6.I Executive that does not act

How could your paralytic National Executive be put “in action,” in any measure, by such a Twentieth of June as this? Quite contrariwise: a large sympathy for Majesty so insulted arises every where; expresses itself in Addresses, Petitions, “Petition of the Twenty Thousand inhabitants of Paris,” and such like, among all Constitutional persons; a decided rallying round the Throne.

Of which rallying it was thought King Louis might have made something. However, he does make nothing of it, or attempt to make; for indeed his views are lifted beyond domestic sympathy and rallying, over to Coblentz mainly: neither in itself is the same sympathy worth much. It is sympathy of men who believe still that the Constitution can march. Wherefore the old discord and ferment, of Feuillant sympathy for Royalty, and Jacobin sympathy for Fatherland, acting against each other from within; with terror of Coblentz and Brunswick acting from without:—this discord and ferment must hold on its course, till a catastrophe do ripen and come. One would think, especially as Brunswick is near marching, such catastrophe cannot now be distant. Busy, ye Twenty-five French Millions; ye foreign Potentates, minatory Emigrants, German drill-serjeants; each do what his hand findeth! Thou, O Reader, at such safe distance, wilt see what they make of it among them.

Consider therefore this pitiable Twentieth of June as a futility; no catastrophe, rather a catastasis, or heightening. Do not its Black Breeches wave there, in the Historical Imagination, like a melancholy flag of distress; soliciting help, which no mortal can give? Soliciting pity, which thou wert hard-hearted not to give freely, to one and all! Other such flags, or what are called Occurrences, and black or bright symbolic Phenomena; will flit through the Historical Imagination: these, one after one, let us note, with extreme brevity.

The first phenomenon is that of Lafayette at the Bar of the Assembly; after a week and day. Promptly, on hearing of this scandalous Twentieth of June, Lafayette has quitted his Command on the North Frontier, in better or worse order; and got hither, on the 28th, to repress the Jacobins: not by Letter now; but by oral Petition, and weight of character, face to face. The august Assembly finds the step questionable; invites him meanwhile to the honours of the sitting.474 Other honour, or advantage, there unhappily came almost none; the Galleries all growling; fiery Isnard glooming; sharp Guadet not wanting in sarcasms.

And out of doors, when the sitting is over, Sieur Resson, keeper of the Patriot Café in these regions, hears in the street a hurly-burly; steps forth to look, he and his Patriot customers: it is Lafayette’s carriage, with a tumultuous escort of blue Grenadiers, Cannoneers, even Officers of the Line, hurrahing and capering round it. They make a pause opposite Sieur Resson’s door; wag their plumes at him; nay shake their fists, bellowing À bas les Jacobins! but happily pass on without onslaught. They pass on, to plant a Mai before the General’s door, and bully considerably. All which the Sieur Resson cannot but report with sorrow, that night, in the Mother Society.475 But what no Sieur Resson nor Mother Society can do more than guess is this, That a council of rank Feuillants, your unabolished Staff of the Guard and who else has status and weight, is in these very moments privily deliberating at the General’s: Can we not put down the Jacobins by force? Next day, a Review shall be held, in the Tuileries Garden, of such as will turn out, and try. Alas, says Toulongeon, hardly a hundred turned out. Put it off till tomorrow, then, to give better warning. On the morrow, which is Saturday, there turn out “some thirty;” and depart shrugging their shoulders!476 Lafayette promptly takes carriage again; returns musing on many things.

The dust of Paris is hardly off his wheels, the summer Sunday is still young, when Cordeliers in deputation pluck up that Mai of his: before sunset, Patriots have burnt him in effigy. Louder doubt and louder rises, in Section, in National Assembly, as to the legality of such unbidden Anti-jacobin visit on the part of a General: doubt swelling and spreading all over France, for six weeks or so: with endless talk about usurping soldiers, about English Monk, nay about Cromwell: O thou pour Grandison-Cromwell!—What boots it? King Louis himself looked coldly on the enterprize: colossal Hero of two Worlds, having weighed himself in the balance, finds that he is become a gossamer Colossus, only some thirty turning out.

