The Gods are athirst.
What then is this Thing, called _La Révolution_, which, like an
Angel of Death, hangs over France, noyading, fusillading,
fighting, gun-boring, tanning human skins? _La Révolution_ is but
so many Alphabetic Letters; a thing nowhere to be laid hands on,
to be clapt under lock and key: where is it? what is it? It is
the Madness that dwells in the hearts of men. In this man it is,
and in that man; as a rage or as a terror, it is in all men.
Invisible, impalpable; and yet no black Azrael, with wings spread
over half a continent, with sword sweeping from sea to sea, could
be a truer Reality.
To explain, what is called explaining, the march of this
Revolutionary Government, be no task of ours. Men cannot explain
it. A paralytic Couthon, asking in the Jacobins, “what hast thou
done to be hanged if the Counter-Revolution should arrive;” a
sombre Saint-Just, not yet six-and-twenty, declaring that “for
Revolutionists there is no rest but in the tomb;” a seagreen
Robespierre converted into vinegar and gall; much more an Amar
and Vadier, a Collot and Billaud: to inquire what thoughts,
predetermination or prevision, might be in the head of these men!
Record of their thought remains not; Death and Darkness have
swept it out utterly. Nay if we even had their thought, all they
could have articulately spoken to us, how insignificant a
fraction were that of the Thing which realised itself, which
decreed itself, on signal given by them! As has been said more
than once, this Revolutionary Government is not a self-conscious
but a blind fatal one. Each man, enveloped in his
ambient-atmosphere of revolutionary fanatic Madness, rushes on,
impelled and impelling; and has become a blind brute Force; no
rest for him but in the grave! Darkness and the mystery of horrid
cruelty cover it for us, in History; as they did in Nature. The
chaotic Thunder-cloud, with its pitchy black, and its tumult of
dazzling jagged fire, in a world all electric: thou wilt not
undertake to shew how that comported itself,—what the secrets of
its dark womb were; from what sources, with what specialities,
the lightning it held did, in confused brightness of terror,
strike forth, destructive and self-destructive, till it ended?
Like a Blackness naturally of Erebus, which by will of Providence
had for once mounted itself into dominion and the Azure: is not
this properly the nature of Sansculottism consummating itself? Of
which Erebus Blackness be it enough to discern that this and the
other dazzling fire-bolt, dazzling fire-torrent, does by small
Volition and great Necessity, verily issue,—in such and such
succession; destructive so and so, self-destructive so and so:
till it end.
Royalism is extinct, “sunk,” as they say, “in the mud of the
Loire;” Republicanism dominates without and within: what,
therefore, on the 15th day of March, 1794, is this? Arrestment,
sudden really as a bolt out of the Blue, has hit strange victims:
Hébert _Père Duchene_, Bibliopolist Momoro, Clerk Vincent,
General Ronsin; high Cordelier Patriots, redcapped Magistrates of
Paris, Worshippers of Reason, Commanders of Revolutionary Army!
Eight short days ago, their Cordelier Club was loud, and louder
than ever, with Patriot denunciations. Hébert _Père Duchene_ had
‘held his tongue and his heart these two months, at sight of
Moderates, Crypto-Aristocrats, Camilles, _Scélérats_ in the
Convention itself: but could not do it any longer; would, if
other remedy were not, invoke the Sacred right of Insurrection.’
So spake Hébert in Cordelier Session; with vivats, till the roofs
rang again.[735] Eight short days ago; and now already! They rub
their eyes: it is no dream; they find themselves in the
Luxembourg. Goose Gobel too; and they that burnt Churches!
Chaumette himself, potent Procureur, _Agent National_ as they now
call it, who could “recognise the Suspect by the very face of
them,” he lingers but three days; on the third day he too is
hurled in. Most chopfallen, blue, enters the National Agent this
Limbo whither he has sent so many. Prisoners crowd round, jibing
and jeering: ‘Sublime National Agent,’ says one, ‘in virtue of
thy immortal Proclamation, lo there! I am suspect, thou art
suspect, he is suspect, we are suspect, ye are suspect, they are
suspect!’
