Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/295

 pistol-bullets. Madame de Staël, from that Royal Tent, stretches out the neck in a kind of agony, lest the waving multitude which received him may not render him back alive. No cry of Vive le Roi salutes the ear; cries only of Vive Pétion; Pétion ou la Mort. The National Solemnity is as it were huddled by; each cowering off almost before the evolutions are gone through. The very Mai with its Scutcheons and Lawyers'-bags is forgotten, stands unburnt; till 'certain Patriot Deputies,' called by the people, set a torch to it, by way of voluntary after-piece. Sadder Feast of Pikes no man ever saw.

Mayor Pétion, named on hats, is at his zenith in this Federation: Lafayette again is close upon his nadir. Why does the storm-bell of Saint-Roch speak out, next Saturday; why do the citizens shut their shops? It is Sections defiling, it is fear of effervescence. Legislative Committee, long deliberating on Lafayette and that Anti-Jacobin visit of his, reports, this day, that there is 'not ground for Accusation!' Peace, ye Patriots, nevertheless; and let that tocsin cease: the Debate is not finished, nor the Report accepted; but Brissot, Isnard and the Mountain will sift it, and resift it, perhaps for some three weeks longer.

So many bells, storm-bells and noises do ring;—scarcely audible; one drowning the other. For example: in this same Lafayette tocsin, of Saturday, was there not withal some faint bob-minor, and Deputation of Legislative, ringing the Chevalier Paul Jones to his long rest; tocsin or dirge now all one to him! Not ten days hence Patriot Brissot, beshouted this day by the Patriot Galleries, shall find himself begroaned by them, on account of his limited Patriotism; nay pelted at while perorating, and 'hit with two prunes.' It is a distracted empty-sounding world; of bob-minors and bob-majors, of triumph and terror, of rise and fall!