Though their tumultuous excitement certainly at this time bore the appearance of insubordination, my conductor assured me I was mistaken in forming such a judgment: he admitted that they durst not check that exuberant zeal on the instant; but added, that when the period arrived to form them for battle, not a voice would be heard—not a limb move, till the attack commenced, except by order of their leaders; and that if the _traitors in Paris_ suffered them once more to try their fortune, he did not think there was an individual in that army who entertained a doubt of the result.
In the production of this confidence, party spirit was doubtless mixed up: but no impartial observer could deny, that had the troops at Vilette been heartily joined by the national guards and country volunteers then within the walls of Paris, the consequence would have been at least extremely problematical; and if the _marais_ had been armed with pikes, the whole would have been overwhelming.
The day passed on, and I still strolled about with my polite conductor, whom I begged to remain with me. He was not an officer of high rank: I believe a captain of the eighty-first infantry—very thin and worn, gentlemanly, and had seen long service.
From this crowd of infuriated soldiers, he led me farther to the left, whither a part of the old guard, who had been I believe quartered at Montmartre, had been that evening removed. I had, as the reader will perhaps recollect, a previous opportunity of admiring that unrivalled body of veteran warriors; and their appearance this evening interested me beyond measure. Every man looked like an Ajax, exhibiting a firmness of step and of gesture at once formidable and even graceful. At the same time, I fancied that there was a cast of melancholy over their bronzed countenances. When I compare that corps to the ordinary-looking troops now generally composing the guardians of that once military nation, I can scarcely avoid sighing while I exclaim _tempora mutantur_! I returned to the barrier with my friend, after a long walk.
I grew at length impatient; evening was closing, and, if detained, I must I suppose have bivouacked. To be sure the weather was so fine that it would have been of no great consequence: still my situation was disagreeable, and the more so, as my family, being quite ignorant of it, must necessarily feel uneasy. I was therefore becoming silent and abstracted, (and my friend had no kind of interest to get me released,) when two carriages appeared driving toward the barrier where we stood. A shot was fired by the advanced sentry at one of them, which immediately stopped. A party was sent out, and the carriage entered: there were two gentlemen in it, one of whom had received the ball, I believe, in his shoulder. A surgeon instantly attended, and they proceeded within the lines. They proved to be two of the _parlementaires_ who had gone out with dispatches. The wound was not mortal; and its infliction arose from a mistaken construction, on the part of the sentinel, of his orders.