all, were the Prussians once out of it, 'be rased,' and exist only as
ploughed ground.

Nor are the Jacobins milder; as how could they, the flower of
Patriotism? Poor Dame Lavergne, wife of the poor Commandant, took her
parasol one evening, and escorted by her Father came over to the Hall of
the mighty Mother; and 'reads a memoir tending to justify the Commandant
of Longwi.' Lafarge, President, makes answer: "Citoyenne, the Nation
will judge Lavergne; the Jacobins are bound to tell him the truth. He
would have ended his course there (termine sa carriere), if he had loved
the honour of his country." (Ibid. xix. 300.)

Chapter 3.1.II.

Danton.

But better than raising of Longwi, or rebuking poor dusty soldiers or
soldiers' wives, Danton had come over, last night, and demanded a
Decree to search for arms, since they were not yielded voluntarily. Let
'Domiciliary visits,' with rigour of authority, be made to this end. To
search for arms; for horses,--Aristocratism rolls in its carriage, while
Patriotism cannot trail its cannon. To search generally for munitions of
war, 'in the houses of persons suspect,'--and even, if it seem proper,
to seize and imprison the suspect persons themselves! In the Prisons,
their plots will be harmless; in the Prisons, they will be as hostages
for us, and not without use. This Decree the energetic Minister of
Justice demanded, last night, and got; and this same night it is to be
executed; it is being executed, at the moment when these dusty soldiers
get saluted with Mourir. Two thousand stand of arms, as they count, are
foraged in this way; and some four hundred head of new Prisoners; and,
on the whole, such a terror and damp is struck through the Aristocrat
heart, as all but Patriotism, and even Patriotism were it out of this
agony, might pity. Yes, Messieurs! if Brunswick blast Paris to ashes,
he probably will blast the Prisons of Paris too: pale Terror, if we have
got it, we will also give it, and the depth of horrors that lie in it;
the same leaky bottom, in these wild waters, bears us all.

One can judge what stir there was now among the 'thirty thousand
Royalists:' how the Plotters, or the accused of Plotting, shrank each
closer into his lurking-place,--like Bertrand Moleville, looking eager
towards Longwi, hoping the weather would keep fair. Or how they dressed
themselves in valet's clothes, like Narbonne, and 'got to England as Dr.
Bollman's famulus:' how Dame de Stael bestirred