The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle (urban books to read TXT) 📖

the King’s Government did do was to stagger distractedly from contradiction to contradiction; and wedding Fire to Water, envelope itself in hissing, and ashy steam! Danton and needy corruptible Patriots are sopped with presents of cash: they accept the sop: they rise refreshed by it, and travel their own way. (Ibid. i. c. 17.) Nay, the King’s Government did likewise hire Hand-clappers, or claqueurs, persons to applaud. Subterranean Rivarol has Fifteen Hundred men in King’s pay, at the rate of some ten thousand pounds sterling, per month; what he calls ‘a staff of genius:’ Paragraph-writers, Placard-Journalists; ‘two hundred and eighty Applauders, at three shillings a day:’ one of the strangest Staffs ever commanded by man. The muster-rolls and account-books of which still exist. (Montgaillard, iii. 41.) Bertrand-Moleville himself, in a way he thinks very dexterous, contrives to pack the Galleries of the Legislative; gets Sansculottes hired to go thither, and applaud at a signal given, they fancying it was Petion that bid them: a device which was not detected for almost a week. Dexterous enough; as if a man finding the Day fast decline should determine on altering the Clockhands: that is a thing possible for him.

Here too let us note an unexpected apparition of Philippe d’Orleans at Court: his last at the Levee of any King. D’Orleans, sometime in the winter months seemingly, has been appointed to that old first-coveted rank of Admiral,—though only over ships rotting in port. The wished-for comes too late! However, he waits on Bertrand-Moleville to give thanks: nay to state that he would willingly thank his Majesty in person; that, in spite of all the horrible things men have said and sung, he is far from being his Majesty’s enemy; at bottom, how far! Bertrand delivers the message, brings about the royal Interview, which does pass to the satisfaction of his Majesty; d’Orleans seeming clearly repentant, determined to turn over a new leaf. And yet, next Sunday, what do we see? ‘Next Sunday,’ says Bertrand, ‘he came to the King’s Levee; but the Courtiers ignorant of what had passed, the crowd of Royalists who were accustomed to resort thither on that day specially to pay their court, gave him the most humiliating reception. They came pressing round him; managing, as if by mistake, to tread on his toes, to elbow him towards the door, and not let him enter again. He went downstairs to her Majesty’s Apartments, where cover was laid; so soon as he shewed face, sounds rose on all sides, “Messieurs, take care of the dishes,” as if he had carried poison in his pockets. The insults which his presence every where excited forced him to retire without having seen the Royal Family: the crowd followed him to the Queen’s Staircase; in descending, he received a spitting (crachat) on the head, and some others, on his clothes. Rage and spite were seen visibly painted on his face:’ (Bertrand-Moleville, i. 177.) as indeed how could they miss to be? He imputes it all to the King and Queen, who know nothing of it, who are even much grieved at it; and so descends, to his Chaos again. Bertrand was there at the Chateau that day himself, and an eye-witness to these things.

For the rest, Non-jurant Priests, and the repression of them, will distract the King’s conscience; Emigrant Princes and Noblesse will force him to double-dealing: there must be veto on veto; amid the ever-waxing indignation of men. For Patriotism, as we said, looks on from without, more and more suspicious. Waxing tempest, blast after blast, of Patriot indignation, from without; dim inorganic whirl of Intrigues, Fatuities, within! Inorganic, fatuous; from which the eye turns away. De Stael intrigues for her so gallant Narbonne, to get him made War-Minister; and ceases not, having got him made. The King shall fly to Rouen; shall there, with the gallant Narbonne, properly ‘modify the Constitution.’ This is the same brisk Narbonne, who, last year, cut out from their entanglement, by force of dragoons, those poor fugitive Royal Aunts: men say he is at bottom their Brother, or even more, so scandalous is scandal. He drives now, with his de Stael, rapidly to the Armies, to the Frontier Towns; produces rose-coloured Reports, not too credible; perorates, gesticulates; wavers poising himself on the top, for a moment, seen of men; then tumbles, dismissed, washed away by the Time-flood.

Also the fair Princess de Lamballe intrigues, bosom friend of her Majesty: to the angering of Patriotism. Beautiful Unfortunate, why did she ever return from England? Her small silver-voice, what can it profit in that piping of the black World-tornado? Which will whirl her, poor fragile Bird of Paradise, against grim rocks. Lamballe and de Stael intrigue visibly, apart or together: but who shall reckon how many others, and in what infinite ways, invisibly! Is there not what one may call an ‘Austrian Committee,’ sitting invisible in the Tuileries; centre of an invisible Anti-National Spiderweb, which, for we sleep among mysteries, stretches its threads to the ends of the Earth? Journalist Carra has now the clearest certainty of it: to Brissotin Patriotism, and France generally, it is growing more and more probable.

O Reader, hast thou no pity for this Constitution? Rheumatic shooting pains in its members; pressure of hydrocephale and hysteric vapours on its Brain: a Constitution divided against itself; which will never march, hardly even stagger? Why were not Drouet and Procureur Sausse in their beds, that unblessed Varennes Night! Why did they not, in the name of Heaven, let the Korff Berline go whither it listed! Nameless incoherency, incompatibility, perhaps prodigies at which the world still shudders, had been spared.

