Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 04.djvu/329

 manner,—considering this, and also considering that, they, a much-enduring Sovereign People, are in Insurrection; will have Bread and the Constitution of Ninety-three. And so the Barriers are seized, and the générale beats, and tocsins discourse discord. Black deluges overflow the Tuileries; spite of sentries, the Sanctuary itself is invaded: enter, to our Order of the Day, a torrent of dishevelled women, wailing, 'Bread! Bread!' President may well cover himself; and have his own tocsin rung in 'the Pavilion of Unity'; the ship of the State again labours and leaks; overwashed, near to swamping, with unfruitful brine.

What a day, once more! Women are driven out: men storm irresistibly in; choke all corridors, thunder at all gates. Deputies, putting forth head, obtest, conjure; Saint-Antoine rages, 'Bread and Constitution.' Report has risen that the 'Convention is assassinating the women': crushing and rushing, clangor and furor! The oak doors have become as oak tambourines, sounding under the axe of Saint-Antoine; plaster-work crackles, wood-work booms and jingles; door starts up;—bursts-in Saint-Antoine with frenzy and vociferation, with Rag-standards, printed Proclamation, drum-music: astonishment to eye and ear. Gendarmes, loyal Sectioners charge through the other door; they are re-charged; musketry exploding: Saint-Antoine cannot be expelled. Obtesting Deputies obtest vainly: Respect the President; approach not the President! Deputy Féraud, stretching out his hands, baring his bosom scarred in the Spanish wars, obtests vainly; threatens and resists vainly. Rebellious Deputy of the Sovereign, if thou have fought, have not we too? We have no Bread, no Constitution! They wrench poor Féraud; they tumble him, trample him, wrath waxing to see itself work: they drag him into the corridor, dead or near it; sever his head, and fix it on a pike. Ah, did an unexampled Convention want this variety of destiny, too, then? Féraud's bloody head goes on a pike. Such a game has begun; Paris and the Earth may wait how it will end.