Solemn League and Covenant.
Such dim masses, and specks of even deepest black, work in that
white-hot glow of the French mind, now wholly in fusion, and
_con_fusion. Old women here swearing their ten children on the
new Evangel of Jean Jacques; old women there looking up for
Favras’ Heads in the celestial Luminary: these _are_
preternatural signs, prefiguring somewhat.
In fact, to the Patriot children of Hope themselves, it is
undeniable that difficulties exist: emigrating Seigneurs;
Parlements in sneaking but most malicious mutiny (though the rope
is round their neck); above all, the most decided “deficiency of
grains.” Sorrowful: but, to a Nation that hopes, not
irremediable. To a Nation which is in fusion and ardent communion
of thought; which, for example, on signal of one Fugleman, will
lift its right hand like a drilled regiment, and swear and
illuminate, till every village from Ardennes to the Pyrenees has
rolled its village-drum, and sent up its little oath, and glimmer
of tallow-illumination some fathoms into the reign of Night!
If grains are defective, the fault is not of Nature or National
Assembly, but of Art and Antinational Intriguers. Such malign
individuals, of the scoundrel species, have power to vex us,
while the Constitution is a-making. Endure it, ye heroic
Patriots: nay rather, why not cure it? Grains do grow, they lie
extant there in sheaf or sack; only that regraters and Royalist
plotters, to provoke the people into illegality, obstruct the
transport of grains. Quick, ye organised Patriot Authorities,
armed National Guards, meet together; unite your goodwill; in
union is tenfold strength: let the concentred flash of your
Patriotism strike stealthy Scoundrelism blind, paralytic, as with
a _coup de soleil._
Under which hat or nightcap of the Twenty-five millions, this
pregnant Idea first rose, for in some one head it did rise, no
man can now say. A most small idea, near at hand for the whole
world: but a living one, fit; and which waxed, whether into
greatness or not, into immeasurable size. When a Nation is in
this state that the Fugleman can operate on it, what will the
word in season, the act in season, not do! It will grow verily,
like the Boy’s Bean in the Fairy-Tale, heaven-high, with
habitations and adventures on it, in one night. It is
nevertheless unfortunately still a Bean (for your long-lived Oak
grows _not_ so); and, the next night, it may lie felled,
horizontal, trodden into common mud.—But remark, at least, how
natural to any agitated Nation, which has Faith, this business of
Covenanting is. The Scotch, believing in a righteous Heaven above
them, and also in a Gospel, far other than the Jean-Jacques one,
swore, in their extreme need, a Solemn League and Covenant,—as
Brothers on the forlorn-hope, and imminence of battle, who
embrace looking Godward; and got the whole Isle to swear it; and
even, in their tough Old-Saxon Hebrew-Presbyterian way, to keep
it more or less;—for the thing, as such things are, was heard in
Heaven, and partially ratified there; neither is it yet dead, if
thou wilt look, nor like to die. The French too, with their
Gallic-Ethnic excitability and effervescence, have, as we have
seen, real Faith, of a sort; they are hard bestead, though in the
middle of Hope: a National Solemn League and Covenant there may
be in France too; under how different conditions; with how
different developement and issue!
Note, accordingly, the small commencement; first spark of a
mighty firework: for if the particular _hat_ cannot be fixed
upon, the particular District can. On the 29th day of last
November, were National Guards by the thousand seen filing, from
far and near, with military music, with Municipal officers in
tricolor sashes, towards and along the Rhone-stream, to the
little town of Etoile. There with ceremonial evolution and
manœuvre, with fanfaronading, musketry-salvoes, and what else the
Patriot genius could devise, they made oath and obtestation to
stand faithfully by one another, under Law and King; in
particular, to have all manner of grains, while grains there
were, freely circulated, in spite both of robber and regrater.
This was the meeting of Etoile, in the mild end of November 1789.
But now, if a mere empty Review, followed by Review-dinner, ball,
and such gesticulation and flirtation as there may be, interests
the happy County-town, and makes it the envy of surrounding
County-towns, how much more might this! In a fortnight, larger
Montélimart, half ashamed of itself, will do as good, and better.
On the Plain of Montélimart, or what is equally sonorous, “under
the Walls of Montélimart,” the thirteenth of December sees new
gathering and obtestation; six thousand strong; and now indeed,
with these three remarkable improvements, as unanimously resolved
on there. First that the men of Montélimart do federate with the
already federated men of Etoile. Second, that, implying not
expressing the circulation of grain, they “swear in the face of
God and their Country” with much more emphasis and
comprehensiveness, “to obey all decrees of the National Assembly,
and see them obeyed, till death, _jusqu’à la mort_.” Third, and
most important, that official record of all this be solemnly
delivered in to the National Assembly, to M. de Lafayette, and
“to the Restorer of French Liberty;” who shall all take what
comfort from it they can. Thus does larger Montélimart vindicate
its Patriot importance, and maintain its rank in the municipal
scale.[288]
And so, with the New-year, the signal is hoisted; for is not a
National Assembly, and solemn deliverance there, at lowest a
National Telegraph? Not only grain shall circulate, while there
is grain, on highways or the Rhone-waters, over all that
South-Eastern region,—where also if Monseigneur d’Artois saw good
to break in from Turin, hot welcome might wait him; but
whatsoever Province of France is straitened for grain, or vexed
with a mutinous Parlement, unconstitutional plotters, Monarchic
Clubs, or any other Patriot ailment,—can go and do likewise, or
even do better. And now, especially, when the February swearing
has set them all agog! From Brittany to Burgundy, on most plains
of France, under most City-walls, it is a blaring of trumpets,
waving of banners, a constitutional manœuvring: under the vernal
skies, while Nature too is putting forth her green Hopes, under
bright sunshine defaced by the stormful East; like Patriotism
victorious, though with difficulty, over Aristocracy and defect
of grain! There march and constitutionally wheel, to the
_ça-ira_-ing mood of fife and drum, under their tricolor
Municipals, our clear-gleaming Phalanxes; or halt, with uplifted
right-hand, and artillery-salvoes that imitate Jove’s thunder;
and all the Country, and metaphorically all “the Universe,” is
looking on. Wholly, in their best apparel, brave men, and
beautifully dizened women, most of whom have lovers there;
swearing, by the eternal Heavens and this green-growing
all-nutritive Earth, that France is free!
