Note (Back to main text) — HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION OF THE 20th OF MARCH. (continued 2)

He was well pleased, to find himself among the Chalonese, and received them with much affection and regard. "I have not forgotten," said he, "that you resisted the enemy for forty days, and valiantly defended the passage of the Saône. Had all the French possessed your courage and patriotism, not a single foreigner would have escaped out of France." He expressed to them his desire of knowing the brave men, who had most distinguished themselves; and on their unanimous testimony, he granted on the spot the decoration of the Legion of Honour to the mayor of St. Jean Delonne. "It was for the brave men like him and you," said he to them, "that I instituted the Legion of Honour, and not for emigrants pensioned by our enemies." When the audience was ended, he said to me: "The mayor of Chalons is not come; yet it was I who appointed him: but he is related to an ancient family, and probably has his scruples. The inhabitants complain of him, and will make him suffer for it. You must go and see him. If he object to you his oath, tell him, that I absolve him from it; and make him sensible, that, if he wait till he is freed from it by Louis XVIII., he will wait a long time. Say to him, in short, what you please; I care little about his visit; it is for his own sake I wish him to come. If he do not come, the people will stone him to death after I am gone. Germain was lucky to escape[60]; let his example be a lesson to him."