ABSTRACT
YOU have heard no doubt that we have had a féte at Paris, on account of the arrival of the soldiers de Chateau-Vieux: but to give you an idea of all the disturbance, animosity, quarrels, and contention, which preceded this civic fête, would be somewhat difficult. For a fortnight before it took place the whole town of Paris was thrown into the most violent agitation. The 206approaching war seemed forgotten. Francis might threaten, and Prussia might arm; but all consideration of foreign affairs was laid aside, and the soldiers of Chateau-Vieux solely occupied the public attention. This Swiss regiment, called Chateau-Vieux, was one of those regiments which were encamped in the Champ de Mars before the revolution, and which were destined to massacre the Parisians, dissolve the states-general, and lay waste the city of Paris. But the soldiers of Chateau-Vieux disdained to act the part which had been assigned them in this bloody tragedy: they refused to become the assassins of the Parisians, and declared to their officers their resolution to break their arms in pieces, sooner than employ them against the citizens. That soldiers should dare before they drew their swords to deliberate whether the cause was just,—that when the word of command for murder was given, they should refuse to obey, because murder is a crime—was an example of morality, which, if it became contagious, would, it was immediately felt, prove absolutely destructive to the good old cause of arbitrary power; and it was resolved to punish the soldiers of Chateau-Vieux for having dared to reason, when fighting was the only thing for which they had received orders.
