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Seeing
the men rushing out armed, the guard without the gate drew up across
the road to prevent their passage; but the Frenchman's thirty gave
them a volley, charged them with the bayonet, and brought down
several, and the rest flying, the thirty rushed on. The frontier is
only a league from Neiss, and they made rapidly towards it.

But the alarm was given in the town, and what saved it was that the
clock by which the Frenchman went was a quarter of an hour faster
than any of the clocks in the town. The generale was beat, the
troops called to arms, and thus the men who were to have attacked
the other guard-houses, were obliged to fall into the ranks, and
their project was defeated. This, however, likewise rendered the
discovery of the conspirators impossible, for no man could betray
his comrade, nor, of course, would he criminate himself.

Cavalry was sent in pursuit of the Frenchman and his thirty
fugitives, who were, by this time, far on their way to the Bohemian
frontier. When the horse came up with them, they turned, received
them with a volley and the bayonet, and drove them back. The
Austrians were out at the barriers, looking eagerly on at the
conflict. The women, who were on the look-out too, brought more
ammunition to these intrepid deserters, and they engaged and drove
back the dragoons several times. But in these gallant and fruitless
combats much time was lost, and a battalion presently came up, and
surrounded the brave thirty; when the fate of the poor fellows was
decided. They fought with the fury of despair: not one of them asked
for quarter. When their ammunition failed, they fought with the
steel, and were shot down or bayoneted where they stood. The
Frenchman was the very last man who was hit. He received a bullet in
the thigh, and fell, and in this state was overpowered, killing the
officer who first advanced to seize him.

He and the very few of his comrades who survived were carried back
to Neiss, and immediately, as the ringleader, he was brought before
a council of war. He refused all interrogations which were made as
to his real name and family. 'What matters who I am?' said he; 'you
have me and will shoot me. My name would not save me were it ever so
famous.' In the same way he declined to make a single discovery
regarding the plot. 'It was all my doing,' he said; 'each man
engaged in it only knew me, and is ignorant of every one of his
comrades. The secret is mine alone, and the secret shall die with
me.' When the officers asked him what was the reason which induced
him to meditate a crime so horrible?--'It was your infernal
brutality and tyranny,' he said. 'You are all butchers, ruffians,
tigers, and you owe it to the cowardice of your men that you were
not murdered long ago.'

At this his captain burst into the most furious exclamations against
the wounded man, and rushing up to him, struck him a blow with his
fist. But Le Blondin, wounded as he was, as quick as thought seized
the bayonet of one of the soldiers who supported him, and plunged it

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