History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0138/01386.txt

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$Title{(The) French Revolution: A History
Book First: September - In Argonne.}
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$Author{Carlyle, Thomas}
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dumouriez
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Title:       (The) French Revolution: A History
Book:        The Guillotine.
Author:      Carlyle, Thomas

Book First: September - In Argonne.

Chapter VII. September In Argonne.

     1339. Plain, at any rate, is one thing: that the fear, whatever of fear
those Aristocrat enemies might need, has been brought about.  The matter is
getting serious, then!  Sansculottism too has become a Fact, and seems minded
to assert itself as such?  This huge moon-calf of Sansculottism, staggering
about, as young calves do, is not mockable only, and soft like another calf;
but terrible too, if you prick it; and, through its hideous nostrils, blows
fire! - Aristocrats, with pale panic in their hearts, fly toward covert; and a
light rises to them over several things; or rather a confused transition
toward light, whereby for the moment darkness is only darker than ever.  But
what will become of this France?  Here is a question!  France is dancing its
desert-waltz, as Sahara does when the winds waken; in whirl-blasts 25,000,000
in number; waltzing toward Town-halls, Aristocrat Prisons and Election
Committee-rooms; toward Brunswick and the frontiers; toward a New Chapter of
Universal History; if indeed it be not the Finis, and winding-up of that!

     1340. In Election Committee-rooms there is now no dubiety; but the work
goes bravely along.  The Convention is getting chosen, - really in a decisive
spirit; in the Town-hall we already date First year of the Republic.  Some 200
of our best Legislators may be re-elected, the Mountain bodily: Robespierre,
with Mayor Petion, Buzot, Curate Gregoire, Rabaut, some three-score
Old-Constituents; though we once had only "thirty voices." All these; and
along with them, friends long known to Revolutionary fame: Camille Desmoulins,
though he stutters in speech: Manuel, Tallien and Company; Journalists Gorsas,
Carra, Mercier, Louvet of Faublas; Clootz, Speaker of Mankind; Collot
d'Herbois, tearing a passion to rags; Fabre d'Eglantine, speculative
Pamphleteer; Legendre, the solid Butcher: nay Marat, though rural France can
hardly believe it, or even believe that there is a Marat, except in print.  Of
Minister Danton, who will lay down his Ministry for a Membership, we need not
speak.  Paris is fervent; nor is the Country wanting to itself.  Barbaroux,
Rebecqui, and fervid Patriots are coming from Marseilles.  Seven hundred and
forty-five men, (or indeed forty-nine, for Avignon now sends Four) are
gathering: so many are to meet; not so many are to part!

     1341. Attorney Carrier from Aurillac, Ex-Priest Lebon from Arras, these
shall both gain a name.  Mountainous Auvergne re-elects her Romme; hardy
tiller of the soil, once Mathematical Professor; who, unconscious, carries in
petto a remarkable New Calendar, with Messidors, Pluvioses, and such-like; -
and having given it well forth, shall depart by the death they call Roman.
Sieyes Old-Constituent comes; to make new Constitutions as many as wanted: for
the rest, peering out of his clear cautious eyes, he will cower low in many an
emergency, and find silence safest.  Young Saint-Just is coming, deputed by
Aisne in the North; more like a Student than a Senator; not four-and-twenty
yet; who has written Books; a youth of slight stature, with mild mellow voice,
enthusiast olive-complexion and long black hair.  Feraud, from the far valley
D'Aure in the folds of the Pyrenees, is coming; an ardent Republican; doomed
to fame, at least in death.

     1342. All manner of Patriot men are coming: Teachers, Husbandmen, Priests
and Ex-Priests, Traders, Doctors; above all, Talkers, or the Attorney species.
Man-midwives, as Levasseur of the Sarthe, are not wanting.  Nor Artists: gross
David, with the swoln cheek, has long painted, with genius in a state of
convulsion; and will now legislate.  The swoln cheek, choking his words in the
birth, totally disqualifies him as an orator; but his pencil, his head, his
gross hot heart, with genius in a state of convulsion, will be there.  A man
bodily and mentally swoln-cheeked, disproportionate; flabby-large, instead of
great; weak withal as in a state of convulsion, not strong in a state of
composure: so let him play his part.  Nor are naturalized Benefactors of the
Species forgotten: Priestly, elected by the Orne Department, but declining;
Paine the rebellious Needleman, by the Pas de Calais, who accepts.

