It is true, some ghost of a War-minister, or Home-minister, for the time being, ghost whom we do not name, does write to Municipalities and King's Commanders, that they shall, by all conceivable methods, obstruct this Federation, and even turn back the Federes by force of arms: a message which scatters mere doubt, paralysis and confusion; irritates the poor Legislature; reduces the Federes as we see, to thin streaks. But being questioned, this ghost and the other ghosts, What it is then that they propose to do for saving the country?--they answer, That they cannot tell; that indeed they for their part have, this morning, resigned in a body; and do now merely respectfully take leave of the helm altogether. With which words they rapidly walk out of the Hall, sortent brusquement de la salle, the 'Galleries cheering loudly,' the poor Legislature sitting 'for a good while in silence!' (Moniteur, Seance du Juillet 1792.) Thus do Cabinet-ministers themselves, in extreme cases, strike work; one of the strangest omens. Other complete Cabinet-ministry there will not be; only fragments, and these changeful, which never get completed; spectral Apparitions that cannot so much as appear! King Louis writes that he now views this Federation Feast with approval; and will himself have the pleasure to take part in the same.
And so these thin streaks of Federes wend Parisward through a paralytic France. Thin grim streaks; not thick joyful ranks, as of old to the first Feast of Pikes! No: these poor Federates march now towards Austria and Austrian Committee, towards jeopardy and forlorn hope; men of hard fortune and temper, not rich in the world's goods. Municipalities, paralyzed by War-ministers are shy of affording cash: it may be, your poor Federates cannot arm themselves, cannot march, till the Daughter-Society of the place open her pocket, and subscribe. There will not have arrived, at the set day, Three thousand of them in all. And yet, thin and feeble as these streaks of Federates seem, they are the only thing one discerns moving with any clearness of aim, in this strange scene. Angry buz and simmer; uneasy tossing and moaning of a huge France, all enchanted, spell-bound by unmarching Constitution, into frightful conscious and unconscious Magnetic-sleep; which frightful Magnetic-sleep must now issue soon in one of two things: Death or Madness! The Federes carry mostly in their pocket some earnest cry and Petition, to have the 'National Executive put in action;' or as a step towards that, to have the King's Decheance, King's Forfeiture, or at least his Suspension, pronounced. They shall be welcome to the Legislative, to the Mother of Patriotism; and Paris will provide for their lodging.
Decheance, indeed: and, what next? A France spell-free, a Revolution saved; and any thing, and all things next! so answer grimly Danton and the unlimited Patriots, down deep in their subterranean region of Plot, whither they have now dived. Decheance, answers Brissot with the limited: And if next the little Prince Royal were crowned, and some Regency of Girondins and recalled Patriot Ministry set over him? Alas, poor Brissot; looking, as indeed poor man does always, on the nearest morrow as his peaceable promised land; deciding what must reach to the world's end, yet with an insight that reaches not beyond his own nose! Wiser are the unlimited subterranean Patriots, who with light for the hour itself, leave the rest to the gods.
Or were it not, as we now stand, the probablest issue of all, that Brunswick, in Coblentz, just gathering his huge limbs towards him to rise, might arrive first; and stop both Decheance, and theorizing on it?
Brunswick is on the eve of marching; with Eighty Thousand, they say; fell Prussians, Hessians, feller Emigrants: a General of the Great Frederick, with such an Army. And our Armies? And our Generals? As for Lafayette, on whose late visit a Committee is sitting and all France is jarring and censuring, he seems readier to fight us than fight Brunswick. Luckner and Lafayette pretend to be interchanging corps, and are ****** movements; which Patriotism cannot understand. This only is very clear, that their corps go marching and shuttling, in the interior of the country; much nearer Paris than formerly! Luckner has ordered Dumouriez down to him, down from Maulde, and the Fortified Camp there. Which order the many-counselled Dumouriez, with the Austrians hanging close on him, he busy meanwhile training a few thousands to stand fire and be soldiers, declares that, come of it what will, he cannot obey. (Dumouriez, ii. 1, 5.) Will a poor Legislative, therefore, sanction Dumouriez; who applies to it, 'not knowing whether there is any War-ministry?' Or sanction Luckner and these Lafayette movements?
The poor Legislative knows not what to do. It decrees, however, that the Staff of the Paris Guard, and indeed all such Staffs, for they are Feuillants mostly, shall be broken and replaced. It decrees earnestly in what manner one can declare that the Country is in Danger. And finally, on the 11th of July, the morrow of that day when the Ministry struck work, it decrees that the Country be, with all despatch, declared in Danger.
Whereupon let the King sanction; let the Municipality take measures: if such Declaration will do service, it need not fail.
In Danger, truly, if ever Country was! Arise, O Country; or be trodden down to ignominious ruin! Nay, are not the chances a hundred to one that no rising of the Country will save it; Brunswick, the Emigrants, and Feudal Europe drawing nigh?