The Jacobins.
Nevertheless let not Patriotism despair. Have we not, in Paris at
least, a virtuous Pétion, a wholly Patriotic Municipality?
Virtuous Pétion, ever since November, is Mayor of Paris: in our
Municipality, the Public, for the Public is now admitted too, may
behold an energetic Danton; further, an epigrammatic slow-sure
Manuel; a resolute unrepentant Billaud-Varennes, of Jesuit
breeding; Tallien able-editor; and nothing but Patriots, better
or worse. So ran the November Elections: to the joy of most
citizens; nay the very Court supported Pétion rather than
Lafayette. And so Bailly and his Feuillants, long waning like the
Moon, had to withdraw then, making some sorrowful obeisance, into
extinction;—or indeed into worse, into lurid half-light, grimmed
by the shadow of that Red Flag of theirs, and bitter memory of
the Champ-de-Mars. How swift is the progress of things and men!
Not now does Lafayette, as on that Federation-day, when _his_
noon was, “press his sword firmly on the Fatherland’s Altar,” and
swear in sight of France: ah no; he, waning and setting ever
since that hour, hangs now, disastrous, on the edge of the
horizon; commanding one of those Three moulting Crane-flights of
Armies, in a most suspected, unfruitful, uncomfortable manner!
But, at most, cannot Patriotism, so many thousands strong in this
Metropolis of the Universe, help itself? Has it not right-hands,
pikes? Hammering of pikes, which was not to be prohibited by
Mayor Bailly, has been sanctioned by Mayor Pétion; sanctioned by
Legislative Assembly. How not, when the King’s so-called
Constitutional Guard “was making cartridges in secret?” Changes
are necessary for the National Guard itself; this whole
Feuillant-Aristocrat Staff of the Guard must be disbanded.
Likewise, citizens without uniform may surely rank in the Guard,
the pike beside the musket, in such a time: the “active” citizen
and the passive who can fight for us, are they not both
welcome?—O my Patriot friends, indubitably Yes! Nay the truth is,
Patriotism throughout, were it never so white-frilled, logical,
respectable, must either lean itself heartily on Sansculottism,
the black, bottomless; or else vanish, in the frightfullest way,
to Limbo! Thus some, with upturned nose, will altogether sniff
and disdain Sansculottism; others will lean heartily on it; nay
others again will lean what we call _heartlessly_ on it: three
sorts; each sort with a destiny corresponding.[455]
In such point of view, however, have we not for the present a
Volunteer Ally, stronger than all the rest: namely, Hunger?
Hunger; and what rushing of Panic Terror this and the sum-total
of our other miseries may bring! For Sansculottism grows by what
all other things die of. Stupid Peter Baille almost made an
epigram, though unconsciously, and with the Patriot world
laughing not at it but at him, when he wrote “_Tout va bien ici,
le pain manque_, All goes well here, victuals not to be
had.”[456]
Neither, if you knew it, is Patriotism without her Constitution
that _can_ march; her _not_ impotent Parliament; or call it,
Ecumenic Council, and General-Assembly of the Jean-Jacques
Churches: the MOTHER-SOCIETY, namely! Mother-Society with her
three hundred full-grown Daughters; with what we can call little
Granddaughters trying to walk, in every village of France,
numerable, as Burke thinks, by the hundred thousand. This is the
true Constitution; made not by Twelve-Hundred august Senators,
but by Nature herself; and has grown, unconsciously, out of the
wants and the efforts of these Twenty-five Millions of men. They
are “Lords of the Articles,” our Jacobins; they originate debates
for the Legislative; discuss Peace and War; settle beforehand
what the Legislative is to do. Greatly to the scandal of
philosophical men, and of most Historians;—who do in that judge
naturally, and yet not wisely. A Governing power must exist: your
other powers here are simulacra; this power is _it._
Great is the Mother Society: She has had the honour to be
