5.V Kings and Emigrants

Extremely rheumatic Constitutions have been known to march, and keep on their feet, though in a staggering sprawling manner, for long periods, in virtue of one thing only: that the Head were healthy. But this Head of the French Constitution! What King Louis is and cannot help being, Readers already know. A King who cannot take the Constitution, nor reject the Constitution: nor do anything at all, but miserably ask, What shall I do? A King environed with endless confusions; in whose own mind is no germ of order. Haughty implacable remnants of Noblesse struggling with humiliated repentant Barnave-Lameths: struggling in that obscure element of fetchers and carriers, of Half-pay braggarts from the Café Valois, of Chambermaids, whisperers, and subaltern officious persons; fierce Patriotism looking on all the while, more and more suspicious, from without: what, in such struggle, can they do? At best, cancel one another, and produce zero. Poor King! Barnave and your Senatorial Jaucourts speak earnestly into this ear; Bertrand-Moleville, and Messengers from Coblentz, speak earnestly into that: the poor Royal head turns to the one side and to the other side; can turn itself fixedly to no side. Let Decency drop a veil over it: sorrier misery was seldom enacted in the world. This one small fact, does it not throw the saddest light on much? The Queen is lamenting to Madam Campan: ‘What am I to do? When they, these Barnaves, get us advised to any step which the Noblesse do not like, then I am pouted at; nobody comes to my card table; the King’s Couchée is solitary.’428 In such a case of dubiety, what is one to do? Go inevitably to the ground!

The King has accepted this Constitution, knowing beforehand that it will not serve: he studies it, and executes it in the hope mainly that it will be found inexecutable. King’s Ships lie rotting in harbour, their officers gone; the Armies disorganised; robbers scour the highways, which wear down unrepaired; all Public Service lies slack and waste: the Executive makes no effort, or an effort only to throw the blame on the Constitution. Shamming death, “faisant le mort!“ What Constitution, use it in this manner, can march? “Grow to disgust the Nation” it will truly,429—unless you first grow to disgust the Nation! It is Bertrand de Moleville’s plan, and his Majesty’s; the best they can form.

Or if, after all, this best-plan proved too slow; proved a failure? Provident of that too, the Queen, shrouded in deepest mystery, “writes all day, in cipher, day after day, to Coblentz;” Engineer Goguelat, he of the Night of Spurs, whom the Lafayette Amnesty has delivered from Prison, rides and runs. Now and then, on fit occasion, a Royal familiar visit can be paid to that Salle de Manége, an affecting encouraging Royal Speech (sincere, doubt it not, for the moment) can be delivered there, and the Senators all cheer and almost weep;—at the same time Mallet du Pan has visibly ceased editing, and invisibly bears abroad a King’s Autograph, soliciting help from the Foreign Potentates.430 Unhappy Louis, do this thing or else that other,—if thou couldst!

The thing which the King’s Government did do was to stagger distractedly from contradiction to contradiction; and wedding Fire to Water, envelope itself in hissing, and ashy steam! Danton and needy corruptible Patriots are sopped with presents of cash: they accept the sop: they rise refreshed by it, and travel their own way.431 Nay, the King’s Government did likewise hire Hand-clappers, or claqueurs, persons to applaud. Subterranean Rivarol has Fifteen Hundred men in King’s pay, at the rate of some ten thousand pounds sterling per month; what he calls “a staff of genius:” Paragraph-writers, Placard-Journalists; “two hundred and eighty Applauders, at three shillings a day:” one of the strangest Staffs ever commanded by man. The muster-rolls and account-books of which still exist.432 Bertrand-Moleville himself, in a way he thinks very dexterous, contrives to pack the Galleries of the Legislative; gets Sansculottes hired to go thither, and applaud at a signal given, they fancying it was Pétion that bid them: a device which was not detected for almost a week. Dexterous enough; as if a man finding the Day fast decline should determine on altering the Clockhands: that is a thing possible for him.

Here too let us note an unexpected apparition of Philippe d’Orléans at Court: his last at the Levee of any King. D’Orléans, sometime in the winter months seemingly, has been appointed to that old first-coveted rank of Admiral,—though only over ships rotting in port. The wished-for comes too late! However, he waits on Bertrand-Moleville to give thanks: nay to state that he would willingly thank his Majesty in person; that, in spite of all the horrible things men have said and sung, he is far from being his Majesty’s enemy; at bottom, how far! Bertrand delivers the message, brings about the royal Interview, which does pass to the satisfaction of his Majesty; d’Orléans seeming clearly repentant, determined to turn over a new leaf. And yet, next Sunday, what do we see? “Next Sunday,” says Bertrand, “he came to the King’s Levee; but the Courtiers ignorant of what had passed, the crowd of Royalists who were accustomed to resort thither on that day specially to pay their court, gave him the most humiliating reception. They came pressing round him; managing, as if by mistake, to tread on his toes, to elbow him towards the door, and not let him enter again. He went downstairs to her Majesty’s Apartments, where cover was laid; so soon as he shewed face, sounds rose on all sides, ‘Messieurs, take care of the dishes,’ as if he had carried poison in his pockets. The insults which his presence every where excited forced him to retire without having seen the Royal Family: the crowd followed him to the Queen’s Staircase; in descending, he received a spitting (crachat) on the head, and some others, on his clothes. Rage and spite were seen visibly painted on his face:”433 as indeed how could they miss to be? He imputes it all to the King and Queen, who know nothing of it, who are even much grieved at it; and so descends, to his Chaos again. Bertrand was there at the Château that day himself, and an eye-witness to these things.

For the rest, Non-jurant Priests, and the repression of them, will distract the King’s conscience; Emigrant Princes and Noblesse will force him to double-dealing: there must be veto on veto; amid the ever-waxing indignation of men. For Patriotism, as we said, looks on from without, more and more suspicious. Waxing tempest, blast after blast, of Patriot indignation, from without; dim inorganic whirl of Intrigues, Fatuities, within! Inorganic, fatuous; from which the eye turns away. De Staël intrigues for her so gallant Narbonne, to get him made War-Minister; and ceases not, having got him made. The King shall fly to Rouen; shall there, with the gallant Narbonne, properly “modify the Constitution.” This is the same brisk Narbonne, who, last year, cut out from their entanglement, by force of dragoons, those poor fugitive Royal Aunts: men say he is at bottom their Brother, or even more, so scandalous is scandal. He drives now, with his de Staël, rapidly to the Armies, to the Frontier Towns; produces rose-coloured Reports, not too credible; perorates, gesticulates; wavers poising himself on the top, for a moment, seen of men; then tumbles, dismissed, washed away by the Time-flood.

