Cause and Effect.
This huge Insurrectionary Movement, which we liken to a breaking
out of Tophet and the Abyss, has swept away Royalty, Aristocracy,
and a King’s life. The question is, What will it next do; how
will it henceforth shape itself? Settle down into a reign of Law
and Liberty; according as the habits, persuasions and endeavours
of the educated, monied, respectable class prescribe? That is to
say: the volcanic lava-flood, bursting up in the manner
described, will explode and flow according to Girondin Formula
and pre-established rule of Philosophy? If so, for our Girondin
friends it will be well.
Meanwhile were not the prophecy rather that as no external force,
Royal or other, now remains which could control this Movement,
the Movement will follow a course of its own; probably a very
original one? Further, that whatsoever man or men can best
interpret the inward tendencies it has, and give them voice and
activity, will obtain the lead of it? For the rest, that as a
thing _without_ order, a thing proceeding from beyond and beneath
the region of order, it must work and welter, not as a Regularity
but as a Chaos; destructive and self-destructive; always till
something that _has_ order arise, strong enough to bind it into
subjection again? Which something, we may further conjecture,
will not be a Formula, with philosophical propositions and
forensic eloquence; but a Reality, probably with a sword in its
hand!
As for the Girondin Formula, of a respectable Republic for the
Middle Classes, all manner of Aristocracies being now
sufficiently demolished, there seems little reason to expect that
the business will stop there. _Liberty, Equality, Fraternity_,
these are the words; enunciative and prophetic. Republic for the
respectable washed Middle Classes, how can that be the fulfilment
thereof? Hunger and nakedness, and nightmare oppression lying
heavy on Twenty-five million hearts; this, not the wounded
vanities or contradicted philosophies of philosophical Advocates,
rich Shopkeepers, rural Noblesse, was the prime mover in the
French Revolution; as the like will be in all such Revolutions,
in all countries. Feudal Fleur-de-lys had become an insupportably
bad marching banner, and needed to be torn and trampled: but
Moneybag of Mammon (for that, in these times, is what the
respectable Republic for the Middle Classes will signify) is a
still worse, while it lasts. Properly, indeed, it is the worst
and basest of all banners, and symbols of dominion among men; and
indeed is possible only in a time of general Atheism, and
Unbelief in any thing save in brute Force and Sensualism; pride
of birth, pride of office, any known kind of pride being a degree
better than purse-pride. Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood: not in
the Moneybag, but far elsewhere, will Sansculottism seek these
things.
We say therefore that an Insurrectionary France, loose of control
from without, destitute of supreme order from within, will form
one of the most tumultuous Activities ever seen on this Earth;
such as no Girondin Formula can regulate. An immeasurable force,
made up of forces manifold, heterogeneous, compatible and
incompatible. In plainer words, this France must needs split into
Parties; each of which seeking to make itself good,
contradiction, exasperation will arise; and Parties on Parties
find that they cannot work together, cannot exist together.
As for the number of Parties, there will, strictly counting, be
as many Parties as there are Opinions. According to which rule,
in this National Convention itself, to say nothing of France
generally, the number of Parties ought to be Seven Hundred and
Forty-Nine; for every unit entertains his opinion. But now as
every unit has at once an individual nature, or necessity to
follow his own road, and a gregarious nature or necessity to see
himself travelling by the side of others,—what can there be but
dissolutions, precipitations, endless turbulence of attracting
and repelling; till once the master-element get evolved, and this
wild alchemy arrange itself again?
To the length of Seven Hundred and Forty-nine Parties, however,
no Nation was ever yet seen to go. Nor indeed much beyond the
length of Two Parties; two at a time;—so invincible is man’s
tendency to unite, with all the invincible divisiveness he has!
Two Parties, we say, are the usual number at one time: let these
two fight it out, all minor shades of party rallying under the
shade likest them; when the one has fought down the other, then
it, in its turn, may divide, self-destructive; and so the process
continue, as far as needful. This is the way of Revolutions,
which spring up as the French one has done; when the so-called
Bonds of Society snap asunder; and all Laws that are not Laws of
Nature become naught and Formulas merely.
