It was a rash errand!  For how can the strolling multitudes credit such a thing; or do other indeed than hoot at it, provoking, and provoked;—­till Grenadier sabres stir in the scabbard, and a sharp shriek rises:  “A nous Marseillais, Help Marseillese!” Quick as lightning, for the frugal repast is not yet served, that Marseillese Tavern flings itself open:  by door, by window; running, bounding, vault forth the Five hundred and Seventeen undined Patriots; and, sabre flashing from thigh, are on the scene of controversy.  Will ye parley, ye Grenadier Captains and official Persons; ’with faces grown suddenly pale,’ the Deponents say? (Moniteur, Seances du 30, du 31 Juillet 1792 Hist.  Parl. xvi. 197-210.) Advisabler were instant moderately swift retreat!  The Filles-Saint-Thomas retreat, back foremost; then, alas, face foremost, at treble-quick time; the Marseillese, according to a Deponent, “clearing the fences and ditches after them like lions:  Messieurs, it was an imposing spectacle.”

Thus they retreat, the Marseillese following.  Swift and swifter, towards the Tuileries:  where the Drawbridge receives the bulk of the fugitives; and, then suddenly drawn up, saves them; or else the green mud of the Ditch does it.  The bulk of them; not all; ah, no!  Moreau de Saint-Mery for example, being too fat, could not fly fast; he got a stroke, flat-stroke only, over the shoulder-blades, and fell prone;—­and disappears there from the History of the Revolution.  Cuts also there were, pricks in the posterior fleshy parts; much rending of skirts, and other discrepant waste.  But poor Sub-lieutenant Duhamel, innocent Change-broker, what a lot for him!  He turned on his pursuer, or pursuers, with a pistol; he fired and missed; drew a second pistol, and again fired and missed; then ran:  unhappily in vain.  In the Rue Saint-Florentin, they clutched him; thrust him through, in red rage:  that was the end of the New Era, and of all Eras, to poor Duhamel.

Pacific readers can fancy what sort of grace-before-meat this was to frugal Patriotism.  Also how the Battalion of the Filles-Saint-Thomas ‘drew out in arms,’ luckily without further result; how there was accusation at the Bar of the Assembly, and counter-accusation and defence; Marseillese challenging the sentence of free jury court,—­which never got to a decision.  We ask rather, What the upshot of all these distracted wildly accumulating things may, by probability, be?  Some upshot; and the time draws nigh!  Busy are Central Committees, of Federes at the Jacobins Church, of Sections at the Townhall; Reunion of Carra, Camille and Company at the Golden Sun.  Busy:  like submarine deities, or call them mud-gods, working there in the deep murk of waters:  till the thing be ready.