on their walls, with a
bundle of hay hung from him, and this Inscription: 'When I finish my
hay, you will take Thionville.' (Hist. Parl. xix. 177.) To such height
has the frenzy of mankind risen.

The trenches of Thionville may shut: and what though those of Lille
open? The Earth smiles not on us, nor the Heaven; but weeps and blears
itself, in sour rain, and worse. Our very friends insult us; we are
wounded in the house of our friends: "His Majesty of Prussia had a
greatcoat, when the rain came; and (contrary to all known laws) he put
it on, though our two French Princes, the hope of their country, had
none!" To which indeed, as Goethe admits, what answer could be made?
(Goethe, xxx. 49.)--Cold and Hunger and Affront, Colic and Dysentery
and Death; and we here, cowering redouted, most unredoubtable, amid the
'tattered corn-shocks and deformed stubble,' on the splashy Height of La
Lune, round the mean Tavern de La Lune!--

This is the Cannonade of Valmy; wherein the World-Poet experimented
on the cannon-fever; wherein the French Sansculottes did not fly like
poultry. Precious to France! Every soldier did his duty, and Alsatian
Kellermann (how preferable to old Luckner the dismissed!) began to
become greater; and Egalite Fils, Equality Junior, a light gallant
Field-Officer, distinguished himself by intrepidity:--it is the same
intrepid individual who now, as Louis-Philippe, without the Equality,
struggles, under sad circumstances, to be called King of the French for
a season.

Chapter 3.1.VIII.

Exeunt.

But this Twentieth of September is otherwise a great day. For, observe,
while Kellermann's horse was flying blown from under him at the Mill of
Valmy, our new National Deputies, that shall be a NATIONAL CONVENTION,
are hovering and gathering about the Hall of the Hundred Swiss; with
intent to constitute themselves!

On the morrow, about noontide, Camus the Archivist is busy 'verifying
their powers;' several hundreds of them already here. Whereupon the Old
Legislative comes solemnly over, to merge its old ashes Phoenix-like in
the body of the new;--and so forthwith, returning all solemnly back to
the Salle de Manege, there sits a National Convention, Seven Hundred
and Forty-nine complete, or complete enough; presided by Petion;--which
proceeds directly to do business. Read that reported afternoon's-debate,
O Reader; there are few debates like it: dull reporting Moniteur itself
becomes more dramatic than a ver