Chapter 2: 4.iv

Attitude.

But in Paris, at six in the morning; when some Patriot Deputy,
warned by a billet, awoke Lafayette, and they went to the
Tuileries?—Imagination may paint, but words cannot, the surprise
of Lafayette; or with what bewilderment helpless Gouvion rolled
glassy Argus’s eyes, discerning now that his false Chambermaid
told true!

However, it is to be recorded that Paris, thanks to an august
National Assembly, did, on this seeming doomsday, surpass itself.
Never, according to Historian eye-witnesses, was there seen such
an “imposing attitude.”[377] Sections all “in permanence;” our
Townhall, too, having first, about ten o’clock, fired three
solemn alarm-cannons: above all, our National Assembly! National
Assembly, likewise permanent, decides what is needful; with
unanimous consent, for the _Côté Droit_ sits dumb, afraid of the
Lanterne. Decides with a calm promptitude, which rises towards
the sublime. One must needs vote, for the thing is self-evident,
that his Majesty has been _abducted_, or spirited away,
“_enlevé_,” by some person or persons unknown: in which case,
what will the Constitution have us do? Let us return to first
principles, as we always say; ‘_revenons aux principes_.’

By first or by second principles, much is promptly decided:
Ministers are sent for, instructed how to continue their
functions; Lafayette is examined; and Gouvion, who gives a most
helpless account, the best he can. Letters are found written: one
Letter, of immense magnitude; all in his Majesty’s hand, and
evidently of his Majesty’s own composition; addressed to the
National Assembly. It details, with earnestness, with a childlike
simplicity, what woes his Majesty has suffered. Woes great and
small: A Necker seen applauded, a Majesty not; then insurrection;
want of due cash in Civil List; _general_ want of cash, furniture
and order; anarchy everywhere; Deficit never yet, in the
smallest, “choked or _comblé:_”—wherefore in brief His Majesty
has retired towards a Place of Liberty; and, leaving Sanctions,
Federation, and what Oaths there may be, to shift for themselves,
does now refer—to what, thinks an august Assembly? To that
“Declaration of the Twenty-third of June,” with its ‘_Seul il
fera_, He alone will make his People happy.’ As if _that_ were
not buried, deep enough, under two irrevocable Twelvemonths, and
the wreck and rubbish of a whole Feudal World! This strange
autograph Letter the National Assembly decides on printing; on
transmitting to the Eighty-three Departments, with exegetic
commentary, short but pithy. Commissioners also shall go forth on
all sides; the People be exhorted; the Armies be increased; care
taken that the Commonweal suffer no damage.—And now, with a
sublime air of calmness, nay of indifference, we “pass to the
order of the day!”

By such sublime calmness, the terror of the People is calmed.
These gleaming Pike forests, which bristled fateful in the early
sun, disappear again; the far-sounding Street-orators cease, or
spout milder. We are to have a civil war; let us have it then.
The King is gone; but National Assembly, but France and we
remain. The People also takes a great attitude; the People also
is calm; motionless as a couchant lion. With but a few
_broolings_, some waggings of the tail; to shew what it _will_
do! Cazalès, for instance, was beset by street-groups, and cries
of _Lanterne;_ but National Patrols easily delivered him.
Likewise all King’s effigies and statues, at least stucco ones,
get abolished. Even King’s names; the word Roi fades suddenly out
of all shop-signs; the Royal Bengal Tiger itself, on the
Boulevards, becomes the National Bengal one, _Tigre
National_.[378]

How great is a calm couchant People! On the morrow, men will say
to one another: ‘We have no King, yet we slept sound enough.’ On
the morrow, fervent Achille de Chatelet, and Thomas Paine the
rebellious Needleman, shall have the walls of Paris profusely
plastered with their Placard; announcing that there must be a
_Republic!_[379]—Need we add that Lafayette too, though at first
menaced by Pikes, has taken a great attitude, or indeed the
greatest of all? Scouts and Aides-de-camp fly forth, vague, in
quest and pursuit; young Romœuf towards Valenciennes, though with
small hope.

Thus Paris; sublimely calmed, in its bereavement. But from the
_Messageries Royales_, in all Mail-bags, radiates forth
far-darting the electric news: Our Hereditary Representative is
flown. Laugh, black Royalists: yet be it in your sleeve only;
lest Patriotism notice, and waxing frantic, lower the Lanterne!
In Paris alone is a sublime National Assembly with its calmness;
truly, other places must take it as they can: with open mouth and
eyes; with panic cackling, with wrath, with conjecture. How each
one of those dull leathern Diligences, with its leathern bag and
“The King is fled,” furrows up smooth France as it goes; through
town and hamlet, ruffles the smooth public mind into quivering
agitation of death-terror; then lumbers on, as if nothing had
happened! Along all highways; towards the utmost borders; till
all France is ruffled,—roughened up (metaphorically speaking)
into one enormous, desperate-minded, red-guggling Turkey Cock!

For example, it is under cloud of night that the leathern Monster
reaches Nantes; deep sunk in sleep. The word spoken rouses all
Patriot men: General Dumouriez, enveloped in roquelaures, has to
descend from his bedroom; finds the street covered with “four or
five thousand citizens in their shirts.”[380] Here and there a
faint farthing rushlight, hastily kindled; and so many
swart-featured haggard faces, with nightcaps pushed back; and the
more or less flowing drapery of night-shirt: open-mouthed till
the General say his word! And overhead, as always, the Great Bear
is turning so quiet round Boötes; steady, indifferent as the
leathern Diligence itself. Take comfort, ye men of Nantes: Boötes
and the steady Bear are turning; ancient Atlantic still sends his
brine, loud-billowing, up your Loire-stream; brandy shall be hot
in the stomach: this is not the Last of the Days, but one before
the Last.—The fools! If they knew what was doing, in these very
instants, also by candle-light, in the far North-East!

Perhaps we may say the most terrified man in Paris or France
is—who thinks the Reader?—seagreen Robespierre. Double paleness,
with the shadow of gibbets and halters, overcasts the seagreen
features: it is too clear to him that there is to be “a
Saint-Bartholomew of Patriots,” that in four-and-twenty hours he
will not be in life. These horrid anticipations of the soul he is
heard uttering at Pétion’s; by a notable witness. By Madame
Roland, namely; her whom we saw, last year, radiant at the Lyons
Federation! These four months, the Rolands have been in Paris;
arranging with Assembly Committees the Municipal affairs of
Lyons, affairs all sunk in debt;—communing, the while, as was
most natural, with the best Patriots to be found here, with our
Brissots, Pétions, Buzots, Robespierres; who were wont to come to
us, says the fair Hostess, four evenings in the week. They,
running about, busier than ever this day, would fain have
comforted the seagreen man: spake of Achille du Chatelet’s
Placard; of a Journal to be called _The Republican;_ of preparing
men’s minds for a Republic. ‘A Republic?’ said the Seagreen, with
one of his dry husky _un_sportful laughs, ‘What is that?’[381] O
seagreen Incorruptible, thou shalt see!