Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 04.djvu/53

 it. The Legislative did send Deputation to the Prisons, to these Street-Courts; and poor M. Dusaulx did harangue there; but produced no conviction whatsoever: nay at last, as he continued haranguing, the Street-Court interposed, not without threats; and he had to cease, and withdraw. This is the same poor worthy old M. Dusaulx who told, or indeed almost sang (though with cracked voice), the Taking of the Bastille, to our satisfaction, long since. He was wont to announce himself, on such and on all occasions, as the Translator of Juvenal. 'Good Citizens, you see before you a man who loves his country, who is the Translator of Juvenal,' said he once.—'Juvenal?' interrupts Sansculottism: 'Who the devil is Juvenal? One of your sacrés Aristocrates? To the Lanterne!' From an orator of this kind, conviction was not to be expected. The Legislative had much ado to save one of its own Members, or ex-Members, Deputy Jounneau, who chanced to be lying in arrest for mere Parliamentary delinquencies, in these Prisons. As for poor old Dusaulx and Company, they returned to the Salle de Manége, saying, 'It was dark; and they could not see well what was going on.'

Roland writes indignant messages, in the name of Order, Humanity and the Law; but there is no Force at his disposal. Santerre's National Force seems lazy to rise: though he made requisitions, he says,—which always dispersed again. Nay did not we, with Advocate Maton's eyes, see 'men in uniform' too, with their 'sleeves bloody to the shoulder'? Pétion goes in tricolor scarf; speaks 'the austere language of the law': the killers give up, while he is there; when his back is turned, recommence. Manuel too in scarf we, with Maton's eyes, transiently saw haranguing, in the Court called of Nurses, Cour des Nourrices. On the other hand, cruel Billaud, likewise in scarf, 'with that small puce coat and black wig we are used to on him,' audibly delivers, 'standing among corpses,' at the Abbaye, a short but ever-memorable