Sharp Shot.
In regard to all which, this most pressing question arises: What
is to be done with it? ‘Depose it!’ resolutely answer Robespierre
and the thoroughgoing few. For truly, with a King who runs away,
and needs to be watched in his very bedroom that he may stay and
govern you, what other reasonable thing can be done? Had Philippe
d’Orléans not been a _caput mortuum!_ But of him, known as one
defunct, no man now dreams. ‘Depose it not; say that it is
inviolable, that it was spirited away, was _enlevé;_ at any cost
of sophistry and solecism, reestablish it!’ so answer with loud
vehemence all manner of Constitutional Royalists; as all your
Pure Royalists do naturally likewise, with low vehemence, and
rage compressed by fear, still more passionately answer. Nay
Barnave and the two Lameths, and what will follow them, do
likewise answer so. Answer, with their whole might: terror-struck
at the unknown Abysses on the verge of which, driven thither by
themselves mainly, all now reels, ready to plunge.
By mighty effort and combination this latter course, of
reestablish it, is the course fixed on; and it shall by the
strong arm, if not by the clearest logic, be made good. With the
sacrifice of all their hard-earned popularity, this notable
Triumvirate, says Toulongeon, “set the Throne up again, which
they had so toiled to overturn: as one might set up an overturned
pyramid, on its vertex; to stand so long as it is _held_.”
Unhappy France; unhappy in King, Queen, and Constitution; one
knows not in which unhappiest! Was the meaning of our so glorious
French Revolution this, and no other, That when Shams and
Delusions, long soul-killing, had become body-killing, and got
the length of Bankruptcy and Inanition, a great People rose and,
with one voice, said, in the Name of the Highest: _Shams shall be
no more?_ So many sorrows and bloody horrors, endured, and to be
yet endured through dismal coming centuries, were they not the
heavy price paid and payable for this same: Total Destruction of
Shams from among men? And now, O Barnave Triumvirate! is it in
such _double_-distilled Delusion, and Sham even of a Sham, that
an Effort of this kind will rest acquiescent? Messieurs of the
popular Triumvirate: Never! But, after all, what can poor popular
Triumvirates and fallible august Senators do? They can, when the
Truth is all too-horrible, stick their heads ostrich-like into
what sheltering Fallacy is nearest: and wait there, _à
posteriori._
Readers who saw the Clermontais and Three-Bishopricks gallop, in
the Night of Spurs; Diligences ruffling up all France into one
terrific terrified Cock of India; and the Town of Nantes in its
shirt,—may fancy what an affair to settle this was. Robespierre,
on the extreme Left, with perhaps Pétion and lean old Goupil, for
the very Triumvirate has defalcated, are shrieking hoarse;
drowned in Constitutional clamour. But the debate and arguing of
a whole Nation; the bellowings through all Journals, for and
against; the reverberant voice of Danton; the Hyperion-shafts of
Camille; the porcupine-quills of implacable Marat:—conceive all
this.
Constitutionalists in a body, as we often predicted, do now
recede from the Mother Society, and become _Feuillans;_
threatening her with inanition, the rank and respectability being
mostly gone. Petition after Petition, forwarded by Post, or borne
in Deputation, comes praying for Judgment and _Déchéance_, which
is our name for Deposition; praying, at lowest, for Reference to
the Eighty-three Departments of France. Hot Marseillese
Deputation comes declaring, among other things: ‘Our Phocean
Ancestors flung a Bar of Iron into the Bay at their first
landing; this Bar will float again on the Mediterranean brine
before we consent to be slaves.’ All this for four weeks or more,
while the matter still hangs doubtful; Emigration streaming with
double violence over the frontiers;[399] France seething in
fierce agitation of this question and prize-question: What is to
be done with the fugitive Hereditary Representative?
Finally, on Friday the 15th of July 1791, the National Assembly
decides; in what negatory manner we know. Whereupon the Theatres
all close, the _Bourne_-stones and Portable-chairs begin
spouting, Municipal Placards flaming on the walls, and
Proclamations published by sound of trumpet, “invite to repose;”
with small effect. And so, on Sunday the 17th, there shall be a
thing seen, worthy of remembering. Scroll of a Petition, drawn up
by Brissots, Dantons, by Cordeliers, Jacobins; for the thing was
infinitely shaken and manipulated, and many had a hand in it:
such Scroll lies now visible, on the wooden framework of the
Fatherland’s Altar, for signature. Unworking Paris, male and
female, is crowding thither, all day, to sign or to see. Our fair
Roland herself the eye of History can discern there, “in the
morning;”[400] not without interest. In few weeks the fair
Patriot will quit Paris; yet perhaps only to return.
But, what with sorrow of baulked Patriotism, what with closed
theatres, and Proclamations still publishing themselves by sound
of trumpet, the fervour of men’s minds, this day, is great. Nay,
over and above, there has fallen out an incident, of the nature
of Farce-Tragedy and Riddle; enough to stimulate all creatures.