     1343. Few Nobles come, and yet not none.  Paul-Francois Barrar, "noble as
the Barrases, old as the rocks of Provence;" he is one.  The reckless,
ship-wrecked man: flung ashore on the coast of the Maldives long ago, while
sailing and soldiering as Indian Fighter: flung ashore since then, as hungry
Parisian pleasure-hunter and half-pay, on many a Circe Island, with temporary
enchantment, temporary conversion into beasthood and hoghood; - the remote Var
Department has now sent him hither.  A man of heat and haste; defective in
utterance; defective indeed in anything to utter; yet not without a certain
rapidity of glance, a certain swift transient courage; who in these times,
Fortune favoring, may go far.  He is tall, handsome to the eye, "only the
complexion a little yellow;" but "with a robe of purple, with a scarlet cloak
and plume of tricolor, on occasions of solemnity," the man will look well. ^1
Lepelletier Saint-Fargeau, Old-Constituent, is a kind of noble, and of
enormous wealth; he too has come hither: - to have the Pain of Death
abolished?  Hapless Ex-Parlementeer!  Nay among our Sixty Old-Constituents see
Philippe d'Orleans, a Prince of the Blood!  Not now D'Orleans: for, Feudalism
being swept from the world, he demands of his worthy friends the Electors of
Paris, to have a new name of their choosing; whereupon Procureur Manuel, like
an antithetic literary man, recommends Equality, Egalite.  A Philippe Egalite
therefore will sit; seen of the Earth and Heaven.

[Footnote 1: "Dictionnaire des Hommes Marquans," Section Barras.]

     1344. Such a Convention is gathering itself together.  Mere angry poultry
in moulting season; whom Brunswick's grenadiers and cannoneers will give short
account of.  Would the weather, as Bertrand is always praying, only mend a
little! ^1

[Footnote 1: Bertrand-Moleville. Memoires," ii. 225.]

     1345. In vain, O Bertrand!  The weather will not mend a whit: nay even if
it did?  Dumouriez Polymetis, though Bertrand knows it not, started from brief
slumber at Sedan, on that morning of the 29th of August; with stealthiness,
with promptitude, audacity.  Some three mornings after that, Brunswick,
opening wide eyes, perceives the Passes of the Argonne all seized; blocked
with felled trees, fortified with camps; and that it is a most shifty swift
Dumouriez this, who has outwitted him!

     1346. The maneuver may cost Brunswick "a loss of three weeks," very fatal
in these circumstances.  A Mountain-wall of forty miles lying between him and
Paris: which he should have preoccupied; - which how now to get possession of?
Also the rain it raineth every day; and we are in a hungry Champagne
Pouilleuse, a land flowing only with ditch-water.  How to cross this
Mountain-wall of the Argonne; or what in the world to do with it? - There are
marchings and wet splashings by steep paths, with sackerments and guttural
interjections; forcings of Argonne Passes, - which unhappily will not force.
Through the woods, volleying War reverberates, like huge gong-music, or
Moloch's kettle-drum, borne by the echoes; swoln torrents boil angrily round
the foot of rocks, floating pale carcasses of men.  In vain!  Islettes
Villages, with its church-steeple, rises intact in the Mountain-pass, between
the embosoming heights; your forced marchings and climbings have become forced
slidings and tumblings back.  From the hill-tops thou seest nothing but dumb
crags, and endless wet moaning woods; the Clermont Vache (huge Cow that she
is) disclosing herself ^1 at intervals; flinging off her cloud-blanket, and
soon taking it on again, drowned in the pouring Heaven.  The Argonne Passes
will not force: you must skirt the Argonne: go round by the end of it.

[Footnote 1: See Helen Maria Williams, "Letters," iii. 79-81.]

