France -- History -- Louis XVI, 1774-1793; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799
Rejoice nevertheless, ye Versailles multitudes; to you, from whom
all this is hid, and glorious end of it is visible. This day,
sentence of death is pronounced on Shams; judgment of
resuscitation, were it but far off, is pronounced on Realities.
This day it is declared aloud, as with a Doom-trumpet, that a
_Lie is unbelievable_. Believe that, stand by that, if more there
be not; and let what thing or things soever will follow it
follow. “Ye can no other; God be your help!” So spake a greater
than any of you; opening _his_ Chapter of World-History.
Behold, however! The doors of St. Louis Church flung wide; and
the Procession of Processions advancing towards Notre-Dame!
Shouts rend the air; one shout, at which Grecian birds might drop
dead. It is indeed a stately, solemn sight. The Elected of
France, and then the Court of France; they are marshalled and
march there, all in prescribed place and costume. Our Commons “in
plain black mantle and white cravat;” Noblesse, in gold-worked,
bright-dyed cloaks of velvet, resplendent, rustling with laces,
waving with plumes; the Clergy in rochet, alb, or other best
_pontificalibus:_ lastly comes the King himself, and King’s
Household, also in their brightest blaze of pomp,—their brightest
and final one. Some Fourteen Hundred Men blown together from all
winds, on the deepest errand.
Yes, in that silent marching mass there lies Futurity enough. No
symbolic Ark, like the old Hebrews, do these men bear: yet with
them too is a Covenant; they too preside at a new Era in the
History of Men. The whole Future is there, and Destiny
dim-brooding over it; in the hearts and unshaped thoughts of
these men, it lies illegible, inevitable. Singular to think:
_they_ have it in them; yet not they, not mortal, only the Eye
above can read it,—as it shall unfold itself, in fire and
thunder, of siege, and field-artillery; in the rustling of
battle-banners, the tramp of hosts, in the glow of burning
cities, the shriek of strangled nations! Such things lie hidden,
safe-wrapt in this Fourth day of May;—say rather, had lain in
some other unknown day, of which this latter is the public fruit
and outcome. As indeed what wonders lie in every Day,—had we the
sight, as happily we have not, to decipher it: for is not every
meanest Day “the conflux of two Eternities!”
Meanwhile, suppose we too, good Reader, should, as now without
miracle Muse Clio enables us—take _our_ station also on some
coign of vantage; and glance momentarily over this Procession,
and this Life-sea; with far other eyes than the rest do, namely
with prophetic? We can mount, and stand there, without fear of
falling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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