But quitting these somewhat abstract considerations, let History
note this concrete reality which the streets of Paris exhibit, on
Monday the 25th of February 1793. Long before daylight that
morning, these streets are noisy and angry. Petitioning enough
there has been; a Convention often solicited. It was but
yesterday there came a Deputation of Washerwomen with Petition;
complaining that not so much as soap could be had; to say nothing
of bread, and condiments of bread. The cry of women, round the
Salle de Manége, was heard plaintive: ‘_Du pain et du savon_,
Bread and Soap.’[611]
And now from six o’clock, this Monday morning, one perceives the
Baker’s Queues unusually expanded, angrily agitating themselves.
Not the Baker alone, but two Section Commissioners to help him,
manage with difficulty the daily distribution of loaves.
Soft-spoken assiduous, in the early candle-light, are Baker and
Commissioners: and yet the pale chill February sunrise discloses
an unpromising scene. Indignant Female Patriots, partly supplied
with bread, rush now to the shops, declaring that they will have
groceries. Groceries enough: sugar-barrels rolled forth into the
street, Patriot Citoyennes weighing it out at a just rate of
eleven-pence a pound; likewise coffee-chests, soap-chests, nay
cinnamon and cloves-chests, with _aquavitæ_ and other forms of
alcohol,—at a just rate, which some do not pay; the pale-faced
Grocer silently wringing his hands! What help? The distributive
Citoyennes are of violent speech and gesture, their long
Eumenides’ hair hanging out of curl; nay in their girdles pistols
are seen sticking: some, it is even said, have _beards_,—male
Patriots in petticoats and mob-cap. Thus, in the streets of
Lombards, in the street of Five-Diamonds, street of Pullies, in
most streets of Paris does it effervesce, the livelong day; no
Municipality, no Mayor Pache, though he was War-Minister lately,
sends military against it, or aught against it but
persuasive-eloquence, till seven at night, or later.
On Monday gone five weeks, which was the twenty-first of January,
we saw Paris, beheading its King, stand silent, like a petrified
City of Enchantment: and now on this Monday it is so noisy,
selling sugar! Cities, especially Cities in Revolution, are
subject to these alternations; the secret courses of civic
business and existence effervescing and efflorescing, in this
manner, as a concrete Phenomenon to the eye. Of which Phenomenon,
when secret existence becoming public effloresces on the street,
the philosophical cause-and-effect is not so easy to find. What,
for example, may be the accurate philosophical meaning, and
meanings, of this sale of sugar? These things that have become
visible in the street of Pullies and over Paris, whence are they,
we say; and whither?—
That Pitt has a hand in it, the gold of Pitt: so much, to all
reasonable Patriot men, may seem clear. But then, through what
agents of Pitt? Varlet, Apostle of Liberty, was discerned again
of late, with his pike and his red nightcap. Deputy Marat
published in his journal, this very day, complaining of the
bitter scarcity, and sufferings of the people, till he seemed to
get wroth: “If your Rights of Man were anything but a piece of
written paper, the plunder of a few shops, and a forestaller or
two hung up at the door-lintels, would put an end to such
things.”[612] Are not these, say the Girondins, pregnant
indications? Pitt has bribed the Anarchists; Marat is the agent
of Pitt: hence this sale of sugar. To the Mother Society, again,
it is clear that the scarcity is factitious; is the work of
Girondins, and such like; a set of men sold partly to Pitt; sold
wholly to their own ambitions, and hard-hearted pedantries; who
will not fix the grain-prices, but prate pedantically of
free-trade; wishing to starve Paris into violence, and embroil it
with the Departments: _hence_ this sale of sugar.
And, alas, if to these two notabilities, of a Phenomenon and such
Theories of a Phenomenon, we add this third notability, That the
French Nation has believed, for several years now, in the
possibility, nay certainty and near advent, of a universal
Millennium, or reign of Freedom, Equality, Fraternity, wherein
man should be the brother of man, and sorrow and sin flee away?