     1347. But fancy whether the Emigrant Seigneurs have not got their
brilliancy dulled a little; whether that "Foot Regiment in red-facings with
nankeen trousers" could be in field-day order!  In place of gasconading, a
sort of desperation, and hydrophobia from excess of water, is threatening to
supervene.  Young Prince de Ligne, son of that brave literary De Ligne the
Thunder-god of Dandies, fell backward; shot dead in Grand-Pre, the Northmost
of the Passes: Brunswick is skirting and rounding, laboriously, by the
extremity of the South.  Four days; days of a rain as of Noah, - without fire,
without food!  For fire you cut down green trees, and produce smoke; for food
you eat green grapes, and produce colic, pestilential dysentery.  And the
Peasants assassinate us, they do not join us; shrill women cry shame on us,
threaten to draw their very scissors on us!  O ye hapless dulled-bright
Seigneurs, and hydrophobic splashed Nankeens; - but O, ten times more, ye poor
sackermenting ghastly-visaged Hessians and Hulans, fallen on your backs; who
had no call to die there, except compulsion and three half-pence a-day!  Nor
has Mrs. le Blanc of the Golden Arm a good time of it, in her bower of
dripping rushes.  Assassinating Peasants are hanged; Old-Constituent Honorable
Members, though of venerable age, ride in carts with their hands tied: these
are the woes of war.

     1348. Thus they; sprawling and wriggling, far and wide, on the slopes and
passes of the Argonne; - a loss to Brunswick of five-and-twenty disastrous
days.  There is wriggling and struggling; facing, backing and right-about
facing; as the positions shift, and the Argonne gets partly rounded, partly
forced: - but still Dumouriez, force him, round him as you will, sticks like a
rooted fixture on the ground; fixture with many hinges; wheeling now this way,
now that; showing always new front, in the most unexpected manner; nowise
consenting to take himself away.  Recruits stream up on him; full of heart yet
rather difficult to deal with.  Behind Grand-Pre for example, Grand-Pre which
is on the wrong-side of the Argonne, for we are now forced and rounded, - the
full heart, in one of those wheelings and showings of new front, did as it
were overset itself, as full hearts are liable to do; and there rose a shriek
of sauve qui peut, and a death-panic which had nigh ruined all!  So that the
General had to come galloping; and, with thunder-words, with gesture, stroke
of drawn sword even, check and rally, and bring back the sense of shame; ^1 -
nay to seize the first shriekers and ringleaders; "shave their heads and
eyebrows," and pack them forth in the world as a sign.  Thus too (for really
the rations are short, and wet camping with hungry stomach brings bad humor)
there is like to be mutiny.  Whereupon again Dumouriez "arrives at the head of
their line, with his staff, and an escort of a hundred hussars.  He had placed
some squadrons behind them, the artillery in front; he said to them: 'As for
you, for I will neither call your citizens, nor soldiers, nor my men (ni mes
enfans), you see before you this artillery, behind you this cavalry.  You have
dishonored yourselves by crimes.  If you amend, and grow to behave like this
brave Army which you have the honor of belonging to, you will find in me a
good father. But plunderers and assassins I do not suffer here.  At the
smallest mutiny I will have you shivered in pieces (hacher en pieces).  Seek
out the Scoundrels that are among you, and dismiss them yourselves; I hold you
responsible for them.'" ^2

[Footnote 1: Dumouriez, "Memoires," iii. 29.]

[Footnote 2: Dumouriez, "Memoires," iii. 55.]

     1349. Patience, O Dumouriez!  This uncertain heap of shriekers,
mutineers, were they once drilled and inured, will become a phalanxed mass of
Fighters; and wheel and whirl, to order, swiftly like the wind or the
whirlwind: tanned mustachio-figures; often bare-foot, even bare-backed; with
sinews of iron; who require only bread and gunpowder: very Sons of Fire, the
adroitest, hastiest, hottest ever seen perhaps, since Attila's time.  They may
conquer and overrun amazingly, much as that same Attila did; - whose Attila's
Camp and Battle-field thou now seest, on this very ground; ^1 who, after
sweeping bare the world, was, with difficulty, and days of tough fighting,
checked here by Roman Aetius and Fortune; and his dust-cloud made to vanish in
the East again! -

[Footnote 1: Helen Maria Williams, iii. 32.]

