The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle (story books for 5 year olds txt) 📕

The Ship is over the bar, then; free she bounds shoreward,—amid shouting and vivats! Citoyen Buonaparte is ‘named General of the Interior, by acclamation;’ quelled Sections have to disarm in such humour as they may; sacred right of Insurrection is gone for ever! The Sieyes Constitution can disembark itself, and begin marching. The miraculous Convention Ship has got to land;—and is there, shall we figuratively say, changed, as Epic Ships are wont, into a kind of Sea Nymph, never to sail more; to roam the waste Azure, a Miracle in History!

‘It is false,’ says Napoleon, ‘that we fired first with blank charge; it had been a waste of life to do that.’ Most false: the firing was with sharp and sharpest shot: to all men it was plain that here was no sport; the rabbets and plinths of Saint-Roch Church show splintered by it, to this hour.—Singular: in old Broglie’s time, six years ago, this Whiff of Grapeshot was promised; but it could not be given then, could not have profited then. Now, however, the time is come for it, and the man; and behold, you have it; and the thing we specifically call French Revolution is blown into space by it, and become a thing that was!—

Homer’s Epos, it is remarked, is like a Bas-relief sculpture: it does not conclude, but merely ceases. Such, indeed, is the Epos of Universal History itself. Directorates, Consulates, Emperorships, Restorations, Citizen-Kingships succeed this Business in due series, in due genesis one out of the other. Nevertheless the First-parent of all these may be said to have gone to air in the way we see. A Baboeuf Insurrection, next year, will die in the birth; stifled by the Soldiery. A Senate, if tinged with Royalism, can be purged by the Soldiery; and an Eighteenth of Fructidor transacted by the mere shew of bayonets. (Moniteur, du 5 Septembre 1797.) Nay Soldiers’ bayonets can be used a posteriori on a Senate, and make it leap out of window,—still bloodless; and produce an Eighteenth of Brumaire. (9th November 1799 (Choix des Rapports, xvii. 1-96).) Such changes must happen: but they are managed by intriguings, caballings, and then by orderly word of command; almost like mere changes of Ministry. Not in general by sacred right of Insurrection, but by milder methods growing ever milder, shall the Events of French history be henceforth brought to pass.

It is admitted that this Directorate, which owned, at its starting, these three things, an ‘old table, a sheet of paper, and an ink-bottle,’ and no visible money or arrangement whatever, (Bailleul, Examen critique des Considerations de Madame de Stael, ii. 275.) did wonders: that France, since the Reign of Terror hushed itself, has been a new France, awakened like a giant out of torpor; and has gone on, in the Internal Life of it, with continual progress. As for the External form and forms of Life,—what can we say except that out of the Eater there comes Strength; out of the Unwise there comes not Wisdom! Shams are burnt up; nay, what as yet is the peculiarity of France, the very Cant of them is burnt up. The new Realities are not yet come: ah no, only Phantasms, Paper models, tentative Prefigurements of such! In France there are now Four Million Landed Properties; that black portent of an Agrarian Law is as it were realised!

What is still stranger, we understand all Frenchmen have ‘the right of duel;’ the Hackney-coachman with the Peer, if insult be given: such is the law of Public Opinion. Equality at least in death! The Form of Government is by Citizen King, frequently shot at, not yet shot.

On the whole, therefore, has it not been fulfilled what was prophesied, ex-

postfacto indeed, by the Archquack Cagliostro, or another? He, as he looked in rapt vision and amazement into these things, thus spake: (Diamond Necklace, p. 35.) ‘Ha! What is this? Angels, Uriel, Anachiel, and the other Five; Pentagon of Rejuvenescence; Power that destroyed Original Sin; Earth, Heaven, and thou Outer Limbo, which men name Hell!

Does the EMPIRE Of IMPOSTURE waver? Burst there, in starry sheen updarting, Light-rays from out its dark foundations; as it rocks and heaves, not in travail-throes, but in death-throes? Yea, Light-rays, piercing, clear, that salute the Heavens,—lo, they kindle it; their starry clearness becomes as red Hellfire!

