Chapter 2: 6.iv

Subterranean.

But judge if there was comfort in this to the Sections all
sitting permanent; deliberating how a National Executive could be
put in action!

High rises the response, not of cackling terror, but of crowing
counter-defiance, and _Vive la Nation;_ young Valour streaming
towards the Frontiers; _Patrie en Danger_ mutely beckoning on the
Pont Neuf. Sections are busy, in their permanent Deep; and down,
lower still, works unlimited Patriotism, seeking salvation in
plot. Insurrection, you would say, becomes once more the
sacredest of duties? Committee, self-chosen, is sitting at the
Sign of the Golden Sun: Journalist Carra, Camille Desmoulins,
Alsatian Westermann friend of Danton, American Fournier of
Martinique;—a Committee not unknown to Mayor Pétion, who, as an
official person, must sleep with one eye open. Not unknown to
Procureur Manuel; least of all to Procureur-Substitute Danton!
He, wrapped in darkness, being also official, bears it on his
giant shoulder; cloudy invisible Atlas of the whole.

Much is invisible; the very Jacobins have their reticences.
Insurrection is to be: but when? This only we can discern, that
such Fédérés as are not yet gone to Soissons, as indeed are not
inclined to go yet, ‘for reasons,’ says the Jacobin President,
‘which it may be interesting not to state,’ have got a _Central
Committee_ sitting close by, under the roof of the Mother Society
herself. Also, what in such ferment and danger of effervescence
is surely proper, the Forty-eight Sections have got their Central
Committee; intended “for prompt communication.” To which Central
Committee the Municipality, anxious to have it at hand, could not
refuse an Apartment in the Hôtel-de-Ville.

Singular City! For overhead of all this, there is the customary
baking and brewing; Labour hammers and grinds. Frilled
promenaders saunter under the trees; white-muslin promenaderess,
in green parasol, leaning on your arm. Dogs dance, and shoeblacks
polish, on that Pont Neuf itself, where Fatherland is in danger.
So much goes its course; and yet the course of all things is nigh
altering and ending.

Look at that Tuileries and Tuileries Garden. Silent all as
Sahara; none entering save by ticket! They shut their Gates,
after the Day of the Black Breeches; a thing they had the liberty
to do. However, the National Assembly grumbled something about
Terrace of the Feuillants, how said Terrace lay contiguous to the
back entrance to their Salle, and was partly _National Property;_
and so now National Justice has stretched a Tricolor Riband
athwart, by way of boundary-line, respected with splenetic
strictness by all Patriots. It hangs there that Tricolor
boundary-line; carries “satirical inscriptions on cards,”
generally in verse; and all beyond this is called _Coblentz_, and
remains vacant; silent, as a fateful Golgotha; sunshine and
umbrage alternating on it in vain. Fateful Circuit; what hope can
dwell in it? Mysterious Tickets of Entry introduce themselves;
speak of Insurrection very imminent. Rivarol’s Staff of Genius
had better purchase blunderbusses; Grenadier bonnets, red Swiss
uniforms may be useful. Insurrection will come; but likewise will
it not be met? Staved off, one may hope, till Brunswick arrive?

But consider withal if the Bourne-stones and Portable chairs
remain silent; if the Herald’s College of Bill-Stickers sleep!
Louvet’s _Sentinel_ warns gratis on all walls; Sulleau is busy:
_People’s-Friend_ Marat and _King’s-Friend_ Royou croak and
counter-croak. For the man Marat, though long hidden since that
Champ-de-Mars Massacre, is still alive. He has lain, who knows in
what Cellars; perhaps in Legendre’s; fed by a steak of Legendre’s
killing: but, since April, the bull-frog voice of him sounds
again; hoarsest of earthly cries. For the present, black terror
haunts him: O brave Barbaroux wilt thou not smuggle me to
Marseilles, “disguised as a jockey?”[490] In Palais-Royal and all
public places, as we read, there is sharp activity; private
individuals haranguing that Valour may enlist; haranguing that
the Executive may be put in action. Royalist journals ought to be
solemnly burnt: argument thereupon; debates which generally end
in single-stick, _coups de cannes_.[491] Or think of this; the
hour midnight; place Salle de Manége; august Assembly just
adjourning: “Citizens of both sexes enter in a rush exclaiming,
_Vengeance: they are poisoning our Brothers;_”—baking
brayed-glass among their bread at Soissons! Vergniaud has to
speak soothing words, How Commissioners are already sent to
investigate this brayed-glass, and do what is needful therein:
till the rush of Citizens “makes profound silence:” and goes home
to its bed.

Such is Paris; the heart of a France like to it. Preternatural
suspicion, doubt, disquietude, nameless anticipation, from shore
to shore:—and those blackbrowed Marseillese, marching, dusty,
unwearied, through the midst of it; not doubtful they. Marching
to the grim music of their hearts, they consume continually the
long road, these three weeks and more; heralded by Terror and
Rumour. The Brest Fédérés arrive on the 26th; through hurrahing
streets. Determined men are these also, bearing or not bearing
the Sacred Pikes of Château-Vieux; and on the whole decidedly
disinclined for Soissons as yet. Surely the Marseillese Brethren
do draw nigher all days.