Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/107

AUG. 29, 1790] Effervescent Regiment du Roi primes its firelocks, Mestre-de-Camp saddles wholly: Commandant Denoue is seized, is flung in prison with a 'canvas-shirt (sarreau de toile)' about him; Château-Vieux bursts-up the magazines; distributes 'three thousand fusils' to a Patriot people: Austria shall have a hot bargain. Alas, the unhappy hunting-dogs, as we said, have hunted away their huntsman; and do now run howling and baying, on what trail they know not; nigh rabid!

And so there is tumultuous march of men, through the night; with halt on the heights of Flinval [sic], whence Lunéville can be seen all illuminated. Then there is parley, at four in the morning; and reparley; finally there is agreement: the Carbineers gave in; Malseigne is surrendered, with apologies on all sides. After weary confused hours, he is even got under way; the Lunévillers all turning out, in the idle Sunday, to see such departure: home-going of mutinous Mestre-de-Camp with its Inspector captive. Mestre-de-Camp accordingly marches; the Lunévillers look. See! at the corner of the first street, our Inspector bounds off again, bull-hearted as he is; amid the slash of sabres, the crackle of musketry; and escapes, full gallop, with only a ball lodged in his huff-jerkin. The Herculean man! And yet it is an escape to no purpose. For the Carbineers, to whom after the hardest Sunday's ride on record, he has come circling back, 'stand deliberating by their nocturnal watch-fires'; deliberating of Austria, of traitors, and the rage of Mestre-de-Camp. So that, on the whole, the next sight we have is that of M. de Malseigne, on the Monday afternoon, faring bull-hearted through the streets of Nanci; in open carriage, a soldier standing over him with drawn sword; amid the 'furies of the women,' hedges of National Guards, and confusion of Babel: to the Prison beside Commandant Denoue! That finally is the lodging of Inspector Malseigne.

Surely it is time Bouillé were drawing near. The Country