History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0138/01387.txt

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$Title{(The) French Revolution: A History
Book Second: Regicide - The Deliberative.}
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$Author{Carlyle, Thomas}
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Title:       (The) French Revolution: A History
Book:        The Guillotine.
Author:      Carlyle, Thomas

Book Second: Regicide - The Deliberative.

Chapter I. The Deliberative.

     1374. France therefore has done two things very completely: she has
hurled back her Cimmerian Invaders far over the marches; and likewise she has
shattered her own internal Social Constitution, even to the minutest fiber of
it, into wreck and dissolution.  Utterly it is all altered: from King down to
Parish Constable, all Authorities, Magistrates, Judges, persons that bore
rule, have had, on the sudden, to alter themselves, so far as needful; or
else, on the sudden, and not without violence, to be altered; a Patriot
"Executive Council of Ministers," with a Patriot Danton in it, and then a
whole Nation and National Convention, have taken care of that.  Not a Parish
Constable, in the farthest hamlet, who has said De par le Roi, and shown
loyalty, but must retire, making way for a new improved Parish Constable who
can say De par la Republique.

     1375. It is a change such as History must beg her readers to imagine,
undescribed.  An instantaneous change of the whole body-politic, the
soul-politic being all changed; such a change as few bodies, politic or other,
can experience in this world.  Say, perhaps, such as poor Nymph Semele's body
did experience, when she would needs, with woman's humor, see her Olympian
Jove as very Jove; - and so stood, poor Nymph, this moment Semele, next moment
not Semele, but Flame and a Statue of red-hot Ashes! France has looked upon
Democracy; seen it face to face. - The Cimmerian Invaders will rally, in
humbler temper, with better or worse luck: the wreck and dissolution must
reshape itself into a social Arrangement as it can and may.  But as for this
National Convention, which is to settle everything, if it do, as Deputy Paine
and France generally expects, get all finished "in a few months," we shall
call it a most deft Convention.

     1376. In truth, it is very singular to see how this mercurial French
People plunges suddenly from Vive le Roi to Vive la Republique; and goes
simmering and dancing, shaking off daily (so to speak) and trampling into the
dust, its old social garnitures, ways of thinking, rules of existing; and
cheerfully dances toward the Ruleless, Unknown, with such hope in its heart,
and nothing but Freedom, Equality, and Brotherhood in its mouth.  Is it two
centuries, or is it only two years, since all France roared simultaneously to
the welkin, bursting forth into sound and smoke at its Feast of Pikes, "Live
the Restorer of French Liberty?" Three short years ago there was still
Versailles and Oeil-de-Boeuf: now there is that watched Circuit of the Temple,
girt with dragon-eyed Municipals, where, as in its final limbo, Royalty lies
extinct.  In the year 1789, Constituent Deputy Barrere "wept," in his
Break-of-Day Newspaper, at sight of a reconciled King Louis; and now in 1792,
Convention Deputy Barrere, perfectly tearless, may be considering, whether the
reconciled King Louis shall be guillotined or not!

     1377. Old garnitures and social ventures drop off, (we say) so fast,
being indeed quite decayed, and are trodden under the National dance.  And the
new vestures, where are they; the new modes and rules?  Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity: not vestures, but the wish for vestures!  The Nation is for the
present, figuratively speaking, naked; it has no rule or vesture; but is
naked, - a Sansculottic Nation.

     1378. So far therefore, and in such manner, have our Patriot Brissots,
Guadets triumphed.  Vergniaud's Ezekiel-visions of the fall of thrones and
crowns, which he spake hypothetically and prophetically in the Spring of the
year, have suddenly come to fulfillment in the Autumn.  Our eloquent Patriots
of the Legislative, like strong Conjurors, by the word of their mouth, have
swept Royalism with its old modes and formulas to the winds; and shall now
govern a France free of formulas.  Free of formulas!  And yet man lives not
except with formulas; with customs, ways of doing and living: no text truer
than this; which will hold true from the Tea-table and Tailor's shop-board up
to the High Senate-houses, Solemn Temples; nay through all provinces of Mind
and Imagination, onwards to the outmost confines of articulate Being, - Ubi
homines sunt modi sunt.  There are modes wherever there are men.  It is the
deepest law of man's nature; whereby man is a craftsman and "tool-using
animal;" not the slave of Impulse, Chance and brute Nature, but in some
measure their lord.  Twenty-five millions of men, suddenly stript bare of
their modi, and dancing them down in that manner, are a terrible thing to
govern!

