the Pantheon, with honourable
pension to his Widow, and for Epitaph these words, He chose Death rather
than yield to Despots. The Prussians, descending from the heights, are
peaceable masters of Verdun.

And so Brunswick advances, from stage to stage: who shall now stay
him,--covering forty miles of country? Foragers fly far; the villages of
the North-East are harried; your Hessian forager has only 'three sous a
day:' the very Emigrants, it is said, will take silver-plate,--by way
of revenge. Clermont, Sainte-Menehould, Varennes especially, ye Towns of
the Night of Spurs; tremble ye! Procureur Sausse and the Magistracy of
Varennes have fled; brave Boniface Le Blanc of the Bras d'Or is to the
woods: Mrs. Le Blanc, a young woman fair to look upon, with her young
infant, has to live in greenwood, like a beautiful Bessy Bell of Song,
her bower thatched with rushes;--catching premature rheumatism. (Helen
Maria Williams, Letters from France (London, 1791-93), iii. 96.)
Clermont may ring the tocsin now, and illuminate itself! Clermont lies
at the foot of its Cow (or Vache, so they name that Mountain), a prey to
the Hessian spoiler: its fair women, fairer than most, are robbed: not
of life, or what is dearer, yet of all that is cheaper and portable; for
Necessity, on three half-pence a-day, has no law. At Saint-Menehould,
the enemy has been expected more than once,--our Nationals all turning
out in arms; but was not yet seen. Post-master Drouet, he is not in the
woods, but minding his Election; and will sit in the Convention, notable
King-taker, and bold Old-Dragoon as he is.

Thus on the North-East all roams and runs; and on a set day, the date
of which is irrecoverable by History, Brunswick 'has engaged to dine in
Paris,'--the Powers willing. And at Paris, in the centre, it is as we
saw; and in La Vendee, South-West, it is as we saw; and Sardinia is in
the South-East, and Spain is in the South, and Clairfait with Austria
and sieged Thionville is in the North;--and all France leaps distracted,
like the winnowed Sahara waltzing in sand-colonnades! More desperate
posture no country ever stood in. A country, one would say, which the
Majesty of Prussia (if it so pleased him) might partition, and clip
in pieces, like a Poland; flinging the remainder to poor Brother
Louis,--with directions to keep it quiet, or else we will keep it for
him!

Or perhaps the Upper Powers, minded that a new Chapter in Universal
History shall begin he