     1350. Strangely enough, in this shrieking Confusion of a Soldiery, which
we saw long since fallen; all suicidal collision, - at Nanci, or on the
streets of Metz, where brave Bouille stood with drawn sword; and which has
collided and ground itself to pieces worse and worse ever since, down now to
such a state; in this shrieking Confusion, and not elsewhere, lies the first
germ of returning Order for France!  Round which, we say, poor France nearly
all ground down suicidally likewise into rubbish and Chaos, will be glad to
rally; to begin growing, and newshaping her inorganic dust; very slowly,
through centuries, through Napoleons, Louis Philippes, and other the like
media and phases, - into a new, infinitely preferable France, we can hope! -

     1351. These wheelings and movements in the region of the Argonne, which
are all faithfully described by Dumouriez himself, and more interesting to us
than Hoyle's or Philidor's best Game of Chess, let us nevertheless, O Reader,
entirely omit; - and hasten to remark two things: the first a minute private,
the second a large public thing.  Our minute private thing is: the presence,
in the Prussian host, in that war-game of the Argonne, of a certain Man,
belonging to the sort called Immortal; who, in days since then, is becoming
visible more and more in that character, as the Transitory more and more
vanishes: for from of old it was remarked that when the Gods appear among men,
it is seldom in recognizable shape; thus Admetus's neat-herds give Apollo a
draught of their goat-skin whey-bottle (well if they do not give him strokes
with their ox-rungs) not dreaming that he is the Sun-god!  This man's name is
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  He is Herzog Weimar's Minister, come with the
small contingent of Weimar; to do insignificant unmilitary duty here; very
irrecognizable to nearly all!  He stands at present, with drawn bridle, on the
height near Sainte-Menehould, making an experiment on the "cannon-fever;"
having ridden thither against persuasion, into the dance and firing of the
cannon-balls with a scientific desire to understand what that same
cannon-fever may be: "The sound of them," says he, "is curious enough; as if
it were compounded of the humming of tops, the gurgling of water and the
whistle of birds.  By degrees you get a very uncommon sensation; which can
only be described by similitude.  It seems as if you were in some place
extremely hot, and at the same time were completely penetrated by the heat of
it; so that you feel as if you and this element you are in were perfectly on a
par.  The eye-sight loses nothing of its strength or distinctness; and yet it
is as if all things had got a kind of brown-red color, which makes the
situation and the object still more impressive on you." ^1

[Footnote 1: Goethe, "Campagne in Frankreich" (Werke, xxx. 73).]

     1352. This is the cannon-fever, as a World-Poet feels it. - A man
entirely irrecognizable!  In whose irrecognizable head, meanwhile there verily
is the spiritual counterpart (and call it complement) of this same huge
Death-Birth of the World: which now effectuates itself, outwardly in the
Argonne, in such cannon-thunder; inwardly, in the irrecognizable head, quite
otherwise than by thunder!  Mark that man, O Reader, as the memorablest of all
the memorable in this Argonne Campaign.  What we say of him is not dream, nor
flourish of rhetoric, but scientific historic fact; as many men, now at this
distance, see or begin to see.

     1353. But the large public thing we had to remark is this: That the 20th
of September, 1792, was a raw morning covered with mist; that from three in
the morning, Sainte-Menehould, and those Villages and homesteads we know of
old, were stirred by the rumble of artillery-wagons, by the clatter of hoofs
and many-footed tramp of men: all manner of military Patriot and Prussian,
taking up positions, on the Heights of La Lune and other Heights; shifting and
shoving, - seemingly in some dread chess-game; which may the Heavens turn to
good!  The Miller of Valmy has fled dusty under ground; his Mill were it never
so windy, will have rest to-day.  At seven in the morning the mist clears off:
see Kellermann, Dumouriez's second in command, with "eighteen pieces of
cannon," and deep-serried ranks, drawn up round that same silent Windmill, on
his knoll of strength; Brunswick, also with serried ranks and cannon, glooming
over to him from the Height of La Lune; only the brook and its little dell now
parting them.

     1354. So that the much-longed-for has come at last!  Instead of hunger
and dysentery, we shall have sharp shot; and then! - Dumouriez, with force and
firm front, looks on from a neighboring height; can help only with his wishes,
in silence.  Lo, the eighteen pieces do bluster and bark, responsive to the
bluster of La Lune; and thunder-clouds mount into the air; and echoes roar
through all dells, far into the depths of Argonne Wood (deserted now); and
limbs and lives of men dissipated, this way and that.  Can Brunswick make an
impression on them?  The dulled-bright Seigneurs stand biting their thumbs;
these Sansculottes seem not to fly like poultry!  Toward noontide a cannon
shot blows Kellermann's horse from under him; there bursts a powder-cart high
into the air, with knell heard over all: some swagging and swaying observable;
- Brunswick will try!  "Camarades," cries Kellermann, "Vive la Patrie!  Allons
vaincre pourelle (Come let us conquer for her)." "Live the Fatherland!" rings
responsive to the welkin, like rolling-fire from side to side: our ranks are
as firm as rocks; and Brunswick may recross the dell, ineffectual; regain his
old position on La Lune; not unbattered by the way.  And so, for the length of
a September day, - with bluster and bark; with bellow far-echoing!  The
cannonade lasts till sunset; and no impression made.  Till an hour after
sunset, the few remaining Clocks of the District striking Seven; at this late
time of day Brunswick tries again.  With not a whit better fortune!  He is met
by rock-ranks, by shouts of Vive la Patrie; and driven back, not unbattered.
Whereupon he ceases; retires "to the Tavern of La Lune;" and sets to raising a
redoubt lest he be attacked!

