1794, the most glorious day of his life, at that fête in honor of the
Supreme Being, which is the glorious triumph of his doctrine and
the official consecration of his papacy. Two characters are found in
Robespierre, as in the Revolution which he represents: one, apparent,
paraded, external, and the other hidden, dissembled, inward, the latter
being overlaid by the former.--The first one all for show, fashioned
out of purely cerebral cogitations, is as artificial as the solemn farce
going on around him. According to David's programme, the cavalcade
of supernumeraries who file in front of an allegorical mountain,
gesticulate and shout at the command, and under the eyes, of Henriot
and his gendarmes,[31163] manifesting at the appointed time the emotions
which are prescribed for them. At five o'clock in the morning
"friends, husbands, wives, relations and children will embrace....
The old man, his eyes streaming with tears of joy, feels himself
rejuvenated."
At two o'clock, on the turf-laid terraces of the sacred mountain,
"all will show a state of commotion and excitement: mothers here press
to their bosoms the infants they suckle, and there offer them up in
homage to the author of Nature, while youths, aglow with the ardor
of battle, simultaneously draw their swords and hand them to their
venerable fathers. Sharing in the enthusiasm of their sons, the deported
old men embrace them and bestow on them the paternal benediction.....
All the men distributed around the 'Field of Reunion' sing in chorus
the (first) refrain.... All the Women distributed around the 'Field of
Reunion' sing in unison the (second) refrain.... All Frenchmen partake
of each other's sentiments in one grand fraternal embrace."
What could better than such an idyll, ruled with an iron hand, in the
presence of moral symbols and colored pasteboard divinities, could
better please the counterfeit moralist, unable to distinguish the
false from the true, and whose skin-deep sensibility is borrowed from
sentimental authors! "For the first time" his glowing countenance beams
with joy, while "the enthusiasm"[31164] of the scribe overflows, as
usual, in book phraseology.
"Behold!" he exclaims, "that which is most interesting in humanity! The
Universe is here assembled! O, Nature, how sublime, how exquisite is thy
power! How tyrants must quail at the contemplation of this festival!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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