ng on their words;
We'll soon give them nuts to crack,
Caesar of--the Almanac!

"When a dotard fills the throne,
Fit for nothing but a nurse,
When a nation's general groan,
Yields to nothing but its curse;
What are armies at thy back,
Henri of--the Almanac?

"When the truth is bought and sold,
When the wrongs of man are spurn'd,
Then the crown's last knell is toll'd,
Then, old Time, thy glass has turn'd,
And comes flying from thy pack
To nations a _new_ Almanac!

"Mistress, minister, Bourbon,
Rule by bayonets, bribes, and spies,
Charlatans in church and throne,
France is opening all her eyes--
Down go minion, king, and quack,
We'll have _our_ new Almanac!"

[27] A scene of peculiar infamy near Paris.

When I returned to the place where my mattress was flung, the crowd
had already sunk to rest, and there was a general silence throughout
the building. The few lights which our jailers supplied to us, had
become fewer; and, except for the heavy sound of the doubled sentries'
tread outside, I might have imagined myself in a vast cemetery. The
agitation of the day, followed by the somewhat unsuitable gayety of
the evening, had thrown me into such a state of mental and bodily
fatigue, that I had scarcely laid my side on my bed, untempting as it
was, when I dropped into a heavy slumber. The ingenuity of our
tormentors, however, prohibited our knowing any thing in the shape of
indulgence; and in realisation of the dramatist's renowned _mot_,
"traitors never sleep," the prison door was suddenly flung open--a
drum rattled through the aisle--the whole body of the prisoners were
ordered to stand forth and answer to their names; this ceremony
concluding with the march of the whole night-guard into the chapel,
and their being ordered to load with ball-cartridge, to give us the
sufficient knowledge of what any attempt to escape would bring upon us
in future. This refinement in cruelty we owed to the _escapade_ of the
night before.

At length, after a variety of insulting queries, even this scene was
over. The guard marched out, the roll of their drum passed away among
the cloisters; we went shivering to our beds--threw ourselves down
dressed as we were, and tried to forget France and our jailers.

But a French night in those times was like no other, and I had yet to
witness a scene such as I believe could not have existed