n secure Argonne; for which one had need to be a lion-fox and have
luck on one's side.

But Paris knows not Argonne, and terror is in her streets, with defiance
and frenzy. From a Sunday night to Thursday are a hundred hours, to be
reckoned with the Bartholomew butchery; prisoners dragged out by sudden
courts of wild justice to be massacred. These are the September
massacres, the victims one thousand and eighty-nine; in the historical
_fantasy_ "between two and three thousand"--nay, six, even twelve. They
have been put to death because "we go to fight the enemy; but we will
not leave robbers behind us to butcher our wives and children."
Horrible! But Brunswick is within a day's journey of us. "We must put
our enemies in fear." Which has plainly been brought about.

Our new National Convention is getting chosen; already we date First
Year of the Republic. And Dumouriez has snatched the Argonne passes;
Brunswick must laboriously skirt around; Dumouriez with recruits who,
once drilled and inured, will one day become a phalanxed mass of
fighters, wheels, always fronting him. On September 20, Brunswick
attacks Valmy, all day cannonading Alsatian Kellerman with French
Sansculottes, who do _not_ fly like poultry; finally retires; a day
precious to France!

On the morrow of our new National Convention first sits; old legislative
ending. Dumouriez, after brief appearance in Paris, returns to attack
Netherlands, winter though it be.

France, then, has hurled back the invaders, and shattered her own
constitution; a tremendous change. The nation has stripped itself of the
old vestures; patriots of the type soon to be called Girondins have the
problem of governing this naked nation. Constitution-making sets to work
again; more practical matters offer many difficulties; for one thing,
lack of grain; for another, what to do with a discrowned Louis
Capet--all things, but most of all fear, pointing one way. Is there not
on record a trial of Charles I.?

Twice our Girondin friends have attacked September massacres,
Robespierre dictatorship; not with success. The question of Louis
receives further stimulus from the discovery of hidden papers. On
December 11, the king's trial has _emerged_, before the Convention;
fifty-seven questions are put to him. Thereafter he withdraws, having
answered--for the most part on the simple basis of _No_. On December 26,
his advocate, Deseze, speaks for him. But there is to be debate.
Dumouriez is bac