Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 04.djvu/251

 enlightened by the spirit of Jacobinism; quickened by the Forty Sous a-day!—The French Constitution spurned always at anything like Two Chambers; and yet, behold, has it not verily got Two Chambers? National Convention, elected, for one; Mother of Patriotism, self-elected, for another! Mother of Patriotism has her Debates reported in the Moniteur, as important state-procedures; which indisputably they are. A Second Chamber of Legislature we call this Mother Society;—if perhaps it were not rather comparable to that old Scotch Body named Lords of the Articles, without whose origination, and signal given, the so-called Parliament could introduce no bill, could do no work? Robespierre himself, whose words are a law, opens his incorruptible lips copiously in the Jacobins Hall. Smaller Council of Salut Public, Greater Council of Sûreté Générale, all active Parties, come here to plead; to shape beforehand what decision they must arrive at, what destiny they have to expect. Now if a question arose, Which of those Two Chambers, Convention, or Lords of the Articles, was the stronger? Happily they as yet go hand in hand.

As for the National Convention, truly it has become a most composed Body. Quenched now the old effervescence; the Seventy-three locked in ward; once noisy Friends of the Girondins sunk all into silent men of the Plain, called even 'Frogs of the Marsh,' Crapauds du Marais! Addresses come, Revolutionary Church-plunder comes; Deputations, with prose or strophes: these the Convention receives. But beyond this, the Convention has one thing mainly to do: to listen what Salut Public proposes, and say, Yea.

Bazire followed by Chabot, with some impetuosity, declared, one morning, that this was not the way of a Free Assembly. 'There ought to be an Opposition side, a Côté Droit,' cried Chabot: 'if none else will form it, I will. People say to me, You will all get guillotined in your turn, first you and Bazire, then Danton, then Robespierre himself.' So spake the Disfrocked, with a loud voice: next week, Bazire and he lie in