Poor M. de Gouvion is shiftless in this extremity;--a man shiftless,
perturbed; who will one day commit suicide. How happy for him that
Usher Maillard, the shifty, was there, at the moment, though making
representations! Fly back, thou shifty Maillard; seek the Bastille
Company; and O return fast with it; above all, with thy own shifty head!
For, behold, the Judiths can find no Mayor or Municipal; scarcely,
in the topmost belfry, can they find poor Abbe Lefevre the
Powder-distributor. Him, for want of a better, they suspend there; in
the pale morning light; over the top of all Paris, which swims in one's
failing eyes:--a horrible end? Nay, the rope broke, as French ropes
often did; or else an Amazon cut it. Abbe Lefevre falls, some twenty
feet, rattling among the leads; and lives long years after, though
always with 'a tremblement in the limbs.' (Dusaulx, Prise de la Bastille
(note, p. 281.).)

And now doors fly under hatchets; the Judiths have broken the Armoury;
have seized guns and cannons, three money-bags, paper-heaps; torches
flare: in few minutes, our brave Hotel-de-Ville which dates from the
Fourth Henry, will, with all that it holds, be in flames!



Chapter 1.7.V.

Usher Maillard.

In flames, truly,--were it not that Usher Maillard, swift of foot,
shifty of head, has returned!

Maillard, of his own motion, for Gouvion or the rest would not even