Also the fair Princess de Lamballe intrigues, bosom friend of her Majesty: to the angering of Patriotism. Beautiful Unfortunate, why did she ever return from England? Her small silver-voice, what can it profit in that piping of the black World-tornado? Which will whirl her, poor fragile Bird of Paradise, against grim rocks. Lamballe and de Staël intrigue visibly, apart or together: but who shall reckon how many others, and in what infinite ways, invisibly! Is there not what one may call an “Austrian Committee,” sitting invisible in the Tuileries; centre of an invisible Anti-National Spiderweb, which, for we sleep among mysteries, stretches its threads to the ends of the Earth? Journalist Carra has now the clearest certainty of it: to Brissotin Patriotism, and France generally, it is growing more and more probable.

O Reader, hast thou no pity for this Constitution? Rheumatic shooting pains in its members; pressure of hydrocephale and hysteric vapours on its Brain: a Constitution divided against itself; which will never march, hardly even stagger? Why were not Drouet and Procureur Sausse in their beds, that unblessed Varennes Night! Why did they not, in the name of Heaven, let the Korff Berline go whither it listed! Nameless incoherency, incompatibility, perhaps prodigies at which the world still shudders, had been spared.

But now comes the third thing that bodes ill for the marching of this French Constitution: besides the French People, and the French King, there is thirdly—the assembled European world? it has become necessary now to look at that also. Fair France is so luminous: and round and round it, is troublous Cimmerian Night. Calonnes, Bréteuils hover dim, far-flown; overnetting Europe with intrigues. From Turin to Vienna; to Berlin, and utmost Petersburg in the frozen North! Great Burke has raised his great voice long ago; eloquently demonstrating that the end of an Epoch is come, to all appearance the end of Civilised Time. Him many answer: Camille Desmoulins, Clootz Speaker of Mankind, Paine the rebellious Needleman, and honourable Gallic Vindicators in that country and in this: but the great Burke remains unanswerable; “The Age of Chivalry is gone,” and could not but go, having now produced the still more indomitable Age of Hunger. Altars enough, of the Dubois-Rohan sort, changing to the Gobel-and-Talleyrand sort, are faring by rapid transmutation to, shall we say, the right Proprietor of them? French Game and French Game-Preservers did alight on the Cliffs of Dover, with cries of distress. Who will say that the end of much is not come? A set of mortals has risen, who believe that Truth is not a printed Speculation, but a practical Fact; that Freedom and Brotherhood are possible in this Earth, supposed always to be Belial’s, which “the Supreme Quack” was to inherit! Who will say that Church, State, Throne, Altar are not in danger; that the sacred Strong-box itself, last Palladium of effete Humanity, may not be blasphemously blown upon, and its padlocks undone?

The poor Constituent Assembly might act with what delicacy and diplomacy it would; declare that it abjured meddling with its neighbours, foreign conquest, and so forth; but from the first this thing was to be predicted: that old Europe and new France could not subsist together. A Glorious Revolution, oversetting State-Prisons and Feudalism; publishing, with outburst of Federative Cannon, in face of all the Earth, that Appearance is not Reality, how shall it subsist amid Governments which, if Appearance is not Reality, are—one knows not what? In death feud, and internecine wrestle and battle, it shall subsist with them; not otherwise.

Rights of Man, printed on Cotton Handkerchiefs, in various dialects of human speech, pass over to the Frankfort Fair.434 What say we, Frankfort Fair? They have crossed Euphrates and the fabulous Hydaspes; wafted themselves beyond the Ural, Altai, Himmalayah: struck off from wood stereotypes, in angular Picture-writing, they are jabbered and jingled of in China and Japan. Where will it stop? Kien-Lung smells mischief; not the remotest Dalai-Lama shall now knead his dough-pills in peace.—Hateful to us; as is the Night! Bestir yourselves, ye Defenders of Order! They do bestir themselves: all Kings and Kinglets, with their spiritual temporal array, are astir; their brows clouded with menace. Diplomatic emissaries fly swift; Conventions, privy Conclaves assemble; and wise wigs wag, taking what counsel they can.

Also, as we said, the Pamphleteer draws pen, on this side and that: zealous fists beat the Pulpit-drum. Not without issue! Did not iron Birmingham, shouting “Church and King,” itself knew not why, burst out, last July, into rage, drunkenness, and fire; and your Priestleys, and the like, dining there on that Bastille day, get the maddest singeing: scandalous to consider! In which same days, as we can remark, high Potentates, Austrian and Prussian, with Emigrants, were faring towards Pilnitz in Saxony; there, on the 27th of August, they, keeping to themselves what further “secret Treaty” there might or might not be, did publish their hopes and their threatenings, their Declaration that it was “the common cause of Kings.”

Where a will to quarrel is, there is a way. Our readers remember that Pentecost-Night, Fourth of August 1789, when Feudalism fell in a few hours? The National Assembly, in abolishing Feudalism, promised that “compensation” should be given; and did endeavour to give it. Nevertheless the Austrian Kaiser answers that his German Princes, for their part, cannot be unfeudalised; that they have Possessions in French Alsace, and Feudal Rights secured to them, for which no conceivable compensation will suffice. So this of the Possessioned Princes, “Princes Possessionés” is bandied from Court to Court; covers acres of diplomatic paper at this day: a weariness to the world. Kaunitz argues from Vienna; Delessart responds from Paris, though perhaps not sharply enough. The Kaiser and his Possessioned Princes will too evidently come and take compensation—so much as they can get. Nay might one not partition France, as we have done Poland, and are doing; and so pacify it with a vengeance?

