Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/262

244 bottomless; or else vanish, in the frightfulest way, to Limbo! Thus some, with upturned nose, will altogether sniff and disdain Sansculottism; others will lean heartily on it; nay others again will lean what we call heartlessly on it: three sorts; each sort with a destiny corresponding.

In such point of view, however, have we not for the present a Volunteer Ally, stronger than all the rest; namely, Hunger? Hunger; and what rushing of Panic Terror this and the sum-total of our other miseries may bring! For Sansculottism grows by what all other things die of. Stupid Peter Baille almost made an epigram, though unconsciously, and with the Patriot world laughing not at it but at him, when he wrote: 'Tout va bien ici, le pain manque, All goes well here, food is not to be had.'

Neither, if you knew it, is Patriotism without her Constitution that can march; her not impotent Parliament; or call it, Ecumenic Council, and General-Assembly of the Jean-Jacques Churches: the, namely! Mother Society with her three hundred full-grown Daughters; with what we can call little Grand-daughters trying to walk, in every village of France, numerable, as Burke thinks, by the hundred thousand. This is the true Constitution; made not by Twelve hundred august Senators, but by Nature herself; and has grown, unconsciously, out of the wants and the efforts of these Twenty-five Millions of men. They are 'Lords of the Articles,' our Jacobins; they originate debates for the Legislative; discuss Peace and War; settle beforehand what the Legislative is to do. Greatly to the scandal of philosophical men, and of most Historians;—who do in that judge naturally, and yet not wisely. A Governing power must exist: your other powers here are simulacra; this power is it.

Great is the Mother Society; she has had the honour to be denounced by Austrian Kaunitz; and is all the dearer to Patriotism. By fortune and valour she has extinguished Feuillantism itself, at least the Feuillant Club. This latter,