The Loser Pays.
The Sixth of November, 1792, was a great day for the Republic:
outwardly, over the Frontiers; inwardly, in the _Salle de
Manége_.
Outwardly: for Dumouriez, overrunning the Netherlands, did, on
that day, come in contact with Saxe-Teschen and the Austrians;
Dumouriez wide-winged, they wide-winged; at and around the
village of Jemappes, near Mons. And fire-hail is whistling far
and wide there, the great guns playing, and the small; so many
green Heights getting fringed and maned with red Fire. And
Dumouriez is swept back on this wing, and swept back on that, and
is like to be swept back utterly; when he rushes up in person,
the prompt Polymetis; speaks a prompt word or two; and then, with
clear tenor-pipe, “uplifts the Hymn of the Marseillese, _entonna
la Marseillaise_,”[585] ten thousand tenor or bass pipes joining;
or say, some Forty Thousand in all; for every heart leaps at the
sound: and so with rhythmic march-melody, waxing ever quicker, to
double and to treble quick, they rally, they advance, they rush,
death-defying, man-devouring; carry batteries, redoutes,
whatsoever is to be carried; and, like the fire-whirlwind, sweep
all manner of Austrians from the scene of action. Thus, through
the hands of Dumouriez, may Rouget de Lille, in figurative
speech, be said to have gained, miraculously, like another
Orpheus, by his Marseillese fiddle-strings (_fidibus canoris_) a
Victory of Jemappes; and conquered the Low Countries.
Young General Egalité, it would seem, shone brave among the
bravest on this occasion. Doubtless a brave Egalité;—whom however
does not Dumouriez rather talk of oftener than need were? The
Mother Society has her own thoughts. As for the Elder Egalité he
flies low at this time; appears in the Convention for some
half-hour daily, with rubicund, pre-occupied, or impressive
quasi-contemptuous countenance; and then takes himself away.[586]
The Netherlands are conquered, at least overrun. Jacobin
missionaries, your Prolys, Pereiras, follow in the train of the
Armies; also Convention Commissioners, melting church-plate,
revolutionising and remodelling—among whom Danton, in brief
space, does immensities of business; not neglecting his own wages
and trade-profits, it is thought. Hassenfratz dilapidates at
home; Dumouriez grumbles and they dilapidate abroad: within the
walls there is sinning, and without the walls there is sinning.
But in the Hall of the Convention, at the same hour with this
victory of Jemappes, there went another thing forward: Report, of
great length, from the proper appointed Committee, on the Crimes
of Louis. The Galleries listen breathless; take comfort, ye
Galleries: Deputy Valazé, Reporter on this occasion, thinks Louis
very criminal; and that, if convenient, he should be tried;—poor
Girondin Valazé, who may be tried himself, one day! Comfortable
so far. Nay here comes a second Committee-reporter, Deputy
Mailhe, with a Legal Argument, very prosy to read now, very
refreshing to hear then, That, by the Law of the Country, Louis
Capet was only called Inviolable by a figure of rhetoric; but at
bottom was perfectly violable, triable; that he can, and even
should be tried. This Question of Louis, emerging so often as an
angry confused possibility, and submerging again, has emerged now
in an articulate shape.
Patriotism growls indignant joy. The so-called reign of Equality
is not to be a mere name, then, but a thing! Try Louis Capet?
scornfully ejaculates Patriotism: Mean criminals go to the
gallows for a purse cut; and this chief criminal, guilty of a
France cut; of a France slashed asunder with Clotho-scissors and
Civil war; with his victims “twelve hundred on the Tenth of
August alone” lying low in the Catacombs, fattening the passes of
Argonne Wood, of Valmy and far Fields; _he_, such chief criminal,
shall not even come to the bar?—For, alas, O Patriotism! add we,
it was from of old said, _The loser pays!_ It is he who has to
pay _all_ scores, run up by whomsoever; on him must all breakages
and charges fall; and the twelve hundred on the Tenth of August
are not rebel traitors, but victims and martyrs: such is the law
of quarrel.
Patriotism, nothing doubting, watches over this Question of the
Trial, now happily emerged in an articulate shape; and will see
it to maturity, if the gods permit. With a keen solicitude
Patriotism watches; getting ever keener, at every new difficulty,
as Girondins and false brothers interpose delays; till it get a
keenness as of fixed-idea, and will have this Trial and no
earthly thing instead of it,—if Equality be not a name. Love of
Equality; then scepticism of terror, rage of victory, sublime
spectacle of the universe: all these things are strong.
But indeed this Question of the Trial, is it not to all persons a
most grave one; filling with dubiety many a Legislative head!
Regicide? asks the Gironde Respectability: To kill a king, and
become the horror of respectable nations and persons? But then
also, to save a king; to lose one’s footing with the decided
Patriot; and undecided Patriot, though never so respectable,
being mere hypothetic froth and no footing?—The dilemma presses
sore; and between the horns of it you wriggle round and round.
Decision is nowhere, save in the Mother Society and her Sons.
These have decided, and go forward: the others wriggle round
uneasily within their dilemma-horns, and make way nowhither.