The Sedan Municipals obey:  but the Soldiers of the Lafayette Army?  The Soldiers of the Lafayette Army have, as all Soldiers have, a kind of dim feeling that they themselves are Sansculottes in buff belts; that the victory of the Tenth of August is also a victory for them.  They will not rise and follow Lafayette to Paris; they will rise and send him thither!  On the 18th, which is but next Saturday, Lafayette, with some two or three indignant Staff-officers, one of whom is Old-Constituent Alexandre de Lameth, having first put his Lines in what order he could,—­rides swiftly over the Marches, towards Holland.  Rides, alas, swiftly into the claws of Austrians!  He, long-wavering, trembling on the verge of the horizon, has set, in Olmutz Dungeons; this History knows him no more.  Adieu, thou Hero of two worlds; thinnest, but compact honour-worthy man!  Through long rough night of captivity, through other tumults, triumphs and changes, thou wilt swing well, ’fast-anchored to the Washington Formula;’ and be the Hero and Perfect-character, were it only of one idea.  The Sedan Municipals repent and protest; the Soldiers shout Vive la Nation.  Dumouriez Polymetis, from his Camp at Maulde, sees himself made Commander in Chief.

And, O Brunswick! what sort of ‘military execution’ will Paris merit now?  Forward, ye well-drilled exterminatory men; with your artillery-waggons, and camp kettles jingling.  Forward, tall chivalrous King of Prussia; fanfaronading Emigrants and war-god Broglie, ’for some consolation to mankind,’ which verily is not without need of some.

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

VOLUME III.

THE GUILLOTINE

BOOK 3.I.

SEPTEMBER

Chapter 3.1.I.

The Improvised Commune.

Ye have roused her, then, ye Emigrants and Despots of the world; France is roused; long have ye been lecturing and tutoring this poor Nation, like cruel uncalled-for pedagogues, shaking over her your ferulas of fire and steel:  it is long that ye have pricked and fillipped and affrighted her, there as she sat helpless in her dead cerements of a Constitution, you gathering in on her from all lands, with your armaments and plots, your invadings and truculent bullyings;—­and lo now, ye have pricked her to the quick, and she is up, and her blood is up.  The dead cerements are rent into cobwebs, and she fronts you in that terrible strength of Nature, which no man has measured, which goes down to Madness and Tophet:  see now how ye will deal with her!