Sweetest days, when (astonishing to say) mortals have actually
met together in communion and fellowship; and man, were it only
once through long despicable centuries, is for moments verily the
brother of man!—And then the Deputations to the National
Assembly, with highflown descriptive harangue; to M. de
Lafayette, and the Restorer; very frequently moreover to the
Mother of Patriotism sitting on her stout benches in that Hall of
the Jacobins! The general ear is filled with Federation. New
names of Patriots emerge, which shall one day become familiar:
Boyer-Fonfrede eloquent denunciator of a rebellious Bourdeaux
Parlement; Max Isnard eloquent reporter of the Federation of
Draguignan; eloquent pair, separated by the whole breadth of
France, who are nevertheless to meet. Ever wider burns the flame
of Federation; ever wider and also brighter. Thus the Brittany
and Anjou brethren mention a Fraternity of _all_ true Frenchmen;
and go the length of invoking “perdition and death” on any
renegade: moreover, if in their National-Assembly harangue, they
glance plaintively at the _marc d’argent_ which makes so many
citizens _passive_, they, over in the Mother-Society, ask, being
henceforth themselves “neither Bretons nor Angevins but French,”
Why all France has not one Federation, and universal Oath of
Brotherhood, once for all?[289] A most pertinent suggestion;
dating from the end of March. Which pertinent suggestion the
whole Patriot world cannot but catch, and reverberate and agitate
till it become _loud;_—which, in that case, the Townhall
Municipals had better take up, and meditate.
Some universal Federation seems inevitable: the Where is given;
clearly Paris: only the When, the How? These also productive Time
will give; is already giving. For always as the Federative work
goes on, it perfects itself, and Patriot genius adds contribution
after contribution. Thus, at Lyons, in the end of the May month,
we behold as many as fifty, or some say sixty thousand, met to
federate; and a multitude looking on, which it would be difficult
to number. From dawn to dusk! For our Lyons Guardsmen took rank,
at five in the bright dewy morning; came pouring in,
bright-gleaming, to the Quai de Rhone, to march thence to the
Federation-field; amid wavings of hats and lady-handkerchiefs;
glad shoutings of some two hundred thousand Patriot voices and
hearts; the beautiful and brave! Among whom, courting no notice,
and yet the notablest of all, what queenlike Figure is this; with
her escort of house-friends and Champagneux the Patriot Editor;
come abroad with the earliest? Radiant with enthusiasm are those
dark eyes, is that strong Minerva-face, looking dignity and
earnest joy; joyfullest she where all are joyful. It is Roland de
la Platrière’s Wife![290] Strict elderly Roland, King’s Inspector
of Manufactures here; and now likewise, by popular choice, the
strictest of our new Lyons Municipals: a man who has gained much,
if worth and faculty be gain; but above all things, has gained to
wife Phlipon the Paris Engraver’s daughter. Reader, mark that
queenlike burgher-woman: beautiful, Amazonian-graceful to the
eye; more so to the mind. Unconscious of her worth (as all worth
is), of her greatness, of her crystal clearness; genuine, the
creature of Sincerity and Nature, in an age of Artificiality,
Pollution and Cant; there, in her still completeness, in her
still invincibility, _she_, if thou knew it, is the noblest of
all living Frenchwomen,—and will be seen, one day. O blessed
rather while unseen, even of herself! For the present she gazes,
nothing doubting, into this grand theatricality; and thinks her
young dreams are to be fulfilled.
From dawn to dusk, as we said, it lasts; and truly a sight like
few. Flourishes of drums and trumpets are something: but think of
an “artificial Rock fifty feet high,” all cut into crag-steps,
not without the similitude of “shrubs!” The interior cavity, for
in sooth it is made of deal,—stands solemn, a “Temple of
Concord:” on the outer summit rises “a Statue of Liberty,”
colossal, seen for miles, with her Pike and Phrygian Cap, and
civic column; at her feet a Country’s Altar, “_Autel de la
Patrie:_”—on all which neither deal-timber nor lath and plaster,
with paint of various colours, have been spared. But fancy then
the banners all placed on the steps of the Rock; high-mass
chaunted; and the civic oath of fifty thousand: with what
volcanic outburst of sound from iron and other throats, enough to
frighten back the very Saone and Rhone; and how the brightest
fireworks, and balls, and even repasts closed in that night of
the gods![291] And so the Lyons Federation vanishes too,
swallowed of darkness;—and yet not wholly, for our brave fair
Roland was there; also she, though in the deepest privacy, writes
her Narrative of it in Champagneux’s _Courier de Lyons;_ a piece
which “circulates to the extent of sixty thousand;” which one
would like now to read.
But on the whole, Paris, we may see, will have little to devise;
will only have to borrow and apply. And then as to the day, what
day of all the calendar is fit, if the Bastille Anniversary be
not? The particular spot too, it is easy to see, must be the
Champ-de-Mars; where many a Julian the Apostate has been lifted
on bucklers, to France’s or the world’s sovereignty; and iron
Franks, loud-clanging, have responded to the voice of a
Charlemagne; and from of old mere sublimities have been familiar.