at Brussels. (Montgaillard, ii. 286.) His Apartment will stand vacant;
usefuller, as we may find, than when it stood occupied.

So fly the Chevaliers of the Poniard; hunted of Patriotic men,
shamefully in the thickening dusk. A dim miserable business; born of
darkness; dying away there in the thickening dusk and dimness! In the
midst of which, however, let the reader discern clearly one figure
running for its life: Crispin-Cataline d'Espremenil,--for the last time,
or the last but one. It is not yet three years since these same Centre
Grenadiers, Gardes Francaises then, marched him towards the Calypso
Isles, in the gray of the May morning; and he and they have got thus
far. Buffeted, beaten down, delivered by popular Petion, he might well
answer bitterly: "And I too, Monsieur, have been carried on the People's
shoulders." (See Mercier, ii. 40, 202.) A fact which popular Petion, if
he like, can meditate.

But happily, one way and another, the speedy night covers up this
ignominious Day of Poniards; and the Chevaliers escape, though
maltreated, with torn coat-skirts and heavy hearts, to their respective
dwelling-houses. Riot twofold is quelled; and little blood shed, if it
be not insignificant blood from the nose: Vincennes stands undemolished,
reparable; and the Hereditary Representative has not been stolen, nor
the Queen smuggled into Prison. A Day long remembered: commented on with
loud hahas and deep grumblings; with bitter scornfulness of triumph,
bitter rancour of defeat. Royalism, as usual, imputes it to d'Orleans
and the Anarchists intent on insulting Majesty: Patriotism, as usual,
to Royalists, and even Constitutionalists, intent on stealing Majesty to
Metz: we, also as usual, to Preternatural Suspicion, and Phoebus Apollo
having made himself like the Night.

Thus however has the reader seen, in an unexpected arena, on this last
day of February 1791, the Three long-contending elements of French
Society, dashed forth into singular comico-tragical collision; acting
and reacting openly to the eye. Constitutionalism, at once quelling
Sansculottic riot at Vincennes, and Royalist treachery from the
Tuileries, is great, this day, and prevails. As for poor Royalism,
tossed to and fro in that manner, its daggers all left in a heap, what
can one think of it? Every dog, the Adage says, has its day: has it; has
had it; or will have it. For the present, the day is Lafayette's and
the Constitution's. Nevertheless Hunger an