of
course, would he criminate himself.

Cavalry was sent in pursuit of the Frenchman and his thirty fugitives,
who were, by this time, far on their way to the Bohemian frontier. When
the horse came up with them, they turned, received them with a volley
and the bayonet, and drove them back. The Austrians were out at the
barriers, looking eagerly on at the conflict. The women, who were on the
look-out too, brought more ammunition to these intrepid deserters, and
they engaged and drove back the dragoons several times. But in these
gallant and fruitless combats much time was lost, and a battalion
presently came up, and surrounded the brave thirty; when the fate of the
poor fellows was decided. They fought with the fury of despair: not one
of them asked for quarter. When their ammunition failed, they fought
with the steel, and were shot down or bayoneted where they stood. The
Frenchman was the very last man who was hit. He received a bullet in the
thigh, and fell, and in this state was overpowered, killing the officer
who first advanced to seize him.

He and the very few of his comrades who survived were carried back
to Neiss, and immediately, as the ringleader, he was brought before a
council of war. He refused all interrogations which were made as to his
real name and family. 'What matters who I am?' said he; 'you have me and
will shoot me. My name would not save me were it ever so famous.' In the
same way he declined to make a single discovery regarding the plot. 'It
was all my doing,' he said; 'each man engaged in it only knew me, and is
ignorant of every one of his comrades. The secret is mine alone, and
the secret shall die with me.' When the officers asked him what was the
reason which induced him to meditate a crime so horrible?--'It was
your infernal brutality and tyranny,' he said. 'You are all butchers,
ruffians, tigers, and you owe it to the cowardice of your men that you
were not murdered long ago.'

At this his captain burst into the most furious exclamations against the
wounded man, and rushing up to him, struck him a blow with his fist. But
Le Blondin, wounded as he was, as quick as thought seized the bayonet of
one of the soldiers who supported him, and plunged it into the officer's
breast. 'Scoundrel and monster,' said he, 'I shall have the consolation
of sending you out of the world before I die.' He was shot that day.
He offered to write to the King, if the officers would agree to let his
letter go se