Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/290

 248 ORIGIN OF THE WAR OF 1S53 chap, 'did no more than obey my commanding XIV. officer/ Meeting On the 27th of November, however, this Magnan of twenty ° generals at assembled twenty generals whom he had under Magnan'a J ° Louse. liis command, and gave them to understand that they might soon be called upon to act against Paris and against the Constitution.* They prom- ised a zealous and thoroughgoing obedience ; and although every one of them, from Magiran down- wards, was to have the pleasing shelter of an order from his superior officer, they all seemed to have imagined that their determination was of the sort which mankind call heroic ; for their pane- gyrist relates with pride that when Magnan and his twenty generals were entering into this league and covenant against the people of Paris, they solemnly embraced one another.-}- From time to time the common soldiery were gratified with presents of food and wine, as well as with an abundance of flattering words ; and their exasperation against the civilians was so The Army well kept alive, that men used to African warfare in us hatred were brought into the humour for calling the oi' the people. -,-. . . -p. , ., „,, Parisians '.bedouins. 1 here was massacre in the of the month which the historian mentions, but he gives Thurs- day (which fell on the 27th) as the day of the week when the meeting took place. — Note to 4th Edition, 1863. t 'All the generals embraced each other, and from that ' moment it might be said with certainty that France was going ' to come out of the abyss.'— Ibid. p. 302. The names of the twenty-one generals will be found ibid. p. 393. — Note to ilk Edition, 18G3.
 * Granier dc Cassagnao, p. 392. There, the 26th is the day