O Reader; there are few debates like it:  dull reporting Moniteur itself becomes more dramatic than a very Shakespeare.  For epigrammatic Manuel rises, speaks strange things; how the President shall have a guard of honour, and lodge in the Tuileries:—­rejected.  And Danton rises and speaks; and Collot d’Herbois rises, and Curate Gregoire, and lame Couthon of the Mountain rises; and in rapid Meliboean stanzas, only a few lines each, they propose motions not a few:  That the corner-stone of our new Constitution is Sovereignty of the People; that our Constitution shall be accepted by the People or be null; further that the People ought to be avenged, and have right Judges; that the Imposts must continue till new order; that Landed and other Property be sacred forever; finally that ’Royalty from this day is abolished in France:’—­Decreed all, before four o’clock strike, with acclamation of the world! (Hist.  Parl. xix. 19.) The tree was all so ripe; only shake it and there fall such yellow cart-loads.

And so over in the Valmy Region, as soon as the news come, what stir is this, audible, visible from our muddy heights of La Lune? (Williams, iii. 71.) Universal shouting of the French on their opposite hillside; caps raised on bayonets; and a sound as of Republique; Vive la Republique borne dubious on the winds!—­On the morrow morning, so to speak, Brunswick slings his knapsacks before day, lights any fires he has; and marches without tap of drum.  Dumouriez finds ghastly symptoms in that camp; ‘latrines full of blood!’ (1st October, 1792; Dumouriez, iii. 73.) The chivalrous King of Prussia, for he as we saw is here in person, may long rue the day; may look colder than ever on these dulled-bright Seigneurs, and French Princes their Country’s hope;—­and, on the whole, put on his great-coat without ceremony, happy that he has one.  They retire, all retire with convenient despatch, through a Champagne trodden into a quagmire, the wild weather pouring on them; Dumouriez through his Kellermanns and Dillons pricking them a little in the hinder parts.  A little, not much; now pricking, now negotiating:  for Brunswick has his eyes opened; and the Majesty of Prussia is a repentant Majesty.

Nor has Austria prospered, nor the Wooden Horse of Thionville bitten his hay; nor Lille City surrendered itself.  The Lille trenches opened, on the 29th of the month; with balls and shells, and redhot balls; as if not trenches but Vesuvius and the Pit had opened.  It was frightful, say all eye-witnesses; but it is ineffectual.  The Lillers have risen to such temper; especially after these news from Argonne and the East.  Not a Sans-indispensables in Lille that would surrender for a King’s ransom.  Redhot balls rain, day and night; ‘six-thousand,’ or so, and bombs ’filled internally with oil of turpentine which splashes up in flame;’—­mainly on the dwellings of the Sansculottes and Poor; the streets of the Rich being spared.  But the Sansculottes get water-pails; form quenching-regulations, “The