In a like sense, and with a like issue, works our Department-Directory here at Paris; who, on the 6th of July, take upon them to suspend Mayor Pétion and Procureur Manuel from all civic functions, for their conduct, replete, as is alleged, with omissions and commissions, on that delicate Twentieth of June. Virtuous Pétion sees himself a kind of martyr, or pseudo-martyr, threatened with several things; drawls out due heroical lamentation; to which Patriot Paris and Patriot Legislative duly respond. King Louis and Mayor Pétion have already had an interview on that business of the Twentieth; an interview and dialogue, distinguished by frankness on both sides; ending on King Louis’s side with the words, ‘Taisez-vous, Hold your peace.’

For the rest, this of suspending our Mayor does seem a mistimed measure. By ill chance, it came out precisely on the day of that famous Baiser de l’amourette, or miraculous reconciliatory Delilah-Kiss, which we spoke of long ago. Which Delilah-Kiss was thereby quite hindered of effect. For now his Majesty has to write, almost that same night, asking a reconciled Assembly for advice! The reconciled Assembly will not advise; will not interfere. The King confirms the suspension; then perhaps, but not till then will the Assembly interfere, the noise of Patriot Paris getting loud. Whereby your Delilah-Kiss, such was the destiny of Parliament First, becomes a Philistine Battle!

Nay there goes a word that as many as Thirty of our chief Patriot Senators are to be clapped in prison, by mittimus and indictment of Feuillant Justices, Juges de Paix; who here in Paris were well capable of such a thing. It was but in May last that Juge de Paix Larivière, on complaint of Bertrand-Moleville touching that Austrian Committee, made bold to launch his mittimus against three heads of the Mountain, Deputies Bazire, Chabot, Merlin, the Cordelier Trio; summoning them to appear before him, and shew where that Austrian Committee was, or else suffer the consequences. Which mittimus the Trio, on their side, made bold to fling in the fire: and valiantly pleaded privilege of Parliament. So that, for his zeal without knowledge, poor Justice Larivière now sits in the prison of Orléans, waiting trial from the Haute Cour there. Whose example, may it not deter other rash Justices; and so this word of the Thirty arrestments continue a word merely?

But on the whole, though Lafayette weighed so light, and has had his Mai plucked up, Official Feuillantism falters not a whit; but carries its head high, strong in the letter of the Law. Feuillants all of these men: a Feuillant Directory; founding on high character, and such like; with Duke de la Rochefoucault for President,—a thing which may prove dangerous for him! Dim now is the once bright Anglomania of these admired Noblemen. Duke de Liancourt offers, out of Normandy where he is Lord-Lieutenant, not only to receive his Majesty, thinking of flight thither, but to lend him money to enormous amounts. Sire, it is not a Revolt, it is a Revolution; and truly no rose-water one! Worthier Noblemen were not in France nor in Europe than those two: but the Time is crooked, quick-shifting, perverse; what straightest course will lead to any goal, in it?

Another phasis which we note, in these early July days, is that of certain thin streaks of Federate National Volunteers wending from various points towards Paris, to hold a new Federation-Festival, or Feast of Pikes, on the Fourteenth there. So has the National Assembly wished it, so has the Nation willed it. In this way, perhaps, may we still have our Patriot Camp in spite of Veto. For cannot these Fédérés, having celebrated their Feast of Pikes, march on to Soissons; and, there being drilled and regimented, rush to the Frontiers, or whither we like? Thus were the one Veto cunningly eluded!

As indeed the other Veto, about Priests, is also like to be eluded; and without much cunning. For Provincial Assemblies, in Calvados as one instance, are proceeding on their own strength to judge and banish Antinational Priests. Or still worse without Provincial Assembly, a desperate People, as at Bourdeaux, can “hang two of them on the Lanterne,” on the way towards judgment.477 Pity for the spoken Veto, when it cannot become an acted one!

It is true, some ghost of a War-minister, or Home-minister, for the time being, ghost whom we do not name, does write to Municipalities and King’s Commanders, that they shall, by all conceivable methods, obstruct this Federation, and even turn back the Fédérés by force of arms: a message which scatters mere doubt, paralysis and confusion; irritates the poor Legislature; reduces the Fédérés as we see, to thin streaks. But being questioned, this ghost and the other ghosts, What it is then that they propose to do for saving the country?—they answer, That they cannot tell; that indeed they for their part have, this morning, resigned in a body; and do now merely respectfully take leave of the helm altogether. With which words they rapidly walk out of the Hall, sortent brusquement de la salle, the “Galleries cheering loudly,” the poor Legislature sitting “for a good while in silence!”478 Thus do Cabinet-ministers themselves, in extreme cases, strike work; one of the strangest omens. Other complete Cabinet-ministry there will not be; only fragments, and these changeful, which never get completed; spectral Apparitions that cannot so much as appear! King Louis writes that he now views this Federation Feast with approval; and will himself have the pleasure to take part in the same.

