Easter at Paris.
For above a year, ever since March 1790, it would seem, there has
hovered a project of Flight before the royal mind; and ever and
anon has been condensing itself into something like a purpose;
but this or the other difficulty always vaporised it again. It
seems so full of risks, perhaps of civil war itself; above all,
it cannot be done without effort. Somnolent laziness will not
serve: to fly, if not in a leather _vache_, one must verily stir
himself. Better to adopt that Constitution of theirs; execute it
so as to shew all men that it is inexecutable? Better or not so
good; surely it is _easier_. To all difficulties you need only
say, There is a lion in the path, behold your Constitution will
not act! For a somnolent person it requires no effort to
counterfeit death,—as Dame de Staël and Friends of Liberty can
see the King’s Government long doing, _faisant le mort_.
Nay now, when desire whetted by difficulty has brought the matter
to a head, and the royal mind no longer halts between two, what
can come of it? Grant that poor Louis were safe with Bouillé,
what on the whole could he look for there? Exasperated Tickets of
Entry answer, Much, all. But cold Reason answers, Little almost
nothing. Is not loyalty a law of Nature? ask the Tickets of
Entry. Is not love of your King, and even death for him, the
glory of all Frenchmen,—except these few Democrats? Let Democrat
Constitution-builders see what they will do without their
Keystone; and France rend its hair, having lost the Hereditary
Representative!
Thus will King Louis fly; one sees not reasonably towards what.
As a maltreated Boy, shall we say, who, having a Stepmother,
rushes sulky into the wide world; and will wring the paternal
heart?—Poor Louis escapes from known unsupportable evils, to an
unknown mixture of good and evil, coloured by Hope. He goes, as
Rabelais did when dying, to seek a great May-be: _je vais
chercher un grand Peut-être!_ As not only the sulky Boy but the
wise grown Man is obliged to do, so often, in emergencies.
For the rest, there is still no lack of stimulants, and stepdame
maltreatments, to keep one’s resolution at the due pitch.
Factious disturbance ceases not: as indeed how can they, unless
authoritatively _conjured_, in a Revolt which is by nature
bottomless? If the ceasing of faction be the price of the King’s
somnolence, he may awake when he will, and take wing.
Remark, in any case, what somersets and contortions a dead
Catholicism is making,—skilfully galvanised: hideous, and even
piteous, to behold! Jurant and Dissident, with their shaved
crowns, argue frothing everywhere; or are ceasing to argue, and
stripping for battle. In Paris was scourging while need
continued: contrariwise, in the Morbihan of Brittany, without
scourging, armed Peasants are up, roused by pulpit-drum, they
know not why. General Dumouriez, who has got missioned
thitherward, finds all in sour heat of darkness; finds also that
explanation and conciliation will still do much.[368]
But again, consider this: that his Holiness, Pius Sixth, has seen
good to excommunicate Bishop Talleyrand! Surely, we will say
then, considering it, there is no living or dead Church in the
Earth that has not the indubitablest right to excommunicate
Talleyrand. Pope Pius has right and might, in his way. But truly
so likewise has Father Adam, _ci-devant_ Marquis Saint-Huruge, in
his way. Behold, therefore, on the Fourth of May, in the
Palais-Royal, a mixed loud-sounding multitude; in the middle of
whom, Father Adam, bull-voiced Saint-Huruge, in white hat, towers
visible and audible. With him, it is said, walks Journalist
Gorsas, walk many others of the washed sort; for no authority
will interfere. Pius Sixth, with his plush and tiara, and power
of the Keys, they bear aloft: of natural size,—made of lath and
combustible gum. Royou, the King’s Friend, is borne too in
effigy; with a pile of Newspaper _King’s-Friends_, condemned
numbers of the _Ami-du-Roi;_ fit fuel of the sacrifice. Speeches
are spoken; a judgment is held, a doom proclaimed, audible in
bull-voice, towards the four winds. And thus, amid great
shouting, the holocaust is consummated, under the summer sky; and
our lath-and-gum Holiness, with the attendant victims, mounts up
in flame, and sinks down in ashes; a decomposed Pope: and right
or might, among all the parties, has better or worse accomplished
itself, as it could.[369] But, on the whole, reckoning from
Martin Luther in the Marketplace of Wittenberg to Marquis
Saint-Huruge in this Palais-Royal of Paris, what a journey have
we gone; into what strange territories has it carried us! No
Authority can now interfere. Nay Religion herself, mourning for
such things, may after all ask, What have _I_ to do with them?
In such extraordinary manner does dead Catholicism somerset and
caper, skilfully galvanised. For, does the reader inquire into
the subject-matter of controversy in this case; what the
difference between Orthodoxy or _My-doxy_ and Heterodoxy or
_Thy-doxy_ might here be? My-doxy is that an august National
Assembly can equalize the extent of Bishopricks; that an
equalized Bishop, his Creed and Formularies being left quite as
they were, can swear Fidelity to King, Law and Nation, and so
become a Constitutional Bishop. Thy-doxy, if thou be Dissident,
is that he cannot; but that he must become an accursed thing.
Human ill-nature needs but some Homoiousian _iota_, or even the
pretence of one; and will flow copiously through the eye of a
needle: thus always must mortals go jargoning and fuming,
And, like the ancient Stoics in their porches
With fierce dispute maintain their churches.
This _Auto-da-fé_ of Saint-Huruge’s was on the Fourth of May,
1791. Royalty sees it; but says nothing.