will naturally be the former.

Chapter 2.2.III.

Bouille at Metz.

To Bouille, in his North-Eastern circle, none of these things are
altogether hid. Many times flight over the marches gleams out on him as
a last guidance in such bewilderment: nevertheless he continues here:
struggling always to hope the best, not from new organisation but from
happy Counter-Revolution and return to the old. For the rest it is clear
to him that this same National Federation, and universal swearing and
fraternising of People and Soldiers, has done 'incalculable mischief.'
So much that fermented secretly has hereby got vent and become open:
National Guards and Soldiers of the line, solemnly embracing one another
on all parade-fields, drinking, swearing patriotic oaths, fall into
disorderly street-processions, constitutional unmilitary exclamations
and hurrahings. On which account the Regiment Picardie, for one, has to
be drawn out in the square of the barracks, here at Metz, and sharply
harangued by the General himself; but expresses penitence. (Bouille,
Memoires, i. 113.)

Far and near, as accounts testify, insubordination has begun grumbling
louder and louder. Officers have been seen shut up in their mess-rooms;
assaulted with clamorous demands, not without menaces. The insubordinate
ringleader is dismissed with 'yellow furlough,' yellow infamous thing
they call cartouche jaune: but ten new ringleaders rise in his stead,
and the yellow cartouche ceases to be thought disgraceful. 'Within a
fortnight,' or at furthest a month, of that sublime Feast of Pikes, the
whole French Army, demanding Arrears, forming Reading Clubs, frequenting
Popular Societies, is in a state which Bouille can call by no name
but that of mutiny. Bouille knows it as few do; and speaks by dire
experience. Take one instance instead of many.

It is still an early day of August, the precise date now undiscoverable,
when Bouille, about to set out for the waters of Aix la Chapelle, is
once more suddenly summoned to the barracks of Metz. The soldiers stand
ranked in fighting order, muskets loaded, the officers all there on
compulsion; and require, with many-voiced emphasis, to have their
arrears paid. Picardie was penitent; but we see it has relapsed: the
wide space bristles and lours with mere mutinous armed men. Brave
Bouille advances to the nearest Regiment, opens his commanding lips to
harangue; obtains nothing but querulous-indignant discordance, and the
sound