Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/307

 day, there is infinite complaint; Letter after Letter from insulted Deputy; mere complaint, debate and self-cancelling jargon: the sun of Thursday sets like the others, and no Forfeiture pronounced. Wherefore in fine, To your tents, O Israel!

The Mother Society ceases speaking; groups cease haranguing: Patriots, with closed lips now, 'take one another's arm'; walk off, in rows, two and two, at a brisk business-pace; and vanish afar in the obscure places of the East. Santerre is ready; or we will make him ready. Forty-seven of the Forty-eight Sections are ready; nay, Filles-Saint-Thomas itself turns up the Jacobin side of it, turns down the Feuillant side of it, and is ready too. Let the unlimited Patriot look to his weapon, be it pike, be it firelock; and the Brest brethren,—above all, the black-browed Marseillese, prepare themselves for the extreme hour! Syndic Rœderer knows, and laments or not as the issue may turn, that 'five-thousand ball-cartridges, within these few days, have been distributed to Fédérés, at the Hôtel-de-Ville.'

And ye likewise, gallant gentlemen, defenders of Royalty, crowd ye on your side to the Tuileries. Not to a Levee: no, to a Couchée; where much will be put to bed. Your Tickets of Entry are needful; needfuler your blunderbusses!—They come and crowd, like gallant men who also know how to die: old Maillé the Camp-Marshal has come, his eyes gleaming once again, though dimmed by the rheum of almost fourscore years. Courage, Brothers! We have a thousand red Swiss; men stanch of heart, stedfast as the granite of their Alps. National Grenadiers are at least friends of Order; Commandant Mandat breathes loyal ardour, will 'answer for it on his head.' Mandat will, and his Staff; for the Staff, though there stands a doom and Decree to that effect, is happily never yet dissolved.

Commandant Mandat has corresponded with Mayor Pétion;