Le Blondin had organised a great and extraordinary conspiracy.  We don’t know how far it went, how many hundreds or thousands it embraced; but strange were the stories told about the plot amongst us privates:  for the news was spread from garrison to garrison, and talked of by the army, in spite of all the Government efforts to hush it up—­hush it up, indeed!  I have been of the people myself; I have seen the Irish rebellion, and I know what is the free-masonry of the poor.

He made himself the head of the plot.  There were no writings nor papers.  No single one of the conspirators communicated with any other than the Frenchman; but personally he gave his orders to them all.  He had arranged matters for a general rising of the garrison, at twelve o’clock on a certain day:  the guard-houses in the town were to be seized, the sentinels cut down, and—­who knows the rest?  Some of our people used to say that the conspiracy was spread through all Silesia, and that Le Blondin was to be made a general in the Austrian service.

At twelve o’clock, and opposite the guard-house by the Bohmer-Thor of Neiss, some thirty men were lounging about in their undress, and the Frenchman stood near the sentinel of the guard-house, sharpening a wood hatchet on a stone.  At the stroke of twelve, he got up, split open the sentinel’s head with a blow of his axe, and the thirty men, rushing into the guard-house, took possession of the arms there, and marched at once to the gate.  The sentry there tried to drop the bar, but the Frenchman rushed up to him, and, with another blow of the axe, cut off his right hand, with which he held the chain.  Seeing the men rushing out armed, the guard without the gate drew up across the road to prevent their passage; but the Frenchman’s thirty gave them a volley, charged them with the bayonet, and brought down several, and the rest flying, the thirty rushed on.  The frontier is only a league from Neiss, and they made rapidly towards it.

But the alarm was given in the town, and what saved it was that the clock by which the Frenchman went was a quarter of an hour faster than any of the clocks in the town.  The generale was beat, the troops called to arms, and thus the men who were to have attacked the other guard-houses, were obliged to fall into the ranks, and their project was defeated.  This, however, likewise rendered the discovery of the conspirators impossible, for no man could betray his comrade, nor, of course, would he criminate himself.

Cavalry was sent in pursuit of the Frenchman and his thirty fugitives, who were, by this time, far on their way to the Bohemian frontier.  When the horse came up with them, they turned, received them with a volley and the bayonet, and drove them back.  The Austrians were out at the barriers, looking eagerly on at the conflict.  The women, who were on the look-out too, brought more ammunition to these intrepid deserters, and they engaged and drove back the dragoons