’Escorted by Prussian horse came first the French Garrison.  Nothing could look stranger than this latter:  a column of Marseillese, slight, swarthy, party-coloured, in patched clothes, came tripping on;—­as if King Edwin had opened the Dwarf Hill, and sent out his nimble Host of Dwarfs.  Next followed regular troops; serious, sullen; not as if downcast or ashamed.  But the remarkablest appearance, which struck every one, was that of the Chasers (Chasseurs) coming out mounted:  they had advanced quite silent to where we stood, when their Band struck up the Marseillaise.  This Revolutionary Te-Deum has in itself something mournful and bodeful, however briskly played; but at present they gave it in altogether slow time, proportionate to the creeping step they rode at.  It was piercing and fearful, and a most serious-looking thing, as these cavaliers, long, lean men, of a certain age, with mien suitable to the music, came pacing on:  singly you might have likened them to Don Quixote; in mass, they were highly dignified.

’But now a single troop became notable:  that of the Commissioners or Representans.  Merlin of Thionville, in hussar uniform, distinguishing himself by wild beard and look, had another person in similar costume on his left; the crowd shouted out, with rage, at sight of this latter, the name of a Jacobin Townsman and Clubbist; and shook itself to seize him.  Merlin drew bridle; referred to his dignity as French Representative, to the vengeance that should follow any injury done; he would advise every one to compose himself, for this was not the last time they would see him here. (Belagerung von Maintz, Goethe’s Werke, xxx. 315.) Thus rode Merlin; threatening in defeat.  But what now shall stem that tide of Prussians setting in through the open North-East?’ Lucky, if fortified Lines of Weissembourg, and impassibilities of Vosges Mountains, confine it to French Alsace, keep it from submerging the very heart of the country!

Furthermore, precisely in the same days, Valenciennes Siege is finished, in the North-West:—­fallen, under the red hail of York!  Conde fell some fortnight since.  Cimmerian Coalition presses on.  What seems very notable too, on all these captured French Towns there flies not the Royalist fleur-de-lys, in the name of a new Louis the Pretender; but the Austrian flag flies; as if Austria meant to keep them for herself!  Perhaps General Custines, still in Paris, can give some explanation of the fall of these strong-places?  Mother Society, from tribune and gallery, growls loud that he ought to do it;—­remarks, however, in a splenetic manner that ‘the Monsieurs of the Palais Royal’ are calling, Long-life to this General.

The Mother Society, purged now, by successive ’scrutinies or epurations,’ from all taint of Girondism, has become a great Authority:  what we can call shield-bearer, or bottle-holder, nay call it fugleman, to the purged National Convention itself.  The Jacobins Debates are reported in the Moniteur, like Parliamentary ones.