And so these thin streaks of Fédérés wend Parisward through a paralytic France. Thin grim streaks; not thick joyful ranks, as of old to the first Feast of Pikes! No: these poor Federates march now towards Austria and Austrian Committee, towards jeopardy and forlorn hope; men of hard fortune and temper, not rich in the world’s goods. Municipalities, paralyzed by War-ministers, are shy of affording cash: it may be, your poor Federates cannot arm themselves, cannot march, till the Daughter-Society of the place open her pocket, and subscribe. There will not have arrived, at the set day, Three thousand of them in all. And yet, thin and feeble as these streaks of Federates seem, they are the only thing one discerns moving with any clearness of aim, in this strange scene. Angry buzz and simmer; uneasy tossing and moaning of a huge France, all enchanted, spell-bound by unmarching Constitution, into frightful conscious and unconscious Magnetic-sleep; which frightful Magnetic-sleep must now issue soon in one of two things: Death or Madness! The Fédérés carry mostly in their pocket some earnest cry and Petition, to have the “National Executive put in action;” or as a step towards that, to have the King’s Déchéance, King’s Forfeiture, or at least his Suspension, pronounced. They shall be welcome to the Legislative, to the Mother of Patriotism; and Paris will provide for their lodging.

Déchéance, indeed: and, what next? A France spell-free, a Revolution saved; and any thing, and all things next! so answer grimly Danton and the unlimited Patriots, down deep in their subterranean region of Plot, whither they have now dived. Déchéance, answers Brissot with the limited: And if next the little Prince Royal were crowned, and some Regency of Girondins and recalled Patriot Ministry set over him? Alas, poor Brissot; looking, as indeed poor man does always, on the nearest morrow as his peaceable promised land; deciding what must reach to the world’s end, yet with an insight that reaches not beyond his own nose! Wiser are the unlimited subterranean Patriots, who with light for the hour itself, leave the rest to the gods.

Or were it not, as we now stand, the probablest issue of all, that Brunswick, in Coblentz, just gathering his huge limbs towards him to rise, might arrive first; and stop both Déchéance, and theorizing on it? Brunswick is on the eve of marching; with Eighty Thousand, they say; fell Prussians, Hessians, feller Emigrants: a General of the Great Frederick, with such an Army. And our Armies? And our Generals? As for Lafayette, on whose late visit a Committee is sitting and all France is jarring and censuring, he seems readier to fight us than fight Brunswick. Lückner and Lafayette pretend to be interchanging corps, and are making movements; which Patriotism cannot understand. This only is very clear, that their corps go marching and shuttling, in the interior of the country; much nearer Paris than formerly! Lückner has ordered Dumouriez down to him, down from Maulde, and the Fortified Camp there. Which order the many-counselled Dumouriez, with the Austrians hanging close on him, he busy meanwhile training a few thousands to stand fire and be soldiers, declares that, come of it what will, he cannot obey.479 Will a poor Legislative, therefore, sanction Dumouriez; who applies to it, “not knowing whether there is any War-ministry?” Or sanction Lückner and these Lafayette movements?

The poor Legislative knows not what to do. It decrees, however, that the Staff of the Paris Guard, and indeed all such Staffs, for they are Feuillants mostly, shall be broken and replaced. It decrees earnestly in what manner one can declare that the Country is in Danger. And finally, on the 11th of July, the morrow of that day when the Ministry struck work, it decrees that the Country be, with all despatch, declared in Danger. Whereupon let the King sanction; let the Municipality take measures: if such Declaration will do service, it need not fail.

In Danger, truly, if ever Country was! Arise, O Country; or be trodden down to ignominious ruin! Nay, are not the chances a hundred to one that no rising of the Country will save it; Brunswick, the Emigrants, and Feudal Europe drawing nigh?

Chapter 2.6.II. Let us march.

But to our minds the notablest of all these moving phenomena, is that of Barbaroux’s “Six Hundred Marseillese who know how to die.”

