steady gentle flame of Constitutionalism in their hearts;
who gently lift up the down-trodden, gently pull down the too uplifted;
reinstate the Daughter Society, recall the Mutineer Deserter; gradually
levelling, strive in all wise ways to smooth and soothe. With such
gradual mild levelling on the one side; as with solemn funeral-service,
Cassolettes, Courts-Martial, National thanks,--all that Officiality can
do is done. The buttonhole will drop its flat ball; the black ashes, so
far as may be, get green again.

This is the 'Affair of Nanci;' by some called the 'Massacre of
Nanci;'--properly speaking, the unsightly wrong-side of that thrice
glorious Feast of Pikes, the right-side of which formed a spectacle for
the very gods. Right-side and wrong lie always so near: the one was in
July, in August the other! Theatres, the theatres over in London, are
bright with their pasteboard simulacrum of that 'Federation of the
French People,' brought out as Drama: this of Nanci, we may say, though
not played in any pasteboard Theatre, did for many months enact itself,
and even walk spectrally--in all French heads. For the news of it fly
pealing through all France; awakening, in town and village, in clubroom,
messroom, to the utmost borders, some mimic reflex or imaginative
repetition of the business; always with the angry questionable
assertion: It was right; It was wrong. Whereby come controversies,
duels, embitterment, vain jargon; the hastening forward, the augmenting
and intensifying of whatever new explosions lie in store for us.

Meanwhile, at this cost or at that, the mutiny, as we say, is stilled.
The French Army has neither burst up in universal simultaneous delirium;
nor been at once disbanded, put an end to, and made new again. It
must die in the chronic manner, through years, by inches; with partial
revolts, as of Brest Sailors or the like, which dare not spread;
with men unhappy, insubordinate; officers unhappier, in Royalist
moustachioes, taking horse, singly or in bodies, across the Rhine: (See
Dampmartin, i. 249, &c. &c.) sick dissatisfaction, sick disgust on
both sides; the Army moribund, fit for no duty:--till it do, in that
unexpected manner, Phoenix-like, with long throes, get both dead and
newborn; then start forth strong, nay stronger and even strongest.

Thus much was the brave Bouille hitherto fated to do. Wherewith let
him again fade into dimness; and at Metz or the rural Cantonments,
assiduously drillin