Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/291

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JULY 5, 1792]
LET US MARCH
271

ordered Dumouriez down to him; down from Maulde, and the Fortified Camp there. Which order the many-counselled Dumouriez, with the Austrians hanging close on him, he busy meanwhile training a few thousands to stand fire and be soldiers, declares that, come of it what will, he cannot obey.[1] Will a poor Legislative, therefore, sanction Dumouriez; who applies to it, 'not knowing whether there is any War-ministry'? Or sanction Lückner and these Lafayette movements?

The poor Legislative knows not what to do. It decrees, however, that the Staff of the Paris Guard, and indeed all such Staffs, for they are Feuillants mostly, shall be broken and replaced. It decrees earnestly, in what manner one can declare, that the Country is in Danger. And finally, on the 11th of July, the morrow of that day when the Ministry struck work, it decrees that the Country be, with all despatch, declared in Danger. Whereupon let the King sanction; let the Municipality take measures: if such Declaration will do service, it need not fail.

In Danger truly, if ever Country was! Arise, O Country; or be trodden down to ignominious ruin! Nay, are not the chances a hundred to one that no rising of the Country will save it; Brunswick, the Emigrants, and Feudal Europe drawing nigh?

CHAPTER II

LET US MARCH

But, to our minds, the notablest of all these moving phenomena is that of Barbaroux's 'Six-hundred Marseillese who know how to die.'

Prompt to the request of Barbaroux, the Marseilles Municipality has got these men together: on the fifth morning of July, the Townhall says, 'Marchez, abattez le Tyran, March, strike down the Tyrant';[2] and they, with grim appropriate

  1. Dumouriez, ii. 1, 5.
  2. Dampmartin, ii. 183.