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THE MARSEILLESE
[BK. VI. CH. V.
CHAPTER V

AT DINNER

It was a bright day for Charenton, that 29th of the month, when the Marseillese Brethren actually came in sight. Barbaroux, Santerre and Patriots have gone out to meet the grim Wayfarers. Patriot clasps dusty Patriot to his bosom; there is footwashing and refection: 'dinner of twelve-hundred covers at the Blue Dial, Cadran Bleu'; and deep interior consultation, that one wots not of.[1] Consultation indeed which comes to little; for Santerre, with an open purse, with a loud voice, has almost no head. Here, however, we repose this night: on the morrow is public entry into Paris.

Of which public entry the Day-Historians, Diurnalists, or Journalists as they call themselves, have preserved record enough. How Saint-Antoine male and female, and Paris generally, gave brotherly welcome, with bravo and hand-clapping, in crowded streets; and all passed in the peaceablest manner;—except it might be our Marseillese pointed out here and there a riband-cockade, and beckoned that it should be snatched away, and exchanged for a wool one; which was done. How the Mother Society in a body has come as far as the Bastille-ground, to embrace you. How you then wend onwards, triumphant, to the Townhall, to be embraced by Mayor Pétion; to put down your muskets in the Barracks of Nouvelle France, not far off;—then towards the appointed Tavern in the Champs Élysées, to enjoy a frugal Patriot repast.[2]

Of all which the indignant Tuileries may, by its Tickets of Entry, have warning. Red Swiss look doubly sharp to their Château-Grates;—though surely there is no danger? Blue

  1. Deux Amis, viii. 90–101.
  2. Hist. Parl. xvi. 196. See Barbaroux, pp. 51–5.