Memorials and Other Papers V2

ory had been rapidly dispersed; and on the same day it was made known in another

ceforth not you, but I,

) THE M

erial interest? He was carried off in the night-time from his house, and probably from the city. At first this was an easy task. Nobody apprehending any special danger to himself, no special preparations were made to meet it. But as it soon became apparent in what cause The Masque was moving, every person who knew himself obnoxious to attack, took means to face it. Guards were multiplied; arms were repaired in every house; alarm-bells were hung. For a time the danger se

ate hearth, the secrecy of bed-rooms, was no longer a protection. Locks gave way, bars fell, doors flew open, as if by magic, before him. Arms seemed useless. In some instances a party of as many as ten or a dozen persons had been removed without rousing

been suddenly confronted by him in unfrequented parts of the city, in the dead of night, and were on the point of being attacked, when some alarm, or the approach of distant footsteps, had caused him to disappear. The students, indeed, more particularly, seemed objects of attack; and as they were pretty generally attached to the imperial interest, the motives of The Masque were no longer judged to be political. Hence it happened that the students ca

into eight or ten divisions, posted at different points, whilst a central one traversed the whole city at stated periods, and overlooked

, which was understood to express a spirit of retaliation for the alacrity of the students in combining-for the public protection. People were carried off as before. And continual notices affixed to

warning, availed them not at all. Sometimes it happened that, having received notice of suspicious circumstances indicating that The Masque had turned his attention upon themselves, they would assemble round their dwellings, or in their very chambers, a band of armed men sufficient to set the danger at defiance. Bu

s victims. But of late, in those houses, or college chambers, from which the occupiers had disappeared, traces of bloodshed were apparent in some instances, and of ferocious conflict in others. Sometimes a profusion of hair was scattered on the ground; some

ducted his warfare, in one house, where the bloodshed had been so great as to argue some considerable loss of life, a notice was left behind in

more had avowedly appeared upon the scene), they were left defeated and at his mercy. A second party counselled a treaty; would it not be possible to learn the ultimate objects of The Masque; and, if such as seemed capable of being entertained with honor, to concede to him his demands, in exchange for security to th

rposes, and the price which he expected for suspending them. The next day an answer appeared in the same situation, avowing the intention