But now comes the third thing that bodes ill for the marching of this French Constitution: besides the French People, and the French King, there is thirdly—the assembled European world? it has become necessary now to look at that also. Fair France is so luminous: and round and round it, is troublous Cimmerian Night. Calonnes, Breteuils hover dim, far-flown; overnetting Europe with intrigues. From Turin to Vienna; to Berlin, and utmost Petersburg in the frozen North! Great Burke has raised his great voice long ago; eloquently demonstrating that the end of an Epoch is come, to all appearance the end of Civilised Time. Him many answer: Camille Desmoulins, Clootz Speaker of Mankind, Paine the rebellious Needleman, and honourable Gallic Vindicators in that country and in this: but the great Burke remains unanswerable; ‘The Age of Chivalry is gone,’ and could not but go, having now produced the still more indomitable Age of Hunger.

Altars enough, of the Dubois-Rohan sort, changing to the Gobel-and-

Talleyrand sort, are faring by rapid transmutation to, shall we say, the right Proprietor of them? French Game and French Game-Preservers did alight on the Cliffs of Dover, with cries of distress. Who will say that the end of much is not come? A set of mortals has risen, who believe that Truth is not a printed Speculation, but a practical Fact; that Freedom and Brotherhood are possible in this Earth, supposed always to be Belial’s, which ‘the Supreme Quack’ was to inherit! Who will say that Church, State, Throne, Altar are not in danger; that the sacred Strong-box itself, last Palladium of effete Humanity, may not be blasphemously blown upon, and its padlocks undone?

The poor Constituent Assembly might act with what delicacy and diplomacy it would; declare that it abjured meddling with its neighbours, foreign conquest, and so forth; but from the first this thing was to be predicted: that old Europe and new France could not subsist together. A Glorious Revolution, oversetting State-Prisons and Feudalism; publishing, with outburst of Federative Cannon, in face of all the Earth, that Appearance is not Reality, how shall it subsist amid Governments which, if Appearance is not Reality, are—one knows not what? In death feud, and internecine wrestle and battle, it shall subsist with them; not otherwise.

Rights of Man, printed on Cotton Handkerchiefs, in various dialects of human speech, pass over to the Frankfort Fair. (Toulongeon, i. 256.) What say we, Frankfort Fair? They have crossed Euphrates and the fabulous Hydaspes; wafted themselves beyond the Ural, Altai, Himmalayah: struck off from wood stereotypes, in angular Picture-writing, they are jabbered and jingled of in China and Japan. Where will it stop? Kien-Lung smells mischief; not the remotest Dalai-Lama shall now knead his dough-pills in peace.—Hateful to us; as is the Night! Bestir yourselves, ye Defenders of Order! They do bestir themselves: all Kings and Kinglets, with their spiritual temporal array, are astir; their brows clouded with menace.

Diplomatic emissaries fly swift; Conventions, privy Conclaves assemble; and wise wigs wag, taking what counsel they can.

Also, as we said, the Pamphleteer draws pen, on this side and that: zealous fists beat the Pulpit-drum. Not without issue! Did not iron Birmingham, shouting ‘Church and King,’ itself knew not why, burst out, last July, into rage, drunkenness, and fire; and your Priestleys, and the like, dining there on that Bastille day, get the maddest singeing: scandalous to consider! In which same days, as we can remark, high Potentates, Austrian and Prussian, with Emigrants, were faring towards Pilnitz in Saxony; there, on the 27th of August, they, keeping to themselves what further ‘secret Treaty’ there might or might not be, did publish their hopes and their threatenings, their Declaration that it was ‘the common cause of Kings.’

Where a will to quarrel is, there is a way. Our readers remember that Pentecost-Night, Fourth of August 1789, when Feudalism fell in a few hours?

The National Assembly, in abolishing Feudalism, promised that ‘compensation’ should be given; and did endeavour to give it. Nevertheless the Austrian Kaiser answers that his German Princes, for their part, cannot be unfeudalised; that they have Possessions in French Alsace, and Feudal Rights secured to them, for which no conceivable compensation will suffice.

So this of the Possessioned Princes, ‘Princes Possessiones’ is bandied from Court to Court; covers acres of diplomatic paper at this day: a weariness to the world. Kaunitz argues from Vienna; Delessart responds from Paris, though perhaps not sharply enough. The Kaiser and his Possessioned Princes will too evidently come and take compensation—so much as they can get.

Nay might one not partition France, as we have done Poland, and are doing; and so pacify it with a vengeance?

From South to North! For actually it is ‘the common cause of Kings.’

Swedish Gustav, sworn Knight of the Queen of France, will lead Coalised Armies;—had not Ankarstrom treasonously shot him; for, indeed, there were griefs nearer home. (30th March 1792 (Annual Register, p. 11). Austria and Prussia speak at Pilnitz; all men intensely listening: Imperial Rescripts have gone out from Turin; there will be secret Convention at Vienna. Catherine of Russia beckons approvingly; will help, were she ready. Spanish Bourbon stirs amid his pillows; from him too, even from him, shall there come help. Lean Pitt, ‘the Minister of Preparatives,’

looks out from his watch-tower in Saint-James’s, in a suspicious manner.

Councillors plotting, Calonnes dim-hovering;—alas, Serjeants rub-a-dubbing openly through all manner of German market-towns, collecting ragged valour!

(Toulongeon, ii. 100-117.) Look where you will, immeasurable Obscurantism is girdling this fair France; which, again, will not be girdled by it.

Europe is in travail; pang after pang; what a shriek was that of Pilnitz!

The birth will be: WAR.

Nay the worst feature