In Queue.
If we look now at Paris, one thing is too evident: that the
Baker’s shops have got their _Queues_, or Tails; their long
strings of purchasers, arranged _in tail_, so that the first come
be the first served,—were the shop once open! This waiting in
tail, not seen since the early days of July, again makes its
appearance in August. In time, we shall see it perfected by
practice to the rank almost of an art; and the art, or quasi-art,
of standing in tail become one of the characteristics of the
Parisian People, distinguishing them from all other Peoples
whatsoever.
But consider, while work itself is so scarce, how a man must not
only realise money; but stand waiting (if his wife is too weak to
wait and struggle) for half days in the Tail, till he get it
changed for dear bad bread! Controversies, to the length,
sometimes of blood and battery, must arise in these exasperated
Queues. Or if no controversy, then it is but one accordant _Pange
Lingua_ of complaint against the Powers that be. France has begun
her long Curriculum of Hungering, instructive and productive
beyond Academic Curriculums; which extends over some seven most
strenuous years. As Jean Paul says, of his own Life, “to a great
height shall the business of Hungering go.”
Or consider, in strange contrast, the jubilee Ceremonies; for, in
general, the aspect of Paris presents these two features: jubilee
ceremonials and scarcity of victual. Processions enough walk in
jubilee; of Young Women, decked and dizened, their ribands all
tricolor; moving with song and tabor, to the Shrine of Sainte
Genevieve, to thank her that the Bastille is down. The Strong Men
of the Market, and the Strong Women, fail not with their bouquets
and speeches. Abbé Fauchet, famed in such work (for Abbé Lefevre
could only distribute powder) blesses tricolor cloth for the
National Guard; and makes it a National Tricolor Flag;
victorious, or to be victorious, in the cause of civil and
religious liberty all over the world. Fauchet, we say, is the man
for _Te-Deums_, and public Consecrations;—to which, as in this
instance of the Flag, our National Guard will “reply with volleys
of musketry,” Church and Cathedral though it be;[223] filling
Notre Dame with such noisiest fuliginous Amen, significant of
several things.
On the whole, we will say our new Mayor Bailly; our new Commander
Lafayette, named also “Scipio-Americanus,” have bought their
preferment dear. Bailly rides in gilt state-coach, with
beefeaters and sumptuosity; Camille Desmoulins, and others,
sniffing at him for it: Scipio bestrides the “white charger,” and
waves with civic plumes in sight of all France. Neither of them,
however, does it for nothing; but, in truth, at an exorbitant
rate. At this rate, namely: of feeding Paris, and keeping it from
fighting. Out of the City-funds, some seventeen thousand of the
utterly destitute are employed digging on Montmartre, at tenpence
a day, which buys them, at market price, almost two pounds of bad
bread;—they look very yellow, when Lafayette goes to harangue
them. The Townhall is in travail, night and day; it must bring
forth Bread, a Municipal Constitution, regulations of all kinds,
curbs on the Sansculottic Press; above all, Bread, Bread.
Purveyors prowl the country far and wide, with the appetite of
lions; detect hidden grain, purchase open grain; by gentle means
or forcible, must and will find grain. A most thankless task; and
so difficult, so dangerous,—even if a man did gain some trifle by
it! On the 19th August, there is food for one day.[224]
Complaints there are that the food is spoiled, and produces an
effect on the intestines: not corn but plaster-of-Paris! Which
effect on the intestines, as well as that “smarting in the throat
and palate,” a Townhall Proclamation warns you to disregard, or
even to consider as drastic-beneficial. The Mayor of Saint-Denis,
so black was his bread, has, by a dyspeptic populace, been hanged
on the Lanterne there. National Guards protect the Paris
Corn-Market: first ten suffice; then six hundred.[225] Busy are
ye, Bailly, Brissot de Warville, Condorcet, and ye others!
For, as just hinted, there is a Municipal Constitution to be made
too. The old Bastille Electors, after some ten days of
psalmodying over their glorious victory, began to hear it asked,
in a splenetic tone, Who put you there? They accordingly had to
give place, not without moanings, and audible growlings on both
sides, to a new larger Body, specially elected for that post.
Which new Body, augmented, altered, then fixed finally at the
number of Three Hundred, with the title of Town Representatives
(_Représentans de la Commune_), now sits there; rightly portioned
into Committees; assiduous making a Constitution; at all moments
when not seeking flour.
And such a Constitution; little short of miraculous: one that
shall “consolidate the Revolution”! The Revolution is finished,
then? Mayor Bailly and all respectable friends of Freedom would
fain think so. Your Revolution, like jelly sufficiently _boiled_,
needs only to be poured into _shapes_, of Constitution, and
“consolidated” therein? Could it, indeed, contrive to _cool;_
which last, however, is precisely the doubtful thing, or even the
not doubtful!
Unhappy friends of Freedom; consolidating a Revolution! They must
sit at work there, their pavilion spread on very Chaos; between
two hostile worlds, the Upper Court-world, the Nether
Sansculottic one; and, beaten on by both, toil painfully,
perilously,—doing, in sad literal earnest, “the impossible.”