Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/288

. M. Lemoinne was a strong contrast to our ideal of a political Frenchman placid, circumspect, and deliberate, he looked like an Englishman draped by a French tailor.

O'Brien determined to make a tour of Munster to judge of the spirit of the people. He was received everywhere with boundless enthusiasm, which was interpreted in that day of revolutions as a pledge of battle. Meagher and Doheny held a monster meeting at Slievenamon, and exhorted the people to prepare for a conflict.

M'Gee, Doheny, and other Confederates were arrested for the share they had taken in these meetings, but admitted to bail. Meagher was arrested in his native town, and the mass of the population turned out to rescue him. The long bridge which spans the Suir was barricaded, and the Club men entreated him to give the signal for immediate resistance; but Meagher insisted that they should wait for the advice of the leaders in Dublin. No place could be more unsuitable than Waterford to begin an insurrection; it is divided by a navigable river which was at that moment occupied by three war steamers, which could shell any part of the city at discretion. But the popular feeling in Munster was growing more high and confident, till it was checked by a disastrous transaction.

Before O'Brien started on his Munster mission, it had been proposed in the Confederation that Meagher and Mitchel should accompany him. O'Brien told Mitchel frankly that he could not possibly accept his co-operation, as their intentions were widely different, and Mitchel admitted his right to object, and announced that, under the circumstances, he would not go to Munster. While O'Brien was pursuing his mission, a soirée of Nationalists was projected at Limerick, and when O'Brien arrived, he found Mr. Mitchel in attendance. He was deeply offended, and proposed to retire immediately. Mitchel said he had been invited by the promoters of the soirée, and he did not consider himself prohibited from accepting such an invitation by the agreement not to accompany O'Brien. To the Limerick people, who were largely leavened with Old Irelandism, it proved that Mitchel, who had written savagely about O'Connell, was peculiarly odious, and they determined, it was said, to burn