France -- History -- Louis XVI, 1774-1793; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799
O Maillard, when, since War first was, had General of Force such
a task before him, as thou this day? Walter the Penniless still
touches the feeling heart: but then Walter had sanction; had
space to turn in; and also his Crusaders were of the male sex.
Thou, this day, disowned of Heaven and Earth, art General of
Menads. Their inarticulate frenzy thou must on the spur of the
instant, render into articulate words, into actions that are not
frantic. Fail in it, this way or that! Pragmatical Officiality,
with its penalties and law-books, waits before thee; Menads storm
behind. If such hewed off the melodious head of Orpheus, and
hurled it into the Peneus waters, what may they not make of
thee,—thee rhythmic merely, with no music but a sheepskin
drum!—Maillard did not fail. Remarkable Maillard, if fame were
not an accident, and History a distillation of Rumour, how
remarkable wert thou!
On the Elysian Fields, there is pause and fluctuation; but, for
Maillard, no return. He persuades his Menads, clamorous for arms
and the Arsenal, that no arms are in the Arsenal; that an unarmed
attitude, and petition to a National Assembly, will be the best:
he hastily nominates or sanctions generalesses, captains of tens
and fifties;—and so, in loosest-flowing order, to the rhythm of
some “eight drums” (having laid aside his own), with the Bastille
Volunteers bringing up his rear, once more takes the road.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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