For, in truth, the Insurrection is just about ripe. Thursday is the ninth of the month August: if Forfeiture be not pronounced by the Legislature that day, we must pronounce it ourselves.
Legislature? A poor waterlogged Legislature can pronounce nothing. On Wednesday the eighth, after endless oratory once again, they cannot even pronounce Accusation again Lafayette; but absolve him,--hear it, Patriotism!--by a majority of two to one. Patriotism hears it; Patriotism, hounded on by Prussian Terror, by Preternatural Suspicion, roars tumultuous round the Salle de Manege, all day; insults many leading Deputies, of the absolvent Right-side; nay chases them, collars them with loud menace:
Deputy Vaublanc, and others of the like, are glad to take refuge in Guardhouses, and escape by the back window. And so, next day, there is infinite complaint; Letter after Letter from insulted Deputy; mere complaint, debate and self-cancelling jargon: the sun of Thursday sets like the others, and no Forfeiture pronounced. Wherefore in fine, To your tents, O Israel!
The Mother-Society ceases speaking; groups cease haranguing: Patriots, with closed lips now, 'take one another's arm;' walk off, in rows, two and two, at a brisk business-pace; and vanish afar in the obscure places of the East. (Deux Amis, viii. 129-88.) Santerre is ready; or we will make him ready. Forty-seven of the Forty-eight Sections are ready; nay Filles-Saint-Thomas itself turns up the Jacobin side of it, turns down the Feuillant side of it, and is ready too. Let the unlimited Patriot look to his weapon, be it pike, be it firelock; and the Brest brethren, above all, the blackbrowed Marseillese prepare themselves for the extreme hour!
Syndic Roederer knows, and laments or not as the issue may turn, that 'five thousand ball-cartridges, within these few days, have been distributed to Federes, at the Hotel-de-Ville.' (Roederer a la Barre (Seance du 9 Aout (in Hist. Parl. xvi. 393.)
And ye likewise, gallant gentlemen, defenders of Royalty, crowd ye on your side to the Tuileries. Not to a Levee: no, to a Couchee: where much will be put to bed. Your Tickets of Entry are needful; needfuller your blunderbusses!--They come and crowd, like gallant men who also know how to die: old Maille the Camp-Marshal has come, his eyes gleaming once again, though dimmed by the rheum of almost four-score years. Courage, Brothers!
We have a thousand red Swiss; men stanch of heart, steadfast as the granite of their Alps. National Grenadiers are at least friends of Order;
Commandant Mandat breathes loyal ardour, will "answer for it on his head."
Mandat will, and his Staff; for the Staff, though there stands a doom and Decree to that effect, is happily never yet dissolved.
Commandant Mandat has corresponded with Mayor Petion; carries a written Order from him these three days, to repel force by force. A squadron on the Pont Neuf with cannon shall turn back these Marseillese coming across the River: a squadron at the Townhall shall cut Saint-Antoine in two, 'as it issues from the Arcade Saint-Jean;' drive one half back to the obscure East, drive the other half forward through 'the Wickets of the Louvre.'
Squadrons not a few, and mounted squadrons; squadrons in the Palais Royal, in the Place Vendome: all these shall charge, at the right moment; sweep this street, and then sweep that. Some new Twentieth of June we shall have; only still more ineffectual? Or probably the Insurrection will not dare to rise at all? Mandat's Squadrons, Horse-Gendarmerie and blue Guards march, clattering, tramping; Mandat's Cannoneers rumble. Under cloud of night; to the sound of his generale, which begins drumming when men should go to bed. It is the 9th night of August, 1792.
On the other hand, the Forty-eight Sections correspond by swift messengers; are choosing each their 'three Delegates with full powers.' Syndic Roederer, Mayor Petion are sent for to the Tuileries: courageous Legislators, when the drum beats danger, should repair to their Salle.
Demoiselle Theroigne has on her grenadier-bonnet, short-skirted riding-habit; two pistols garnish her small waist, and sabre hangs in baldric by her side.
Such a game is playing in this Paris Pandemonium, or City of All the Devils!--And yet the Night, as Mayor Petion walks here in the Tuileries Garden, 'is beautiful and calm;' Orion and the Pleiades glitter down quite serene. Petion has come forth, the 'heat' inside was so oppressive.
(Roederer, Chronique de Cinquante Jours: Recit de Petion. Townhall Records, &c. (in Hist. Parl. xvi. 399-466.) Indeed, his Majesty's reception of him was of the roughest; as it well might be. And now there is no outgate; Mandat's blue Squadrons turn you back at every Grate; nay the Filles-Saint-Thomas Grenadiers give themselves liberties of tongue, How a virtuous Mayor 'shall pay for it, if there be mischief,' and the like; though others again are full of civility. Surely if any man in France is in straights this night, it is Mayor Petion: bound, under pain of death, one may say, to smile dexterously with the one side of his face, and weep with the other;--death if he do it not dexterously enough! Not till four in the morning does a National Assembly, hearing of his plight, summon him over 'to give account of Paris;' of which he knows nothing: whereby however he shall get home to bed, and only his gilt coach be left.
Scarcely less delicate is Syndic Roederer's task; who must wait whether he will lament or not, till he see the issue. Janus Bifrons, or Mr. Facing-both-ways, as vernacular Bunyan has it! They walk there, in the meanwhile, these two Januses, with others of the like double conformation; and 'talk of indifferent matters.'