And your rigorous Quartermaster spurs; awakening hoarse trumpet-tone, as here at Clermont, calling out Dragoons gone to bed.  Brave Colonel de Damas has them mounted, in part, these Clermont men; young Cornet Remy dashes off with a few.  But the Patriot Magistracy is out here at Clermont too; National Guards shrieking for ball-cartridges; and the Village ’illuminates itself;’—­deft Patriots springing out of bed; alertly, in shirt or shift, striking a light; sticking up each his farthing candle, or penurious oil-cruise, till all glitters and glimmers; so deft are they!  A camisado, or shirt-tumult, every where:  stormbell set a-ringing; village-drum beating furious generale, as here at Clermont, under illumination; distracted Patriots pleading and menacing!  Brave young Colonel de Damas, in that uproar of distracted Patriotism, speaks some fire-sentences to what Troopers he has:  “Comrades insulted at Sainte-Menehould; King and Country calling on the brave;” then gives the fire-word, Draw swords.  Whereupon, alas, the Troopers only smite their sword-handles, driving them further home!  “To me, whoever is for the King!” cries Damas in despair; and gallops, he with some poor loyal Two, of the subaltern sort, into the bosom of the Night. (Proces-verbal du Directoire de Clermont in Choiseul, p. 189-95.)

Night unexampled in the Clermontais; shortest of the year; remarkablest of the century:  Night deserving to be named of Spurs!  Cornet Remy, and those Few he dashed off with, has missed his road; is galloping for hours towards Verdun; then, for hours, across hedged country, through roused hamlets, towards Varennes.  Unlucky Cornet Remy; unluckier Colonel Damas, with whom there ride desperate only some loyal Two!  More ride not of that Clermont Escort:  of other Escorts, in other Villages, not even Two may ride; but only all curvet and prance,—­impeded by stormbell and your Village illuminating itself.

And Drouet rides and Clerk Guillaume; and the Country runs.—­Goguelat and Duke Choiseul are plunging through morasses, over cliffs, over stock and stone, in the shaggy woods of the Clermontais; by tracks; or trackless, with guides; Hussars tumbling into pitfalls, and lying ‘swooned three quarters of an hour,’ the rest refusing to march without them.  What an evening-ride from Pont-de-Sommerville; what a thirty hours, since Choiseul quitted Paris, with Queen’s-valet Leonard in the chaise by him!  Black Care sits behind the rider.  Thus go they plunging; rustle the owlet from his branchy nest; champ the sweet-scented forest-herb, queen-of-the-meadows spilling her spikenard; and frighten the ear of Night.  But hark! towards twelve o’clock, as one guesses, for the very stars are gone out:  sound of the tocsin from Varennes?  Checking bridle, the Hussar Officer listens:  “Some fire undoubtedly!”—­yet rides on, with double breathlessness, to verify.