From South to North! For actually it is “the common cause of Kings.” Swedish Gustav, sworn Knight of the Queen of France, will lead Coalised Armies;—had not Ankarstrom treasonously shot him; for, indeed, there were griefs nearer home.435 Austria and Prussia speak at Pilnitz; all men intensely listening: Imperial Rescripts have gone out from Turin; there will be secret Convention at Vienna. Catherine of Russia beckons approvingly; will help, were she ready. Spanish Bourbon stirs amid his pillows; from him too, even from him, shall there come help. Lean Pitt, “the Minister of Preparatives,” looks out from his watch-tower in Saint-James’s, in a suspicious manner. Councillors plotting, Calonnes dim-hovering;—alas, Serjeants rub-a-dubbing openly through all manner of German market-towns, collecting ragged valour!436 Look where you will, immeasurable Obscurantism is girdling this fair France; which, again, will not be girdled by it. Europe is in travail; pang after pang; what a shriek was that of Pilnitz! The birth will be: WAR.

Nay the worst feature of the business is this last, still to be named; the Emigrants at Coblentz, so many thousands ranking there, in bitter hate and menace: King’s Brothers, all Princes of the Blood except wicked d’Orléans; your duelling de Castries, your eloquent Cazalès; bull-headed Malseignes, a wargod Broglie; Distaff Seigneurs, insulted Officers, all that have ridden across the Rhine-stream;—d’Artois welcoming Abbé Maury with a kiss, and clasping him publicly to his own royal heart! Emigration, flowing over the Frontiers, now in drops, now in streams, in various humours of fear, of petulance, rage and hope, ever since those first Bastille days when d’Artois went, “to shame the citizens of Paris,”—has swollen to the size of a Phenomenon of the world. Coblentz is become a small extra-national Versailles; a Versailles in partibus: briguing, intriguing, favouritism, strumpetocracy itself, they say, goes on there; all the old activities, on a small scale, quickened by hungry Revenge.

Enthusiasm, of loyalty, of hatred and hope, has risen to a high pitch; as, in any Coblentz tavern, you may hear, in speech, and in singing. Maury assists in the interior Council; much is decided on; for one thing, they keep lists of the dates of your emigrating; a month sooner, or a month later determines your greater or your less right to the coming Division of the Spoil. Cazalès himself, because he had occasionally spoken with a Constitutional tone, was looked on coldly at first: so pure are our principles.437 And arms are a-hammering at Liège; “three thousand horses” ambling hitherward from the Fairs of Germany: Cavalry enrolling; likewise Foot-soldiers, “in blue coat, red waistcoat, and nankeen trousers!”438 They have their secret domestic correspondences, as their open foreign: with disaffected Crypto-Aristocrats, with contumacious Priests, with Austrian Committee in the Tuileries. Deserters are spirited over by assiduous crimps; Royal-Allemand is gone almost wholly. Their route of march, towards France and the Division of the Spoil, is marked out, were the Kaiser once ready. ‘It is said, they mean to poison the sources; but,’ adds Patriotism making Report of it, ‘they will not poison the source of Liberty,’ whereat “on applaudit,” we cannot but applaud. Also they have manufactories of False Assignats; and men that circulate in the interior distributing and disbursing the same; one of these we denounce now to Legislative Patriotism: “A man Lebrun by name; about thirty years of age, with blonde hair and in quantity; has,” only for the time being surely, “a black-eye, œil poché; goes in a wiski with a black horse,”439—always keeping his Gig!

Unhappy Emigrants, it was their lot, and the lot of France! They are ignorant of much that they should know: of themselves, of what is around them. A Political Party that knows not when it is beaten, may become one of the fatallist of things, to itself, and to all. Nothing will convince these men that they cannot scatter the French Revolution at the first blast of their war-trumpet; that the French Revolution is other than a blustering Effervescence, of brawlers and spouters, which, at the flash of chivalrous broadswords, at the rustle of gallows-ropes, will burrow itself, in dens the deeper the welcomer. But, alas, what man does know and measure himself, and the things that are round him;—else where were the need of physical fighting at all? Never, till they are cleft asunder, can these heads believe that a Sansculottic arm has any vigour in it: cleft asunder, it will be too late to believe.

One may say, without spleen against his poor erring brothers of any side, that above all other mischiefs, this of the Emigrant Nobles acted fatally on France. Could they have known, could they have understood! In the beginning of 1789, a splendour and a terror still surrounded them: the Conflagration of their Châteaus, kindled by months of obstinacy, went out after the Fourth of August; and might have continued out, had they at all known what to defend, what to relinquish as indefensible. They were still a graduated Hierarchy of Authorities, or the accredited Similitude of such: they sat there, uniting King with Commonalty; transmitting and translating gradually, from degree to degree, the command of the one into the obedience of the other; rendering command and obedience still possible. Had they understood their place, and what to do in it, this French Revolution, which went forth explosively in years and in months, might have spread itself over generations; and not a torture-death but a quiet euthanasia have been provided for many things.

But they were proud and high, these men; they were not wise to consider. They spurned all from them; in disdainful hate, they drew the sword and flung away the scabbard. France has not only no Hierarchy of Authorities, to translate command into obedience; its Hierarchy of Authorities has fled to the enemies of France; calls loudly on the enemies of France to interfere armed, who want but a pretext to do that. Jealous Kings and Kaisers might have looked on long, meditating interference, yet afraid and ashamed to interfere: but now do not the King’s Brothers, and all French Nobles, Dignitaries and Authorities that are free to speak, which the King himself is not,—passionately invite us, in the name of Right and of Might? Ranked at Coblentz, from Fifteen to Twenty thousand stand now brandishing their weapons, with the cry: On, on! Yes, Messieurs, you shall on;—and divide the spoil according to your dates of emigrating.

Of all which things a poor Legislative Assembly, and Patriot France, is informed: by denunciant friend, by triumphant foe. Sulleau’s Pamphlets, of the Rivarol Staff of Genius, circulate; heralding supreme hope. Durosoy’s Placards tapestry the walls; Chant du Coq crows day, pecked at by Tallien’s Ami des Citoyens. King’s-Friend, Royou, Ami du Roi, can name, in exact arithmetical ciphers, the contingents of the various Invading Potentates; in all, Four hundred and nineteen thousand Foreign fighting men, with Fifteen thousand Emigrants. Not to reckon these your daily and hourly desertions, which an Editor must daily record, of whole Companies, and even Regiments, crying Vive le Roi, Vive la Reine, and marching over with banners spread:440—lies all, and wind; yet to Patriotism not wind; nor, alas, one day, to Royou! Patriotism, therefore, may brawl and babble yet a little while: but its hours are numbered: Europe is coming with Four hundred and nineteen thousand and the Chivalry of France; the gallows, one may hope, will get its own.

