Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 04.djvu/79

 Patriots, for instance?' Also, 'your threats of shivering in pieces?' Also, 'why you have not chased Brunswick hotly enough?' Thus, with sharp croak, inquires the Figure.—'Ah, c'est vous qu'on appelle Marat, You are he they call Marat!' answers the General, and turns coldly on his heel. —'Marat!' The blonde-gowns quiver like aspens; the dress-coats gather round; Actor Talma (for it is his house), Actor Talma, and almost the very chandelier-lights, are blue: till this obscene Spectrum, swart unearthly Visual-Appearance, vanish, back into its native Night.

General Dumouriez, in few brief days, is gone again, towards the Netherlands; will attack the Netherlands, winter though it be. And General Montesquiou, on the Southeast, has driven in the Sardinian Majesty; nay, almost without a shot fired, has taken Savoy from him, which longs to become a piece of the Republic. And General Custine, on the Northeast, has dashed forth on Spires and its Arsenal; and then on Electoral Mentz, not uninvited, wherein are German Democrats and no shadow of an Elector now: so that in the last days of October, Frau Forster, a daughter of Heyne's, somewhat democratic, walking out of the Gate of Mentz with her Husband, finds French Soldiers playing at bowls with cannon-balls there. Forster trips cheerfully over one iron bomb, with 'Live the Republic!' A black-bearded National Guard answers: 'Elle vivra bien sans vous, It will probably live independently of you.'

VOL. III.