I hung my head without speaking; the miserable isolation of him who has no country is a sad and sickening sense of want no momentary enthusiasm, no impulse of high daring can make up for. Happily for me, all were too deeply interested in the important news to remark me, or pay any attention to my feelings. CHAPTER XXVII. THE MARCH TO VERSAILLES They who remember the excited state of England on the rupture of the peace of Amiens; the spirit of military ardor that animated every class and condition of life; the national hatred, carried to the highest pitch by the instigations and attack of a violent press,--can yet form but an imperfect notion of the mad enthusiasm that prevailed in France on the same occasion. The very fact that there was no determinate and precise cause of quarrel added to the exasperation on both sides. It was less like the warfare of two great nations, than the personal animosity of two high-spirited and passionate individuals, who, having interchanged words of insult, resolve on the sword as the only arbiter between them. All that the long rivalry of centuries, national dislike, jealousy in every form, and ridicule in a thousand shapes could suggest, were added to the already existing hate, and gave to the coming contest a character of blackest venom. In England, the tyrannic rule of Bonaparte gave deep offence to all true lovers of liberty, and gave rise to fears of what the condition of their own country would become should he continue to increase his power by conquest. In France, the rapid rise to honor and wealth the career of arms so singularly favored, made partisans of war in every quarter of the kingdom. The peaceful arts were but mean pursuits compared with that royal road to rank and riches,--the field of battle; and their self-interest lent its share in forming the spirit of hostility, which wanted no element of hatred to make it perfect.