d to
mendicancy in a strange land, wanderers through the earth, without a
spot whereon to lay their head, fugitives forever. Yet the anxiety for
those left behind was of a still deeper dye; the loved, the familiar,
the honoured, all involved in a tide of calamity, irresistible by human
strength or skill.--All so near, yet all so lost; like the crew of some
noble ship hopelessly struggling with the winds and waves, within sight
of the shore, within reach almost of the very voices of their friends,
yet at the mercy of a tremendous element which forbade their ever
treading on firm ground.
But there was still much to tell; the fate of the royal family was the
general question; and the remainder of the melancholy tale was given
with manly sensibility.
"When I recovered my senses it was late in the day; and I found myself
in humble room, with only an old woman for my attendant; but my wounds
bandaged, and every appearance of my having fallen into friendly hands.
The conjecture was true. I was in the house of one of my father's
_gardes de chasse_, who, having commenced tavern-keeper in the Fauxbourg
St Antoine some years back, and being a thriving man, had become a
'personage' in his section, and was now a captain in the Federes.
Forced, _malgre_, to join the march to the Hotel de Ville, he had seen
me in the melee, and dragged me from under a heap of killed and wounded.
To his recollection I probably owed my life; for the patriots mingled
plunder with their principles, stripped all the fallen, and the pike and
dagger finished the career of many of the wounded. It happened, too,
that I could not have fallen into a better spot for information. My
_cidevant garde de chasse_ was loyal to the midriff; but his position as
the master of a tavern, made his house a rendezvous of the leading
patriots of his section. Immediately after their victory of the morning,
a sort of council was held on what they were to do next; and the room
where I lay being separated from their place of meeting only by a slight
partition, I could hear every syllable of their speeches, which, indeed,
they took no pains to whisper; they clearly thought that Paris was their
own. Lying on my bed, I learned that the attack on the Hotel de Ville
was only a part of a grand scheme of operations; that an insurrection
was to be organized throughout France; that the king was to be deposed,
and a 'lieutenant of the kingdom' appointed, until the sovereign people
had de
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