     1379. Eloquent Patriots of the Legislative, meanwhile, have precisely
this problem to solve.  Under the name and nickname of "statesmen (hommes
d'etat)," of "moderate men (moderantins)," of Brissotins, Rolandins, finally
of Girondins they shall become world-famous in solving it.  For the 25,000,000
are Gallic effervescent too; - filled both with hope of the unutterable, of
universal Fraternity and Golden Age; and with terror of the unutterable,
Cimmerian Europe all rallying on us.  It is a problem like few. Truly, if man,
as the Philosophers brag, did to any extent look before and after, what, one
may ask, in many cases would become of him?  What, in this case, would become
of these 749 men?  The Convention, seeing clearly before and after, were a
paralyzed Convention.  Seeing clearly to the length of its own nose, it is not
paralyzed.

     1380. To the Convention itself neither the work nor the method of doing
it is doubtful!  To make the Constitution; to defend the Republic till that be
made.  Speedily enough, accordingly, there has been a "Committee of the
Constitution" got together.  Sieyes, Old-Constituent, Constitution-builder by
trade; Condorcet, fit for better things; Deputy Paine, foreign Benefactor of
the Species, with that "red carbuncled face and the black beaming eyes;"
Herault de Sechelles, Ex-Parlementeer, one of the handsomest men in France;
these, with inferior guild-brethren, are girt cheerfully to the work; will
once more "make the Constitution;" let us hope, more effectually than last
time.  For that the Constitution can be made, who doubts, - unless the Gospel
of Jean Jacques came into the world in vain?  True, our last Constitution did
tumble within the year, so lamentably.  But what then: except sort the rubbish
and boulders, and build them up again better?  "Widen your basis," for one
thing, - to Universal Suffrage, if need be; exclude rotten materials, Royalism
and such-like, for another thing.  And in brief, build, O unspeakable Sieyes
and Company, unwearied!  Frequent perilous down-rushing of scaffolding and
rubble-work, be that an irritation, no discouragement.  Start ye always again,
clearing aside the wreck; if with broken limbs, yet with whole hearts; and
build, we say, in the name of Heaven, - till either the work do stand; or else
mankind abandon it, and the Constitution-builders be paid off, with laughter
and tears?  One good time, in the course of Eternity, it was appointed that
this of Social Contract too should try itself out.  And so the Committee of
Constitution shall toil: with hope and faith; - with no disturbance from any
reader of these pages.

     1381. To make the Constitution, then, and return home joyfully in a few
months; this is the prophecy our National Convention gives of itself; by this
scientific programme shall its operations and events go on.  But from the best
scientific programme, in such a case, to the actual fulfillment, what a
difference!  Every reunion of men, is it not, as we often say, a reunion of
incalculable Influences; every unit of it a microcosm of Influences: - of
which how shall Science calculate or prophesy?  Science, which cannot, with
all its calculuses, differential, integral and of variations, calculate the
Problem of Three gravitating Bodies, ought to hold her peace here, and say
only: In this National Convention there are 749 very singular Bodies, that
gravitate and do much else; - who, probably in an amazing manner, will work
the appointment of Heaven.

     1382. Of National Assemblages, Parliaments, Congresses, which have long
sat, which are of saturine temperament; above all, which are not "dreadfully
in earnest;" something may be computed or conjectured: yet even these are a
kind of Mystery in progress, - whereby accordingly we see the Journalist
Reporter find livelihood: even these jolt madly out of the ruts, from time to
time.  How much more a poor National Convention, of French vehemence; urged on
at such velocity; without routine, without rut, track or landmark, and
dreadfully in earnest every man of them!  It is a Parliament literally such as
there was never elsewhere in the world.  Themselves are new, unarranged; they
are the Heart and presiding center of a France fallen wholly into maddest
disarrangement.  From all cities, hamlets, from the utmost ends of this France
with its 25,000,000 vehement souls, thick-streaming influences stormin on that
same Heart, in the Salle de Manege, and storm-out again: such fiery
venous-arterial circulation is the function of that Heart. Seven-hundred and
Forty-nine human individuals, we say, never sat together on our Earth under
more original circumstances.  Common individuals most of them, or not far from
common: yet in virtue of the position they occupied, so notable.  How, in this
wild piping of the whirlwind of human passions, with death, victory, terror,
valor, and all height and all depth pealing and piping, these men, left to
their own guidance, will speak and act?

