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On Wednesday morning the sun rose bright on a scene of wintry splendor, and the frozen lake was dotted with Rigaud's retreating followers toiling towards Canada on snow-shoes. Before they reached it many of them were blinded for a while by the insufferable glare, and their comrades led them homewards by the hand.
"I grieve," said he, "that you cannot yet fulfil your function altogether in peace. My generals and I have done what we can to preserve our fields from devastation, and our cultivators from the dangers and the fears of ambushed foes; but Rigaud's forces are not yet subdued; and for a while we must impose upon our cultivators the toil of working armed in the field.
There is no sort of whiteness in all the hues under the sun at all like the whiteness of Monsieur Rigaud's face as it was then. Neither is there any expression of the human countenance at all like that expression in every little line of which the frightened heart is seen to beat.
Without disclosing the precise nature of the documents that had fallen into Rigaud's hands, Little Dorrit had confided the general outline of that story to Mr Meagles, to whom she had also recounted his fate.
There seemed to be some uncomfortable attraction of Monsieur Rigaud's eyes to the immediate neighbourhood of that part of the pavement where the thumb had been in the plan. They were so drawn in that direction, that the Italian more than once followed them to and back from the pavement in some surprise. 'What an infernal hole this is! said Monsieur Rigaud, breaking a long pause.
In the morning they changed their minds, and begged him to call the whole army to a council for debating the question. It appeared that some of them, especially the Iroquois converts of Caughnawaga, disapproved of attacking Schenectady, because some of their Mohawk relatives were always making visits there, and might be inadvertently killed by the wild Western Indians of Rigaud's party.
On the Saturday before Rigaud's arrival, Hawks had sent Thomas Williams, the surgeon, brother of the absent captain, to Deerfield, with a detachment of fourteen men, to get a supply of powder and lead. "La garnison se trouva de 24 hommes, entre lesquels il y avoit un ministre, 3 femmes, et 5 enfans." The names and residence of all the men in the fort when the attack began are preserved.
It had been intended, the artist said, for Miss Oglethorpe, the Prince's mistress, but that young lady quitting Paris, had left the work on the artist's hands; and taking this piece home, when my lord's portrait arrived, Colonel Esmond, alias Monsieur Simon, had copied the uniform and other accessories from my lord's picture to fill up Rigaud's incomplete canvas: the Colonel all his life having been a practitioner of painting, and especially followed it during his long residence in the cities of Flanders, among the masterpieces of Van Dyck and Rubens.
His Majesty's name and those of his ministers must be spoken here respectfully, or not at all! Sit down, Chevalier de Vaudreuil; you are inconsiderate." "I obey your Excellency I am, I dare say, inconsiderate! but I am right!" Rigaud's passion was subsiding, but not spent. He obeyed the order, however. He had had his say, and flung himself heavily upon his chair.
These interesting MSS. I have had the good fortune of seeing in the possession of my much valued friend, the late Professor Rigaud of Oxford. Edin. Phil. Journ. 1822, vol. vi. p. 317. See Rigaud's Life of Bradley, Supplement, p. 31. Id. It., p. 37, 38. Another candidate for the honour of discovering the spots of the sun, was John Fabricius, who undoubtedly saw them previous to June 1611.
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