Chapter 3: 3.ii

Culottic and Sansculottic.

Gironde and Mountain are now in full quarrel; their mutual rage,
says Toulongeon, is growing a “pale” rage. Curious, lamentable:
all these men have the word Republic on their lips; in the heart
of every one of them is a passionate wish for something which he
calls Republic: yet see their death-quarrel! So, however, are men
made. Creatures who live in confusion; who, once thrown together,
can readily fall into that confusion of confusions which quarrel
is, simply because their confusions differ from one another;
still more because they seem to differ! Men’s words are a poor
exponent of their thought; nay their thought itself is a poor
exponent of the inward unnamed Mystery, wherefrom both thought
and action have their birth. No man can explain himself, can get
himself explained; men see not one another but distorted
phantasms which they call one another; which they hate and go to
battle with: for all battle is well said to be
_misunderstanding_.

But indeed that similitude of the Fireship; of our poor French
brethren, so fiery themselves, working also in an _element_ of
fire, was not insignificant. Consider it well, there is a shade
of the truth in it. For a man, once committed headlong to
republican or any other Transcendentalism, and fighting and
fanaticising amid a Nation of his like, becomes as it were
enveloped in an ambient atmosphere of Transcendentalism and
Delirium: his individual self is lost in something that is not
himself, but foreign though inseparable from him. Strange to
think of, the man’s cloak still seems to hold the same man: and
yet the man is not there, his volition is not there; nor the
source of what he will do and devise; instead of the man and his
volition there is a piece of Fanaticism and Fatalism incarnated
in the shape of him. He, the hapless incarnated Fanaticism, goes
his road; no man can help him, he himself least of all. It is a
wonderful tragical predicament;—such as human language, unused to
deal with these things, being contrived for the uses of common
life, struggles to shadow out in figures. The ambient element of
material fire is not wilder than this of Fanaticism; nor, though
visible to the eye, is it more real. Volition bursts forth
involuntary; rapt along; the movement of free human minds becomes
a raging tornado of fatalism, blind as the winds; and Mountain
and Gironde, when they recover themselves, are alike astounded to
see _where_ it has flung and dropt them. To such height of
miracle can men work on men; the Conscious and the Unconscious
blended inscrutably in this our inscrutable Life; endless
Necessity environing Freewill!

The weapons of the Girondins are Political Philosophy,
Respectability and Eloquence. Eloquence, or call it rhetoric,
really of a superior order; Vergniaud, for instance, turns a
period as sweetly as any man of that generation. The weapons of
the Mountain are those of mere nature: Audacity and Impetuosity
which may become Ferocity, as of men complete in their
determination, in their conviction; nay of men, in some cases,
who as Septemberers must either prevail or perish. The ground to
be fought for is Popularity: further you may either seek
Popularity with the friends of Freedom and Order, or with the
friends of Freedom Simple; to seek it with both has unhappily
become impossible. With the former sort, and generally with the
Authorities of the Departments, and such as read Parliamentary
Debates, and are of Respectability, and of a peace-loving monied
nature, the Girondins carry it. With the extreme Patriot again,
with the indigent millions, especially with the Population of
Paris who do not read so much as hear and see, the Girondins
altogether lose it, and the Mountain carries it.

Egoism, nor meanness of mind, is not wanting on either side.
Surely not on the Girondin side; where in fact the instinct of
self-preservation, too prominently unfolded by circumstances,
cuts almost a sorry figure; where also a certain finesse, to the
length even of shuffling and shamming, now and then shews itself.
They are men skilful in Advocate-fence. They have been called the
Jesuits of the Revolution;[613] but that is too hard a name. It
must be owned likewise that this rude blustering Mountain has a
sense in it of what the Revolution means; which these eloquent
Girondins are totally void of. Was the Revolution made, and
fought for, against the world, these four weary years, that a
Formula might be substantiated; that Society might become
_methodic_, demonstrable by logic; and the old Noblesse with
their pretensions vanish? Or ought it not withal to bring some
glimmering of light and alleviation to the Twenty-five Millions,
who sat in darkness, heavy-laden, till they rose with pikes in
their hands? At least and lowest, one would think, it should
bring them a proportion of bread to live on? There is in the
Mountain here and there; in Marat People’s-friend; in the
incorruptible Seagreen himself, though otherwise so lean and
formularly, a heartfelt knowledge of this latter fact;—without
which knowledge all other knowledge here is naught, and the
choicest forensic eloquence is as sounding brass and a tinkling
cymbal. Most cold, on the other hand, most patronising,
unsubstantial is the tone of the Girondins towards “our poorer
brethren;”—those brethren whom one often hears of under the
collective name of “the masses,” as if they were not persons at
all, but mounds of combustible explosive material, for blowing
down Bastilles with! In very truth, a Revolutionist of this kind,
is he not a Solecism? Disowned by Nature and Art; deserving only
to be erased, and disappear! Surely, to our poorer brethren of
Paris, all this Girondin patronage sounds deadening and killing:
if fine-spoken and incontrovertible in logic, then all the
falser, all the hatefuller in fact.

