. Assassinating Peasants are
hanged; Old-Constituent Honourable members, though of venerable age,
ride in carts with their hands tied; these are the woes of war.

Thus they; sprawling and wriggling, far and wide, on the slopes
and passes of the Argonne;--a loss to Brunswick of five-and-twenty
disastrous days. There is wriggling and struggling; facing, backing, and
right-about facing; as the positions shift, and the Argonne gets partly
rounded, partly forced:--but still Dumouriez, force him, round him as
you will, sticks like a rooted fixture on the ground; fixture with many
hinges; wheeling now this way, now that; shewing always new front, in
the most unexpected manner: nowise consenting to take himself away.
Recruits stream up on him: full of heart; yet rather difficult to
deal with. Behind Grand-Pre, for example, Grand-Pre which is on the
wrong-side of the Argonne, for we are now forced and rounded,--the full
heart, in one of those wheelings and shewings of new front, did as it
were overset itself, as full hearts are liable to do; and there rose a
shriek of sauve qui peut, and a death-panic which had nigh ruined all!
So that the General had to come galloping; and, with thunder-words, with
gesture, stroke of drawn sword even, check and rally, and bring back the
sense of shame; (Dumouriez, Memoires, iii. 29.)--nay to seize the first
shriekers and ringleaders; 'shave their heads and eyebrows,' and pack
them forth into the world as a sign. Thus too (for really the rations
are short, and wet camping with hungry stomach brings bad humour) there
is like to be mutiny. Whereupon again Dumouriez 'arrives at the head of
their line, with his staff, and an escort of a hundred huzzars. He had
placed some squadrons behind them, the artillery in front; he said to
them: "As for you, for I will neither call you citizens, nor soldiers,
nor my men (ni mes enfans), you see before you this artillery, behind
you this cavalry. You have dishonoured yourselves by crimes. If you
amend, and grow to behave like this brave Army which you have the honour
of belonging to, you will find in me a good father. But plunderers and
assassins I do not suffer here. At the smallest mutiny I will have you
shivered in pieces (hacher en pieces). Seek out the scoundrels that
are among you, and dismiss them yourselves; I hold you responsible for
them."' (Ibid., Memoires iii. 55.)

Patience, O Dumouriez! This uncertain heap of shriekers, mutineers, were
they once