men in black; at last convicted of poniards made to order; convicted ‘Chevaliers of the Poniard!’ Within is as the burning ship; without is as the deep sea.  Within is no help; his Majesty, looking forth, one moment, from his interior sanctuaries, coldly bids all visitors ‘give up their weapons;’ and shuts the door again.  The weapons given up form a heap:  the convicted Chevaliers of the poniard keep descending pellmell, with impetuous velocity; and at the bottom of all staircases, the mixed multitude receives them, hustles, buffets, chases and disperses them. (Hist.  Parl. ix. 139-48.)

Such sight meets Lafayette, in the dusk of the evening, as he returns, successful with difficulty at Vincennes:  Sansculotte Scylla hardly weathered, here is Aristocrat Charybdis gurgling under his lee!  The patient Hero of two Worlds almost loses temper.  He accelerates, does not retard, the flying Chevaliers; delivers, indeed, this or the other hunted Loyalist of quality, but rates him in bitter words, such as the hour suggested; such as no saloon could pardon.  Hero ill-bested; hanging, so to speak, in mid-air; hateful to Rich divinities above; hateful to Indigent mortals below!  Duke de Villequier, Gentleman of the Chamber, gets such contumelious rating, in presence of all people there, that he may see good first to exculpate himself in the Newspapers; then, that not prospering, to retire over the Frontiers, and begin plotting at Brussels. (Montgaillard, ii. 286.) His Apartment will stand vacant; usefuller, as we may find, than when it stood occupied.

So fly the Chevaliers of the Poniard; hunted of Patriotic men, shamefully in the thickening dusk.  A dim miserable business; born of darkness; dying away there in the thickening dusk and dimness!  In the midst of which, however, let the reader discern clearly one figure running for its life:  Crispin-Cataline d’Espremenil,—­for the last time, or the last but one.  It is not yet three years since these same Centre Grenadiers, Gardes Francaises then, marched him towards the Calypso Isles, in the gray of the May morning; and he and they have got thus far.  Buffeted, beaten down, delivered by popular Petion, he might well answer bitterly:  “And I too, Monsieur, have been carried on the People’s shoulders.” (See Mercier, ii. 40, 202.) A fact which popular Petion, if he like, can meditate.

But happily, one way and another, the speedy night covers up this ignominious Day of Poniards; and the Chevaliers escape, though maltreated, with torn coat-skirts and heavy hearts, to their respective dwelling-houses.  Riot twofold is quelled; and little blood shed, if it be not insignificant blood from the nose:  Vincennes stands undemolished, reparable; and the Hereditary Representative has not been stolen, nor the Queen smuggled into Prison.  A Day long remembered:  commented on with loud hahas and deep grumblings; with bitter scornfulness of triumph, bitter rancour of defeat.  Royalism, as usual, imputes it to d’Orleans and the Anarchists intent on insulting Majesty:  Patriotism, as usual, to Royalists, and even Constitutionalists, intent on stealing Majesty to Metz:  we, also as usual, to Preternatural Suspicion, and Phoebus Apollo having made himself like the Night.