     1383. Readers know well that this French National Convention (quite
contrary to its own Programme) became the astonishment and horror of mankind;
a kind of Apocalyptic Convention, or black Dream become real; concerning which
History seldom speaks except in the way of interjection: how it covered France
with woe, delusion and delirium; and from its bosom there went forth Death on
the pale Horse.  To hate this poor National Convention is easy; to praise and
love it has not been found impossible.  It is, as we say, a Parliament in the
most original circumstances.  To us, in these pages, be it as a fuliginous
fiery mystery, where Upper has met Nether, and in such alternate glare and
blackness of darkness poor bedazzled mortals know not which is Upper, which is
Nether; but rage and plunge distractedly, as mortals in that case will do.  A
Convention which has to consume itself, suicidally; and become dead ashes -
with its World!  Behooves us, not to enter exploratively its dim embroiled
deeps; yet to stand with unwavering eyes, looking how it welters; what notable
phases and occurrences it will successively throw up.

     1384. One general superficial circumstance we remark with praise: the
force of Politeness.  To such depth has the sense of civilization penetrated
man's life; no Drouet, no Legendre, in the maddest tug of war, can altogether
shake it off.  Debates of Senates dreadfully in earnest are seldom given
frankly to the world; else perhaps they would surprise it.  Did not the Grand
Monarque himself once chase his Louvois with a pair of brandished tongs?  But
reading long volumes of these Convention Debates, all in a foam with furious
earnestness, earnest many times to the extent of life and death, one is struck
rather with the degree of continence they manifest in speech; and how in such
will ebullition, there is still a kind of polite rule struggling for mastery,
and the forms of social life never altogether disappear.  These men, though
the menace with clenched right-hands, do not clutch one another by the collar;
they draw no daggers, except for oratorical purposes, and this not often:
profane swearing is almost unknown, though the Reports are frank enough; we
find only one or two oaths, oath by Marat, reported in all.

     1385. For the rest, that there is "effervescence" who doubts?
Effervescence enough; Decrees passed by acclamation to-day, repealed by
vociferation tomorrow; temper fitful, most rotatory-changeful, always
headlong!  The "voice of the orator is covered with rumors;" a hundred
"honorable Members rush with menaces toward the Left side of the Hall;"
President has "broken three bells in succession." - claps on his hat, as
signal that the country is near ruined.  A fiercely effervescent Old-Gallic
Assemblage! - Ah, how the loud sick sounds of Debate, and of Life, which is a
debate, sink silent, one after another: so loud now, and in a little while so
low!  Brennus, and those antique Gael Captains, in their way to Rome, to
Galatia and such places, whither they were in the habit of marching in the
most fiery manner, had Debates as effervescent, doubt it not; though no
Moniteur has reported them.  They scolded in Celtic Welsh, those Brennuses;
neither were they Sansculotte; nay rather breeches (braccae, say of felt or
rough-leather) were the only thing they had; being, as Livy testifies, naked
down to the haunches; - and, see, it is the same sort of work and of men
still, now when they have got coats, and speak nasally a kind of broken Latin!
But, on the whole, does not Time envelop this present National Convention; as
it did those Brennuses, and ancient august Senates in felt breeches?  Time
surely: and also Eternity.  Dim dusk of Time, - or noon which will be dusk;
and then there is night, and silence; and Time with all its sick noises is
swallowed in the still sea.  Pity thy brother, O son of Adam! The angriest
frothy jargon that he utters, is it not properly the whimpering of an infant
which cannot speak what ails it, but is in distress clearly, in the inwards of
it; and so must squall and whimper continually, till its Mother take it, and
it get - to sleep!

     1386. This Convention is not four days old, and the melodious Meliboean
stanzas that shook down Royalty are still fresh in our ear, when there bursts
out a new diapason, - unhappily, of Discord, this time.  For speech has been
made of a thing difficult to speak of well: the September Massacres.  How deal
with these September Massacres; with the Paris Commune that presided over
them?  A Paris Commune hateful-terrible; before which the poor effete
Legislative had to quail, and sit quiet.  And now if a young omnipotent
Convention will not so quail and sit, what steps shall it take?  Have a
Departmental Guard in its pay, answer the Girondins and Friends of Order!  A
Guard of National Volunteers, missioned from all the Eighty-three or
Eighty-five Departments, for that express end; these will keep Septemberers,
tumultuous Communes in a due state of submissiveness, the Convention in a due
state of sovereignty.  So have the Friends of Order answered, sitting in
Committee, and reporting; and even a Decree has been passed of the required
tenor.  Nay certain Departments, as the Var or Marseilles, in mere expectation
and assurance of a Decree, have their contingent of Volunteers already on
march; brave Marseilles, foremost on the 10th of August, will not be hindmost
here: "Fathers gave their sons a musket and twenty-five louis," says
Barbaroux," "and bade them march."

