aking; irregular marching on
the Great North-Eastern Road. Marseillese sing their wild To Arms, in
chorus; which now all men, all women and children have learnt, and sing
chorally, in Theatres, Boulevards, Streets; and the heart burns in every
bosom: Aux Armes! Marchons!--Or think how your Aristocrats are skulking
into covert; how Bertrand-Moleville lies hidden in some garret 'in
Aubry-le-boucher Street, with a poor surgeon who had known me;' Dame de
Stael has secreted her Narbonne, not knowing what in the world to make
of him. The Barriers are sometimes open, oftenest shut; no passports
to be had; Townhall Emissaries, with the eyes and claws of falcons,
flitting watchful on all points of your horizon! In two words: Tribunal
of the Seventeenth, busy under howling Galleries; Prussian Brunswick,
'over a space of forty miles,' with his war-tumbrils, and sleeping
thunders, and Briarean 'sixty-six thousand' (See Toulongeon, Hist. de
France. ii. c. 5.) right-hands,--coming, coming!

O Heavens, in these latter days of August, he is come! Durosoy was not
yet guillotined when news had come that the Prussians were harrying and
ravaging about Metz; in some four days more, one hears that Longwi, our
first strong-place on the borders, is fallen 'in fifteen hours.' Quick,
therefore, O ye improvised Municipals; quick, and ever quicker!--The
improvised Municipals make front to this also. Enrolment urges itself;
and clothing, and arming. Our very officers have now 'wool epaulettes;'
for it is the reign of Equality, and also of Necessity. Neither do men
now monsieur and sir one another; citoyen (citizen) were suitabler; we
even say thou, as 'the free peoples of Antiquity did:' so have Journals
and the Improvised Commune suggested; which shall be well.

Infinitely better, meantime, could we suggest, where arms are to be
found. For the present, our Citoyens chant chorally To Arms; and have no
arms! Arms are searched for; passionately; there is joy over any musket.
Moreover, entrenchments shall be made round Paris: on the slopes of
Montmartre men dig and shovel; though even the simple suspect this to
be desperate. They dig; Tricolour sashes speak encouragement and
well-speed-ye. Nay finally 'twelve Members of the Legislative go daily,'
not to encourage only, but to bear a hand, and delve: it was decreed
with acclamation. Arms shall either be provided; or else the ingenuity
of man crack itself, and become fatuity. Lean Beaumarchais, thinking