Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 04.djvu/208



all which incalculable impediments, horrors and disasters, what can a Jacobin Convention oppose? The uncalculating Spirit of Jacobinism, and Sansculottic sansformulistic Frenzy! Our Enemies press-in on us, says Danton, but they shall not conquer us, 'we will burn France to ashes rather, nous brûlerons la France.'

Committees, of Sureté, of Salut, have raised themselves 'à la hauteur, to the height of circumstances.' Let all mortals raise themselves à la hauteur. Let the Forty-four thousand Sections and their Revolutionary Committees stir every fibre of the Republic; and every Frenchman feel that he is to do or die. They are the life-circulation of Jacobinism, these Sections and Committees: Danton, through the organ of Barrère and Salut Public, gets decreed, That there be in Paris, by law, two meetings of Section weekly; also that the Poorer Citizen be paid for attending, and have his day's-wages of Forty Sous. This is the celebrated 'Law of the Forty Sous'; fiercely stimulant to Sanculottism, to the life-circulation of Jacobinism.

On the twenty-third of August, Committee of Public Salvation, as usual through Barrère, had promulgated, in words not unworthy of remembering, their Report, which is soon made into a Law, of Levy in Mass. 'All France, and whatsoever it contains of men or resources, is put under requisition,' says Barrère; really in Tyrtæan words, the best we know of his. 'The Republic is one vast besieged city.' Two-hundred and fifty Forges shall, in these days, be set up in the Luxembourg Garden, and round the outer wall of the Tuileries; to make gun-barrels; in sight of Earth and Heaven! From all