Chapter 2.5.VI. Brigands and Jalès.

We shall have War, then; and on what terms! With an Executive “pretending,” really with less and less deceptiveness now, “to be dead;” casting even a wishful eye towards the enemy: on such terms we shall have War.

Public Functionary in vigorous action there is none; if it be not Rivarol with his Staff of Genius and Two hundred and eighty Applauders. The Public Service lies waste: the very tax-gatherer has forgotten his cunning: in this and the other Provincial Board of Management (Directoire de Départment) it is found advisable to retain what Taxes you can gather, to pay your own inevitable expenditures. Our Revenue is Assignats; emission on emission of Paper-money. And the Army; our Three grand Armies, of Rochambeau, of Lückner, of Lafayette? Lean, disconsolate hover these Three grand Armies, watching the Frontiers there; three Flights of long-necked Cranes in moulting time;—wretched, disobedient, disorganised; who never saw fire; the old Generals and Officers gone across the Rhine. War-minister Narbonne, he of the rose-coloured Reports, solicits recruitments, equipments, money, always money; threatens, since he can get none,—to “take his sword,” which belongs to himself, and go serve his country with that.441

The question of questions is: What shall be done? Shall we, with a desperate defiance which Fortune sometimes favours, draw the sword at once, in the face of this in-rushing world of Emigration and Obscurantism; or wait, and temporise and diplomatise, till, if possible, our resources mature themselves a little? And yet again are our resources growing towards maturity; or growing the other way? Dubious: the ablest Patriots are divided; Brissot and his Brissotins, or Girondins, in the Legislative, cry aloud for the former defiant plan; Robespierre, in the Jacobins, pleads as loud for the latter dilatory one: with responses, even with mutual reprimands; distracting the Mother of Patriotism. Consider also what agitated Breakfasts there may be at Madame d’Udon’s in the Place Vendôme! The alarm of all men is great. Help, ye Patriots; and O at least agree; for the hour presses. Frost was not yet gone, when in that “tolerably handsome apartment of the Castle of Niort,” there arrived a Letter: General Dumouriez must to Paris. It is War-minister Narbonne that writes; the General shall give counsel about many things.442 In the month of February 1792, Brissotin friends welcome their Dumouriez Polymetis,—comparable really to an antique Ulysses in modern costume; quick, elastic, shifty, insuppressible, a “many-counselled man.”

Let the Reader fancy this fair France with a whole Cimmerian Europe girdling her, rolling in on her; black, to burst in red thunder of War; fair France herself hand-shackled and foot-shackled in the weltering complexities of this Social Clothing, or Constitution, which they have made for her; a France that, in such Constitution, cannot march! And Hunger too; and plotting Aristocrats, and excommunicating Dissident Priests: “The man Lebrun by name” urging his black wiski, visible to the eye: and, still more terrible in his invisibility, Engineer Goguelat, with Queen’s cipher, riding and running!

The excommunicatory Priests give new trouble in the Maine and Loire; La Vendée, nor Cathelineau the wool-dealer, has not ceased grumbling and rumbling. Nay behold Jalès itself once more: how often does that real-imaginary Camp of the Fiend require to be extinguished! For near two years now, it has waned faint and again waxed bright, in the bewildered soul of Patriotism: actually, if Patriotism knew it, one of the most surprising products of Nature working with Art. Royalist Seigneurs, under this or the other pretext, assemble the simple people of these Cevennes Mountains; men not unused to revolt, and with heart for fighting, could their poor heads be got persuaded. The Royalist Seigneur harangues; harping mainly on the religious string: ‘True Priests maltreated, false Priests intruded, Protestants (once dragooned) now triumphing, things sacred given to the dogs;’ and so produces, from the pious Mountaineer throat, rough growlings. ‘Shall we not testify, then, ye brave hearts of the Cevennes; march to the rescue? Holy Religion; duty to God and King?’ ‘Si fait, si fait, Just so, just so,’ answer the brave hearts always: ‘Mais il y a de bien bonnes choses dans la Révolution, But there are many good things in the Revolution too!’—And so the matter, cajole as we may, will only turn on its axis, not stir from the spot, and remains theatrical merely.443

Nevertheless deepen your cajolery, harp quick and quicker, ye Royalist Seigneurs; with a dead-lift effort you may bring it to that. In the month of June next, this Camp of Jalès will step forth as a theatricality suddenly become real; Two thousand strong, and with the boast that it is Seventy thousand: most strange to see; with flags flying, bayonets fixed; with Proclamation, and d’Artois Commission of civil war! Let some Rebecqui, or other the like hot-clear Patriot; let some “Lieutenant-Colonel Aubry,” if Rebecqui is busy elsewhere, raise instantaneous National Guards, and disperse and dissolve it; and blow the Old Castle asunder,444 that so, if possible, we hear of it no more!

In the Months of February and March, it is recorded, the terror, especially of rural France, had risen even to the transcendental pitch: not far from madness. In Town and Hamlet is rumour; of war, massacre: that Austrians, Aristocrats, above all, that The Brigands are close by. Men quit their houses and huts; rush fugitive, shrieking, with wife and child, they know not whither. Such a terror, the eye-witnesses say, never fell on a Nation; nor shall again fall, even in Reigns of Terror expressly so-called. The Countries of the Loire, all the Central and South-East regions, start up distracted, “simultaneously as by an electric shock;”—for indeed grain too gets scarcer and scarcer. “The people barricade the entrances of Towns, pile stones in the upper stories, the women prepare boiling water; from moment to moment, expecting the attack. In the Country, the alarm-bell rings incessant: troops of peasants, gathered by it, scour the highways, seeking an imaginary enemy. They are armed mostly with scythes stuck in wood; and, arriving in wild troops at the barricaded Towns, are themselves sometimes taken for Brigands.”445

So rushes old France: old France is rushing down. What the end will be is known to no mortal; that the end is near all mortals may know.

