France -- History -- Louis XVI, 1774-1793; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799
Chaillot, which will promptly yield baked loaves, is not
plundered; nor are the Sèvres Potteries broken. The old arches of
Sèvres Bridge echo under Menadic feet; Seine River gushes on with
his perpetual murmur; and Paris flings after us the boom of
tocsin and alarm-drum,—inaudible, for the present, amid
shrill-sounding hosts, and the splash of rainy weather. To
Meudon, to Saint Cloud, on both hands, the report of them is gone
abroad; and hearths, this evening, will have a topic. The press
of women still continues, for it is the cause of all Eve’s
Daughters, mothers that are, or that hope to be. No
carriage-lady, were it with never such hysterics, but must
dismount, in the mud roads, in her silk shoes, and walk.[237] In
this manner, amid wild October weather, they a wild unwinged
stork-flight, through the astonished country, wend their way.
Travellers of all sorts they stop; especially travellers or
couriers from Paris. Deputy Lechapelier, in his elegant vesture,
from his elegant vehicle, looks forth amazed through his
spectacles; apprehensive for life;—states eagerly that he is
Patriot-Deputy Lechapelier, and even Old-President Lechapelier,
who presided on the Night of Pentecost, and is original member of
the Breton Club. Thereupon “rises huge shout of _Vive
Lechapelier_, and several armed persons spring up behind and
before to escort him.”[238]
Nevertheless, news, despatches from Lafayette, or vague noise of
rumour, have pierced through, by side roads. In the National
Assembly, while all is busy discussing the order of the day;
regretting that there should be Anti-national Repasts in
Opera-Halls; that his Majesty should still hesitate about
accepting the Rights of Man, and hang conditions and
peradventures on them,—Mirabeau steps up to the President,
experienced Mounier as it chanced to be; and articulates, in bass
under-tone: ‘_Mounier, Paris marche sur nous_ (Paris is marching
on us).’—‘May be (_Je n’en sais rien_)!’—‘Believe it or
disbelieve it, that is not my concern; but Paris, I say, is
marching on us. Fall suddenly unwell; go over to the Château;
tell them this. There is not a moment to lose.’—‘Paris marching
on us?’ responds Mounier, with an atrabiliar accent, ‘Well, so
much the better! We shall the sooner be a Republic.’ Mirabeau
quits him, as one quits an experienced President getting
blindfold into deep waters; and the order of the day continues as
before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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