France -- History -- Louis XVI, 1774-1793; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799
Thus, then, has ended the First Act of the Insurrection of Women.
How it will turn on the morrow? The morrow, as always, is with
the Fates! But his Majesty, one may hope, will consent to come
honourably to Paris; at all events, he can visit Paris.
Anti-national Bodyguards, here and elsewhere, must take the
National Oath; make reparation to the Tricolor; Flandre will
swear. There may be much swearing; much public speaking there
will infallibly be: and so, with harangues and vows, may the
matter in some handsome way, wind itself up.
Or, alas, may it not be all otherwise, unhandsome: the consent
not honourable, but extorted, ignominious? Boundless Chaos of
Insurrection presses slumbering round the Palace, like Ocean
round a Diving-bell; and may penetrate at any crevice. Let but
that accumulated insurrectionary mass find entrance! Like the
infinite inburst of water; or say rather, of inflammable,
self-igniting fluid; for example, “turpentine-and-phosphorus
oil,”—fluid known to Spinola Santerre!
Chapter 1.7.X.
The Grand Entries.
The dull dawn of a new morning, drizzly and chill, had but broken
over Versailles, when it pleased Destiny that a Bodyguard should
look out of window, on the right wing of the Château, to see what
prospect there was in Heaven and in Earth. Rascality male and
female is prowling in view of him. His fasting stomach is, with
good cause, sour; he perhaps cannot forbear a passing malison on
them; least of all can he forbear answering such.
Ill words breed worse: till the worst word came; and then the ill
deed. Did the maledicent Bodyguard, getting (as was too
inevitable) better malediction than he gave, load his musketoon,
and threaten to fire; and actually fire? Were wise who wist! It
stands asserted; to us not credibly. Be this as it may, menaced
Rascality, in whinnying scorn, is shaking at all Grates: the
fastening of one (some write, it was a chain merely) gives way;
Rascality is in the Grand Court, whinnying louder still.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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