denounced by Austrian Kaunitz;[457] and is all the dearer to
Patriotism. By fortune and valour, she has extinguished
Feuillantism itself, at least the Feuillant Club. This latter,
high as it once carried its head, she, on the 18th of February,
has the satisfaction to see shut, extinct; Patriots having gone
thither, with tumult, to hiss it out of pain. The Mother Society
has enlarged her locality, stretches now over the whole nave of
the Church. Let us glance in, with the worthy Toulongeon, our old
Ex-Constituent Friend, who happily has eyes to see: “The nave of
the Jacobins Church,” says he, “is changed into a vast Circus,
the seats of which mount up circularly like an amphitheatre to
the very groin of the domed roof. A high Pyramid of black marble,
built against one of the walls, which was formerly a funeral
monument, has alone been left standing: it serves now as back to
the Office-bearers’ Bureau. Here on an elevated Platform sit
President and Secretaries, behind and above them the white Busts
of Mirabeau, of Franklin, and various others, nay finally of
Marat. Facing this is the Tribune, raised till it is midway
between floor and groin of the dome, so that the speaker’s voice
may be in the centre. From that point, thunder the voices which
shake all Europe: down below, in silence, are forging the
thunderbolts and the firebrands. Penetrating into this huge
circuit, where all is out of measure, gigantic, the mind cannot
repress some movement of terror and wonder; the imagination
recalls those dread temples which Poetry, of old, had consecrated
to the Avenging Deities.”[458]
Scenes too are in this Jacobin Amphitheatre,—had History time for
them. Flags of the “Three free Peoples of the Universe,” trinal
brotherly flags of England, America, France, have been waved here
in concert; by London Deputation, of Whigs or _Wighs_ and their
Club, on this hand, and by young French Citizenesses on that;
beautiful sweet-tongued Female Citizens, who solemnly send over
salutation and brotherhood, also Tricolor stitched by their own
needle, and finally Ears of Wheat; while the dome rebellows with
_Vivent les trois peuples libres!_ from all throats:—a most
dramatic scene. Demoiselle Théroigne recites, from that Tribune
in mid air, her persecutions in Austria; comes leaning on the arm
of Joseph Chénier, Poet Chénier, to demand Liberty for the
hapless Swiss of Château-Vieux.[459] Be of hope, ye Forty Swiss;
tugging there, in the Brest waters; _not_ forgotten!
Deputy Brissot perorates from that Tribune; Desmoulins, our
wicked Camille, interjecting audibly from below, ‘_Coquin!_’
Here, though oftener in the Cordeliers, reverberates the
lion-voice of Danton; grim Billaud-Varennes is here; Collot
d’Herbois, pleading for the Forty Swiss; tearing a passion to
rags. Apophthegmatic Manuel winds up in this pithy way: ‘A
Minister must perish!’—to which the Amphitheatre responds:
‘_Tous, Tous_, All, All!’ But the Chief Priest and Speaker of
this place, as we said, is Robespierre, the long-winded
incorruptible man. What spirit of Patriotism dwelt in men in
those times, this one fact, it seems to us, will evince: that
fifteen hundred human creatures, not bound to it, sat quiet under
the oratory of Robespierre; nay, listened nightly, hour after
hour, applausive; and gaped as for the word of life. More
insupportable individual, one would say, seldom opened his mouth
in any Tribune. Acrid, implacable-impotent; dull-drawling, barren
as the Harmattan-wind! He pleads, in endless earnest-shallow
speech, against immediate War, against Woollen Caps or _Bonnets
Rouges_, against many things; and is the Trismegistus and
Dalai-Lama of Patriot men. Whom nevertheless a shrill-voiced
little man, yet with fine eyes, and a broad beautifully sloping
brow, rises respectfully to controvert: he is, say the Newspaper
Reporters, “M. Louvet, Author of the charming Romance of
_Faublas_.” Steady, ye Patriots! Pull not _yet_ two ways; with a
France rushing panic-stricken in the rural districts, and a
Cimmerian Europe storming in on you!