Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/309

 Saint-Thomas Grenadiers give themselves liberties of tongue, How a virtuous Mayor 'shall pay for it, if there be mischief,' and the like; though others again are full of civility. Surely if any man in France is in straits this night, it is Mayor Pétion: bound, under pain of death, one may say, to smile dexterously with the one side of his face, and weep with the other;—death if he do it not dexterously enough! Not till four in the morning does a National Assembly, hearing of his plight, summon him over 'to give account of Paris'; of which he knows nothing: whereby, however, he shall get home to bed, and only his gilt coach be left. Scarcely less delicate is Syndic Rœderer's task; who must wait, whether he will lament or not, till he see the issue. Janus Bifrons, or Mr. Facing-both-ways, as vernacular Bunyan has it! They walk there, in the meanwhile, these two Januses, with others of the like double conformation; and ' talk of indifferent matters.'

Rœderer, from time to time, steps in; to listen, to speak; to send for the Department-Directory itself, he their Procureur Syndic not seeing how to act. The Apartments are all crowded; some seven-hundred gentlemen in black elbowing, bustling; red Swiss standing like rocks; ghost, or partial-ghost of a Ministry, with Rœderer and advisers, hovering round their Majesties; old Marshal Maillé kneeling at the King's feet to say, He and these gallant gentlemen are come to die for him. List! through the placid midnight; clang of the distant stormbell! So, in very sooth: steeple after steeple takes up the wondrous tale. Black Courtiers listen at the windows, opened for air; discriminate the steeple-bells: this is the tocsin of Saint-Roch; that again, is it not Saint-Jacques, named de la Boucherie? Yes, Messieurs! Or even Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois, hear ye it not? The same metal that rang storm, two hundred and twenty years ago; but by a Majesty's order then; on Saint-Bartholomew's Eve! —So go the steeple-bells; which Courtiers can discriminate. VOL. II.