ic, were drawn out about the old
Chateau of Brecourt, in the wood-country near Vernon, to meet the
Mountain National forces advancing from Paris. How on the fifteenth
afternoon of July, they did meet,--and, as it were, shrieked mutually,
and took mutually to flight without loss. How Puisaye thereafter,
for the Mountain Nationals fled first, and we thought ourselves the
victors,--was roused from his warm bed in the Castle of Brecourt; and
had to gallop without boots; our Nationals, in the night-watches, having
fallen unexpectedly into sauve qui peut:--and in brief the Calvados War
had burnt priming; and the only question now was, Whitherward to vanish,
in what hole to hide oneself! (Memoires de Puisaye (London, 1803), ii.
142-67.)

The National Volunteers rush homewards, faster than they came. The
Seventy-two Respectable Departments, says Meillan, 'all turned round,
and forsook us, in the space of four-and-twenty hours.' Unhappy those
who, as at Lyons for instance, have gone too far for turning! 'One
morning,' we find placarded on our Intendance Mansion, the Decree of
Convention which casts us Hors la loi, into Outlawry: placarded by
our Caen Magistrates;--clear hint that we also are to vanish. Vanish,
indeed: but whitherward? Gorsas has friends in Rennes; he will hide
there,--unhappily will not lie hid. Guadet, Lanjuinais are on cross
roads; making for Bourdeaux. To Bourdeaux! cries the general voice, of
Valour alike and of Despair. Some flag of Respectability still floats
there, or is thought to float.

Thitherward therefore; each as he can! Eleven of these ill-fated
Deputies, among whom we may count, as twelfth, Friend Riouffe the Man of
Letters, do an original thing. Take the uniform of National Volunteers,
and retreat southward with the Breton Battalion, as private soldiers of
that corps. These brave Bretons had stood truer by us than any other.
Nevertheless, at the end of a day or two, they also do now get dubious,
self-divided; we must part from them; and, with some half-dozen as
convoy or guide, retreat by ourselves,--a solitary marching detachment,
through waste regions of the West. (Louvet, pp. 101-37; Meillan, pp. 81,
241-70.)

Chapter 3.4.III.

Retreat of the Eleven.

It is one of the notablest Retreats, this of the Eleven, that History
presents: The handful of forlorn Legislators retreating there,
continually, with shouldered firelock and well-filled cartridge-box, in
the yellow autumn; long hundr