Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 02.djvu/188

158 Think of Tyranny and Scarcity; Fervid-eloquence, Rumour, Pamphleteering; Société Publicole, Breton Club, Enraged Club;—and whether every tap-room, coffee-room, social reunion, accidental street-group, over wide France, was not an Enraged Club!

To all which the Commons Deputies can only listen with a sublime inertia of sorrow; reduced to busy themselves 'with their internal police.' Surer position no Deputies ever occupied; if they keep it with skill. Let not the temperature rise too high; break not the Eros-egg till it be hatched, till it break itself! An eager public crowds all Galleries and vacancies; 'cannot be restrained from applauding.' The two Privileged Orders, the Noblesse all verified and constituted, may look on with what face they will; not without a secret tremor of heart. The Clergy, always acting the part of conciliators, make a clutch at the Galleries, and the popularity there; and miss it. Deputation of them arrives, with dolorous message about the 'dearth of grains,' and the necessity there is of casting aside vain formalities, and deliberating on this. An insidious proposal; which, however, the Commons (moved thereto by sea-green Robespierre) dexterously accept as a sort of hint, or even pledge, that the Clergy will forthwith come over to them, constitute the States-General, and so cheapen grains! —Finally, on the 27th day of May, Mirabeau, judging the time now nearly come, proposes that 'the inertia cease'; that, leaving the Noblesse to their own stiff ways, the Clergy be summoned, 'in the name of the God of Peace,' to join the Commons, and begin. To which summons if they turn a deaf ear,—we shall see! Are not one Hundred and Forty-nine of them ready to desert?

O Triumvirate of Princes, new Garde-des-Sceaux Barentin, thou Home-Secretary Breteuil, Duchess Polignac, and Queen eager to listen,—what is now to be done? This Third Estate will get in motion, with the force of all France in it; Clergy-machinery with Noblesse-machinery, which were to serve