dastard Commandant Lavergne no where shewing face; the priming would not catch; there was no powder in the bombs,—­what could we do?  “Mourir!  Die!” answer prompt voices; (Hist.  Parl. xvii. 148.) and the dusty fugitives must shrink elsewhither for comfort.—­Yes, Mourir, that is now the word.  Be Longwi a proverb and a hissing among French strong-places:  let it (says the Legislative) be obliterated rather, from the shamed face of the Earth;—­and so there has gone forth Decree, that Longwi shall, were the Prussians once out of it, ‘be rased,’ and exist only as ploughed ground.

Nor are the Jacobins milder; as how could they, the flower of Patriotism?  Poor Dame Lavergne, wife of the poor Commandant, took her parasol one evening, and escorted by her Father came over to the Hall of the mighty Mother; and ’reads a memoir tending to justify the Commandant of Longwi.’  Lafarge, President, makes answer:  “Citoyenne, the Nation will judge Lavergne; the Jacobins are bound to tell him the truth.  He would have ended his course there (termine sa carriere), if he had loved the honour of his country.” (Ibid. xix. 300.)

Chapter 3.1.II.

Danton.

But better than raising of Longwi, or rebuking poor dusty soldiers or soldiers’ wives, Danton had come over, last night, and demanded a Decree to search for arms, since they were not yielded voluntarily.  Let ‘Domiciliary visits,’ with rigour of authority, be made to this end.  To search for arms; for horses,—­Aristocratism rolls in its carriage, while Patriotism cannot trail its cannon.  To search generally for munitions of war, ’in the houses of persons suspect,’—­and even, if it seem proper, to seize and imprison the suspect persons themselves!  In the Prisons, their plots will be harmless; in the Prisons, they will be as hostages for us, and not without use.  This Decree the energetic Minister of Justice demanded, last night, and got; and this same night it is to be executed; it is being executed, at the moment when these dusty soldiers get saluted with Mourir.  Two thousand stand of arms, as they count, are foraged in this way; and some four hundred head of new Prisoners; and, on the whole, such a terror and damp is struck through the Aristocrat heart, as all but Patriotism, and even Patriotism were it out of this agony, might pity.  Yes, Messieurs! if Brunswick blast Paris to ashes, he probably will blast the Prisons of Paris too:  pale Terror, if we have got it, we will also give it, and the depth of horrors that lie in it; the same leaky bottom, in these wild waters, bears us all.