O Nature.
But looking more specially into Paris City, what is this that
History, on the 10th of August, Year One of Liberty, “by
old-style, year 1793,” discerns there? Praised be the Heavens, a
new Feast of Pikes!
For Chaumette’s “Deputation every day” has worked out its result:
a Constitution. It was one of the rapidest Constitutions ever put
together; made, some say in eight days, by Hérault Séchelles and
others: probably a workmanlike, roadworthy Constitution
enough;—on which point, however, we are, for some reasons, little
called to form a judgment. Workmanlike or not, the Forty-four
Thousand Communes of France, by overwhelming majorities, did
hasten to accept it; glad of any Constitution whatsoever. Nay
Departmental Deputies have come, the venerablest Republicans of
each Department, with solemn message of Acceptance; and now what
remains but that our new Final Constitution be proclaimed, and
sworn to, in Feast of Pikes? The Departmental Deputies, we say,
are come some time ago;—Chaumette very anxious about them, lest
Girondin _Monsieurs_, Agio-jobbers, or were it even _Filles de
joie_ of a Girondin temper, corrupt their morals.[671] Tenth of
August, immortal Anniversary, greater almost than Bastille July,
is the Day.
Painter David has not been idle. Thanks to David and the French
genius, there steps forth into the sunlight, this day, a Scenic
Phantasmagory unexampled:—whereof History, so occupied with
Real-Phantasmagories, will say but little.
For one thing, History can notice with satisfaction, on the ruins
of the Bastille, a _Statue of Nature;_ gigantic, spouting water
from her two _mammelles_. Not a Dream this; but a Fact, palpable
visible. There she spouts, great Nature; dim, before daybreak.
But as the coming Sun ruddies the East, come countless
Multitudes, regulated and unregulated; come Departmental
Deputies, come Mother Society and Daughters; comes National
Convention, led on by handsome Herault; soft wind-music breathing
note of expectation. Lo, as great Sol scatters his first
fire-handful, tipping the hills and chimney-heads with gold,
Herault is at great Nature’s feet (she is Plaster of Paris
merely); Herault lifts, in an iron saucer, water spouted from the
sacred breasts; drinks of it, with an eloquent Pagan Prayer,
beginning, ‘O Nature!’ and all the Departmental Deputies drink,
each with what best suitable ejaculation or prophetic-utterance
is in him;—amid breathings, which become blasts, of wind-music;
and the roar of artillery and human throats: finishing well the
first act of this solemnity.
Next are processionings along the Boulevards: Deputies or
Officials bound together by long indivisible tricolor riband;
general “members of the Sovereign” walking pellmell, with pikes,
with hammers, with the tools and emblems of their crafts; among
which we notice a Plough, and ancient Baucis and Philemon seated
on it, drawn by their children. Many-voiced harmony and
dissonance filling the air. Through Triumphal Arches enough: at
the basis of the first of which, we descry—whom thinkest
thou?—the Heroines of the Insurrection of Women. Strong Dames of
the Market, they sit there (Théroigne too ill to attend, one
fears), with oak-branches, tricolor bedizenment; firm-seated on
their Cannons. To whom handsome Herault, making pause of
admiration, addresses soothing eloquence; whereupon they rise and
fall into the march.
And now mark, in the Place de la Révolution, what other August
Statue may this be; veiled in canvas,—which swiftly we shear off
by pulley and cord? The _Statue of Liberty!_ She too is of
plaster, hoping to become of metal; stands where a Tyrant Louis
Quinze once stood. “Three thousand birds” are let loose, into the
whole world, with labels round their neck, _We are free; imitate
us._ Holocaust of Royalist and _ci-devant_ trumpery, such as one
could still gather, is burnt; pontifical eloquence must be
uttered, by handsome Herault, and Pagan orisons offered up.
