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THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF

[book iv.

keepers, shop-boys, perhaps shop-lifters, lowest of thelow,who proudly strutting, as if those rooms belongedto them, and pompously threatening, bawled they hadjust signed a paper before the Dutch consul, that theywould submit to the French, and deliver the cityup into the hands of General Buonaparte, without at-tending to knights or order. There were stout-heartedcavaliers, but yet none of them possessed the energyrequisite for so difficult a situation, and worthy oftheir ancestors. It was an avowal of weakness, andconsciousness of inability to face the boaster in thesaloons, that they had retired into a back room.This was towards sunset. Liberty and equality andlong life to Bansjat, resounded He had got out ofCastle St. Angelo by the mob’s breaking into it, andthey were now carrying him in triumph to the palace.He seems to have been in the Orient and signedbefore his imprisonment. But it has a mystery thatis not explained by his own justification, and hisdeclaration that many knights and the grand masterhad entreated him to go on board for the capitulation,which may be true or not . 1 An hour after sunset,the French were reported to have entered in onebody into the city, which increased the tumult.

1 Ransjat : Paris, 9th year of the republic, and re-printedMalta, 1837. But it is rather a justification of Yaubois (whodid not need it), than of himself under Hompesch.