Chapter 2.5.VII. Constitution will not march.

To all which our poor Legislative, tied up by an unmarching Constitution, can oppose nothing, by way of remedy, but mere bursts of parliamentary eloquence! They go on, debating, denouncing, objurgating: loud weltering Chaos, which devours itself.

But their two thousand and odd Decrees? Reader, these happily concern not thee, nor me. Mere Occasional Decrees, foolish and not foolish; sufficient for that day was its own evil! Of the whole two thousand there are not, now half a score, and these mostly blighted in the bud by royal Veto, that will profit or disprofit us. On the 17th of January, the Legislative, for one thing, got its High Court, its Haute Cour, set up at Orléans. The theory had been given by the Constituent, in May last, but this is the reality: a Court for the trial of Political Offences; a Court which cannot want work. To this it was decreed that there needed no royal Acceptance, therefore that there could be no Veto. Also Priests can now be married; ever since last October. A patriotic adventurous Priest had made bold to marry himself then; and not thinking this enough, came to the bar with his new spouse; that the whole world might hold honey-moon with him, and a Law be obtained.

Less joyful are the Laws against Refractory Priests; and yet no less needful! Decrees on Priests and Decrees on Emigrants: these are the two brief Series of Decrees, worked out with endless debate, and then cancelled by Veto, which mainly concern us here. For an august National Assembly must needs conquer these Refractories, Clerical or Laic, and thumbscrew them into obedience; yet, behold, always as you turn your legislative thumbscrew, and will press and even crush till Refractories give way,—King’s Veto steps in, with magical paralysis; and your thumbscrew, hardly squeezing, much less crushing, does not act!

Truly a melancholy Set of Decrees, a pair of Sets; paralysed by Veto! First, under date the 28th of October 1791, we have Legislative Proclamation, issued by herald and bill-sticker; inviting Monsieur, the King’s Brother to return within two months, under penalties. To which invitation Monsieur replies nothing; or indeed replies by Newspaper Parody, inviting the august Legislative “to return to common sense within two months,” under penalties. Whereupon the Legislative must take stronger measures. So, on the 9th of November, we declare all Emigrants to be “suspect of conspiracy;” and, in brief, to be “outlawed,” if they have not returned at Newyear’s-day:—Will the King say Veto? That “triple impost” shall be levied on these men’s Properties, or even their Properties be “put in sequestration,” one can understand. But further, on Newyear’s-day itself, not an individual having “returned,” we declare, and with fresh emphasis some fortnight later again declare, That Monsieur is déchu, forfeited of his eventual Heirship to the Crown; nay more that Condé, Calonne, and a considerable List of others are accused of high treason; and shall be judged by our High Court of Orléans: Veto!—Then again as to Nonjurant Priests: it was decreed, in November last, that they should forfeit what Pensions they had; be “put under inspection, under surveillance,” and, if need were, be banished: Veto! A still sharper turn is coming; but to this also the answer will be, Veto.

Veto after Veto; your thumbscrew paralysed! Gods and men may see that the Legislative is in a false position. As, alas, who is in a true one? Voices already murmur for a “National Convention.”446 This poor Legislative, spurred and stung into action by a whole France and a whole Europe, cannot act; can only objurgate and perorate; with stormy “motions,” and motion in which is no way; with effervescence, with noise and fuliginous fury!

What scenes in that National Hall! President jingling his inaudible bell; or, as utmost signal of distress, clapping on his hat; “the tumult subsiding in twenty minutes,” and this or the other indiscreet Member sent to the Abbaye Prison for three days! Suspected Persons must be summoned and questioned; old M. de Sombreuil of the Invalides has to give account of himself, and why he leaves his Gates open. Unusual smoke rose from the Sèvres Pottery, indicating conspiracy; the Potters explained that it was Necklace-Lamotte’s Mémoires, bought up by her Majesty, which they were endeavouring to suppress by fire,447—which nevertheless he that runs may still read.

Again, it would seem, Duke de Brissac and the King’s Constitutional-Guard are “making cartridges secretly in the cellars;” a set of Royalists, pure and impure; black cut-throats many of them, picked out of gaming houses and sinks; in all Six thousand instead of Eighteen hundred; who evidently gloom on us every time we enter the Château.448 Wherefore, with infinite debate, let Brissac and King’s Guard be disbanded. Disbanded accordingly they are; after only two months of existence, for they did not get on foot till March of this same year. So ends briefly the King’s new Constitutional Maison Militaire; he must now be guarded by mere Swiss and blue Nationals again. It seems the lot of Constitutional things. New Constitutional Maison Civile he would never even establish, much as Barnave urged it; old resident Duchesses sniffed at it, and held aloof; on the whole her Majesty thought it not worth while, the Noblesse would so soon be back triumphant.449

Or, looking still into this National Hall and its scenes, behold Bishop Torné, a Constitutional Prelate, not of severe morals, demanding that “religious costumes and such caricatures” be abolished. Bishop Torné warms, catches fire; finishes by untying, and indignantly flinging on the table, as if for gage or bet, his own pontifical cross. Which cross, at any rate, is instantly covered by the cross of Te-Deum Fauchet, then by other crosses, and insignia, till all are stripped; this clerical Senator clutching off his skull-cap, that other his frill-collar,—lest Fanaticism return on us.450

Quick is the movement here! And then so confused, unsubstantial, you might call it almost spectral; pallid, dim, inane, like the Kingdoms of Dis! Unruly Liguet, shrunk to a kind of spectre for us, pleads here, some cause that he has: amid rumour and interruption, which excel human patience; he “tears his papers, and withdraws,” the irascible adust little man. Nay honourable members will tear their papers, being effervescent: Merlin of Thionville tears his papers, crying: ‘So, the People cannot be saved by you!’ Nor are Deputations wanting: Deputations of Sections; generally with complaint and denouncement, always with Patriot fervour of sentiment: Deputation of Women, pleading that they also may be allowed to take Pikes, and exercise in the Champ-de-Mars. Why not, ye Amazons, if it be in you? Then occasionally, having done our message and got answer, we “defile through the Hall, singing ça-ira;“ or rather roll and whirl through it, “dancing our ronde patriotique the while,”—our new Carmagnole, or Pyrrhic war-dance and liberty-dance. Patriot Huguenin, Ex-Advocate, Ex-Carabineer, Ex-Clerk of the Barriers, comes deputed, with Saint-Antoine at his heels; denouncing Anti-patriotism, Famine, Forstalment and Man-eaters; asks an august Legislative: ‘Is there not a tocsin in your hearts against these mangeurs d’hommes!’451

