Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 04.djvu/314

 Result, significant of a thousand things which are not so visible. In winter 1793, men went in red nightcap; Municipals themselves in sabots; the very Citoyennes had to petition against such headgear. But now in this winter 1794, where is the red nightcap? With the things beyond the Flood. Your moneyed Citoyen ponders in what most elegant style he shall dress himself; whether he shall not even dress himself as the Free Peoples of Antiquity. The more adventurous Citoyenne has already done it. Behold her, that beautiful adventurous Citoyenne: in costume of the Ancient Greeks, such Greek as Painter David could teach; her sweeping tresses snooded by glittering antique fillet; bright-dyed tunic of the Greek women; her little feet naked, as in Antique Statues, with mere sandals, and winding-strings of riband,—defying the frost!

There is such an effervescence of Luxury. For your Emigrant Ci-devants carried not their mansions and furnitures out of the country with them; but left them standing here: and in the swift changes of property, what with money coined on the Place de la Révolution, what with Army-furnishings, sales of Emigrant Domains and Church Lands and King's Lands, and then with the Aladdin's-lamp of Agio in a time of Paper-money, such mansions have found new occupants. Old wine, drawn from Ci-devant bottles, descends new throats. Paris has swept herself, relighted herself; Salons, Soupers not Fraternal, beam once more with suitable effulgence, very singular in colour. The fair Cabarus is come out of Prison; wedded to her red-gloomy Dis, whom they say she treats too loftily: fair Cabarus gives the most brilliant soirées. Round her is gathered a new Republican Army, of Citoyennes in sandals; Ci-devants or other: what remnants soever of the old grace survive are rallied there. At her right-hand, in this cause, labours fair Josephine the Widow Beauharnais, though in straitened circumstances: intent, both of them, to blandish-down the grimness of Republican austerity, and recivilise mankind.