Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 02.djvu/173

MAY 4, 1789] Rennes people have elected Farmer Gérard, 'a man of natural sense and rectitude, without any learning.' He walks there, with solid step; unique, 'in his rustic farmer-clothes'; which he will wear always; careless of short-cloaks and costumes. The name Gérard, or 'Père Gérard, Father Gérard,' as they please to call him, will fly far; borne about in endless banter; in Royalist satires, in Republican didactic Almanacks. As for the man Gérard, being asked once, what he did, after trial of it, candidly think of this Parlementary work,—'I think,' answered he, 'that there are a good many scoundrels among us.' So walks Father Gérard; solid in his thick shoes, whithersoever bound.

And worthy Doctor Guillotin, whom we hoped to behold one other time? If not here, the Doctor should be here, and we see him with the eye of prophecy: for indeed the Parisian Deputies are all a little late. Singular Guillotin, respectable practitioner: doomed by a satiric destiny to the strangest immortal glory that ever kept obscure mortal from his resting-place, the bosom of oblivion! Guillotin can improve the ventilation of the Hall; in all cases of medical police and hygiène be a present aid: but, greater far, he can produce his 'Report on the Penal Code'; and reveal therein a cunningly devised Beheading Machine, which shall become famous and world-famous. This is the product of Guillotin's endeavours, gained not without meditation and reading; which product popular gratitude or levity christens by a feminine derivative name, as if it were his daughter: La Guillotine! 'With my machine. Messieurs, I whisk off your head (vous fais sauter la tête) in a twinkling, and you have no pain';—whereat they all laugh. Unfortunate Doctor! For two-and-twenty years he, unguillotined, shall hear nothing but guillotine, see nothing but guillotine; then dying, shall through long centuries wander, as it were, a disconsolate ghost, on