Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/288

 a whit; but carries its head high, strong in the letter of the Law. Feuillants all of these men; a Feuillant Directory; founding on high character, and suchlike; with Duke de la Rochefoucault for President,—a thing which may prove dangerous for him! Dim now is the once bright Anglomania of these admired Noblemen. Duke de Liancourt offers, out of Normandy where he is Lord-Lieutenant, not only to receive his Majesty, thinking of flight thither, but to lend him money to enormous amounts. Sire, it is not a Revolt, it is a Revolution; and truly no rose-water one! Worthier Noblemen were not in France nor in Europe than those two: but the Time is crooked, quick-shifting, perverse; what straightest course will lead to any goal, in it?

Another phasis which we note, in these early July days, is that of certain thin streaks of Federate National Volunteers wending from various points towards Paris, to hold a new Federation-Festival, or Feast of Pikes, on the Fourteenth there. So has the National Assembly wished it, so has the Nation willed it. In this way, perhaps, may we still have our Patriot Camp in spite of Veto. For cannot these Fédérés, having celebrated their Feast of Pikes, march on to Soissons; and, there being drilled and regimented, rush to the Frontiers, or whither we like? Thus were the one Veto cunningly eluded!

As indeed the other Veto, about Priests, is also like to be eluded; and without much cunning. For Provincial Assemblies, in Calvados as one instance, are proceeding, on their own strength, to judge and banish Antinational Priests. Or still worse, without Provincial Assembly, a desperate People, as at Bordeaux, can 'hang two of them on the Lanterne,' on the way towards judgment. Pity for the spoken Veto, when it cannot become an acted one!

It is true, some ghost of a War-minister, or Home-minister, for the time being, ghost whom we do not name, does write