hose of the contrary party were reduced to write upon theirs,
"Rebellion," which sounded ill to puritan ears. They flocked, then, from
Lambert to Monk, as sinners flock from Baal to God.

Monk made his calculations; at a thousand desertions a day Lambert had
men enough to last twenty days; but there is in sinking things such a
growth of weight and swiftness, which combine with each other, that
a hundred left the first day, five hundred the second, a thousand the
third. Monk thought he had obtained his rate. But from one thousand the
deserters increased to two thousand, then to four thousand, and, a week
after, Lambert, perceiving that he had no longer the possibility of
accepting battle, if it were offered to him, took the wise resolution
of decamping during the night, returning to London, and being beforehand
with Monk in constructing a power with the wreck of the military party.

But Monk, free and without uneasiness, marched towards London as a
conqueror, augmenting his army with all the floating parties on the
way. He encamped at Barnet, that is to say, within four leagues of the
capital, cherished by the parliament, which thought it beheld in him a
protector, and awaited by the people, who were anxious to see him reveal
himself, that they might judge him. D'Artagnan himself had not been able
to fathom his tactics; he observed--he admired. Monk could not enter
London with a settled determination without bringing about civil war. He
temporized for a short time.

Suddenly, when least expected, Monk drove the military party out of
London, and installed himself in the city amidst the citizens, by order
of the parliament; then, at the moment when the citizens were crying out
against Monk--at the moment when the soldiers themselves were accusing
their leader--Monk, finding himself certain of a majority, declared to
the Rump Parliament that it must abdicate--be dissolved--and yield its
place to a government which would not be a joke. Monk pronounced this
declaration, supported by fifty thousand swords, to which, that same
evening, were united, with shouts of delirious joy, the five thousand
inhabitants of the good city of London. At length, at the moment
when the people, after their triumphs and festive repasts in the open
streets, were looking about for a master, it was affirmed that a vessel
had left the Hague, bearing King Charles II. and his fortunes.

"Gentlemen," said Monk to his officers, "I am going to meet the