     1355. Verily so, ye dulled-bright Seigneurs, make of it what ye may. Ah,
and France does not rise round us in mass: and the Peasants do not join us but
assassinate us: neither hanging nor any persuasion will induce them! They have
lost their old distinguishing love of King and King's cloak, - I fear,
altogether; and will even fight to be rid of it: that seems now their humor.
Nor does Austria prosper, nor the siege of Thionville.  The Thionvillers,
carrying their insolence to the epigrammatic pitch, have put a Wooden Horse on
their walls, with a bundle of Hay hung from him, and this Inscription: "When I
finish my hay, you will take Thionville." ^1 To such height has the frenzy of
mankind risen.

[Footnote 1: "Histoire Parlementaire," xix. 177.]

     1356. The trenches of Thionville may shut; and what though those of Lille
open?  The Earth smiles not on us, nor the Heaven; but weeps and blears
itself, in sour rain, and worse.  Our very friends insult us; we are wounded
in the house of our friends: "His Majesty of Prussia had a great-coat, when
the rain came; and (contrary to all known laws) he put it on, though our two
French Princes, the hope of their country, had none!" To which indeed; as
Goethe admits, what answer could be made? ^1 - Cold and Hunger and Affront,
Colic and Dysentery and Death; and we here, cowering redoubted, most
unredoubtable, amid the "tattered corn-shocks and deformed stubble;" on the
splashy Height of La Lune, round the mean Tavern de la Lune! -

[Footnote 1: Goethe, xxx. 49.]

     1357. This is the Cannonade of Valmy; wherein the World-Poet experimented
on the cannon-fever; wherein the French Sansculottes did not fly like poultry.
Precious to France!  Every soldier did his duty, and Alsatian Kellermann (how
preferable to old Luckner the dismissed!) began to become greater; and Egalite
Fils (Equality Junior), a light gallant Field-Officer, distinguished himself
by intrepidity: - it is the same intrepid individual who now, as Louis
Philippe, without the Equality, struggles, under sad circumstances, to be
called King of the French for a season.

Chapter VIII. Exeunt.

     1358. But this 20th of September is otherwise a great day.  For, observe,
while Kellermann's horse was flying blown from under him at the Mill of Valmy,
our new National Deputies, that shall be a National Convention, are hovering
and gathering about the Hall of the Hundred Swiss: with intent to constitute
themselves!

     1359. On the morrow, about noontide, Camus the Archivist is busy
"verifying their powers;" several hundreds of them already here.  Whereupon
the Old Legislative comes solemnly over, to merge its old ashes phoenix-like
in the body of the new; - and so forthwith, returning all solemnly back to the
Salle de Manege, there sits a National Convention, 749 complete, or complete
enough; presided by Petion; - which proceeds directly to do business.  Read
that reported afternoon's debate, O Reader; there are few debates like it:
dull reporting Moniteur itself becomes more dramatic than a very Shakespeare.
For epigrammatic Manuel rises, speaks strange things; how the President shall
have a guard of honor, and lodge in the Tuileries: - rejected.  And Danton
rises and speaks; and Collot d'Herbois rises, and Curate Gregoire, and lame
Couthon of the Mountain rises; and in rapid Meliboean stanzas, only a few
lines each, they propose motions not a few: That the corner-stone of our new
Constitution is, Sovereignty of the People; that our Constitution shall be
accepted by the People or be null; further that the people ought to be
avenged, and have right Judges; that the Imposts must continue till new order;
that Landed and other Property be sacred forever; finally that "Royalty from
this day is abolished in France:" - Decreed all, before four o'clock strike,
with acclamation of the world! ^1 The tree was all so ripe; only shake it, and
there fall such yellow cart-loads.

