At Marseilles, many weeks ago, the Townsmen have taken arms; for “suppressing of Brigands,” and other purposes: the military commandant may make of it what he will. Elsewhere, everywhere, could not the like be done? Dubious, on the distracted Patriot imagination, wavers, as a last deliverance, some foreshadow of a _National Guard_. But conceive, above all, the Wooden Tent in the Palais Royal! A universal hubbub there, as of dissolving worlds: their loudest bellows the mad, mad-making voice of Rumour; their sharpest gazes Suspicion into the pale dim World-Whirlpool; discerning shapes and phantasms; imminent bloodthirsty Regiments camped on the Champ-de-Mars; dispersed National Assembly; redhot cannon-balls (to burn Paris);—the mad War-god and Bellona’s sounding thongs. To the calmest man it is becoming too plain that battle is inevitable. Inevitable, silently nod Messeigneurs and Broglie: Inevitable and brief! Your National Assembly, stopped short in its Constitutional labours, may fatigue the royal ear with addresses and remonstrances: those cannon of ours stand duly levelled; those troops are here. The King’s Declaration, with its Thirty-five too generous Articles, was spoken, was not listened to; but remains yet unrevoked: he himself shall effect it, _seul il fera!_ As for Broglie, he has his headquarters at Versailles, all as in a seat of war: clerks writing; significant staff-officers, inclined to taciturnity; plumed aides-de-camp, scouts, orderlies flying or hovering. He himself looks forth, important, impenetrable; listens to Besenval Commandant of Paris, and his warning and earnest counsels (for he has come out repeatedly on purpose), with a silent smile.[161] The Parisians resist? scornfully cry Messeigneurs. As a meal-mob may! They have sat quiet, these five generations, submitting to all. Their Mercier declared, in these very years, that a Parisian revolt was henceforth “impossible.”[162] Stand by the royal Declaration, of the Twenty-third of June. The Nobles of France, valorous, chivalrous as of old, will rally round us with one heart;—and as for this which you call Third Estate, and which we call _canaille_ of unwashed Sansculottes, of Patelins, Scribblers, factious Spouters,—brave Broglie, “with a whiff of grapeshot (_salve de canons_),” if need be, will give quick account of it. Thus reason they: on their cloudy Ida; hidden from men,—men also hidden from them.