The French Revolution A History by Thomas Carlyle

Author:Thomas Carlyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2018-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter VIII.

The Jacobins.

Nevertheless let not Patriotism despair. Have we not, in Paris at least, a virtuous Pétion, a wholly Patriotic Municipality? Virtuous Pétion, ever since November, is Mayor of Paris: in our Municipality, the Public, for the Public is now admitted too, may behold an energetic Danton; further, an epigrammatic slow-sure Manuel; a resolute unrepentant Billaud-Varennes, of Jesuit breeding; Tallien able-editor; and nothing but Patriots, better or worse. So ran the November Elections: to the joy of most citizens; nay the very Court supported Pétion rather than Lafayette. And so Bailly and his Feuillants, long waning like the Moon,* had to withdraw then, making some sorrowful obeisance,1 into extinction;—or indeed into worse, into lurid half-light, grimmed by the shadow of that Red Flag of theirs, and bitter memory of the Champ-de-Mars. How swift is the progress of things and men! Not now does Lafayette, as on that Federation-day, when his noon was, ‘press his sword firmly on the Fatherland’s Altar,’ and swear in sight of France: ah no; he, waning and setting ever since that hour, hangs now, disastrous, on the edge of the horizon; commanding one of those Three moulting Crane-flights of Armies, in a most suspected, unfruitful, uncomfortable manner.

But, at worst, cannot Patriotism, so many thousands strong in this Metropolis of the Universe, help itself? Has it not right-hands, pikes? Hammering of Pikes, which was not to be prohibited by Mayor Bailly, has been sanctioned by Mayor Pétion; sanctioned by Legislative Assembly. How not, when the King’s so-called Constitutional Guard ‘was making cartridges in secret’? Changes are necessary for the National Guard itself; this whole Feuillant-Aristocrat Staff of the Guard must be disbanded. Likewise, citizens without uniform may surely rank in the Guard, the pike beside the musket, in such a time: the ‘active’ citizen and the passive who can fight for us, are they not both welcome?—O my Patriot friends, indubitably Yes! Nay the truth is, Patriotism throughout, were it never so white-frilled, logical, respectable, must either lean itself heartily on Sansculottism, the black, bottomless; or else vanish, in the frightfullest way, to Limbo! Thus some, with upturned nose, will altogether sniff and disdain Sansculottism; others will lean heartily on it; nay others again will lean what we call heartlessly on it: three sorts; each sort with a destiny corresponding.

In such point of view, however, have we not for the present a Volunteer Ally, stronger than all the rest: namely, Hunger? Hunger; and what rushing of Panic Terror this and the sum-total of our other miseries may bring! For Sansculottism grows by what all other things die of. Stupid Peter Baille almost made an epigram, though unconsciously, and with the Patriot world laughing not at it but at him, when he wrote: ‘Tout va bien ici, le pain manque, All goes well here, food is not to be had.’2

Neither, if you knew it, is Patriotism without her Constitution that can march; her not impotent Parliament; or call it, Ecumenic Council, and General-Assembly of the Jean-Jacques Churches: the

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