     1387. Can anything be properer?  A Republic that will found itself on
justice must needs investigate September Massacres; a Convention calling
itself National, ought it not to be guarded by a National force? - Alas,
Reader, it seems so to the eye: and yet there is much to be said and argued.
Thou beholdest here the small beginning of a Controversy, which mere logic
will not settle.  Two small well-springs, September, Departmental Guard, or
rather at bottom they are but one and the same small well-spring; which will
swell and widen into waters of bitterness; all manner of subsidiary streams
and brooks of bitterness flowing in, from this side and that; till it become a
wide river of bitterness, of rage and separation, - which can subside only
into the Catacombs.  This Departmental Guard, decreed by overwhelming
majorities, and then repealed for peace's sake, and not to insult Paris, is
again decreed more than once; nay it is partially executed, and the very men
that are to be of it are seen visibly parading the Paris streets, - shouting
once, being overtaken with liquor: "A bas Marat (Down with Marat)!" ^1
Nevertheless, decreed never so often, it is repealed just as often; and
continues, for some seven months an angry noisy Hypothesis only: a fair
Possibility struggling to become a Reality, but which shall never be one;
which, after endless struggling, shall, in February next, sink into sad rest,
- dragging much along with it.  So singular are the ways of men and honorable
Members.

[Footnote 1: "Histoire Parlementaire," xx. 184.]

     1388. But on this fourth day of the Convention's existence, as we said,
which is the 25th of September, 1792, there comes Committee Report on that
Decree of the Departmental Guard, and speech of repealing it; there come
denunciations of Anarchy, of a Dictatorship, - which let the incorruptible
Robespierre consider: there comes denunciations of a certain Journal de la
Republique, once called Ami de Peuple; and so thereupon there comes, visibly
stepping up, visibly standing aloft on the Tribune, ready to speak, - the
Bodily Spectrum of People's Friend Marat!  Shriek, ye 749; it is verily Marat,
he and not another.  Marat is no phantasm of the brain, or mere lying impress
of Printer's Types; but a thing material, of joint and sinew, and a certain
small stature; ye behold him there, in his blackness, in his dingy squalor, a
living fraction of Chaos and Old-Night; visibly incarnate, desirous to speak.
"It appears," says Marat to the shrieking Assembly, "that a great many persons
here are enemies of mine." - "All! all!" shriek hundreds of voices: enough to
drown any People's-Friend.  But Marat will not drown; he speaks and croaks
explanation; croaks with such reasonableness, air of sincerity, that repentant
pity smothers anger, and the shrieks subside, or even become applauses.  For
this Convention is unfortunately the crankest of machines: it shall be
pointing eastward with stiff violence this moment; and then do but touch some
spring dexterously, the whole machine, clattering and jerking
seven-hundred-fold, will whirl with huge crash, and, next moment, is pointing
westward!  Thus Marat, absolved and applauded, victorious in this turn of
fence, is, as the Debate goes on, prickt at again by some Dexterous Girondin;
and then the shrieks rise anew, and Decree of Accusation is on the point of
passing; till the dingy People's-Friend bobs aloft once more; croaks once more
persuasive stillness, and the Decree of Accusation sinks. Whereupon he draws
forth - a Pistol; and setting it to his Head, the seat of such thought and
prophecy, says: "If they had passed their Accusation Decree, he, the
People's-Friend, would have blown his brains out." A People's-Friend has that
faculty in him.  For the rest, as to this of the 260,000 Aristocrat Heads,
Marat candidly says, "Cest la mon avis (Such is my opinion)." Also is it not
indisputable: "No power on Earth can prevent me from seeing into traitors, and
unmasking them," - by my superior originality of mind? ^1 An honorable member
like this Friend of the People few terrestrial Parliaments have had.

[Footnote 1: Moniteur newspaper, Nos. 271,280,294.  Annee premiere; Moore s,
"Journal," ii. 21, 157, etc., (which, however, may perhaps, as in similar
cases, be only a copy of the newspaper).]

