was betrayed by his seminarist air, and was chased with cries of "Le calotin à la lanterne!"
"The oysterwomen locked their fish up, |
or rather "No priest;" but seeing a marketwoman at the head of the troop, he dashed down a narrow alley with posts in the middle inconvenient for the passage of petticoats, and thus baffled his pursuers. This is a French version of Lingard's experiences, but his biographer Tierney gives an altogether different account, more entitled to credence. In June 1790, according to Tierney, he was walking about Douai when the mob were dragging a man whom he knew, Derbaix, to execution. Stopping to ask the reason, his seminarist dress attracted notice, and there was a cry of "Le calotin à la lanterne!" This roused him to a sense of his danger, and he hastily took to flight, but remained at Douai till February 1793. Derbaix was a printer, and commanded the National Guard. He had rescued from the mob, and was taking to prison for security, a corn merchant, Nicolon, accused of exporting wheat, when a ringleader at the prison doors snatched Nicolon from him and gave him up to the mob. Derbaix, indignant, drew his sword on the ringleader, whereupon the mob fell on him,
- ↑ The Royalist satirists, in the "Actes des Apôtres," drew some of their inspiration from Hudibras, and the resemblance between certain phases of the Commonwealth and Jacobinism is obvious.