And then forward across the River; where is new enormous
Statuary; enormous plaster Mountain; Hercules-_Peuple_, with
uplifted all-conquering club; “many-headed Dragon of Girondin
Federalism rising from fetid marsh;”—needing new eloquence from
Herault. To say nothing of Champ-de-Mars, and Fatherland’s Altar
there; with urn of slain Defenders, Carpenter’s-level of the Law;
and such exploding, gesticulating and perorating, that Herault’s
lips must be growing white, and his tongue cleaving to the roof
of his mouth.[672]
Towards six-o’clock let the wearied President, let Paris
Patriotism generally sit down to what repast, and social repasts,
can be had; and with flowing tankard or light-mantling glass,
usher in this New and Newest Era. In fact, is not Romme’s New
Calendar getting ready? On all housetops flicker little tricolor
Flags, their flagstaff a Pike and Liberty-Cap. On all
house-walls, for no Patriot, not suspect, will be behind another,
there stand printed these words: _Republic one and indivisible,
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death._
As to the New Calendar, we may say here rather than elsewhere
that speculative men have long been struck with the inequalities
and incongruities of the Old Calendar; that a New one has long
been as good as determined on. Maréchal the Atheist, almost ten
years ago, proposed a New Calendar, free at least from
superstition: this the Paris Municipality would now adopt, in
defect of a better; at all events, let us have either this of
Maréchal’s or a better,—the New Era being come. Petitions, more
than once, have been sent to that effect; and indeed, for a year
past, all Public Bodies, Journalists, and Patriots in general,
have dated _First Year of the Republic_. It is a subject not
without difficulties. But the Convention has taken it up; and
Romme, as we say, has been meditating it; not Maréchal’s New
Calendar, but a better New one of Romme’s and our own. Romme,
aided by a Monge, a Lagrange and others, furnishes mathematics;
Fabre d’Eglantine furnishes poetic nomenclature: and so, on the
5th of October 1793, after trouble enough, they bring forth this
New Republican Calendar of theirs, in a complete state; and by
Law, get it put in action.
Four equal Seasons, Twelve equal Months of thirty days each: this
makes three hundred and sixty days; and five odd days remain to
be disposed of. The five odd days we will make Festivals, and
name the five _Sansculottides_, or Days without Breeches.
Festival of Genius; Festival of Labour; of Actions; of Rewards;
of Opinion: these are the five Sansculottides. Whereby the great
Circle, or Year, is made complete: solely every fourth year,
whilom called Leap-year, we introduce a sixth Sansculottide; and
name it Festival of the Revolution. Now as to the day of
commencement, which offers difficulties, is it not one of the
luckiest coincidences that the Republic herself commenced on the
21st of September; close on the Vernal Equinox? Vernal Equinox,
at midnight for the meridian of Paris, in the year whilom
Christian 1792, from that moment shall the New Era reckon itself
to begin. _Vendémiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire;_ or as one might say,
in mixed English, _Vintagearious, Fogarious, Frostarious:_ these
are our three Autumn months. _Nivose, Pluviose, Ventose_, or say
_Snowous, Rainous, Windous_, make our Winter season. _Germinal,
Floréal, Prairial_, or _Buddal, Floweral, Meadowal_, are our
Spring season. _Messidor, Thermidor, Fructidor_, that is to say
(_dor_ being Greek for _gift_), _Reapidor, Heatidor, Fruitidor_,
are Republican Summer. These Twelve, in a singular manner, divide
the Republican Year. Then as to minuter subdivisions, let us
venture at once on a bold stroke: adopt your decimal subdivision;
and instead of world-old Week, or _Se’ennight_, make it a
_Tennight_ or _Décade;_—not without results. There are three
Decades, then, in each of the months; which is very regular; and
the _Decadi_, or Tenth-day, shall always be “the Day of Rest.”
And the Christian Sabbath, in that case? Shall shift for itself!
This, in brief, in this New Calendar of Romme and the Convention;
calculated for the meridian of Paris, and Gospel of Jean-Jacques:
not one of the least afflicting occurrences for the actual
British reader of French History;—confusing the soul with
_Messidors, Meadowals;_ till at last, in self-defence, one is
forced to construct some ground-scheme, or rule of Commutation
from New-style to Old-style, and have it lying by him. Such
ground-scheme, almost worn out in our service, but still legible
and printable, we shall now, in a Note, present to the reader.
For the Romme Calendar, in so many Newspapers, Memoirs, Public
Acts, has stamped itself deep into that section of Time: a New
Era that lasts some Twelve years and odd is not to be
despised.[673] Let the reader, therefore, with such
ground-scheme, help himself, where needful, out of New-style into
Old-style, called also “slave-style, _stile-esclave;_”—whereof
we, in these pages, shall as much as possible use the latter
only.
Thus with new Feast of Pikes, and New Era or New Calendar, did
France accept her New Constitution: the most Democratic
Constitution ever committed to paper. How it will work in
practice? Patriot Deputations from time to time solicit fruition
of it; that it be set a-going. Always, however, this seems
questionable; for the moment, unsuitable. Till, in some weeks,
_Salut Public_, through the organ of Saint-Just, makes report,
that, in the present alarming circumstances, the state of France
is Revolutionary; that her “Government must be Revolutionary till
the Peace!” Solely as Paper, then, and as a Hope, must this poor
New Constitution exist;—in which shape we may conceive it lying;
even now, with an infinity of other things, in that Limbo near
the Moon. Further than paper it never got, nor ever will get.