Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/202

184 world all to win!—Such is the Night deserving to be named of Spurs.

At six o'clock two things have happened. Lafayette's Aide-de-camp, Romœuf, riding à franc étrier, on that old Herb-merchant's route, quickened during the last stages, has got to Varennes; where the Ten thousand now furiously demand, with fury of panic terror, that Royalty shall forthwith return Paris-ward, that there be not infinite bloodshed. Also, on the other side, 'English Tom,' Choiseul's jokei, flying with that Choiseul relay, has met Bouillé on the the heights of Dun; the adamantine brow flushed with dark thunder; thunderous rattle of Royal Allemand at his heels. English Tom answers as he can the brief question. How it is at Varennes?—then asks in turn. What he, English Tom, with M. de Choiseul's horses, is to do, and whither to ride?—To the Bottomless Pool! answers a thunder-voice; then again speaking and spurring, orders Royal-Allemand to the gallop; and vanishes, swearing (en jurant). 'Tis the last of our brave Bouillé. Within sight of Varennes, he having drawn bridle, calls a council of officers; finds that it is in vain. King Louis has departed, consenting: amid the clangour of universal stormbell; amid the tramp of Ten thousand armed men, already arrived; and say, of Sixty thousand flocking thither. Brave Deslons, even without 'orders,' darted at the River Aire with his Hundred; swam one branch of it, could not the other; and stood there, dripping and panting, with inflated nostril; The Ten thousand answering him with a shout of mockery, the new Berline lumbering Paris-ward its weary inevitable way. No help, then, in Earth; nor, in an age not of miracles, in Heaven!

That night, 'Marquis de Bouillé and twenty-one more of us rode over the Frontiers: the Bernardine monks at Orval in Luxemburg gave us supper and lodging.' With little of