The meaning of these things? Meaning! It is a Plot; Plot of the
most extensive ramifications; which, however, Barrère holds the
threads of. Such Church-burning and scandalous masquerades of
Atheism, fit to make the Revolution odious: where indeed could
they originate but in the gold of Pitt? Pitt indubitably, as
Preternatural Insight will teach one, did hire this Faction of
_Enragés_, to play their fantastic tricks; to roar in their
Cordeliers Club about Moderatism; to print their _Père Duchene;_
worship skyblue Reason in red nightcap; rob all Altars,—and bring
the spoil to _us!_
Still more indubitable, visible to the mere bodily sight, is
this: that the Cordeliers Club sits pale, with anger and terror;
and has “veiled the Rights of Man,”—without effect. Likewise that
the Jacobins are in considerable confusion; busy “purging
themselves, “_s’épurant_,” as, in times of Plot and public
Calamity, they have repeatedly had to do. Not even Camille
Desmoulins but has given offence: nay there have risen murmurs
against Danton himself; though he bellowed them down, and
Robespierre finished the matter by “embracing him in the
Tribune.”
Whom shall the Republic and a jealous Mother Society trust? In
these times of temptation, of Preternatural Insight! For there
are Factions of the Stranger, “de _l”étranger_,” Factions of
Moderates, of Enraged; all manner of Factions: we walk in a world
of Plots; strings, universally spread, of deadly gins and
falltraps, baited by the gold of Pitt! Clootz, Speaker of Mankind
so-called, with his _Evidences of Mahometan Religion_, and babble
of Universal Republic, him an incorruptible Robespierre has
purged away. Baron Clootz, and Paine rebellious Needleman lie,
these two months, in the Luxembourg; limbs of the Faction _de
l’étranger_. Representative Phélippeaux is purged out: he came
back from La Vendée with an ill report in his mouth against rogue
Rossignol, and our method of warfare there. Recant it, O
Phélippeaux, we entreat thee! Phélippeaux will not recant; and is
purged out. Representative Fabre d’Eglantine, famed Nomenclator
of Romme’s Calendar, is purged out; nay, is cast into the
Luxembourg: accused of Legislative Swindling “in regard to monies
of the India Company.” There with his Chabots, Bazires, guilty of
the like, let Fabre wait his destiny. And Westermann friend of
Danton, he who led the Marseillese on the Tenth of August, and
fought well in La Vendée, but spoke not well of rogue Rossignol,
is purged out. Lucky, if he too go not to the Luxembourg. And
your Prolys, Guzmans, of the Faction of the Stranger, they have
gone; Peyreyra, though he fled is gone, “taken in the disguise of
a Tavern Cook.” I am suspect, thou art suspect, he is suspect!—
The great heart of Danton is weary of it. Danton is gone to
native Arcis, for a little breathing time of peace: Away, black
Arachne-webs, thou world of Fury, Terror, and Suspicion; welcome,
thou everlasting Mother, with thy spring greenness, thy kind
household loves and memories; true art thou, were all else
untrue! The great Titan walks silent, by the banks of the
murmuring Aube, in young native haunts that knew him when a boy;
wonders what the end of these things may be.
But strangest of all, Camille Desmoulins is purged out. Couthon
gave as a test in regard to Jacobin purgation the question, “What
hast thou done to be hanged if Counter-Revolution should arrive?”
