CHAPTER IX.
I GO TO MAKE CAPTIVES AND AM TAKEN CAPTIVE MYSELF.
Our National Guard was at first a curious sight.
The first rank were armed with guns; the second with scythes; the third with clubs, and so on.
Later on, the armorers made some pikes for those who had no guns.
But however the guard was armed, there is no doubt but that it was filled with enthusiasm.
Not a man, had he received the order, would have hesitated to march on Paris.
What was most remarkable, with regard to this corps, was the manner in which the battalions seemed, as it were, to spring from the earth. Liberty was as yet quite young; and yet she had only to strike with her foot on the ground, to raise this deadly harvest of men.
It was in the sainted year of 1789 that all France became soldiers. After the 14th July, every Frenchman was born with teeth ready to bite a cartridge.