But above all things, for this is a continual business, the Legislative has to reprimand the King’s Ministers. Of His Majesty’s Ministers we have said hitherto, and say, next to nothing. Still more spectral these! Sorrowful; of no permanency any of them, none at least since Montmorin vanished: the “eldest of the King’s Council” is occasionally not ten days old!452 Feuillant-Constitutional, as your respectable Cahier de Gerville, as your respectable unfortunate Delessarts; or Royalist-Constitutional, as Montmorin last Friend of Necker; or Aristocrat as Bertrand-Moleville: they flit there phantom-like, in the huge simmering confusion; poor shadows, dashed in the racking winds; powerless, without meaning;—whom the human memory need not charge itself with.

But how often, we say, are these poor Majesty’s Ministers summoned over; to be questioned, tutored; nay, threatened, almost bullied! They answer what, with adroitest simulation and casuistry, they can: of which a poor Legislative knows not what to make. One thing only is clear, That Cimmerian Europe is girdling us in; that France (not actually dead, surely?) cannot march. Have a care, ye Ministers! Sharp Guadet transfixes you with cross-questions, with sudden Advocate-conclusions; the sleeping tempest that is in Vergniaud can be awakened. Restless Brissot brings up Reports, Accusations, endless thin Logic; it is the man’s highday even now. Condorcet redacts, with his firm pen, our “Address of the Legislative Assembly to the French Nation.”453 Fiery Max Isnard, who, for the rest, will ‘carry not Fire and Sword’ on those Cimmerian Enemies ‘but Liberty,’—is for declaring ‘that we hold Ministers responsible; and that by responsibility we mean death, nous entendons la mort.’

For verily it grows serious: the time presses, and traitors there are. Bertrand-Moleville has a smooth tongue, the known Aristocrat; gall in his heart. How his answers and explanations flow ready; jesuitic, plausible to the ear! But perhaps the notablest is this, which befell once when Bertrand had done answering and was withdrawn. Scarcely had the august Assembly begun considering what was to be done with him, when the Hall fills with smoke. Thick sour smoke: no oratory, only wheezing and barking;—irremediable; so that the august Assembly has to adjourn!454 A miracle? Typical miracle? One knows not: only this one seems to know, that “the Keeper of the Stoves was appointed by Bertrand” or by some underling of his!—O fuliginous confused Kingdom of Dis, with thy Tantalus-Ixion toils, with thy angry Fire-floods, and Streams named of Lamentation, why hast thou not thy Lethe too, that so one might finish?

Chapter 2.5.VIII. The Jacobins.

Nevertheless let not Patriotism despair. Have we not, in Paris at least, a virtuous Pétion, a wholly Patriotic Municipality? Virtuous Pétion, ever since November, is Mayor of Paris: in our Municipality, the Public, for the Public is now admitted too, may behold an energetic Danton; further, an epigrammatic slow-sure Manuel; a resolute unrepentant Billaud-Varennes, of Jesuit breeding; Tallien able-editor; and nothing but Patriots, better or worse. So ran the November Elections: to the joy of most citizens; nay the very Court supported Pétion rather than Lafayette. And so Bailly and his Feuillants, long waning like the Moon, had to withdraw then, making some sorrowful obeisance, into extinction;—or indeed into worse, into lurid half-light, grimmed by the shadow of that Red Flag of theirs, and bitter memory of the Champ-de-Mars. How swift is the progress of things and men! Not now does Lafayette, as on that Federation-day, when his noon was, “press his sword firmly on the Fatherland’s Altar,” and swear in sight of France: ah no; he, waning and setting ever since that hour, hangs now, disastrous, on the edge of the horizon; commanding one of those Three moulting Crane-flights of Armies, in a most suspected, unfruitful, uncomfortable manner!

But, at most, cannot Patriotism, so many thousands strong in this Metropolis of the Universe, help itself? Has it not right-hands, pikes? Hammering of pikes, which was not to be prohibited by Mayor Bailly, has been sanctioned by Mayor Pétion; sanctioned by Legislative Assembly. How not, when the King’s so-called Constitutional Guard “was making cartridges in secret?” Changes are necessary for the National Guard itself; this whole Feuillant-Aristocrat Staff of the Guard must be disbanded. Likewise, citizens without uniform may surely rank in the Guard, the pike beside the musket, in such a time: the “active” citizen and the passive who can fight for us, are they not both welcome?—O my Patriot friends, indubitably Yes! Nay the truth is, Patriotism throughout, were it never so white-frilled, logical, respectable, must either lean itself heartily on Sansculottism, the black, bottomless; or else vanish, in the frightfullest way, to Limbo! Thus some, with upturned nose, will altogether sniff and disdain Sansculottism; others will lean heartily on it; nay others again will lean what we call heartlessly on it: three sorts; each sort with a destiny corresponding.455

In such point of view, however, have we not for the present a Volunteer Ally, stronger than all the rest: namely, Hunger? Hunger; and what rushing of Panic Terror this and the sum-total of our other miseries may bring! For Sansculottism grows by what all other things die of. Stupid Peter Baille almost made an epigram, though unconsciously, and with the Patriot world laughing not at it but at him, when he wrote “Tout va bien ici, le pain manque, All goes well here, victuals not to be had.”456

Neither, if you knew it, is Patriotism without her Constitution that can march; her not impotent Parliament; or call it, Ecumenic Council, and General-Assembly of the Jean-Jacques Churches: the MOTHER-SOCIETY, namely! Mother-Society with her three hundred full-grown Daughters; with what we can call little Granddaughters trying to walk, in every village of France, numerable, as Burke thinks, by the hundred thousand. This is the true Constitution; made not by Twelve-Hundred august Senators, but by Nature herself; and has grown, unconsciously, out of the wants and the efforts of these Twenty-five Millions of men. They are “Lords of the Articles,” our Jacobins; they originate debates for the Legislative; discuss Peace and War; settle beforehand what the Legislative is to do. Greatly to the scandal of philosophical men, and of most Historians;—who do in that judge naturally, and yet not wisely. A Governing power must exist: your other powers here are simulacra; this power is it.