Not bread to eat, nor soap to wash with; and the reign of perfect
Felicity ready to arrive, due always since the Bastille fell! How
did our hearts burn within us, at that Feast of Pikes, when
brother flung himself on brother’s bosom; and in sunny jubilee,
Twenty-five millions burst forth into sound and cannon-smoke!
Bright was our Hope then, as sunlight; red-angry is our Hope
grown now, as consuming fire. But, O Heavens, what enchantment is
it, or devilish legerdemain, of such effect, that Perfect
Felicity, always within arm’s length, could never be laid hold
of, but only in her stead Controversy and Scarcity? This set of
traitors after that set! Tremble, ye traitors; dread a People
which calls itself patient, long-suffering; but which cannot
always submit to have its pocket picked, in this way,—of a
Millennium!
Yes, Reader, here is a miracle. Out of that putrescent rubbish of
Scepticism, Sensualism, Sentimentalism, hollow Machiavelism, such
a Faith has verily risen; flaming in the heart of a People. A
whole People, awakening as it were to consciousness in deep
misery, believes that it is within reach of a Fraternal
Heaven-on-Earth. With longing arms, it struggles to embrace the
Unspeakable; cannot embrace it, owing to certain causes.—Seldom
do we find that a whole People can be said to have any Faith at
all; except in things which it can eat and handle. Whensoever it
gets any Faith, its history becomes spirit-stirring, note-worthy.
But since the time when steel Europe shook itself simultaneously,
at the word of Hermit Peter, and rushed towards the Sepulchre
where God had lain, there was no universal impulse of Faith that
one could note. Since Protestantism went silent, no Luther’s
voice, no Zisca’s drum any longer proclaiming that God’s Truth
was _not_ the Devil’s Lie; and the last of the Cameronians
(Renwick was the name of him; honour to the name of the brave!)
sank, shot, on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, there was no partial
impulse of Faith among Nations. Till now, behold, once more this
French Nation believes! Herein, we say, in that astonishing Faith
of theirs, lies the miracle. It is a Faith undoubtedly of the
more prodigious sort, even among Faiths; and will embody itself
in prodigies. It is the soul of that world-prodigy named French
Revolution; whereat the world still gazes and shudders.
But, for the rest, let no man ask History to explain by
cause-and-effect how the business proceeded henceforth. This
battle of Mountain and Gironde, and what follows, is the battle
of Fanaticisms and Miracles; unsuitable for cause-and-effect. The
sound of it, to the mind, is as a hubbub of voices in
distraction; little of articulate is to be gathered by long
listening and studying; only battle-tumult, shouts of triumph,
shrieks of despair. The Mountain has left no Memoirs; the
Girondins have left Memoirs, which are too often little other
than long-drawn Interjections, of _Woe is me and Cursed be ye_.
So soon as History can philosophically delineate the
conflagration of a kindled Fireship, she may try this other task.
Here lay the bitumen-stratum, there the brimstone one; so ran the
vein of gunpowder, of nitre, terebinth and foul grease: this,
were she inquisitive enough, History might partly know. But how
they acted and reacted below decks, one fire-stratum playing into
the other, by its nature and the art of man, now when all hands
ran raging, and the flames lashed high over shrouds and topmast:
this let not History attempt.
The Fireship is old France, the old French Form of Life; her
creed a Generation of men. Wild are their cries and their ragings
there, like spirits tormented in that flame. But, on the whole,
are they not _gone_, O Reader? Their Fireship and they,
frightening the world, have sailed away; its flames and its
thunders quite away, into the Deep of Time. One thing therefore
History will do: pity them all; for it went hard with them all.
Not even the seagreen Incorruptible but shall have some pity,
some human love, though it takes an effort. And now, so much once
thoroughly attained, the rest will become easier. To the eye of
equal brotherly pity, innumerable perversions dissipate
themselves; exaggerations and execrations fall off, of their own
accord. Standing wistfully on the safe shore, we will look, and
see, what is of interest to us, what is adapted to us.