Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 04.djvu/27

 It is not without a dramatic emotion that one reads in the Parliamentary Debates of this Wednesday evening 'past seven o'clock,' the scene with the military fugitives from Longwi. Wayworn, dusty, disheartened, these poor men enter the Legislative, about sunset or after; give the most pathetic detail of the frightful pass they were in: Prussians billowing round by the myriad, volcanically spouting fire for fifteen hours: we, scattered sparse on the ramparts, hardly a cannoneer to two guns; our dastard Commandant Lavergne nowhere showing face; the priming would not catch; there was no powder in the bombs,—what could we do? 'Mourir, Die!' answer prompt voices; and the dusty fugitives must shrink elsewhither for comfort.—Yes, Mourir, that is now the word. Be Longwi a proverb and a hissing among French strong-places: let it (says the Legislative) be obliterated rather, from the shamed face of the Earth;—and so there has gone forth Decree, that Longwi shall, were the Prussians once out of it, 'be rased,' and exist only as ploughed ground.

Nor are the Jacobins milder; as how could they, the flower of Patriotism? Poor Dame Lavergne, wife of the poor Commandant, took her parasol one evening, and escorted by her Father came over to the Hall of the mighty Mother; and 'reads a memoir tending to justify the Commandant of Longwi.' Lafarge, Président, makes answer; 'Citoyenne, the Nation will judge Lavergne; the Jacobins are bound to tell him the truth. He would have ended his course there (terminé sa carrière), if he had loved the honour of his country.'

better than rasing of Longwi, or rebuking poor dusty soldiers or soldiers' wives, Danton had come over, last night,