Great is the Mother Society: She has had the honour to be denounced by Austrian Kaunitz;457 and is all the dearer to Patriotism. By fortune and valour, she has extinguished Feuillantism itself, at least the Feuillant Club. This latter, high as it once carried its head, she, on the 18th of February, has the satisfaction to see shut, extinct; Patriots having gone thither, with tumult, to hiss it out of pain. The Mother Society has enlarged her locality, stretches now over the whole nave of the Church. Let us glance in, with the worthy Toulongeon, our old Ex-Constituent Friend, who happily has eyes to see: “The nave of the Jacobins Church,” says he, “is changed into a vast Circus, the seats of which mount up circularly like an amphitheatre to the very groin of the domed roof. A high Pyramid of black marble, built against one of the walls, which was formerly a funeral monument, has alone been left standing: it serves now as back to the Office-bearers’ Bureau. Here on an elevated Platform sit President and Secretaries, behind and above them the white Busts of Mirabeau, of Franklin, and various others, nay finally of Marat. Facing this is the Tribune, raised till it is midway between floor and groin of the dome, so that the speaker’s voice may be in the centre. From that point, thunder the voices which shake all Europe: down below, in silence, are forging the thunderbolts and the firebrands. Penetrating into this huge circuit, where all is out of measure, gigantic, the mind cannot repress some movement of terror and wonder; the imagination recalls those dread temples which Poetry, of old, had consecrated to the Avenging Deities.”458

Scenes too are in this Jacobin Amphitheatre,—had History time for them. Flags of the “Three free Peoples of the Universe,” trinal brotherly flags of England, America, France, have been waved here in concert; by London Deputation, of Whigs or Wighs and their Club, on this hand, and by young French Citizenesses on that; beautiful sweet-tongued Female Citizens, who solemnly send over salutation and brotherhood, also Tricolor stitched by their own needle, and finally Ears of Wheat; while the dome rebellows with Vivent les trois peuples libres! from all throats:—a most dramatic scene. Demoiselle Théroigne recites, from that Tribune in mid air, her persecutions in Austria; comes leaning on the arm of Joseph Chénier, Poet Chénier, to demand Liberty for the hapless Swiss of Château-Vieux.459 Be of hope, ye Forty Swiss; tugging there, in the Brest waters; not forgotten!

Deputy Brissot perorates from that Tribune; Desmoulins, our wicked Camille, interjecting audibly from below, ‘Coquin!’ Here, though oftener in the Cordeliers, reverberates the lion-voice of Danton; grim Billaud-Varennes is here; Collot d’Herbois, pleading for the Forty Swiss; tearing a passion to rags. Apophthegmatic Manuel winds up in this pithy way: ‘A Minister must perish!’—to which the Amphitheatre responds: ‘Tous, Tous, All, All!’ But the Chief Priest and Speaker of this place, as we said, is Robespierre, the long-winded incorruptible man. What spirit of Patriotism dwelt in men in those times, this one fact, it seems to us, will evince: that fifteen hundred human creatures, not bound to it, sat quiet under the oratory of Robespierre; nay, listened nightly, hour after hour, applausive; and gaped as for the word of life. More insupportable individual, one would say, seldom opened his mouth in any Tribune. Acrid, implacable-impotent; dull-drawling, barren as the Harmattan-wind! He pleads, in endless earnest-shallow speech, against immediate War, against Woollen Caps or Bonnets Rouges, against many things; and is the Trismegistus and Dalai-Lama of Patriot men. Whom nevertheless a shrill-voiced little man, yet with fine eyes, and a broad beautifully sloping brow, rises respectfully to controvert: he is, say the Newspaper Reporters, “M. Louvet, Author of the charming Romance of Faublas.” Steady, ye Patriots! Pull not yet two ways; with a France rushing panic-stricken in the rural districts, and a Cimmerian Europe storming in on you!

Chapter 2.5.IX. Minister Roland.

About the vernal equinox, however, one unexpected gleam of hope does burst forth on Patriotism: the appointment of a thoroughly Patriot Ministry. This also his Majesty, among his innumerable experiments of wedding fire to water, will try. Quod bonum sit. Madame d’Udon’s Breakfasts have jingled with a new significance; not even Genevese Dumont but had a word in it. Finally, on the 15th and onwards to the 23d day of March, 1792, when all is negociated,—this is the blessed issue; this Patriot Ministry that we see.

General Dumouriez, with the Foreign Portfolio shall ply Kaunitz and the Kaiser, in another style than did poor Delessarts; whom indeed we have sent to our High Court of Orléans for his sluggishness. War-minister Narbonne is washed away by the Time-flood; poor Chevalier de Grave, chosen by the Court, is fast washing away: then shall austere Servan, able Engineer-Officer, mount suddenly to the War Department. Genevese Clavière sees an old omen realized: passing the Finance Hotel, long years ago, as a poor Genevese Exile, it was borne wondrously on his mind that he was to be Finance Minister; and now he is it;—and his poor Wife, given up by the Doctors, rises and walks, not the victim of nerves but their vanquisher.460 And above all, our Minister of the Interior? Roland de la Platrière, he of Lyons! So have the Brissotins, public or private Opinion, and Breakfasts in the Place Vendôme decided it. Strict Roland, compared to a Quaker endimanché, or Sunday Quaker, goes to kiss hands at the Tuileries, in round hat and sleek hair, his shoes tied with mere riband or ferrat! The Supreme Usher twitches Dumouriez aside: ‘Quoi, Monsieur! No buckles to his shoes?’—‘Ah, Monsieur,’ answers Dumouriez, glancing towards the ferrat: ‘All is lost, Tout est perdu.’461

And so our fair Roland removes from her upper floor in the Rue Saint-Jacques, to the sumptuous saloons once occupied by Madame Necker. Nay still earlier, it was Calonne that did all this gilding; it was he who ground these lustres, Venetian mirrors; who polished this inlaying, this veneering and or-moulu; and made it, by rubbing of the proper lamp, an Aladdin’s Palace:—and now behold, he wanders dim-flitting over Europe, half-drowned in the Rhine-stream, scarcely saving his Papers! Vos non vobis.—The fair Roland, equal to either fortune, has her public Dinner on Fridays, the Ministers all there in a body: she withdraws to her desk (the cloth once removed), and seems busy writing; nevertheless loses no word: if for example Deputy Brissot and Minister Clavière get too hot in argument, she, not without timidity, yet with a cunning gracefulness, will interpose. Deputy Brissot’s head, they say, is getting giddy, in this sudden height: as feeble heads do.

