France -- History -- Louis XVI, 1774-1793; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799
Or consider, in strange contrast, the jubilee Ceremonies; for, in
general, the aspect of Paris presents these two features: jubilee
ceremonials and scarcity of victual. Processions enough walk in
jubilee; of Young Women, decked and dizened, their ribands all
tricolor; moving with song and tabor, to the Shrine of Sainte
Genevieve, to thank her that the Bastille is down. The Strong Men
of the Market, and the Strong Women, fail not with their bouquets
and speeches. Abbé Fauchet, famed in such work (for Abbé Lefevre
could only distribute powder) blesses tricolor cloth for the
National Guard; and makes it a National Tricolor Flag;
victorious, or to be victorious, in the cause of civil and
religious liberty all over the world. Fauchet, we say, is the man
for _Te-Deums_, and public Consecrations;—to which, as in this
instance of the Flag, our National Guard will “reply with volleys
of musketry,” Church and Cathedral though it be;[223] filling
Notre Dame with such noisiest fuliginous Amen, significant of
several things.
On the whole, we will say our new Mayor Bailly; our new Commander
Lafayette, named also “Scipio-Americanus,” have bought their
preferment dear. Bailly rides in gilt state-coach, with
beefeaters and sumptuosity; Camille Desmoulins, and others,
sniffing at him for it: Scipio bestrides the “white charger,” and
waves with civic plumes in sight of all France. Neither of them,
however, does it for nothing; but, in truth, at an exorbitant
rate. At this rate, namely: of feeding Paris, and keeping it from
fighting. Out of the City-funds, some seventeen thousand of the
utterly destitute are employed digging on Montmartre, at tenpence
a day, which buys them, at market price, almost two pounds of bad
bread;—they look very yellow, when Lafayette goes to harangue
them. The Townhall is in travail, night and day; it must bring
forth Bread, a Municipal Constitution, regulations of all kinds,
curbs on the Sansculottic Press; above all, Bread, Bread.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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