Mumbo-Jumbo.
But on the day they call _Décadi_, New-Sabbath, 20 _Prairial_,
8th June by old style, what thing is this going forward, in the
Jardin National, whilom Tuileries Garden?
All the world is there, in holydays clothes:[743] foul linen went
out with the Hébertists; nay Robespierre, for one, would never
once countenance that; but went always elegant and frizzled, not
without vanity even,—and had his room hung round with seagreen
Portraits and Busts. In holyday clothes, we say, are the
innumerable Citoyens and Citoyennes: the weather is of the
brightest; cheerful expectation lights all countenances. Juryman
Vilate gives breakfast to many a Deputy, in his official
Apartment, in the Pavillon _ci-devant_ of Flora; rejoices in the
bright-looking multitudes, in the brightness of leafy June, in
the auspicious _Décadi_, or New-Sabbath. This day, if it please
Heaven, we are to have, on improved Anti-Chaumette principles: a
New Religion.
Catholicism being burned out, and Reason-worship guillotined, was
there not need of one? Incorruptible Robespierre, not unlike the
Ancients, as Legislator of a free people will now also be Priest
and Prophet. He has donned his sky-blue coat, made for the
occasion; white silk waistcoat broidered with silver, black silk
breeches, white stockings, shoe-buckles of gold. He is President
of the Convention; he has made the Convention _decree_, so they
name it, _décréter_ the “Existence of the Supreme Being,” and
likewise “_ce principe consolateur_ of the Immortality of the
Soul.” These consolatory principles, the basis of rational
Republican Religion, are getting decreed; and here, on this
blessed _Décadi_, by help of Heaven and Painter David, is to be
our first act of worship.
See, accordingly, how after Decree passed, and what has been
called “the scraggiest Prophetic Discourse ever uttered by
man,”—Mahomet Robespierre, in sky-blue coat and black breeches,
frizzled and powdered to perfection, bearing in his hand a
bouquet of flowers and wheat-ears, issues proudly from the
Convention Hall; Convention following him, yet, as is remarked,
with an interval. Amphitheatre has been raised, or at least
_Monticule_ or Elevation; hideous Statues of Atheism, Anarchy and
such like, thanks to Heaven and Painter David, strike abhorrence
into the heart. Unluckily however, our Monticule is too small. On
the top of it not half of us can stand; wherefore there arises
indecent shoving, nay treasonous irreverent growling. Peace, thou
Bourdon de l’Oise; peace, or it may be worse for thee!
The seagreen Pontiff takes a torch, Painter David handing it;
mouths some other froth-rant of vocables, which happily one
cannot hear; strides resolutely forward, in sight of expectant
France; sets his torch to Atheism and Company, which are but made
of pasteboard steeped in turpentine. They burn up rapidly; and,
from within, there rises “by machinery” an incombustible Statue
of Wisdom, which, by ill hap, gets besmoked a little; but does
stand there visible in as serene attitude as it can.
And then? Why, then, there is other Processioning, scraggy
Discoursing, and—this _is_ our Feast of the _Être Suprême;_ our
new Religion, better or worse, is come!—Look at it one moment, O
Reader, not two. The Shabbiest page of Human Annals: or is there,
that thou wottest of, one shabbier? Mumbo-Jumbo of the African
woods to me seems venerable beside this new Deity of Robespierre;
for this is a _conscious_ Mumbo-Jumbo, and _knows_ that he is
machinery. O seagreen Prophet, unhappiest of windbags blown nigh
to bursting, what distracted Chimera among realities are thou
growing to! This then, this common pitch-link for artificial
fireworks of turpentine and pasteboard; _this_ is the miraculous
Aaron’s Rod thou wilt stretch over a hag-ridden hell-ridden
France, and bid her plagues cease? Vanish, thou and it!—‘_Avec
ton Être Suprême_,’ said Billaud, ‘_tu commences à m’embêter:_
With thy _Être Suprême_ thou beginnest to be a bore to me.’[744]
Catherine Théot, on the other hand, “an ancient serving-maid
seventy-nine years of age,” inured to Prophecy and the Bastille
from of old, sits, in an upper room in the Rue-de-Contrescarpe,
poring over the Book of Revelations, with an eye to Robespierre;
finds that this astonishing thrice-potent Maximilien really is
the Man spoken of by Prophets, who is to make the Earth young
again. With her sit devout old Marchionesses, _ci-devant_
honourable women; among whom Old-Constituent Dom Gerle, with his
addle head, cannot be wanting. They sit there, in the
Rue-de-Contrescarpe; in mysterious adoration: Mumbo is Mumbo, and
Robespierre is his Prophet. A conspicuous man this Robespierre.
He has his volunteer Bodyguard of _Tappe-durs_, let us say
_Strike-sharps_, fierce Patriots with feruled sticks; and
Jacobins kissing the hem of his garment. He enjoys the admiration
of many, the worship of some; and is well worth the wonder of one
and all.
The grand question and hope, however, is: Will not this Feast of
the Tuileries Mumbo-Jumbo be a sign perhaps that the Guillotine
is to abate? Far enough from that! Precisely on the second day
after it, Couthon, one of the “three shallow scoundrels,” gets
himself lifted into the Tribune; produces a bundle of papers.
Couthon proposes that, as Plots still abound, the _Law of the
Suspect_ shall have extension, and Arrestment new vigour and
facility. Further that, as in such case business is like to be
heavy, our Revolutionary Tribunal too shall have extension; be
divided, say, into Four Tribunals, each with its President, each
with its Fouquier or Substitute of Fouquier, all labouring at
once, and any remnant of shackle or dilatory formality be struck
off: in this way it may perhaps still overtake the work. Such is
Couthon’s _Decree of the Twenty-second Prairial_, famed in those
times. At hearing of which Decree the very Mountain gasped,
awestruck; and one Ruamps ventured to say that if it passed
without adjournment and discussion, he, as one Representative,
‘would blow his brains out.’ Vain saying! The Incorruptible knit
his brows; spoke a prophetic fateful word or two: the _Law of
Prairial_ is Law; Ruamps glad to leave his rash brains where they
are. Death, then, and always Death! Even so. Fouquier is
enlarging his borders; making room for Batches of a Hundred and
fifty at once;—getting a Guillotine set up, of improved velocity,
and to work under cover, in the apartment close by. So that
_Salut_ itself has to intervene, and forbid him: ‘Wilt thou
_demoralise_ the Guillotine,’ asks Collot, reproachfully,
‘_démoraliser le supplice!_’
There is indeed danger of that; were not the Republican faith
great, it were already done. See, for example, on the 17th of
June, what a _Batch_, Fifty-four at once! Swart Amiral is here,
he of the pistol that missed fire; young Cecile Renault, with her
father, family, entire kith and kin; the widow of d’Espréménil;
old M. de Sombreuil of the Invalides, with his Son,—poor old
Sombreuil, seventy-three years old, his Daughter saved him in
September, and it was but for _this_. Faction of the Stranger,
fifty-four of them! In red shirts and smocks, as Assassins and
Faction of the Stranger, they flit along there; red baleful
Phantasmagory, towards the land of Phantoms.
Meanwhile will not the people of the Place de la Révolution, the
inhabitants along the Rue Saint-Honoré, as these continual
Tumbrils pass, begin to look gloomy? Republicans too have bowels.
The Guillotine is shifted, then again shifted; finally set up at
the remote extremity of the South-East:[745] Suburbs
Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau it is to be hoped, if they have
bowels, have very tough ones.