Envious men insinuate that the Wife Roland is Minister, and not the Husband: it is happily the worst they have to charge her with. For the rest, let whose head soever be getting giddy, it is not this brave woman’s. Serene and queenly here, as she was of old in her own hired garret of the Ursulines Convent! She who has quietly shelled French-beans for her dinner; being led to that, as a young maiden, by quiet insight and computation; and knowing what that was, and what she was: such a one will also look quietly on or-moulu and veneering, not ignorant of these either. Calonne did the veneering: he gave dinners here, old Besenval diplomatically whispering to him; and was great: yet Calonne we saw at last “walk with long strides.” Necker next: and where now is Necker? Us also a swift change has brought hither; a swift change will send us hence. Not a Palace but a Caravansera!

So wags and wavers this unrestful World, day after day, month after month. The Streets of Paris, and all Cities, roll daily their oscillatory flood of men; which flood does, nightly, disappear, and lie hidden horizontal in beds and trucklebeds; and awakes on the morrow to new perpendicularity and movement. Men go their roads, foolish or wise;—Engineer Goguelat to and fro, bearing Queen’s cipher. A Madame de Staël is busy; cannot clutch her Narbonne from the Time-flood: a Princess de Lamballe is busy; cannot help her Queen. Barnave, seeing the Feuillants dispersed, and Coblentz so brisk, begs by way of final recompence to kiss her Majesty’s hand; augurs not well of her new course; and retires home to Grenoble, to wed an heiress there. The Café Valois and Méot the Restaurateur’s hear daily gasconade; loud babble of Half-pay Royalists, with or without Poniards; remnants of Aristocrat saloons call the new Ministry Ministère-Sansculotte. A Louvet, of the Romance Faublas, is busy in the Jacobins. A Cazotte, of the Romance Diable Amoureux, is busy elsewhere: better wert thou quiet, old Cazotte; it is a world, this, of magic become real! All men are busy; doing they only half guess what:—flinging seeds, of tares mostly, into the ‘Seed-field of TIME’ this, by and by, will declare wholly what.

But Social Explosions have in them something dread, and as it were mad and magical: which indeed Life always secretly has; thus the dumb Earth (says Fable), if you pull her mandrake-roots, will give a dæmonic mad-making moan. These Explosions and Revolts ripen, break forth like dumb dread Forces of Nature; and yet they are Men’s forces; and yet we are part of them: the Dæmonic that is in man’s life has burst out on us, will sweep us too away!—One day here is like another, and yet it is not like but different. How much is growing, silently resistless, at all moments! Thoughts are growing; forms of Speech are growing, and Customs and even Costumes; still more visibly are actions and transactions growing, and that doomed Strife, of France with herself and with the whole world.

The word Liberty is never named now except in conjunction with another; Liberty and Equality. In like manner, what, in a reign of Liberty and Equality, can these words, “Sir,” “obedient Servant,” “Honour to be,” and such like, signify? Tatters and fibres of old Feudality; which, were it only in the Grammatical province, ought to be rooted out! The Mother Society has long since had proposals to that effect: these she could not entertain, not at the moment. Note too how the Jacobin Brethren are mounting new symbolical headgear: the Woollen Cap or Nightcap, bonnet de laine, better known as bonnet rouge, the colour being red. A thing one wears not only by way of Phrygian Cap-of-Liberty, but also for convenience” sake, and then also in compliment to the Lower-class Patriots and Bastille-Heroes; for the Red Nightcap combines all the three properties. Nay cockades themselves begin to be made of wool, of tricolor yarn: the riband-cockade, as a symptom of Feuillant Upper-class temper, is becoming suspicious. Signs of the times.

Still more, note the travail-throes of Europe: or, rather, note the birth she brings; for the successive throes and shrieks, of Austrian and Prussian Alliance, of Kaunitz Anti-jacobin Despatch, of French Ambassadors cast out, and so forth, were long to note. Dumouriez corresponds with Kaunitz, Metternich, or Cobentzel, in another style that Delessarts did. Strict becomes stricter; categorical answer, as to this Coblentz work and much else, shall be given. Failing which? Failing which, on the 20th day of April 1792, King and Ministers step over to the Salle de Manége; promulgate how the matter stands; and poor Louis, “with tears in his eyes,” proposes that the Assembly do now decree War. After due eloquence, War is decreed that night.

War, indeed! Paris came all crowding, full of expectancy, to the morning, and still more to the evening session. D’Orléans with his two sons, is there; looks on, wide-eyed, from the opposite Gallery.462 Thou canst look, O Philippe: it is a War big with issues, for thee and for all men. Cimmerian Obscurantism and this thrice glorious Revolution shall wrestle for it, then: some Four-and-twenty years; in immeasurable Briareus’ wrestle; trampling and tearing; before they can come to any, not agreement, but compromise, and approximate ascertainment each of what is in the other.

Let our Three Generals on the Frontiers look to it, therefore; and poor Chevalier de Grave, the Warminister, consider what he will do. What is in the three Generals and Armies we may guess. As for poor Chevalier de Grave, he, in this whirl of things all coming to a press and pinch upon him, loses head, and merely whirls with them, in a totally distracted manner; signing himself at last, “De Grave, Mayor of Paris;“ whereupon he demits, returns over the Channel, to walk in Kensington Gardens;463 and austere Servan, the able Engineer-Officer, is elevated in his stead. To the post of Honour? To that of Difficulty, at least.