Prompt to the request of Barbaroux, the Marseilles Municipality has got these men together: on the fifth morning of July, the Townhall says, ‘Marchez, abatez le Tyran, March, strike down the Tyrant;’480 and they, with grim appropriate ‘Marchons,’ are marching. Long journey, doubtful errand; Enfans de la Patrie, may a good genius guide you! Their own wild heart and what faith it has will guide them: and is not that the monition of some genius, better or worse? Five Hundred and Seventeen able men, with Captains of fifties and tens; well armed all, musket on shoulder, sabre on thigh: nay they drive three pieces of cannon; for who knows what obstacles may occur? Municipalities there are, paralyzed by War-minister; Commandants with orders to stop even Federation Volunteers; good, when sound arguments will not open a Town-gate, if you have a petard to shiver it! They have left their sunny Phocean City and Sea-haven, with its bustle and its bloom: the thronging Course, with high-frondent Avenues, pitchy dockyards, almond and olive groves, orange trees on house-tops, and white glittering bastides that crown the hills, are all behind them. They wend on their wild way, from the extremity of French land, through unknown cities, toward an unknown destiny; with a purpose that they know.

Much wondering at this phenomenon, and how, in a peaceable trading City, so many householders or hearth-holders do severally fling down their crafts and industrial tools; gird themselves with weapons of war, and set out on a journey of six hundred miles to “strike down the tyrant,”—you search in all Historical Books, Pamphlets, and Newspapers, for some light on it: unhappily without effect. Rumour and Terror precede this march; which still echo on you; the march itself an unknown thing. Weber, in the back-stairs of the Tuileries, has understood that they were Forçats, Galley-slaves and mere scoundrels, these Marseillese; that, as they marched through Lyons, the people shut their shops;—also that the number of them was some Four Thousand. Equally vague is Blanc Gilli, who likewise murmurs about Forçats and danger of plunder.481 Forçats they were not; neither was there plunder, or danger of it. Men of regular life, or of the best-filled purse, they could hardly be; the one thing needful in them was that they “knew how to die.” Friend Dampmartin saw them, with his own eyes, march “gradually” through his quarters at Villefranche in the Beaujolais: but saw in the vaguest manner; being indeed preoccupied, and himself minded for matching just then—across the Rhine. Deep was his astonishment to think of such a march, without appointment or arrangement, station or ration: for the rest it was “the same men he had seen formerly” in the troubles of the South; “perfectly civil;” though his soldiers could not be kept from talking a little with them.482

So vague are all these; Moniteur, Histoire Parlementaire are as good as silent: garrulous History, as is too usual, will say nothing where you most wish her to speak! If enlightened Curiosity ever get sight of the Marseilles Council-Books, will it not perhaps explore this strangest of Municipal procedures; and feel called to fish up what of the Biographies, creditable or discreditable, of these Five Hundred and Seventeen, the stream of Time has not yet irrevocably swallowed?

As it is, these Marseillese remain inarticulate, undistinguishable in feature; a blackbrowed Mass, full of grim fire, who wend there, in the hot sultry weather: very singular to contemplate. They wend; amid the infinitude of doubt and dim peril; they not doubtful: Fate and Feudal Europe, having decided, come girdling in from without: they, having also decided, do march within. Dusty of face, with frugal refreshment, they plod onwards; unweariable, not to be turned aside. Such march will become famous. The Thought, which works voiceless in this blackbrowed mass, an inspired Tyrtæan Colonel, Rouget de Lille, whom the Earth still holds,483 has translated into grim melody and rhythm; into his Hymn or March of the Marseillese: luckiest musical-composition ever promulgated. The sound of which will make the blood tingle in men’s veins; and whole Armies and Assemblages will sing it, with eyes weeping and burning, with hearts defiant of Death, Despot and Devil.

One sees well, these Marseillese will be too late for the Federation Feast. In fact, it is not Champ-de-Mars Oaths that they have in view. They have quite another feat to do: a paralytic National Executive to set in action. They must “strike down” whatsoever “Tyrant,” or Martyr-Fainéant, there may be who paralyzes it; strike and be struck; and on the whole prosper and know how to die.

Chapter 2.6.III. Some Consolation to Mankind.

