THE FEMALE ELEMENT IN POLITICS.
This new comer was a woman.
But a strange one, having a good deal of the masculine in her
composition—a perfect amazon—one might say a virago.
She was habited in a long dress of red stuff, surmounted by a cape;
she wore a plumed hat, and a large sword at her side.
I touched M. Drouet’s arm.
“Oh!” said I; “who is that?”
“I am no wiser at present than yourself,” said he; “unless it is—yes,
it is the famous Thèroigne de Méricourt.”
I had once or twice heard the name of the heroine of the 5th and 8th
of October—the impetuous Liègoise, beautiful, but terrible; who, at
Versailles, with a smile and soft voice, had ordered the regiments
of Flanders to lay down their arms. An unhappy affection—the treason
of an unfaithful one, had thrust her out from woman’s life. She had
embraced the cause of the Revolution with transport. It was her last
love. The unhappy woman was whipped by the Royalists in the Garden of
the Tuileries, became insane, and died in Bicetre, or Charenton, I
forget which, after twenty years of agony.
But at present she was young, pretty, proud, if not happy. Alas! her
misplaced love had seared her heart.
Her entrance was great.
“There is the Queen of Sheba!” cried Camille Desmoulins, stammering
more than ever.
Then, turning to Danton, “Rise up, Solomon,” said he; “and go and
receive her Majesty!”
She stood boldly in front of Danton, put her hands on the hilt of
her sabre, and said, “If thou art Solomon, build the temple. We have
space enough on the site of the Bastille, or better on the Field of
the Federation. I will head the subscription.”
She took a gold chain from off her neck, and threw it to Danton.
“I ask to speak,” said a tall, fair man, with a strong German accent;
“to support the proposition of the Citizen Thèroigne.”
“Citizen Anacharsis Clootz will address the meeting,” said Danton.
“Place to the orator of the human race.”
The Prussian Baron mounted the rostrum.
“Look!” said Drouet; “there is a republican who has a hundred
thousand crowns a year, and yet they say that only the bootless and
stockingless are revolutionists.”
“Yes,” said he, with a soft smile and quiet voice, which contrasted
with the harshness of the former speaker; “yes, I second the motion
of Citizen Thèroigne. The temple should be built in Paris. Why was
Paris built at an equal distance between the Pole and the Equator,
if not to be the centre of attraction for all men? At Paris will one
day assemble the Etats Généraux of all the world. You are laughing,
Camille, you eternal grinner. The day is not so distant as you
suppose. Oh, that the Tower of London may fall as did the Bastille!
Oh, that a second Cromwell may rise from insignificance into power,
and the tyrant of a day will be seen no more! When the tricolor of
liberty floats, not over England and France alone, but over all the
world, there will then no longer be provinces, soldiers, and vessels
of war; here will be a people, and better than that, a family. It
will then be as easy to go from Paris to Pekin as from Bordeaux to
Strasbourg; the shores of the ocean will be brought together by a
bridge of ships; and the East and the West will embrace on the Champ
de la Fédération. Rome was the queen of nations by force of arms;
Paris will be the same by dint of peace. Think not that this is mere
imagination, oh, my brothers! No, the more I think over the matter,
the more sure am I that I am right; and the more I believe in the
possibility of one great and united nation. Oh, listen to the voice
of reason; may patriotism warm your hearts to build up a temple
which will hold all the representatives of the human race. Then ten
thousand men will suffice to represent the universe!”
“Bravo! bravo!” cried all from all sides.
“There are plenty of heads to chop off here and there,” said Marat.
“Ye-ye-yes,” Stammered Camille Desmoulins; “six hundred
yes-yes-yesterday, nineteen thousand four hun-hundred to-day; and if
a to-morrow arrives, there will be fif-fif-fifty thousand.”
“Anacharsis,” cried Danton, “you err, but on the side of a good and
generous heart.”
