the ordinary bloodless Parliamentary way;
on one condition: that France had been at least able to exist, all the
while. But this Sovereign People has a digestive faculty, and cannot do
without bread. Also we are at war, and must have victory; at war with
Europe, with Fate and Famine: and behold, in the spring of the year, all
victory deserts us.

Dumouriez had his outposts stretched as far as Aix-la-Chapelle, and the
beautifullest plan for pouncing on Holland, by stratagem, flat-bottomed
boats and rapid intrepidity; wherein too he had prospered so far; but
unhappily could prosper no further. Aix-la-Chapelle is lost; Maestricht
will not surrender to mere smoke and noise: the flat-bottomed boats must
launch themselves again, and return the way they came. Steady now, ye
rapidly intrepid men; retreat with firmness, Parthian-like! Alas, were
it General Miranda's fault; were it the War-minister's fault; or were it
Dumouriez's own fault and that of Fortune: enough, there is nothing
for it but retreat,--well if it be not even flight; for already
terror-stricken cohorts and stragglers pour off, not waiting for order;
flow disastrous, as many as ten thousand of them, without halt till they
see France again. (Dumouriez, iv. 16-73.) Nay worse: Dumouriez himself
is perhaps secretly turning traitor? Very sharp is the tone in which he
writes to our Committees. Commissioners and Jacobin Pillagers have done
such incalculable mischief; Hassenfratz sends neither cartridges nor
clothing; shoes we have, deceptively 'soled with wood and pasteboard.'
Nothing in short is right. Danton and Lacroix, when it was they that
were Commissioners, would needs join Belgium to France;--of which
Dumouriez might have made the prettiest little Duchy for his own secret
behoof! With all these things the General is wroth; and writes to us
in a sharp tone. Who knows what this hot little General is meditating?
Dumouriez Duke of Belgium or Brabant; and say, Egalite the Younger King
of France: there were an end for our Revolution!--Committee of Defence
gazes, and shakes its head: who except Danton, defective in suspicion,
could still struggle to be of hope?

And General Custine is rolling back from the Rhine Country; conquered
Mentz will be reconquered, the Prussians gathering round to bombard
it with shot and shell. Mentz may resist, Commissioner Merlin, the
Thionviller, 'making sallies, at the head of the besieged;'--resist to
the death; but not longer than th