[Footnote 1: "Histoire Parlementaire," xix 19.]

     1360. And so over in the Valmy Region, as soon as the news come, what
stir is this, audible, visible from our muddy Heights of La Lune? ^1 Universal
shouting of the French on their opposite hill-side; caps raised on bayonets:
and a sound as of Republique: Vive la Republique borne dubious on the winds! -
On the morrow morning, so to speak, Brunswick slings his knapsacks before day,
lights any fires he has; and marches without tap of drum.  Dumouriez finds
ghastly symptoms in that camp; "latrines full of blood!" ^2 The chivalrous
King of Prussia, - for he, as we saw, is here in person, - may long rue the
day: may look colder than ever on these dulled-bright Seigneurs, and French
Princes their Country's hope; - and, on the whole, put on his great-coat
without ceremony, happy that he has one. They retire, all retire with
convenient dispatch, through a Champagne trodden into a quagmire, the wild
weather pouring on them: Dumouriez, through his Kellermanns and Dillons,
pricking them a little in the hinder parts.  A little, not much; now pricking,
now negotiating: for Brunswick has his eyes opened; and the Majesty of Prussia
is a repentant Majesty.

[Footnote 1: Williams, iii. 71.]

[Footnote 2: 1st October, 1792; Dumouriez, iii. 73.]

     1361. Nor has Austria prospered; nor the Wooden Horse of Thionville
bitten his hay; nor Lille City surrendered itself.  The Lille trenches opened
on the 29th of the month; with balls and shells, and red-hot balls; as if not
trenches but Vesuvius and the Pit had opened.  It was frightful, say all
eye-witnesses; but it is ineffectual.  The Lillers have risen to such temper;
especially after these news from Argonne and the East.  Not a
Sans-indispensables in Lille that would surrender for a King's ransom. Red-hot
balls rain, day and night, "6,000," or so, and bombs "filled internally with
oil of turpentine which splashes up in flame;" - mainly on the dwellings of
the Sansculottes and Poor; the streets of the Rich being spared.  But the
Sansculottes get water-pails; form quenching-regulations: "The ball is in
Peter's house!" "The ball is in John's!" They divide their lodging and
substance with each other; shout Vive la Republique; and faint not in heart.
A ball thunders through the main chamber of the Hotel-de-Ville while the
Commune is there assembled: "We are in permanence," says one coldly,
proceeding with his business; and the ball remains permanent too, sticking in
the wall, probably to this day. ^1

[Footnote 1: "Bombardement de Lille" (in "Histoire Parlementaire," xx.
63-71).]

     1362. The Austrian Archduchess (Queen's Sister) will herself see red
artillery fired: in their over-haste to satisfy an Archduchess, "two mortars
explode and kill thirty persons." It is in vain; Lille, often burning, is
always quenched again; Lille will not yield.  The very boys deftly wrench the
matches out of fallen bombs: "a man clutches a rolling ball with his hat,
which takes fire; when cool, they crown it with a bonnet rouge." Memorable
also be that nimble Barber, who when the bomb burst beside him, snatched up a
sherd of it, introduced soap and lather into it, crying "Voila mon plat a
barbe (My new shaving-dish)!" and shaved "fourteen people" on the spot. Bravo,
thou nimble shaver; worthy to shave old spectral Red-cloak, and find
treasures! - On the eighth day of this desperate siege, the 6th day of
October, Austria, finding it fruitless, draws off, with no pleasurable
consciousness; rapidly, Dumouriez tending thitherward; and Lille, too, black
with ashes and smoulder, but jubilant sky-high, flings its gates open.  The
Plat a barbe became fashionable; "no Patriot of an elegant turn," says Mercier
several years afterward, "but shaves himself out of the splinter of a Lille
bomb."

     1363. Quid multa (Why many words)?  The Invaders are in flight;
Brunswick's Host, the third part of it gone to death, staggers disastrous
along the deep highways of Champagne; spreading out also into "the fields of a
tough spongy red-colored clay:" - "like Pharaoh through a Red Sea of Mud,"
says Goethe; "for here also lay broken chariots, and riders and foot seemed
sinking around." ^1 On the eleventh morning of October, the World-Poet,
struggling Northward out of Verdun, which he had entered Southward, some five
weeks ago, in quite other order, discerned the following Phenomenon and formed
part of it:

[Footnote 1: "Campagne in Frankreich," p. 103.]

