France -- History -- Louis XVI, 1774-1793; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799
For the present, if we glance into that Assembly Hall of theirs,
it will be found, as is natural, “most irregular.” As many as “a
hundred members are on their feet at once;” no rule in making
motions, or only commencements of a rule; Spectators’ Gallery
allowed to applaud, and even to hiss;[200] President, appointed
once a fortnight, raising many times no serene head above the
waves. Nevertheless, as in all human Assemblages, like does begin
arranging itself to like; the perennial rule, _Ubi homines sunt
modi sunt_, proves valid. Rudiments of Methods disclose
themselves; rudiments of Parties. There is a Right Side (_Côté
Droit_), a Left Side (_Côté Gauche_); sitting on M. le
President’s right hand, or on his left: the _Côté Droit_
conservative; the _Côté Gauche_ destructive. Intermediate is
Anglomaniac Constitutionalism, or Two-Chamber Royalism; with its
Mouniers, its Lallys,—fast verging towards nonentity. Preeminent,
on the Right Side, pleads and perorates Cazalès, the
Dragoon-captain, eloquent, mildly fervent; earning for himself
the shadow of a name. There also blusters Barrel-Mirabeau, the
Younger Mirabeau, not without wit: dusky d’Espréménil does
nothing but sniff and ejaculate; _might_, it is fondly thought,
lay prostrate the Elder Mirabeau himself, would he but
try,[201]—which he does not. Last and greatest, see, for one
moment, the Abbé Maury; with his jesuitic eyes, his impassive
brass face, “image of all the cardinal sins.” Indomitable,
unquenchable, he fights jesuitico-rhetorically; with toughest
lungs and heart; for Throne, especially for Altar and Tithes. So
that a shrill voice exclaims once, from the Gallery: ‘Messieurs
of the Clergy, you _have_ to be shaved; if you wriggle too much,
you will get cut.’[202]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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