Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/201

JUNE 22, 1791] perhaps the absurdest of all pitiable and pardonable clay-figures that now circle under the Moon. He will go on, next morning, and take the National Guard with him; Sausse permitting! Hapless Queen: with her two children laid there on the mean bed, old Mother Sausse kneeling to Heaven, with tears and an audible prayer, to bless them; imperial Marie-Antoinette near kneeling to Son Sausse and Wife Sausse, amid candle-boxes and treacle-barrels,—in vain! There are Three thousand National Guards got in; before long they will count Ten thousand: tocsins spreading like fire on dry heath, or far faster.

Young Bouillé, roused by this Varennes tocsin, has taken horse, and—fled towards his Father. Thitherward also rides, in an almost hysterically desperate manner, a certain Sieur Aubriot, Choiseul's Orderly; swimming dark rivers, our Bridge being blocked; spurring as if the Hell-hunt were at his heels. Through the village of Dun, he galloping still on, scatters the alarm; at Dun, brave Captain Deslons and his Escort of a Hundred saddle and ride. Deslons too gets into Varennes; leaving his Hundred outside, at the tree-barricade; offers to cut King Louis out, if he will order it: but unfortunately 'the work will prove hot': whereupon King Louis has 'no orders to give.'

And so the tocsin clangs, and Dragoons gallop, and can do nothing, having galloped: National Guards stream in like the gathering of ravens: your exploding Thunder-chain, falling Avalanche, or what else we liken it to, does play, with a vengeance,—up now as far as Stenai and Bouillé himself. Brave Bouillé, son of the whirlwind, he saddles Royal-Allemand; speaks fire-words, kindling heart and eyes; distributes twenty-five gold-louis a company:—Hide, Royal-Allemand, long-famed: no Tuileries Charge and Necker-Orléans Bust-Procession; a very King made captive, and