Nay doubtless, pleading for Popularity, here among our poorer
brethren of Paris, the Girondin has a hard game to play. If he
gain the ear of the Respectable at a distance, it is by insisting
on September and such like; it is at the expense of this Paris
where he dwells and perorates. Hard to perorate in such an
auditory! Wherefore the question arises: Could we not get
ourselves out of this Paris? Twice or oftener such an attempt is
made. If not we ourselves, thinks Guadet, then at least our
_Suppléans_ might do it. For every Deputy has his _Suppléant_, or
Substitute, who will take his place if need be: might not these
assemble, say at Bourges, which is a quiet episcopal Town, in
quiet Berri, forty good leagues off? In that case, what profit
were it for the Paris Sansculottery to insult us; our _Suppléans_
sitting quiet in Bourges, to whom we could run? Nay even the
Primary electoral Assemblies, thinks Guadet, might be reconvoked,
and a New Convention got, with new orders from the Sovereign
people; and right glad were Lyons, were Bourdeaux, Rouen,
Marseilles, as yet Provincial Towns, to welcome us in their turn,
and become a sort of Capital Towns; and teach these Parisians
reason.

Fond schemes; which all misgo! If decreed, in heat of eloquent
logic, today, they are repealed, by clamour, and passionate wider
considerations, on the morrow.[614] Will you, O Girondins, parcel
us into separate Republics, then; like the Swiss, like your
Americans; so that there be no Metropolis or indivisible French
Nation any more? Your Departmental Guard seemed to point that
way! Federal Republic? Federalist? Men and Knitting-women repeat
_Fédéraliste_, with or without much Dictionary-meaning; but go on
repeating it, as is usual in such cases, till the meaning of it
becomes almost magical, fit to designate all mystery of Iniquity;
and _Fédéraliste_ has grown a word of Exorcism and
_Apage-Satanas_. But furthermore, consider what “poisoning of
public opinion” in the Departments, by these Brissot, Gorsas,
Caritat-Condorcet Newspapers! And then also what
counter-poisoning, still feller in quality, by a _Père Duchesne_
of Hébert, brutallest Newspaper yet published on Earth; by a
_Rougiff_ of Guffroy; by the “incendiary leaves of Marat!” More
than once, on complaint given and effervescence rising, it is
decreed that a man cannot both be Legislator and Editor; that he
shall choose between the one function and the other.[615] But
this too, which indeed could help little, is revoked or eluded;
remains a pious wish mainly.

Meanwhile, as the sad fruit of such strife, behold, O ye National
Representatives, how between the friends of Law and the friends
of Freedom everywhere, mere heats and jealousies have arisen;
fevering the whole Republic! Department, Provincial Town is set
against Metropolis, Rich against Poor, Culottic against
Sansculottic, man against man. From the Southern Cities come
Addresses of an almost inculpatory character; for Paris has long
suffered Newspaper calumny. Bourdeaux demands a reign of Law and
Respectability, meaning Girondism, with emphasis. With emphasis
Marseilles demands the like. Nay from Marseilles there come _two_
Addresses: one Girondin; one Jacobin Sansculottic. Hot Rebecqui,
sick of this Convention-work, has given place to his Substitute,
and gone home; where also, with such jarrings, there is work to
be sick of.

Lyons, a place of Capitalists and Aristocrats, is in still worse
state; almost in revolt. Chalier the Jacobin Town-Councillor has
got, too literally, to daggers-drawn with Nièvre-Chol the
_Modératin_ Mayor; one of your Moderate, perhaps Aristocrat,
Royalist or Federalist Mayors! Chalier, who pilgrimed to Paris
“to behold Marat and the Mountain,” has verily kindled himself at
their sacred urn: for on the 6th of February last, History or
Rumour has seen him haranguing his Lyons Jacobins in a quite
transcendental manner, with a drawn dagger in his hand;
recommending (they say) sheer September-methods, patience being
worn out; and that the Jacobin Brethren should, impromptu, work
the Guillotine themselves! One sees him still, in Engravings:
mounted on a table; foot advanced, body contorted; a bald, rude,
slope-browed, infuriated visage of the canine species, the eyes
starting from their sockets; in his puissant right-hand the
brandished dagger, or horse-pistol, as some give it; other
dog-visages kindling under him:—a man not likely to end well!
However, the Guillotine was _not_ got together impromptu, that
day, “on the Pont Saint-Clair,” or elsewhere; but indeed
continued lying rusty in its loft:[616] Nièvre-Chol with military
went about, rumbling cannon, in the most confused manner; and the
“nine hundred prisoners” received no hurt. So distracted is Lyons
grown, with its cannon rumbling. Convention Commissioners must be
sent thither forthwith: if even they can appease it, and keep the
Guillotine in its loft?

Consider finally if, on all these mad jarrings of the Southern
Cities, and of France generally, a traitorous Crypto-Royalist
class is not looking and watching; ready to strike in, at the
right season! Neither is there bread; neither is there soap: see
the Patriot women selling out sugar, at a just rate of twenty-two
sous per pound! Citizen Representatives, it were verily well that
your quarrels finished, and the reign of Perfect Felicity began.