The corporal was for beginning the demolition, by making a breach in the ramparts, or main fortifications of the town——No,—that will never do, corporal, said my uncle _Toby_, for in going that way to work with the town, the _English_ garrison will not be safe in it an hour; because if the French are treacherous——They are as treacherous as devils, an’ please your honour, said the corporal——It gives me concern always when I hear it, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby;_—for they don’t want personal bravery; and if a breach is made in the ramparts, they may enter it, and make themselves masters of the place when they please:—Let them enter it, said the corporal, lifting up his pioneer’s spade in both his hands, as if he was going to lay about him with it,—let them enter, an’ please your honour, if they dare.——In cases like this, corporal, said my uncle _Toby_, slipping his right hand down to the middle of his cane, and holding it afterwards truncheon-wise with his fore-finger extended,——’tis no part of the consideration of a commandant, what the enemy dare,—or what they dare not do; he must act with prudence. We will begin with the outworks both towards the sea and the land, and particularly with fort _Louis_, the most distant of them all, and demolish it first,—and the rest, one by one, both on our right and left, as we retreat towards the town;——then we’ll demolish the mole,—next fill up the harbour,—then retire into the citadel, and blow it up into the air: and having done that, corporal, we’ll embark for _England._——We are there, quoth the corporal, recollecting himself——Very true, said my uncle _Toby_—looking at the church. C H A P. LXXVIII A DELUSIVE, delicious consultation or two of this kind, betwixt my uncle _Toby_ and _Trim_, upon the demolition of _Dunkirk_,—for a moment rallied back the ideas of those pleasures, which were slipping from under him:——still—still all went on heavily——the magic left the mind the weaker—STILLNESS, with SILENCE at her back, entered the solitary parlour, and drew their gauzy mantle over my uncle _Toby_’s head;—and LISTLESSNESS, with her lax fibre and undirected eye, sat quietly down beside him in his arm-chair.——No longer _Amberg_ and _Rhinberg_, and _Limbourg_, and _Huy_, and _Bonn_, in one year,—and the prospect of _Landen_, and _Trerebach_, and _Drusen_, and _Dendermond_, the next,—hurried on the blood:—No longer did saps, and mines, and blinds, and gabions, and palisadoes, keep out this fair enemy of man’s repose:——No more could my uncle _Toby_, after passing the _French_ lines, as he eat his egg at supper, from thence break into the heart of _France_,—cross over the _Oyes_, and with all _Picardie_ open behind him, march up to the gates of _Paris_, and fall asleep with nothing but ideas of glory:——No more was he to dream, he had fixed the royal standard upon the tower of the _Bastile_, and awake with it streaming in his head.