Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/304

 swifter, towards the Tuileries: where the Drawbridge receives the bulk of the fugitives; and, then suddenly drawn up, saves them; or else the green mud of the Ditch does it. The bulk of them; not all; ah, no! Moreau de Saint-Méry, for example, being too fat, could not fly fast; he got a stroke, flat-stroke only, over the shoulder-blades, and fell prone;—and disappears there from the History of the Revolution. Cuts also there were, pricks in the posterior fleshy parts; much rending of skirts, and other discrepant waste. But poor Sublieutenant Duhamel, innocent Change-broker, what a lot for him! He turned on his pursuer, or pursuers, with a pistol; he fired and missed; drew a second pistol, and again fired and missed; then ran: unhappily in vain. In the Rue Saint-Florentin, they clutched him; thrust him through, in red rage: that was the end of the New Era, and of all Eras, to poor Duhamel.

Pacific readers can fancy what sort of grace-before-meat this was to frugal Patriotism. Also how the Battalion of the Filles-Saint-Thomas 'drew out in arms,' luckily without further result; how there was accusation at the Bar of the Assembly, and counter-accusation and defence; Marseillese challenging the sentence of a free jury-court,—which never got empanneled. We ask rather, What the upshot of all these distracted wildly-accumulating things may, by probability, be? Some upshot; and the time draws nigh! Busy are Central Committees, of Fédérés at the Jacobins Church, of Sections at the Townhall; Reunion of Carra, Camille and Company at the Golden Sun. Busy; like submarine deities, or call them mud-gods, working there in deep murk of waters; till the thing be ready.

And how your National Assembly, like a ship water-logged, helmless, lies tumbling; the Galleries, of shrill Women, of Fédérés with sabres, bellowing down on it, not unfrightful;—and waits where the waves of chance may please to strand it; suspicious, nay on the Left-side, conscious, what submarine Explosion is meanwhile a-charging! Petition for King's