‘IMPOSTURE is burnt up: one Red-sea of Fire, wild-billowing enwraps the World; with its fire-tongue, licks at the very Stars. Thrones are hurled into it, and Dubois mitres, and Prebendal Stalls that drop fatness, and—

ha! what see I?—all the Gigs of Creation; all, all! Wo is me! Never since Pharaoh’s Chariots, in the Red-sea of water, was there wreck of Wheel-vehicles like this in the Sea of Fire. Desolate, as ashes, as gases, shall they wander in the wind. Higher, higher yet flames the Fire-Sea; crackling with new dislocated timber; hissing with leather and prunella.

The metal Images are molten; the marble Images become mortar-lime; the stone Mountains sulkily explode. RESPECTABILITY, with all her collected Gigs inflamed for funeral pyre, wailing, leaves the earth: not to return save under new Avatar. Imposture, how it burns, through generations: how it is burnt up; for a time. The World is black ashes; which, ah, when will they grow green? The Images all run into amorphous Corinthian brass; all Dwellings of men destroyed; the very mountains peeled and riven, the valleys black and dead: it is an empty World! Wo to them that shall be born then!—A King, a Queen (ah me!) were hurled in; did rustle once; flew aloft, crackling, like paper-scroll. Iscariot Egalite was hurled in; thou grim De Launay, with thy grim Bastille; whole kindreds and peoples; five millions of mutually destroying Men. For it is the End of the Dominion of IMPOSTURE (which is Darkness and opaque Firedamp); and the burning up, with unquenchable fire, of all the Gigs that are in the Earth.’ This Prophecy, we say, has it not been fulfilled, is it not fulfilling?

And so here, O Reader, has the time come for us two to part. Toilsome was our journeying together; not without offence; but it is done. To me thou wert as a beloved shade, the disembodied or not yet embodied spirit of a Brother. To thee I was but as a Voice. Yet was our relation a kind of sacred one; doubt not that! Whatsoever once sacred things become hollow jargons, yet while the Voice of Man speaks with Man, hast thou not there the living fountain out of which all sacrednesses sprang, and will yet spring? Man, by the nature of him, is definable as ‘an incarnated Word.’

Ill stands it with me if I have spoken falsely: thine also it was to hear truly. Farewell.

THE END.

INDEX.

ABBAYE, massacres, Jourgniac, Sicard, and Maton’s account of.

ACCEPTATION, grande, by Louis XVI.

AGOUST, Captain d’, seizes two Parlementeers.

AIGUILLON, d’, at Quiberon, account of, in favour, at death of Louis XV.

AINTRIGUES, Count d’.

ALTAR of Fatherland in Champ-de-Mars, scene at, christening at.

AMIRAL, assassin, guillotined.

ANGLAS, Boissy d’, President, First of Prairial.

ANGOULEME, Duchesse d’, parts from her father.

ANGREMONT, Collenot d’, guillotined.

ANTOINETTE, Marie, splendour of, applauded, compromised by Diamond Necklace, griefs of, weeps, unpopular, at Dinner of Guards, courage of, Fifth October, at Versailles, shows herself to people, and Louis at Tuileries, and the Lorrainer, and Mirabeau, previous to flight, flight from Tuileries, captured, and Barnave, Coblentz intrigues, and Lamotte’s Memoires, during Twentieth June, during Tenth August, as captive, and Princess de Lamballe, in Temple Prison, parting scene with King, to the Conciergerie, trial of, guillotined.

ARGONNE Forest, occupied by Dumouriez, Brunswick at.

ARISTOCRATS, officers in French army, number in Paris, seized, condition in 1794.

ARLES, state of.

ARMS, smiths making, search for, at Charleville, manufacture, in 1794, scarcity in 1792, Danton’s search for.

ARMY, French, after Bastille, officered by aristocrats, to be disbanded, demands arrears, general mutiny of, outbreak of, Nanci military executions, Royalists leave, state of, in want, recruited, Revolutionary, fourteen armies on foot.

ARRAS, guillotine at.

ARRESTS in August 1792.

ARSENAL, attempted destruction of.

ARTOIS, M. d’, ways of, unpopularity of, memorial by, flies, at Coblentz, refusal to return.

ASSEMBLIES, Primary and Secondary.