Early in the day, a Patriot (or some say, it was a Patriotess,
and indeed Truth is undiscoverable), while standing on the firm
deal-board of Fatherland’s Altar, feels suddenly, with
indescribable torpedo-shock of amazement, his bootsole pricked
through from below; he clutches up suddenly this electrified
bootsole and foot; discerns next instant—the point of a gimlet or
brad-awl playing up, through the firm deal-board, and now hastily
drawing itself back! Mystery, perhaps Treason? The wooden
frame-work is impetuously broken up; and behold, verily a
mystery; never explicable fully to the end of the world! Two
human individuals, of mean aspect, one of them with a wooden leg,
lie ensconced there, gimlet in hand: they must have come in
overnight; they have a supply of provisions,—no “barrel of
gunpowder” that one can _see;_ they affect to be asleep; look
blank enough, and give the lamest account of themselves. ‘Mere
curiosity; they were boring up to get an eye-hole; to see,
perhaps “with lubricity,” whatsoever, from that _new_ point of
vision, could be seen:’—little that was edifying, one would
think! But indeed what stupidest thing may not human Dulness,
Pruriency, Lubricity, Chance and the Devil, choosing Two out of
Half-a-million idle human heads, tempt them to?[401]
Sure enough, the two human individuals with their gimlet are
there. Ill-starred pair of individuals! For the result of it all
is that Patriotism, fretting itself, in this state of nervous
excitability, with hypotheses, suspicions and reports, keeps
questioning these two distracted human individuals, and again
questioning them; claps them into the nearest Guardhouse,
clutches them out again; one hypothetic group snatching them from
another: till finally, in such extreme state of nervous
excitability, Patriotism hangs them as spies of Sieur Motier; and
the life and secret is choked out of them forevermore.
Forevermore, alas! Or is a day to be looked for when these two
evidently mean individuals, who are human nevertheless, will
become Historical Riddles; and, like him of the _Iron Mask_ (also
a human individual, and evidently nothing more),—have their
Dissertations? To us this only is certain, that they had a
gimlet, provisions and a wooden leg; and have died there on the
Lanterne, as the unluckiest fools might die.
And so the signature goes on, in a still more excited manner. And
Chaumette, for Antiquarians possess the very Paper to this
hour,[402]—has signed himself “in a flowing saucy hand slightly
leaned;” and Hébert, detestable _Père Duchesne_, as if “an inked
spider had dropped on the paper;” Usher Maillard also has signed,
and many Crosses, which cannot write. And Paris, through its
thousand avenues, is welling to the Champ-de-Mars and from it, in
the utmost excitability of humour; central Fatherland’s Altar
quite heaped with signing Patriots and Patriotesses; the
Thirty-benches and whole internal Space crowded with onlookers,
with comers and goers; one regurgitating whirlpool of men and
women in their Sunday clothes. All which a Constitutional Sieur
Motier sees; and Bailly, looking into it with his long visage
made still longer. Auguring no good; perhaps _Déchéance_ and
Deposition after all! Stop it, ye Constitutional Patriots; fire
itself is quenchable, yet only quenchable at _first._
Stop it, truly: but how stop it? Have not the first Free People
of the Universe a right to petition?—Happily, if also unhappily,
here is one proof of riot: these two human individuals, hanged at
the Lanterne. Proof, O treacherous Sieur Motier? Were they not
two human individuals sent thither by thee to be hanged; to be a
pretext for thy bloody _Drapeau Rouge?_ This question shall many
a Patriot, one day, ask; and answer affirmatively, strong in
Preternatural Suspicion.
Enough, towards half past seven in the evening, the mere natural
eye can behold this thing: Sieur Motier, with Municipals in
scarf, with blue National Patrollotism, rank after rank, to the
clang of drums; wending resolutely to the Champ-de-Mars; Mayor
Bailly, with elongated visage, bearing, as in sad duty bound, the
_Drapeau Rouge._ Howl of angry derision rises in treble and bass
from a hundred thousand throats, at the sight of Martial Law;
which nevertheless waving its Red sanguinary Flag, advances
there, from the Gros-Caillou Entrance; advances, drumming and
waving, towards Altar of Fatherland. Amid still wilder howls,
with objurgation, obtestation; with flights of pebbles and mud,
_saxa et fæces;_ with crackle of a pistol-shot;—finally with
volley-fire of Patrollotism; levelled muskets; roll of volley on
volley! Precisely after one year and three days, our sublime
Federation Field is wetted, in this manner, with French blood.
Some “Twelve unfortunately shot,” reports Bailly, counting by
units; but Patriotism counts by tens and even by hundreds. Not to
be forgotten, nor forgiven! Patriotism flies, shrieking,
execrating. Camille ceases Journalising, this day; great Danton
with Camille and Fréron have taken wing, for their life; Marat
burrows deep in the Earth, and is silent. Once more Patrollotism
has triumphed: one other time; but it is the last.
This was the Royal Flight to Varennes. Thus was the Throne
overturned thereby; but thus also was it victoriously set up
again—on its vertex; and will stand while it can be held.