     1364. "Toward three in the morning, without having had any sleep, we were
about mounting our carriage, drawn up at the door; when; an insuperable
obstacle disclosed itself: for there rolled on already, between the
pavement-stones which were crushed up into a ridge on each side, an
uninterrupted column of sick-wagons through the Town, and all was trodden as
into a morass.  While we stood waiting what could be made of it, our Landlord
and Knight of Saint-Louis pressed past us, without salutation." He had been a
Calonne's Notable in 1787, an Emigrant since; had returned to his home,
jubilant, with the Prussians, but must now forth again into the wide world,
"followed by a servant carrying a little bundle on his stick."

     1365. "The activity of our alert Lisieux shone eminent, and on this
occasion too brought us on: for he struck into a small gap of the wagon-row;
and held the advancing team back till we, with our six and our four horses,
got intercalated; after which, in my light little coachlet, I could breath
freer.  We were now under way; at a funeral pace, but still under way.  The
day broke; we found ourselves at the outlet of the Town, in a tumult and
turmoil without measure.  All sorts of vehicles, few horsemen, innumerable
foot-people, were crossing each other on the great esplanade before the Gate.
We turned to the right, with our Column, toward Estain, on a limited highway,
with ditches at each side.  Self-preservation, in so monstrous a press, knew
now no pity, no respect of aught.

     Not far before us there fell down a horse of an ammunition-wagon; they
cut the traces, and let it lie.  And now as the three others could not bring
their load along, they cut them also loose, tumbled the heavy-packed vehicle
into the ditch; and with the smallest retardation, we had to drive on right
over the horse, which was just about to rise; and I saw too clearly how its
legs, under the wheels, went crashing and quivering.

     1366. "Horse and foot endeavored to escape from the narrow laborious
highway into the meadows; but these too were rained to ruin; overflowed by
full ditches, the connection of the foot-paths everywhere interrupted.  Four
gentlemen-like, handsome, well-dressed French soldiers waded for a time beside
our carriage; wonderfully clean and neat: and had such art of picking their
steps, that their foot-gear testified no higher than the ankle to the muddy
pilgrimage these good people found themselves engaged in.

     1367. "That under such circumstances one saw, in ditches, in meadows, in
fields and crofts, dead horses enough, was natural to the case: by and by,
however, you found them also flayed, the fleshy parts even cut away; sad token
of the universal distress.

     1368. "Thus we fared on; every moment in danger, at the smallest stoppage
on our own part, of being ourselves tumbled overboard; under which
circumstances, truly, the careful dexterity of our Lisieux could not be
sufficiently praised.  The same talent showed itself at Estain; where we
arrived toward noon; and descried, over the beautiful well-built little Town,
through streets and on squares, around and beside us, one sense-confusing
tumult: the mass rolled this way and that; and, all struggling forward, each
hindered the other.  Unexpectedly our carriage drew up before a stately house
in the market-place; master and mistress of the mansion saluted us in reverent
distance." Dexterous Lisieux, though we knew it not, had said we were the King
of Prussia's Brother!

     1369. "But now, from the ground-floor windows, looking over the whole
market-place, we had the endless tumult lying, as it were, palpable.  All
sorts of walkers, soldiers in uniform, marauders, stout but sorrowing citizens
and peasants, women and children, crushed and jostled each other, amid
vehicles of all forms: ammunition-wagons, baggage-wagons; carriages, single,
double, and multiplex; such hundred-fold miscellany of teams, requisitioned or
lawfully owned, making way, hitting together, hindered each other, rolled here
to right and to left.  Horned-cattle too were struggling on; probably herds
that had been put in requisition.  Riders you saw few; but the elegant
carriages of the Emigrants, many-colored, lackered, gilt and silvered,
evidently by the best builders, caught your eye. ^1

[Footnote 1: See "Hermann und Dorothea" (also by Goethe), Buch "Kalliope."]

