Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/303

 Grenadiers of the Filles-Saint-Thomas Section are on duty there this day: men of Agio, as we have seen; with stuffed purses, riband-cockades; among whom serves Weber. A party of these latter, with Captains, with sundry Feuillant Notabilities, Moreau de Saint-Méry of the three-thousand orders, and others, have been dining, much more respectably, in a Tavern hard by. They have dined, and are now drinking Loyal-Patriotic toasts; while the Marseillese, National-Patriotic merely, are about sitting down to their frugal covers of delf. How it happened remains to this day undemonstrable; but the external fact is, certain of these Filles-Saint-Thomas Grenadiers do issue from their Tavern; perhaps touched, surely not yet muddled with any liquor they have had;—issue in the professed intention of testifying to the Marseillese, or to the multitude of Paris Patriots who stroll in these spaces. That they, the Filles-Saint-Thomas men, if well seen into, are not a whit less Patriotic than any other class of men whatever.

It was a rash errand! For how can the strolling multitude credit such a thing; or do other indeed than hoot at it, provoking and provoked?—till Grenadier sabres stir in the scabbard, and thereupon a sharp shriek rises: ^À nous, Marseillais, Help, Marseillese!' Quick as lightning, for the frugal repast is not yet served, that Marseillese Tavern flings itself open: by door, by window; running, bounding, vault forth the Five-hundred and Seventeen undined Patriots; and, sabre flashing from thigh, are on the scene of controversy. Will ye parley, ye Grenadier Captains and Official Persons; 'with faces grown suddenly pale,' the Deponents say? Advisabler were instant moderately swift retreat! The Filles-Saint-Thomas men retreat, back foremost; then, alas, face foremost, at treble-quick time; the Marseillese, according to a Deponent, 'clearing the fences and ditches after them, like lions: Messieurs, it was an imposing spectacle.'

Thus they retreat, the Marseillese following. Swift and