Of the Federation Feast itself we shall say almost nothing. There are Tents pitched in the Champ-de-Mars; tent for National Assembly; tent for Hereditary Representative,—who indeed is there too early, and has to wait long in it. There are Eighty-three symbolical Departmental Trees-of-Liberty; trees and mais enough: beautifullest of all these is one huge mai, hung round with effete Scutcheons, Emblazonries and Genealogy-books; nay better still, with Lawyers’-bags, “sacs de procédure:“ which shall be burnt. The Thirty seat-rows of that famed Slope are again full; we have a bright Sun; and all is marching, streamering and blaring: but what avails it? Virtuous Mayor Pétion, whom Feuillantism had suspended, was reinstated only last night, by Decree of the Assembly. Men’s humour is of the sourest. Men’s hats have on them, written in chalk, “Vive Pétion;“ and even, “Pétion or Death, Pétion ou la Mort.”

Poor Louis, who has waited till five o’clock before the Assembly would arrive, swears the National Oath this time, with a quilted cuirass under his waistcoat which will turn pistol-bullets.484 Madame de Staël, from that Royal Tent, stretches out the neck in a kind of agony, lest the waving multitudes which receive him may not render him back alive. No cry of Vive le Roi salutes the ear; cries only of Vive Pétion; Pétion ou la Mort. The National Solemnity is as it were huddled by; each cowering off almost before the evolutions are gone through. The very Mai with its Scutcheons and Lawyers’-bags is forgotten, stands unburnt; till “certain Patriot Deputies,” called by the people, set a torch to it, by way of voluntary after-piece. Sadder Feast of Pikes no man ever saw.

Mayor Pétion, named on hats, is at his zenith in this Federation; Lafayette again is close upon his nadir. Why does the stormbell of Saint-Roch speak out, next Saturday; why do the citizens shut their shops?485 It is Sections defiling, it is fear of effervescence. Legislative Committee, long deliberating on Lafayette and that Anti-jacobin Visit of his, reports, this day, that there is “not ground for Accusation!” Peace, ye Patriots, nevertheless; and let that tocsin cease: the Debate is not finished, nor the Report accepted; but Brissot, Isnard and the Mountain will sift it, and resift it, perhaps for some three weeks longer.

So many bells, stormbells and noises do ring;—scarcely audible; one drowning the other. For example: in this same Lafayette tocsin, of Saturday, was there not withal some faint bob-minor, and Deputation of Legislative, ringing the Chevalier Paul Jones to his long rest; tocsin or dirge now all one to him! Not ten days hence Patriot Brissot, beshouted this day by the Patriot Galleries, shall find himself begroaned by them, on account of his limited Patriotism; nay pelted at while perorating, and “hit with two prunes.”486 It is a distracted empty-sounding world; of bob-minors and bob-majors, of triumph and terror, of rise and fall!

The more touching is this other Solemnity, which happens on the morrow of the Lafayette tocsin: Proclamation that the Country is in Danger. Not till the present Sunday could such Solemnity be. The Legislative decreed it almost a fortnight ago; but Royalty and the ghost of a Ministry held back as they could. Now however, on this Sunday, 22nd day of July 1792, it will hold back no longer; and the Solemnity in very deed is. Touching to behold! Municipality and Mayor have on their scarfs; cannon-salvo booms alarm from the Pont-Neuf, and single-gun at intervals all day. Guards are mounted, scarfed Notabilities, Halberdiers, and a Cavalcade; with streamers, emblematic flags; especially with one huge Flag, flapping mournfully: Citoyens, la Patrie est en Danger. They roll through the streets, with stern-sounding music, and slow rattle of hoofs: pausing at set stations, and with doleful blast of trumpet, singing out through Herald’s throat, what the Flag says to the eye: ‘Citizens, the Country is in Danger!’

Is there a man’s heart that hears it without a thrill? The many-voiced responsive hum or bellow of these multitudes is not of triumph; and yet it is a sound deeper than triumph. But when the long Cavalcade and Proclamation ended; and our huge Flag was fixed on the Pont Neuf, another like it on the Hôtel-de-Ville, to wave there till better days; and each Municipal sat in the centre of his Section, in a Tent raised in some open square, Tent surmounted with flags of Patrie en Danger, and topmost of all a Pike and Bonnet Rouge; and, on two drums in front of him, there lay a plank-table, and on this an open Book, and a Clerk sat, like recording-angel, ready to write the Lists, or as we say to enlist! O, then, it seems, the very gods might have looked down on it. Young Patriotism, Culottic and Sansculottic, rushes forward emulous: That is my name; name, blood, and life, is all my Country’s; why have I nothing more! Youths of short stature weep that they are below size. Old men come forward, a son in each hand. Mothers themselves will grant the son of their travail; send him, though with tears. And the multitude bellows Vive la Patrie, far reverberating. And fire flashes in the eyes of men;—and at eventide, your Municipal returns to the Townhall, followed by his long train of volunteer Valour; hands in his List: says proudly, looking round. This is my day’s harvest.487 They will march, on the morrow, to Soissons; small bundle holding all their chattels.

