he
winds and the refugees are threatened with expulsion. Only in the vast
obscurantism of London is there safety for these exiles. A subscription
list is started on their behalf; the King offers the royal house at
Winchester for the overplus at Portsmouth: and by degrees the scared
throngs huddle down into the dire poverty and uneasy rest that are to be
their lot for many a year.[94]

Strange adventures befell many of the French nobles in their escape. The
Duc de Liancourt, commanding the troops at Rouen, was fain to flee to
the coast, hire a deckless craft, and conceal himself under faggots. In
that manner he put to sea and finally made the opposite coast at
Hastings. There, still nervous, he made his way to the nearest inn, and,
to proclaim his insularity, called for porter. The beverage was too much
for him, and he retired to his room in a state of unconscious passivity.
On his awaking, the strange surroundings seemed those of a French
lock-up; but as he crept down to make his escape, the mugs caught his
eye; and their brightness convinced him that he was in England. Such
was his story, told to the family at Bury, where Fanny Burney was
staying. Several of the wealthier French refugees settled at Richmond,
and there found Horace Walpole as charmer and friend. But the most
distinguished group was that at Juniper Hall, near Dorking where finally
Mme. de Stael and Talleyrand enlivened the dull days and long drives
with unfailing stores of wit. We shall later on make the acquaintance of
the French _emigres_ in a more active and bellicose mood.

Such, then, was the mental condition of our folk. Depressed by rain and
dear food, beset by stories of plotters from Paris, or harrowed by the
tales of misery of the French _emigres_, Britons came to look on France
as a land peopled by demons, who sought to involve other lands in the
ruin to which they had reduced their own. In this state of nervousness
and excitement little was needed to bring about a furious reaction on
behalf of Church and King.

The follies of English democrats helped on this reaction. Whispers went
about of strange and threatening orders of arms at Birmingham. A
correspondent at the midland capital informed Dundas at the end of
September that a Dr. Maxwell, of York, had ordered 20,000 daggers, which
were to be 12 inches in the blade and 5 1/4 inches in the handle. The
informant convinced the manufacturer that he must apprise the Home
Secretary of this orde