n and women in wrath, terror, and agony.
I threw myself off my uneasy bed, and climbing up by my prison bars,
endeavoured to ascertain the cause of the melee. But the imperfect
light served little more than to show a general mustering of the
national guard in the court, and a huge and heavy building, into which
they were discharging random shots whenever a head appeared at its
casements. A loud huzza followed whenever one of those shots appeared
to take effect, and a laugh equally loud ran through the ranks when
the bullet wasted its effect on the massive mullions or stained glass
of the windows. A tall figure on horseback, whom I afterwards learned
to be Henriot, the commandant of the national guard, galloped up and
down the court with the air of a general-in-chief manoeuvring an army.
I think that he actually had provided himself with a truncheon to meet
all the emergencies of supreme command. While this sanguinary, and yet
mocking representation of warfare was going on, M. le Commandant was
in full eloquence and prodigious gesticulation. "A la gloire, mes
enfans!" was his constant cry. "Fight, _mes braves!_ the honour of
France demands it: the eyes of Europe--of the world--are turned upon
you. _Vive la Republique!_" And all this accompanied with waving his
hat, and spurring his horse into foam and fury. But fortune is a jade
after all; and the hero of the tricolored scarf was destined to have
his laurels a little shorn, even on this narrow field. While his
charger was caracoling over the cloisters, and his veterans from the
cellars and counters of Paris were popping off their muskets at the
unfortunates who started up against the old casement, I heard a sudden
rush and run; a low postern of the cloister had been flung back, and
the prisoners within the building had made a sally on their
tormentors. A massacre at the Bicetre, in which six thousand had
perished, had warned these unhappy people that neither the prison
wall, nor night, was to be security against the rage of the
bloodhounds with whom murder seemed to have grown into a pastime; and
after having seen several of their number shot down within their
dungeon, they determined to attack them, and, if they must die, at
least die in manly defence. Their rush was perfectly successful; it
had the effect of a complete surprise; and though their only weapons
were fragments of their firewood--for all fire-arms and knives had
been taken from them immediately on their entr