Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/279

JUNE 20, 1792] Meanwhile the Twentieth of June is nigh, anniversary of that world-famous Oath of the Tennis-Court: on which day, it is said, certain citizens have in view to plant a Mai or Tree of Liberty in the Tuileries Terrace of the Feuillants; perhaps also to petition the Legislative and Hereditary Representative about these Vetos;—with such demonstration, jingle and evolution, as may seem profitable and practicable. Sections have gone singly, and jingled and evolved: but if they all went, or great part of them, and there, planting their Mai in these alarming circumstances, sounded the tocsin in their hearts?

Among King's Friends there can be but one opinion as to such a step: among Nation's Friends there may be two. On the one hand, might it not by possibility scare away these unblessed Vetos? Private Patriots and even Legislative Deputies may have each his own opinion, or own no-opinion: but the hardest task falls evidently on Mayor Pétion and the Municipals, at once Patriots and Guardians of the public Tranquillity. Hushing the matter down with the one hand; tickling it up with the other! Mayor Pétion and Municipality may lean this way; Department-Directory with Procureur-Syndic Rœderer, having a Feuillant tendency, may lean that. On the whole, each man must act according to his one opinion or to his two opinions, and all manner of influences, official representations cross one another in the foolishest way. Perhaps after all, the Project, desirable and yet not desirable, will dissipate itself, being run athwart by so many complexities; and come to nothing?

Not so; on the Twentieth morning of June, a large Tree of Liberty, Lombardy Poplar by kind, lies visibly tied on its car, in the Suburb Saint-Antoine. Suburb Saint-Marceau too, in the uttermost Southeast, and all that remote Oriental region, Pikemen and Pikewomen, National Guards, and the unarmed curious are gathering,—with the peaceablest intentions in the world. A tricolor Municipal arrives; speaks. Tush, it is all peaceable, we tell thee, in the way of Law;