104 BRIT AN NY AND THE CHASE. 



lads could not fight with men : in a meUej physical force 

 must carry the day, whatever be the spirit in the small 

 carcase." He said this was to a degree true ; and therefore 

 they arranged them so as to have two little ones and then 

 a full-grown man, and so on down the line, so as to give 

 support to the weak ; but he added that all the pluck was in 

 the little ones. They regarded the whole affair as a lark, 

 as good fun ; and not the death of their comrades, the 

 streets burdened with corpses and streaming with blood, 

 could destroy this idea. For four or five days did they 

 bivouac in the open air, taking only the little nourishment 

 they could get ; but what were the odds to them, who had 

 done so all their miserable lives, always starving and with- 

 out a home ? Bad as it might seem to others, they had, 

 perhaps, never lived so well before; and doubtless the 

 notion of fighting /or the law — they, the pickpockets, the 

 rogues in grain — must have tickled and amused them 

 amazingly. But, he said, their spirit was admirable. They 

 were ordered to attack a barricade in the Faubourg St. 

 Antoine from which a battalion of the National Guard had 

 just been repulsed. " Allons, mes enfans — en avanti" 

 and up the street they ran, laughing and singing, in the 

 face of a rattling fire which killed numbers ; and when 

 arrived at the huge mass of stone, instead of attempting to 

 take it in flank or rear, he said they climbed and scrambled 

 up the fiice of it like so many rabbits. They seemed un- 

 able to see the danger of it ; and this was especially the 

 case with the youngest. At another time the}^ were wait- 

 ing the signal to attack, vfhen, on a sudden, two lads 

 started out of the ranks and made straight for the in- 