The terrible man looked at him with a soft smile, and he continued:
“Men will be what they ought to be, when one can say, ‘The world
is my country, the world is mine;’ but till then, there are more
proscriptions, more banishments, more exiles. Nature is one; why is
not society one? They are divided forces, which strike one another
when nations are driven against each other by the breath of hatred,
and, like clouds, they strike and are scattered. Tyrants, we wish
not that, and the proof is that we demand not your death. Kill
yourselves, slay each other. Descend, O kings, from your thrones, and
we will give you your choice ’twixt misery and a scaffold. Usurpers
of sovereignty! Balthazars of modern times! is it possible that
you see not on your palace walls, amid the glare of your thousand
lamps, the shouts of your revelries, and the crash of your song,
the writing, not in fire, but in your people’s blood, _Mené, Mené!
Tekel Upharsin_? Lay down your sceptres and your crowns, and head
a revolution which delivers kings from the grasp of kings, and the
people from the rivalry of the people.”
“A-a-amen!” stammered Camille Desmoulins. “Ana-Anacharsis wishes to
carry me away by the hair of my head, as the angel did Habakkuk.”
“Long live Camille Desmoulins!” said Thèroigne, while the friends of
the true son of Voltaire tendered him their hands. “If ever I have
love, it shall be for you, I promise you. By the bye, you are fond of
Sieyes?”
“Yes, truly,” replied Thèroigne. “Between you and me, he is the only
one who gives me the idea of a man.”
“What am I, then?” said Danton.
“What are you?” said Thèroigne, scanning him from head to foot. “You
are only a bull.”
“Well re-re-replied,” said Camille; “that is what I call taking the
bull by the horns.”
“In the meantime,” cried Marat, “you are losing sight of the public
safety. I speak to you of a great treason, and you will not listen,
Lafayette!”
“Ah, good!” said Camille. “Go on, Marat!”
“Lafayette has caused to be made in the Faubourg St. Antoine
ten thousand snuff-boxes, all of which are embellished with his
portrait as General of the National Guard. Lafayette aspires to the
dictatorship.”
“Of tobacco merchants?” queried Camille Desmoulins.
Marat’s yellow skin assumed a green tinge, and perspired with rage.
“He has some scheme beneath that,” continued he; “so I pray all good
citizens in whose hands these snuff-boxes may fall, to destroy them.”
“In order to discover the names of his accomplices?” asked Camille.
“There are many of them. I told you that twenty thousand pieces of
cord would suffice, but bring thirty or forty thousand, and you will
not have enough.”
The applause drowned the voice of Marat, but eventually their breath
failed them, and they could hear Camille Desmoulins, who, like a
swimmer who had dived, again remounted to the surface.
“Always tragic, friend Ma-Marat—always tragic! hypertragic, in fact.”
“And these cords,” continued Marat—“take care, Camille Desmoulins,
that one of them is not first tried on you.”
“In that case,” replied the incorrigible railer, “I have a chance, if
they take me, of growing ugly. You haven’t.”
Here the laughter broke out irresistibly, and as it arose from
Camille’s side, he may be fairly said to have gained the victory.
Marat descended, furiously shaking his fist.
“Return to thy cave, night-bird! Go back to thy hole, hyena! Sneak
into thy nest, viper!” murmured Danton, with a look of ineffable
disdain. But Danton’s murmurs were like thunder; every one heard them.
When Marat left, all joined in brotherly communion, his presence
having alone restrained them hitherto.
M. Jean Baptiste knew Danton, and went to shake hands with him, and
to compliment Camille Desmoulins.
I could not turn my eyes from the face of the ex-advocate, that
terrible blind man whom Providence had given to guide the revolution.
I shall have occasion to speak again of him, and to show what
sensibility of heart was hidden beneath that rough exterior.
We left the club at midnight, and returned to the “Hotel des Postes,”
Rue Grange Batélière.
At daybreak on the morrow we had to be under arms.