Chapter 2: 1.vii

Prodigies.

To such length had the _Contrat Social_ brought it, in believing
hearts. Man, as is well said, lives by faith; each generation has
its own faith, more or less; and laughs at the faith of its
predecessor,—most unwisely. Grant indeed that this faith in the
Social Contract belongs to the stranger sorts; that an unborn
generation may very wisely, if not laugh, yet stare at it, and
piously consider. For, alas, what is _Contrat?_ If all men were
such that a mere spoken or sworn Contract would bind them, all
men were then true men, and Government a superfluity. Not what
thou and I have promised to each other, but what the balance of
our forces can make us perform to each other: that, in so sinful
a world as ours, is the thing to be counted on. But above all, a
People and a Sovereign promising to one another; as if a whole
People, changing from generation to generation, nay from hour to
hour, could ever by any method be made to _speak_ or promise; and
to speak mere solecisms:‘We, be the Heavens witness, which
Heavens however do no miracles now; we, ever-changing Millions,
will _allow_ thee, changeful Unit, to _force_ us or govern us!’
The world has perhaps seen few faiths comparable to that.

So nevertheless had the world then construed the matter. Had they
_not_ so construed it, how different had their hopes been, their
attempts, their results! But so and not otherwise did the Upper
Powers will it to be. Freedom by Social Contract: such was verily
the Gospel of that Era. And all men had believed in it, as in a
Heaven’s Glad-tidings men should; and with overflowing heart and
uplifted voice clave to it, and stood fronting Time and Eternity
on it. Nay smile not; or only with a smile sadder than tears!
This too was a better faith than the one it had replaced: than
faith merely in the Everlasting Nothing and man’s Digestive
Power; lower than _which_ no faith can go.

Not that such universally prevalent, universally jurant, feeling
of Hope, could be a unanimous one. Far from that! The time was
ominous: social dissolution near and certain; social renovation
still a problem, difficult and distant even though sure. But if
ominous to some clearest onlooker, whose faith stood not with one
side or with the other, nor in the ever-vexed jarring of Greek
with Greek at all,—how unspeakably ominous to dim Royalist
participators; for whom Royalism was Mankind’s palladium; for
whom, with the abolition of Most-Christian Kingship and
Most-Talleyrand Bishopship, all loyal obedience, all religious
faith was to expire, and final Night envelope the Destinies of
Man! On serious hearts, of that persuasion, the matter sinks down
deep; prompting, as we have seen, to backstairs Plots, to
Emigration with pledge of war, to Monarchic Clubs; nay to still
madder things.

The Spirit of Prophecy, for instance, had been considered extinct
for some centuries: nevertheless these last-times, as indeed is
the tendency of last-times, do revive it; that so, of French mad
things, we might have sample also of the maddest. In remote rural
districts, whither Philosophism has not yet radiated, where a
heterodox Constitution of the Clergy is bringing strife round the
altar itself, and the very Church-bells are getting melted into
small money-coin, it appears probable that the End of the World
cannot be far off. Deep-musing atrabiliar old men, especially old
women, hint in an obscure way that they know what they know. The
Holy Virgin, silent so long, has not gone dumb;—and truly now, if
ever more in this world, were the time for her to speak. One
Prophetess, though careless Historians have omitted her name,
condition, and whereabout, becomes audible to the general ear;
credible to not a few: credible to Friar Gerle, poor Patriot
Chartreux, in the National Assembly itself! She, in Pythoness’
recitative, with wildstaring eye, sings that there shall be a
Sign; that the heavenly Sun himself will hang out a Sign, or
Mock-Sun,—which, many say, shall be stamped with the Head of
hanged Favras. List, Dom Gerle, with that poor addled poll of
thine; list, O list;—and hear nothing.[286]

Notable however was that “magnetic vellum, _vélin magnétique_,”
of the Sieurs d’Hozier and Petit-Jean, Parlementeers of Rouen.
Sweet young d’Hozier, “bred in the faith of his Missal, and of
parchment genealogies,” and of parchment generally: adust,
melancholic, middle-aged Petit-Jean: why came these two to
Saint-Cloud, where his Majesty was hunting, on the festival of
St. Peter and St. Paul; and waited there, in antechambers, a
wonder to whispering Swiss, the livelong day; and even waited
without the Grates, when turned out; and had dismissed their
valets to Paris, as with purpose of endless waiting? They have a
_magnetic vellum_, these two; whereon the Virgin, wonderfully
clothing herself in Mesmerean Cagliostric Occult-Philosophy, has
inspired them to jot down instructions and predictions for a
much-straitened King. To whom, by Higher Order, they will this
day present it; and save the Monarchy and World. Unaccountable
pair of visual-objects! Ye should be men, and of the Eighteenth
Century; but your magnetic vellum forbids us so to interpret.
Say, are ye aught? Thus ask the Guardhouse Captains, the Mayor of
St. Cloud; nay, at great length, thus asks the Committee of
Researches, and not the Municipal, but the National Assembly one.
No distinct answer, for weeks. At last it becomes plain that the
right answer is _negative_. Go, ye Chimeras, with your magnetic
vellum; sweet young Chimera, adust middle-aged one! The
Prison-doors are open. Hardly again shall ye preside the Rouen
Chamber of Accounts; but vanish obscurely into Limbo.[287]