Nay now, borne from afar, come quite sinister cries; hoarse,
reverberating in longdrawn hollow murmurs, with syllables too like those
of Lanterne! Or else, irregular Sansculottism may be marching off,
of itself; with pikes, nay with cannon. The inflexible Scipio does at
length, by aide-de-camp, ask of the Municipals: Whether or not he may
go? A Letter is handed out to him, over armed heads; sixty thousand
faces flash fixedly on his, there is stillness and no bosom breathes,
till he have read. By Heaven, he grows suddenly pale! Do the Municipals
permit? 'Permit and even order,'--since he can no other. Clangour of
approval rends the welkin. To your ranks, then; let us march!

It is, as we compute, towards three in the afternoon. Indignant National
Guards may dine for once from their haversack: dined or undined, they
march with one heart. Paris flings up her windows, claps hands, as the
Avengers, with their shrilling drums and shalms tramp by; she will then
sit pensive, apprehensive, and pass rather a sleepless night. (Deux
Amis, iii. 165.) On the white charger, Lafayette, in the slowest
possible manner, going and coming, and eloquently haranguing among the
ranks, rolls onward with his thirty thousand. Saint-Antoine, with pike
and cannon, has preceded him; a mixed multitude, of all and of no arms,
hovers on his flanks and skirts; the country once more pauses agape:
Paris marche sur nous.



Chapter 1.7.VI.

To Versailles.