     1389. We observe, however, that this first onslaught by the Friends of
Order, as sharp and prompt as it was, has failed.  For neither can
Robespierre, summoned out by talk of Dictatorship, and greeted with the like
rumor on showing himself, be thrown into Prison, into Accusation; not though
Barbaroux openly bear testimony against him, and sign it on paper.  With such
sanctified meekness does the Incorruptible lift his sea-green cheek to the
smiter; lift his thin voice, and with jesuitic dexterity plead, and prosper;
asking at last, in a prosperous manner: "But what witnesses has the Citoyen
Barbaroux to support his testimony?" "Moi!" cries hot Rebecqui, standing up,
striking his breast with both hands, and answering "Me!" ^1 Nevertheless the
Sea-green pleads again, and makes it good, the long hurly-burly, "personal
merely," while so much public matter lies fallow, has ended in the order of
the day.  O Friends of the Gironde, why will you occupy our august sessions
with mere paltry Personalities, while the grand Nationality lies in such a
state? - The Gironde has touched, this day, on the foul black-spot of its fair
Convention Domain; has trodden on it, and yet not trodden it down. Alas, it is
a well-spring, as we said, this black-spot; and will not tread down!

[Footnote 1: Moniteur, ut supra: Seance du 25 Septembre.]

Chapter II. The Executive.

     1390. May we not conjecture therefore that round this grand enterprise of
Making the Constitution, there will, as heretofore, very strange embroilments
gather, and questions and interests complicate themselves; so that after a few
or even several months, the Convention will not have settled everything?
Alas, a whole tide of questions comes rolling, boiling; growing ever wider,
without end!  Among which, apart from this question of September and Anarchy,
let us notice three, which emerge oftener than the others, and promise to
become Leading Questions: Of the Armies; of the Subsistences; thirdly, of the
Dethroned King.

     1391. As to the Armies, Public Defense must evidently be put on a proper
footing; for Europe seems coalescing itself again; one is apprehensive even
England will join it.  Happily Dumouriez prospers in the North; - nay, what if
he should prove too prosperous, and become Liberticide, Murderer of Freedom! -
Dumouriez prospers, through this winter season; yet not without lamentable
complaints.  Sleek Pache, the Swiss School-master, he that sat frugal in his
Alley, the wonder of neighbors, has got barely - whither thinks the Reader?
To be Minister of War!  Madame Roland, struck with his sleek ways recommended
him to her husband as Clerk; the sleek Clerk had no need of salary, being of
true Patriotic temper; he would come with a bit of bread in his pocket, to
save dinner and time; and munching incidentally, do three men's work in a day;
punctual, silent, frugal, - the sleek Tartuffe that he was.  Wherefore Roland,
in the late Overturn, recommended him to be War-Minister.  And now, it would
seem, he is secretly undermining Roland; playing into the hands of your hotter
Jacobins and September Commune; and cannot, like strict Roland, be the Veto
des Coquins! ^1

[Footnote 1: Madame Roland, "Memoires" ii.237, etc.]

     1392. How the sleek Pache might mine and undermine, one knows not well;
this however one does know: that his War-Office has become a den of thieves
and confusion, such as all men shudder to behold.  That the Citizen
Hassenfratz, as Head-Clerk, sits there in bonnet rouge, in rapine, in
violence, and some Mathematical calculation; a most insolent, red-nightcapped
man.  That Pache munches his pocket-loaf, amid head-clerks and sub-clerks, and
has spent all the War-Estimates.  That Furnishers scour in gigs, over all
districts of France, and drive bargains.  And lastly that the Army gets next
to no furniture: no shoes, though it is winter; no clothes; some have not even
arms; "In the Army of the South," complains an honorable Member, "there are
30,000 pairs of breeches wanting," - a most scandalous want.

     1393. Roland's strict soul is sick to see the course things take: but
what can he do?  Keep his own Department strict; rebuke, and repress whosoever
possible; at lowest, complain.  He can complain in Letter after Letter, to a
National Convention, to France, to Posterity, the Universe; grow ever more
querulous-indignant; - till at last, may he not grow wearisome? For is not
this continual text of his, at bottom, a rather barren one: How astonishing
that in a time of Revolt and abrogation of all Law but Cannon Law, there
should be such Unlawfulness?  Intrepid Veto-of-Scoundrels, narrow-faithful,
respectable, methodic man, work thou in that manner, since happily it is thy
manner, and wear thyself away; though ineffectual, not profitless in it - then
nor now! - The brave Dame Roland, bravest of all French women, begins to have
misgivings: The figure of Danton has too much of the "Sardanapalus character,"
at a Republican Rolandin Dinner-table: Clootz, Speaker of Mankind, proses sad
stuff about a Universal Republic, or union of all Peoples and Kindreds in one
and the same Fraternal Bond; of which Bond, how it is to be tied, one
unhappily sees not.

