Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/238

220 of various shades, from light Fayettist-Feuillant down to deep-sombre Jacobin, has to watch even itself.

Directories of Departments, what we call County Magistracies, being chosen by Citizens of a too 'active' class, are found to pull one way; Municipalities, Town Magistracies, to pull the other way. In all places too are Dissident Priests; whom the Legislative will have to deal with; contumacious individuals, working on that angriest of passions; plotting, enlisting for Coblentz; or suspected of plotting: fuel of a universal unconstitutional heat. What to do with them? They may be conscientious as well as contumacious: gently they should be dealt with, and yet it must be speedily. In unilluminated La Vendée the simple are like to be seduced by them; many a simple peasant, a Cathelineau the wooldealer wayfaring meditative with his woolpacks, in these hamlets, dubiously shakes his head! Two Assembly Commissioners went thither last Autumn; considerate Gensonné, not yet called to be a senator; Gallois, an editorial man. These Two, consulting with General Dumouriez, spake and worked, softly, with judgment; they have hushed down the irritation, and produced a soft Report,—for the time.

The General himself doubts not in the least but he can keep peace there; being an able man. He passes these frosty months among the pleasant people of Niort, occupies 'tolerably handsome apartments in the Castle of Niort,' and tempers the minds of men. Why is there but one Dumouriez? Elsewhere you find, South or North, nothing but untempered obscure jarring; which breaks forth ever and anon into open clangour of riot. Southern Perpignan has its tocsin, by torchlight; with rushing and onslaught: Northern Caen, not less, by daylight; with Aristocrats ranged in arms at Places of Worship; Departmental compromise proving impossible; breaking into musketry and a Plot discovered! Add Hunger too: for bread, always dear, is getting dearer: not so much as Sugar can be had; for good reasons. Poor