their silence had something sullen in it; they all seemed crushed
under the yoke of a single thought, terrible no doubt but carefully
concealed, for their faces were impenetrable, the slowness of their
gait alone betraying their inward communings. From time to time a few
of them, noticeable for the rosaries hanging from their necks
(dangerous as it was to carry that sign of a religion which was
suppressed, rather than abolished) shook their long hair and raised
their heads defiantly. They covertly examined the woods, and paths,
and masses of rock which flanked the road, after the manner of a dog
with his nose to the wind trying to scent his game; and then, hearing
nothing but the monotonous tramp of the silent company, they lowered
their heads once more with the old expression of despair, like
criminals on their way to the galleys to live or die.

The march of this column upon Mayenne, the heterogeneous elements of
which it was composed, and the divers sentiments which evidently
pervaded it, will explain the presence of another troop which formed
the head of the detachment. About a hundred and fifty soldiers, with
arms and baggage, marched in the advance, commanded by the /chief of a
half-brigade/. We may mention here, for the benefit of those who did
not witness the drama of the Revolution, that this title was made to
supersede that of colonel, proscribed by patriots as too aristocratic.
These soldiers belonged to a demi-brigade of infantry quartered at
Mayenne. During these troublous times the inhabitants of the west of
France called all the soldiers of the Republic "Blues." This nickname
came originally from their blue and red uniforms, the memory of which
is still so fresh as to render a description superfluous. A detachment
of the Blues was therefore on this occasion escorting a body of
recruits, or rather conscripts, all displeased at being taken to
Mayenne where military discipline was about to force upon them the