 81.)