Less fortunate were the Prisoners of Orleans; was the good Duke de la Rochefoucault.  He journeying, by quick stages, with his Mother and Wife, towards the Waters of Forges, or some quieter country, was arrested at Gisors; conducted along the streets, amid effervescing multitudes, and killed dead ’by the stroke of a paving-stone hurled through the coach-window.’  Killed as a once Liberal now Aristocrat; Protector of Priests, Suspender of virtuous Petions, and his unfortunate Hot-grown-cold, detestable to Patriotism.  He dies lamented of Europe; his blood spattering the cheeks of his old Mother, ninety-three years old.

As for the Orleans Prisoners, they are State Criminals:  Royalist Ministers, Delessarts, Montmorins; who have been accumulating on the High Court of Orleans, ever since that Tribunal was set up.  Whom now it seems good that we should get transferred to our new Paris Court of the Seventeenth; which proceeds far quicker.  Accordingly hot Fournier from Martinique, Fournier l’Americain, is off, missioned by Constituted Authority; with stanch National Guards, with Lazouski the Pole; sparingly provided with road-money.  These, through bad quarters, through difficulties, perils, for Authorities cross each other in this time,—­do triumphantly bring off the Fifty or Fifty-three Orleans Prisoners, towards Paris; where a swifter Court of the Seventeenth will do justice on them. (Ibid. xvii. 434.) But lo, at Paris, in the interim, a still swifter and swiftest Court of the Second, and of September, has instituted itself:  enter not Paris, or that will judge you!—­What shall hot Fournier do?  It was his duty, as volunteer Constable, had he been a perfect character, to guard those men’s lives never so Aristocratic, at the expense of his own valuable life never so Sansculottic, till some Constituted Court had disposed of them.  But he was an imperfect character and Constable; perhaps one of the more imperfect.

Hot Fournier, ordered to turn thither by one Authority, to turn thither by another Authority, is in a perplexing multiplicity of orders; but finally he strikes off for Versailles.  His Prisoners fare in tumbrils, or open carts, himself and Guards riding and marching around:  and at the last village, the worthy Mayor of Versailles comes to meet him, anxious that the arrival and locking up were well over.  It is Sunday, the ninth day of the month.  Lo, on entering the Avenue of Versailles, what multitudes, stirring, swarming in the September sun, under the dull-green September foliage; the Four-rowed Avenue all humming and swarming, as if the Town had emptied itself!  Our tumbrils roll heavily through the living sea; the Guards and Fournier making way with ever more difficulty; the Mayor speaking and gesturing his persuasivest; amid the inarticulate growling hum, which growls ever the deeper even by hearing itself growl, not without sharp yelpings here and there:—­Would to God we were out of this strait place, and wind and separation had cooled the heat, which seems about igniting here!