     1370. "The crisis of the strait, however, arose farther on a little;
where the crowded market-place had to introduce itself into a street, -
straight indeed and good, but proportionately far too narrow.  I have, in my
life, seen nothing like it: the aspect of it might perhaps be compared to that
of a swollen river which has been raging over meadows and fields, and is now
again obliged to press itself through a narrow bridge, and flow on in its
bounded channel.  Down the long street, all visible from our windows, there
swelled continually the strangest tide: a high double-seated traveling coach
towered visible over the flood of things.  We thought of the fair French women
we had seen in the morning.  It was not they, however; it was Count Haugwitz;
him you could look at, with a kind of sardonic malice, rocking onward, step by
step, there." ^1

[Footnote 1: "Campagne in Frankreich," Goethe's "Werke" (Stuttgart, 1829),
xxx. 133-137.]

     1371. In such untriumphant Procession has the Brunswick Manifesto issued!
Nay in worse, "in negotiation with these miscreants," - the first news of
which produced such a revulsion in the Emigrant nature, as put our scientific
World-Poet "in fear for the wits of several." ^1 There is no help: they must
fare on, these poor Emigrants, angry with all persons and things, and making
all persons angry in the hapless course they struck into. Landlord and
landlady testify to you, at tables-d'hote, how insupportable these Frenchmen
are: how, in spite of such humiliation, of poverty and probable beggary, there
is ever the same struggle for precedence, the same forwardness and want of
discretion.  High in honor; at the head of the table, you with your own eyes
observe not a Seigneur, but the automaton of a Seigneur fallen into dotage;
still worshiped, reverently waited on a fed.  In miscellaneous seats is a
miscellany of soldiers, commissaries, adventurers; consuming silently their
barbarian victuals.  "On all brows is to be read a hard destiny; all are
silent, for each has his own sufferings to bear, and looks forth into misery
without bounds." One hasty wanderer, coming in, and eating without
ungraciousness what is set before him, the landlord lets off almost scotfree.
"He is," whispered the landlord to me, "the first of these cursed people I
have seen condescend to taste our German black bread." ^2

[Footnote 1: "Campagne in Frankreich," Goethe's "Werke," xxx. 152]

[Footnote 2: "Campagne in Frankreich," Goethe's Werke, p. 210-212.]

     1372. And Dumouriez is in Paris; lauded and feasted; paraded in
glittering saloons, floods of beautifulest blonde-dresses and broadcloth-coats
flowing past him, endless, in admiring joy.  One night, nevertheless, in the
splendor of one such scene, he sees himself suddenly apostrophized by a
squalid unjoyful Figure, who has come in uninvited, nay despite of all
lackeys: an unjoyful Figure!  The Figure is come "in express mission from the
Jacobins," to inquire sharply, better then than later, touching certain
things: "Shaven eyebrows of Volunteer Patriots, for instance?" Also, "your
threats of shivering in pieces?" Also, "why you have not chased Brunswick
hotly enough?" Thus, with sharp croak, inquires the Figure. - "Ah, c'est vous
qu'on appelle Marat (You are he they call Marat)!" answers the General, and
turns coldly on his heel. ^1 - "Marat!" The blonde-gowns quiver like aspens;
the dress coats gather round; Actor Talma (for it is his house), Actor Talma,
and almost the very chandelier-lights are blue: till this obscene Spectrum,
swart unearthly Visual-Appearance, vanish, back into his native Night.

[Footnote 1: Dumouriez, iii. 115.-Marat's account, in the "Debats des
Jacobins" and Journal de la Republique ("Histoire Parlementaire," xix.
317-321), agrees to the turning on the heel, but strives to interpret it
differently.]

     1373. General Dumouriez, in few brief days, is gone again, toward the
Netherlands; will attack the Netherlands, winter though it be.  And General
Montesquiou, on the South-east, has driven in the Sardinian Majesty; nay,
almost without a shot fired, has taken Savoy from him, which longs to become a
piece of the Republic.  And General Custine, on the North-east, has dashed
forth on Spires and its Arsenal; and then on Electoral Mentz, not uninvited,
wherein are German Democrats and no shadow of an Elector now: so that in the
last days of October, Frau Forster, a daughter of Heyne's, somewhat
democratic, walking out of the Gate of Mentz with her Husband, finds French
Soldiers playing at bowls with cannon-balls there.  Forster trips cheerfully
over one iron bomb, with "Live the Republic!" A black-bearded National Guard
answers, "Elle vivra bien sans vous (It will probably live independently of
you)." ^1

[Footnote 1: Johann Georg Forster's "Briefwechsel" (Leipzig, 1829), i. 88.]