Yet Camille, who could so well answer this question, is purged
out! The truth is, Camille, early in December last, began
publishing a new Journal, or Series of Pamphlets, entitled the
_Vieux Cordelier_, Old Cordelier. Camille, not afraid at one time
to “embrace Liberty on a heap of dead bodies,” begins to ask now,
Whether among so many arresting and punishing Committees there
ought not to be a “Committee of Mercy?” Saint-Just, he observes,
is an extremely solemn young Republican, who “carries his head as
if it were a _Saint-Sacrement;_ adorable Hostie, or divine
Real-Presence! Sharply enough, this _old_ Cordelier, Danton and
he were of the earliest primary Cordeliers,—shoots his glittering
war-shafts into your _new_ Cordeliers, your Héberts, Momoros,
with their brawling brutalities and despicabilities: say, as the
Sun-god (for poor Camille is a Poet) shot into that Python
Serpent sprung of mud.
Whereat, as was natural, the Hébertist Python did hiss and writhe
amazingly; and threaten “sacred right of Insurrection;”—and, as
we saw, get cast into Prison. Nay, with all the old wit,
dexterity, and light graceful poignancy, Camille, translating
“out of _Tacitus_, from the Reign of Tiberius,” pricks into the
_Law of the Suspect_ itself; making it odious! Twice, in the
Decade, his wild Leaves issue; full of wit, nay of humour, of
harmonious ingenuity and insight,—one of the strangest phenomenon
of that dark time; and smite, in their wild-sparkling way, at
various monstrosities, Saint-Sacrament heads, and Juggernaut
idols, in a rather reckless manner. To the great joy of Josephine
Beauharnais, and the other Five Thousand and odd Suspect, who
fill the Twelve Houses of Arrest; on whom a ray of hope dawns!
Robespierre, at first approbatory, knew not at last what to
think; then thought, with his Jacobins, that Camille must be
expelled. A man of true Revolutionary spirit, this Camille; but
with the unwisest sallies; whom Aristocrats and Moderates have
the art to corrupt! Jacobinism is in uttermost crisis and
struggle: enmeshed wholly in plots, corruptibilities, neck-gins
and baited falltraps of Pitt _Ennemi du Genre Humain_. Camille’s
First Number begins with “O Pitt!”—his last is dated 15 Pluviose
Year 2, 3d February 1794; and ends with these words of
Montezuma’s, “_Les dieux ont soif_, The gods are athirst.”
Be this as it may, the Hébertists lie in Prison only some nine
days. On the 24th of March, therefore, the Revolution Tumbrils
carry through that Life-tumult a new cargo: Hébert, Vincent,
Momoro, Ronsin, Nineteen of them in all; with whom, curious
enough, sits Clootz Speaker of Mankind. They have been massed
swiftly into a lump, this miscellany of Nondescripts; and travel
now their last road. No help. They too must “look through the
little window;” they too “must sneeze into the sack,” _éternuer
dans le sac;_ as they have done to others so is it done to them.
_Sainte-Guillotine_, meseems, is worse than the old Saints of
Superstition; a man-devouring Saint? Clootz, still with an air of
polished sarcasm, endeavours to jest, to offer cheering
“arguments of Materialism;” he requested to be executed last, “in
order to establish certain principles,”—which Philosophy has not
retained. General Ronsin too, he still looks forth with some air
of defiance, eye of command: the rest are sunk in a stony
paleness of despair. Momoro, poor Bibliopolist, no Agrarian Law
yet realised,—they might as well have hanged thee at Evreux,
twenty months ago, when Girondin Buzot hindered them. Hébert
_Père Duchesne_ shall never in this world rise in sacred right of
insurrection; he sits there low enough, head sunk on breast; Red
Nightcaps shouting round him, in frightful parody of his
Newspaper Articles, ‘Grand choler of the Père Duchesne!’ Thus
perish they; the sack receives all their heads. Through some
section of History, Nineteen spectre-chimeras shall flit,
speaking and gibbering; till Oblivion swallow them.
In the course of a week, the Revolutionary Army itself is
disbanded; the General having become spectral. This Faction of
Rabids, therefore, is also purged from the Republican soil; here
also the baited falltraps of that Pitt have been wrenched up
harmless; and anew there is joy over a Plot Discovered. The
Revolution then is verily devouring its own children. All
Anarchy, by the nature of it, is not only destructive but
self-destructive.