France -- History -- Louis XVI, 1774-1793; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799
Maillard, of his own motion, for Gouvion or the rest would not
even sanction him,—snatches a drum; descends the Porch-stairs,
ran-tan, beating sharp, with loud rolls, his Rogues’-march: To
Versailles! _Allons; a Versailles!_ As men beat on kettle or
warmingpan, when angry she-bees, or say, flying desperate wasps,
are to be hived; and the desperate insects hear it, and cluster
round it,—simply as round a guidance, where there was none: so
now these Menads round shifty Maillard, Riding-Usher of the
Châtelet. The axe pauses uplifted; Abbé Lefevre is left
half-hanged; from the belfry downwards all vomits itself. What
rub-a-dub is that? Stanislas Maillard, Bastille-hero, will lead
us to Versailles? Joy to thee, Maillard; blessed art thou above
Riding-Ushers! Away then, away!
The seized cannon are yoked with seized cart-horses: brown-locked
Demoiselle Théroigne, with pike and helmet, sits there as
gunneress, “with haughty eye and serene fair countenance;”
comparable, some think, to the _Maid_ of Orléans, or even
recalling “the idea of Pallas Athene.”[235] Maillard (for his
drum still rolls) is, by heaven-rending acclamation, admitted
General. Maillard hastens the languid march. Maillard, beating
rhythmic, with sharp ran-tan, all along the Quais, leads forward,
with difficulty his Menadic host. Such a host—marched not in
silence! The bargeman pauses on the River; all wagoners and
coachdrivers fly; men peer from windows,—not women, lest they be
pressed. Sight of sights: Bacchantes, in these ultimate
Formalized Ages! Bronze Henri looks on, from his Pont-Neuf; the
Monarchic Louvre, Medicean Tuileries see a day not theretofore
seen.
And now Maillard has his Menads in the _Champs Elysées_ (Fields
_Tartarean_ rather); and the Hôtel-de-Ville has suffered
comparatively nothing. Broken doors; an Abbé Lefevre, who shall
never more distribute powder; three sacks of money, most part of
which (for Sansculottism, though famishing, is not without
honour) shall be returned:[236] this is all the damage. Great
Maillard! A small nucleus of Order is round his drum; but his
outskirts fluctuate like the mad Ocean: for Rascality male and
female is flowing in on him, from the four winds; guidance there
is none but in his single head and two drumsticks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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