But mark also, precisely while the Prussian batteries were playing their briskest at Longwi in the North-East, and our dastardly Lavergne saw nothing for it but surrender,—­south-westward, in remote, patriarchal La Vendee, that sour ferment about Nonjuring Priests, after long working, is ripe, and explodes:  at the wrong moment for us!  And so we have ’eight thousand Peasants at Chatillon-sur-Sevre,’ who will not be ballotted for soldiers; will not have their Curates molested.  To whom Bonchamps, Laroche-jaquelins, and Seigneurs enough, of a Royalist turn, will join themselves; with Stofflets and Charettes; with Heroes and Chouan Smugglers; and the loyal warmth of a simple people, blown into flame and fury by theological and seignorial bellows!  So that there shall be fighting from behind ditches, death-volleys bursting out of thickets and ravines of rivers; huts burning, feet of the pitiful women hurrying to refuge with their children on their back; seedfields fallow, whitened with human bones;—­’eighty thousand, of all ages, ranks, sexes, flying at once across the Loire,’ with wail borne far on the winds:  and, in brief, for years coming, such a suite of scenes as glorious war has not offered in these late ages, not since our Albigenses and Crusadings were over,—­save indeed some chance Palatinate, or so, we might have to ‘burn,’ by way of exception.  The ‘eight thousand at Chatillon’ will be got dispelled for the moment; the fire scattered, not extinguished.  To the dints and bruises of outward battle there is to be added henceforth a deadlier internal gangrene.

This rising in La Vendee reports itself at Paris on Wednesday the 29th of August;—­just as we had got our Electors elected; and, in spite of Brunswick’s and Longwi’s teeth, were hoping still to have a National Convention, if it pleased Heaven.  But indeed, otherwise, this Wednesday is to be regarded as one of the notablest Paris had yet seen:  gloomy tidings come successively, like Job’s messengers; are met by gloomy answers.  Of Sardinia rising to invade the South-East, and Spain threatening the South, we do not speak.  But are not the Prussians masters of Longwi (treacherously yielded, one would say); and preparing to besiege Verdun?  Clairfait and his Austrians are encompassing Thionville; darkening the North.  Not Metz-land now, but the Clermontais is getting harried; flying hulans and huzzars have been seen on the Chalons Road, almost as far as Sainte-Menehould.  Heart, ye Patriots, if ye lose heart, ye lose all!

It is not without a dramatic emotion that one reads in the Parliamentary Debates of this Wednesday evening ‘past seven o’clock,’ the scene with the military fugitives from Longwi.  Wayworn, dusty, disheartened, these poor men enter the Legislative, about sunset or after; give the most pathetic detail of the frightful pass they were in:—­Prussians billowing round by the myriad, volcanically spouting fire for fifteen hours:  we, scattered sparse on the ramparts, hardly a cannoneer to two guns; our