ASSEMBLY, National, Third Estate becomes, to be extruded, stands grouped in the rain, occupies Tennis-Court, scene there, joined by clergy, doings on King’s speech, ratified by King, cannon pointed at, regrets Necker, after Bastille.

ASSEMBLY, Constituent, National, becomes, pedantic, Irregular Verbs, what it can do, Night of Pentecost, Left and Right side, raises money, on the Veto, Fifth October, women, in Paris Riding-Hall, on deficit, assignats, on clergy, and riot, prepares for Louis’s visit, on Federation, Anacharsis Clootz, eldest of men, on Franklin’s death, on state of army, thanks Bouille, on Nanci affair, on Emigrants, on death of Mirabeau, on escape of King, after capture of King, completes Constitution, dissolves itself, what it has done.

ASSEMBLY, Legislative, First French Parliament, book of law, dispute with King, Baiser de Lamourette, High Court, decrees vetoed, scenes in, reprimands King’s ministers, declares war, declares France in danger, reinstates Petion, nonplused, Lafayette, King and Swiss, August Tenth, becoming defunct, September massacres, dissolved.

ASSIGNATS, origin of, false Royalist, forgers of, coach-fare in.

AUBRIOT, Sieur, after King’s capture.

AUBRY, Colonel, at Jales.

AUCH, M. Martin d’, in Versailles Court.

AUSTRIA quarrels with France.

AUSTRIAN Committee, at Tuileries.

AUSTRIAN Army, invades France, defeated at Jemappes, Dumouriez escapes to, repulsed, Watigny.

AVIGNON, Union of, described, state of, riot in church at, occupied by Jourdan, massacre at.

BACHAUMONT, his thirty volumes.

BAILLE, involuntary epigram of.

BAILLY, Astronomer, account of, President of National Assembly, Mayor of Paris, receives Louis in Paris, and Paris Parlement, on Petition for Deposition, decline of, in prison, at Queen’s trial, guillotined cruelly.

BAKERS’, French in tail at.

BARBAROUX and Marat, Marseilles Deputy, and the Rolands, on Map of France, demand of, to Marseilles, meets Marseillese, in National Convention, against Robespierre, cannot be heard, the Girondins declining, arrested, and Charlotte Corday, retreats to Bourdeaux, farewell of, shoots himself.

BARDY, Abbe, massacred.

BARENTIN, Keeper of Seals.

BARNAVE, at Grenoble, member of Assembly, one of a trio, Jacobin, duel with Cazales, escorts the King from Varennes, conciliates Queen, becomes Constitutional, retires to Grenoble, treason, in prison, guillotined.

BARRAS, Paul-Francois, in National Convention, commands in Thermidor, appoints Napoleon in Vendemiaire.

BARRERE, Editor, at King’s trial, peace-maker, levy in mass, plot, banished.

BARTHOLOMEW massacre.

BASTILLE, Linguet’s Book on, meaning of, shots fired at, summoned by insurgents, besieged, capitulates, treatment of captured, Queret-Demery, demolished, key sent to Washington, Heroes.

BAZIRE, of Mountain, imprisoned.

BEARN, riot at.

BEAUHARNAIS in Champ-de-Mars, Josephine, imprisoned, and Napoleon, at La Cabarus’s.

BEAUMARCHAIS, Caron, his lawsuit, his ‘Mariage de Figaro,’ commissions arms from Holland, his distress.

BEAUMONT, Archbishop, notice of.

BEAUREPAIRE, Governor of Verdun, shoots himself.

BENTHAM, Jeremy, naturalised.

BERLINE, towards Varennes.

BERTHIER, Intendant, fled, arrested and massacred.

BERTHIER, Commandant, at Versailles.

BESENVAL, Baron, Commandant of Paris, on French Finance, in riot of Rue St.

Antoine, on corruption of Guards, at Champ-de-Mars, apparition to, decamps, and Louis XVI.

BETHUNE, riot at.

BEURNONVILLE, with Dumouriez, imprisoned.

BILLAUD-VARENNES, Jacobin, cruel, at massacres, September 1792, in Salut Committee, and Robespierre’s Etre Supreme, accuses Robespierre, accused, banished.

BLANC, Le, landlord at Varennes, escape of family.

BLOOD, baths of.

BONCHAMPS, in