So, with Vive la Patrie, Vive la Liberté, stone Paris reverberates like Ocean in his caves; day after day, Municipals enlisting in tricolor Tent; the Flag flapping on Pont Neuf and Townhall, Citoyens, la Patrie est en Danger. Some Ten thousand fighters, without discipline but full of heart, are on march in few days. The like is doing in every Town of France.—Consider therefore whether the Country will want defenders, had we but a National Executive? Let the Sections and Primary Assemblies, at any rate, become Permanent, and sit continually in Paris, and over France, by Legislative Decree dated Wednesday the 25th.488

Mark contrariwise how, in these very hours, dated the 25th, Brunswick shakes himself “s’ébranle,” in Coblentz; and takes the road! Shakes himself indeed; one spoken word becomes such a shaking. Successive, simultaneous dirl of thirty thousand muskets shouldered; prance and jingle of ten-thousand horsemen, fanfaronading Emigrants in the van; drum, kettle-drum; noise of weeping, swearing; and the immeasurable lumbering clank of baggage-waggons and camp-kettles that groan into motion: all this is Brunswick shaking himself; not without all this does the one man march, “covering a space of forty miles.” Still less without his Manifesto, dated, as we say, the 25th; a State-Paper worthy of attention!

By this Document, it would seem great things are in store for France. The universal French People shall now have permission to rally round Brunswick and his Emigrant Seigneurs; tyranny of a Jacobin Faction shall oppress them no more; but they shall return, and find favour with their own good King; who, by Royal Declaration (three years ago) of the Twenty-third of June, said that he would himself make them happy. As for National Assembly, and other Bodies of Men invested with some temporary shadow of authority, they are charged to maintain the King’s Cities and Strong Places intact, till Brunswick arrive to take delivery of them. Indeed, quick submission may extenuate many things; but to this end it must be quick. Any National Guard or other unmilitary person found resisting in arms shall be “treated as a traitor;” that is to say, hanged with promptitude. For the rest, if Paris, before Brunswick gets thither, offer any insult to the King: or, for example, suffer a faction to carry the King away elsewhither; in that case Paris shall be blasted asunder with cannon-shot and “military execution.” Likewise all other Cities, which may witness, and not resist to the uttermost, such forced-march of his Majesty, shall be blasted asunder; and Paris and every City of them, starting-place, course and goal of said sacrilegious forced-march, shall, as rubbish and smoking ruin, lie there for a sign. Such vengeance were indeed signal, “an insigne vengeance:“—O Brunswick, what words thou writest and blusterest! In this Paris, as in old Nineveh, are so many score thousands that know not the right hand from the left, and also much cattle. Shall the very milk-cows, hard-living cadgers’-asses, and poor little canary-birds die?

Nor is Royal and Imperial Prussian-Austrian Declaration wanting: setting forth, in the amplest manner, their Sanssouci-Schonbrunn version of this whole French Revolution, since the first beginning of it; and with what grief these high heads have seen such things done under the Sun: however, “as some small consolation to mankind,”489 they do now despatch Brunswick; regardless of expense, as one might say, of sacrifices on their own part; for is it not the first duty to console men?

Serene Highnesses, who sit there protocolling and manifestoing, and consoling mankind! how were it if, for once in the thousand years, your parchments, formularies, and reasons of state were blown to the four winds; and Reality Sans-indispensables stared you, even you, in the face; and Mankind said for itself what the thing was that would console it?—

Chapter 2.6.IV. Subterranean.

But judge if there was comfort in this to the Sections all sitting permanent; deliberating how a National Executive could be put in action!