     1394. It is also an indisputable, unaccountable or accountable fact, that
Grains are becoming scarcer and scarcer.  Riots for grain, tumultuous
Assemblages demanding to have the price of grain fixed, abound far and near.
The Mayor of Paris and other poor Mayors are like to have their difficulties.
Petion was re-elected Mayor of Paris; but has declined; being now a Convention
Legislator.  Wise surely to decline: for, besides this of Grains and all the
rest, there is in these times an Improvised Insurrectionary Commune passing
into an Elected one; getting their accounts settled, - not without irritancy!
Petion has declined: nevertheless many do covet and canvass.  After months of
scrutinizing, balloting, arguing and jargoning, one Doctor Chambon gets the
post of honor: who will not long keep it; but be, as we shall see, literally
crushed out of it. ^1

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

     1395. Think also if the private Sansculotte has not his difficulties, in
a time of dearth!  Bread, according to the People's-Friend, may be some "six
sous per pound, a day's wages some fifteen;" and grim winter here.  How the
Poor Man continues living, and so seldom starves; by miracle!  Happily, in
these days, he can enlist, and have himself shot by the Austrians, in an
unusually satisfactory manner: for the Rights of Man. - But Commandant
Santerre, in this so straitened condition of the flourmarket, and state of
Equality and Liberty, proposes, through the Newspapers, two remedies, or at
least palliatives: First, that all classes of men should live two days of the
week on potatoes; then, second, that every man should hang his dog.  Hereby,
as the Commandant thinks, the saving, which indeed he computes to so many
sacks, would be very considerable.  Cheerfuler form of inventive-stupidity
than Commandant Santerre's dwells in no human soul.  Inventive-stupidity,
imbedded in health, courage and good-nature: much to be commended.  "My whole
strength," he tells the Convention once, "is day and night, at the service of
my fellow-citizens: if they find me worthless, they will dismiss me; I will
return and brew beer. ^1

[Footnote 1: Moniteur (in "Histoire Parlementaire," xx.412).]

     1396. Or figure what correspondences a poor Roland, Minister of the
Interior, must have, on this of Grains alone!  Free-trade in Grain,
impossibility to fix the Prices of Grain; on the other hand, clamor and
necessity to fix them: Political Economy lecturing from the Home Office, with
demonstration clear as Scripture; - ineffectual for the empty National
Stomach.  The Mayor of Chartres, like to be eaten himself, cries to the
Convention; the Convention sends honorable Members in Deputation; who endeavor
to feed the multitude by miraculous spiritual methods; but cannot. The
multitude, in spite of all Eloquence, come bellowing round: will have the
Grain-Prices fixed, and at moderate elevation; or else - the honorable
Deputies hanged on the spot!  The honorable Deputies reporting this business
admit that on the edge of horrid death, they did fix, or effect to fix the
Price of Grain: for which, be it also noted, the Convention, a Convention that
will not be trifled with, sees good to reprimand them. ^1

[Footnote 1: "Histoire Parlementaire," xx.431-440.]

     1397. But as to the origin of these Grain-Riots, is it not most probably
your secret Royalists again?  Glimpses of Priests were discernible in this of
Chartres, - to the eye of Patriotism.  Or indeed may not "the root of it all
lie in the Temple Prison, in the heart of a perjured King" well as we guard
him? ^1 Unhappy perjured King! - And so there shall be.  Bakers' Queues by and
by, more sharp-tempered than ever: on every Baker's door-rabbet an iron ring,
and coil of rope; whereon, with firm grip, on this side and that, we form our
Queue: but mischievous deceitful persons cut the rope, and our Queue becomes a
ravelment; wherefore the coil must be made of iron chain. ^2 Also there shall
be Prices of Grain well fixed; but then no grain purchasable by them: bread
not to be had except by Ticket from the Mayor, few ounces per mouth daily;
after long swaying, with firm grip, on the chain of the Queue. And Hunger
shall stalk direful; and Wrath and Suspicion, whetted to the Preternatural
pitch, shall stalk; as those other preternatural "shapes of Gods in their
wrathfulness" were discerned stalking, "in glare and gloom of that fire
ocean," when Troy Town fell! -

[Footnote 1: "Histoire Parlementaire," xx.409.]

[Footnote 2: Mercier, "Nouveau Paris."]