The Hereditary Representative.
And yet it is not by carmagnole-dances and singing of _ça-ira_,
that the work can be done. Duke Brunswick is not dancing
carmagnoles, but has his drill serjeants busy.
On the Frontiers, our Armies, be it treason or not, behave in the
worst way. Troops badly commanded, shall we say? Or troops
intrinsically bad? Unappointed, undisciplined, mutinous; that, in
a thirty-years peace, have never seen fire? In any case,
Lafayette’s and Rochambeau’s little clutch, which they made at
Austrian Flanders, has prospered as badly as clutch need do:
soldiers starting at their own shadow; suddenly shrieking, ‘_On
nous trahit_,’ and flying off in wild panic, at or before the
first shot;—managing only to hang some two or three Prisoners
they had picked up, and massacre their own Commander, poor
Theobald Dillon, driven into a granary by them in the Town of
Lille.
And poor Gouvion: he who sat shiftless in that Insurrection of
Women! Gouvion quitted the Legislative Hall and Parliamentary
duties, in disgust and despair, when those Galley-slaves of
Château-Vieux were admitted there. He said, ‘Between the
Austrians and the Jacobins there is nothing but a soldier’s death
for it;’[466] and so, “in the dark stormy night,” he has flung
himself into the throat of the Austrian cannon, and perished in
the skirmish at Maubeuge on the ninth of June. Whom Legislative
Patriotism shall mourn, with black mortcloths and melody in the
Champ-de-Mars: many a Patriot shiftier, truer none. Lafayette
himself is looking altogether dubious; in place of beating the
Austrians, is about writing to denounce the Jacobins. Rochambeau,
all disconsolate, quits the service: there remains only Lückner,
the babbling old Prussian Grenadier.
Without Armies, without Generals! And the Cimmerian Night, _has_
gathered itself; Brunswick preparing his Proclamation; just about
to march! Let a Patriot Ministry and Legislative say, what in
these circumstances it will do? Suppress Internal Enemies, for
one thing, answers the Patriot Legislative; and proposes, on the
24th of May, its Decree for the Banishment of Priests. Collect
also some nucleus of determined internal friends, adds
War-minister Servan; and proposes, on the 7th of June, his Camp
of Twenty-thousand. Twenty-thousand National Volunteers; Five out
of each Canton; picked Patriots, for Roland has charge of the
Interior: they shall assemble here in Paris; and be for a
defence, cunningly devised, against foreign Austrians and
domestic _Austrian Committee_ alike. So much can a Patriot
Ministry and Legislative do.
Reasonable and cunningly devised as such Camp may, to Servan and
Patriotism, appear, it appears not so to Feuillantism; to that
Feuillant-Aristocrat Staff of the Paris Guard; a Staff, one would
say again, which will need to be _dissolved_. These men see, in
this proposed Camp of Servan’s, an offence; and even, as they
pretend to say, an insult. Petitions there come, in consequence,
from blue Feuillants in epaulettes; ill received. Nay, in the
end, there comes one Petition, called “of the Eight Thousand
National Guards:” so many names are on it; including women and
children. Which famed Petition of the Eight Thousand is indeed
received: and the Petitioners, all under arms, are admitted to
the honours of the sitting,—if honours or even if sitting there
be; for the instant their bayonets appear at the one door, the
Assembly “adjourns,” and begins to flow out at the other.[467]
Also, in these same days, it is lamentable to see how National
Guards, escorting _Fête Dieu_ or _Corpus-Christi_ ceremonial, do
collar and smite down any Patriot that does not uncover as the
Hostie passes. They clap their bayonets to the breast of
Cattle-butcher Legendre, a known Patriot ever since the Bastille
days; and threaten to butcher him; though he sat quite
respectfully, he says, in his Gig, at a distance of fifty paces,
waiting till the thing were by. Nay, orthodox females were
shrieking to have down the _Lanterne_ on him.[468]
To such height has Feuillantism gone in this Corps. For indeed,
are not their Officers creatures of the chief Feuillant,
Lafayette? The Court too has, very naturally, been tampering with
them; caressing them, ever since that dissolution of the
so-called Constitutional Guard. Some Battalions are altogether
“_pétris_, kneaded full” of Feuillantism, mere Aristocrats at
bottom: for instance, the Battalion of the _Filles-Saint-Thomas_,
made up of your Bankers, Stockbrokers, and other Full-purses of
the Rue Vivienne. Our worthy old Friend Weber, Queen’s
Foster-brother Weber, carries a musket in that Battalion,—one may
judge with what degree of Patriotic intention.
Heedless of all which, or rather heedful of all which, the
Legislative, backed by Patriot France and the feeling of
Necessity, decrees this Camp of Twenty thousand. Decisive though
conditional Banishment of malign Priests, it has already decreed.
It will now be seen, therefore, Whether the Hereditary
Representative is for us or against us? Whether or not, to all
our other woes, this intolerablest one is to be added; which
renders us not a menaced Nation in extreme jeopardy and need, but
a paralytic Solecism of a Nation; sitting wrapped as in dead
cerements, of a Constitutional-Vesture that were no other than a
winding-sheet; our right hand glued to our left: to wait there,
writhing and wriggling, unable to stir from the spot, till in
Prussian rope we mount to the gallows? Let the Hereditary
Representative consider it well: The Decree of Priests? The Camp
of Twenty Thousand?—By Heaven, he answers, _Veto! Veto!_—Strict
Roland hands in his _Letter to the King;_ or rather it was
Madame’s Letter, who wrote it all at a sitting; one of the
plainest-spoken Letters ever handed in to any King. This
plain-spoken Letter King Louis has the benefit of reading
overnight. He reads, inwardly digests; and next morning, the
whole Patriot Ministry finds itself turned out. It is the 13th of
June 1792.[469]
Dumouriez the many-counselled, he, with one Duranthon, called
Minister of Justice, does indeed linger for a day or two; in
rather suspicious circumstances; speaks with the Queen, almost
weeps with her: but in the end, he too sets off for the Army;
leaving what Un-Patriot or Semi-Patriot Ministry and Ministries
can now accept the helm, to accept it. Name them not: new
quick-changing Phantasms, which shift like magic-lantern figures;
more spectral than ever!
Unhappy Queen, unhappy Louis! The two _Vetos_ were so natural:
are not the Priests martyrs; also friends? This Camp of Twenty
Thousand, could it be other than of stormfullest Sansculottes?
Natural; and yet, to France, unendurable. Priests that co-operate
with Coblentz must go elsewhither with their martyrdom: stormful
Sansculottes, these and no other kind of creatures, will drive
back the Austrians. If thou prefer the Austrians, then for the
love of Heaven go join them. If not, join frankly with what will
oppose them to the death. Middle course is none.
Or alas, what extreme course was there left now, for a man like
Louis? Underhand Royalists, Ex-Minister Bertrand-Moleville,
Ex-Constituent Malouet, and all manner of unhelpful individuals,
advise and advise. With face of hope turned now on the
Legislative Assembly, and now on Austria and Coblentz, and round
generally on the Chapter of Chances, an ancient Kingship is
reeling and spinning, one knows not whitherward, on the flood of
things.