High rises the response, not of cackling terror, but of crowing counter-defiance, and Vive la Nation; young Valour streaming towards the Frontiers; Patrie en Danger mutely beckoning on the Pont Neuf. Sections are busy, in their permanent Deep; and down, lower still, works unlimited Patriotism, seeking salvation in plot. Insurrection, you would say, becomes once more the sacredest of duties? Committee, self-chosen, is sitting at the Sign of the Golden Sun: Journalist Carra, Camille Desmoulins, Alsatian Westermann friend of Danton, American Fournier of Martinique;—a Committee not unknown to Mayor Pétion, who, as an official person, must sleep with one eye open. Not unknown to Procureur Manuel; least of all to Procureur-Substitute Danton! He, wrapped in darkness, being also official, bears it on his giant shoulder; cloudy invisible Atlas of the whole.

Much is invisible; the very Jacobins have their reticences. Insurrection is to be: but when? This only we can discern, that such Fédérés as are not yet gone to Soissons, as indeed are not inclined to go yet, ‘for reasons,’ says the Jacobin President, ‘which it may be interesting not to state,’ have got a Central Committee sitting close by, under the roof of the Mother Society herself. Also, what in such ferment and danger of effervescence is surely proper, the Forty-eight Sections have got their Central Committee; intended “for prompt communication.” To which Central Committee the Municipality, anxious to have it at hand, could not refuse an Apartment in the Hôtel-de-Ville.

Singular City! For overhead of all this, there is the customary baking and brewing; Labour hammers and grinds. Frilled promenaders saunter under the trees; white-muslin promenaderess, in green parasol, leaning on your arm. Dogs dance, and shoeblacks polish, on that Pont Neuf itself, where Fatherland is in danger. So much goes its course; and yet the course of all things is nigh altering and ending.

Look at that Tuileries and Tuileries Garden. Silent all as Sahara; none entering save by ticket! They shut their Gates, after the Day of the Black Breeches; a thing they had the liberty to do. However, the National Assembly grumbled something about Terrace of the Feuillants, how said Terrace lay contiguous to the back entrance to their Salle, and was partly National Property; and so now National Justice has stretched a Tricolor Riband athwart, by way of boundary-line, respected with splenetic strictness by all Patriots. It hangs there that Tricolor boundary-line; carries “satirical inscriptions on cards,” generally in verse; and all beyond this is called Coblentz, and remains vacant; silent, as a fateful Golgotha; sunshine and umbrage alternating on it in vain. Fateful Circuit; what hope can dwell in it? Mysterious Tickets of Entry introduce themselves; speak of Insurrection very imminent. Rivarol’s Staff of Genius had better purchase blunderbusses; Grenadier bonnets, red Swiss uniforms may be useful. Insurrection will come; but likewise will it not be met? Staved off, one may hope, till Brunswick arrive?

But consider withal if the Bourne-stones and Portable chairs remain silent; if the Herald’s College of Bill-Stickers sleep! Louvet’s Sentinel warns gratis on all walls; Sulleau is busy: People’s-Friend Marat and King’s-Friend Royou croak and counter-croak. For the man Marat, though long hidden since that Champ-de-Mars Massacre, is still alive. He has lain, who knows in what Cellars; perhaps in Legendre’s; fed by a steak of Legendre’s killing: but, since April, the bull-frog voice of him sounds again; hoarsest of earthly cries. For the present, black terror haunts him: O brave Barbaroux wilt thou not smuggle me to Marseilles, “disguised as a jockey?”490 In Palais-Royal and all public places, as we read, there is sharp activity; private individuals haranguing that Valour may enlist; haranguing that the Executive may be put in action. Royalist journals ought to be solemnly burnt: argument thereupon; debates which generally end in single-stick, coups de cannes.491 Or think of this; the hour midnight; place Salle de Manége; august Assembly just adjourning: “Citizens of both sexes enter in a rush exclaiming, Vengeance: they are poisoning our Brothers;“—baking brayed-glass among their bread at Soissons! Vergniaud has to speak soothing words, How Commissioners are already sent to investigate this brayed-glass, and do what is needful therein: till the rush of Citizens “makes profound silence:” and goes home to its bed.

Such is Paris; the heart of a France like to it. Preternatural suspicion, doubt, disquietude, nameless anticipation, from shore to shore:—and those blackbrowed Marseillese, marching, dusty, unwearied, through the midst of it; not doubtful they. Marching to the grim music of their hearts, they consume continually the long road, these three weeks and more; heralded by Terror and Rumour. The Brest Fédérés arrive on the 26th; through hurrahing streets. Determined men are these also, bearing or not bearing the Sacred Pikes of Château-Vieux; and on the whole decidedly disinclined for Soissons as yet. Surely the Marseillese Brethren do draw nigher all days.