Chapter 3: 5.vi

Do thy Duty.

Accordingly alongside of these bonfires of Church balustrades,
and sounds of fusillading and noyading, there rise quite another
sort of fires and sounds: Smithy-fires and Proof-volleys for the
manufacture of arms.

Cut off from Sweden and the world, the Republic must learn to
make steel for itself; and, by aid of Chemists, she has learnt
it. Towns that knew only iron, now know steel: from their new
dungeons at Chantilly, Aristocrats may hear the rustle of our new
steel furnace there. Do not bells transmute themselves into
cannon; iron stancheons into the white-weapon (_arme blanche_),
by sword-cutlery? The wheels of Langres scream, amid their
sputtering fire halo; grinding mere swords. The stithies of
Charleville ring with gun-making. What say we, Charleville? Two
hundred and fifty-eight Forges stand in the open spaces of Paris
itself; a hundred and forty of them in the Esplanade of the
Invalides, fifty-four in the Luxembourg Garden: so many Forges
stand; grim Smiths beating and forging at lock and barrel there.
The Clockmakers have come, requisitioned, to do the touch-holes,
the hard-solder and filework. Five great Barges swing at anchor
on the Seine Stream, loud with boring; the great press-drills
grating harsh thunder to the general ear and heart. And deft
Stock-makers do gouge and rasp; and all men bestir themselves,
according to their cunning:—in the language of hope, it is
reckoned that a “thousand finished muskets can be delivered
daily.”[721] Chemists of the Republic have taught us miracles of
swift tanning;[722] the cordwainer bores and stitches;—_not_ of
“wood and pasteboard,” or he shall answer it to Tinville! The
women sew tents and coats, the children scrape surgeon’s-lint,
the old men sit in the market-places; able men are on march; all
men in requisition: from Town to Town flutters, on the Heaven’s
winds, this Banner, THE FRENCH PEOPLE RISEN AGAINST TYRANTS.

All which is well. But now arises the question: What is to be
done for saltpetre? Interrupted Commerce and the English Navy
shut us out from saltpetre; and without saltpetre there is no
gunpowder. Republican Science again sits meditative; discovers
that saltpetre exists here and there, though in attenuated
quantity: that old plaster of walls holds a sprinkling of
it;—that the earth of the Paris Cellars holds a sprinkling of it,
diffused through the common rubbish; that were these dug up and
washed, saltpetre might be had. Whereupon swiftly, see! the
Citoyens, with upshoved _bonnet rouge_, or with doffed bonnet,
and hair toil-wetted; digging fiercely, each in his own cellar,
for saltpetre. The Earth-heap rises at every door; the Citoyennes
with hod and bucket carrying it up; the Citoyens, pith in every
muscle, shovelling and digging: for life and saltpetre. Dig my
_braves;_ and right well speed ye. What of saltpetre is essential
the Republic shall not want.

Consummation of Sansculottism has many aspects and tints: but the
brightest tint, really of a solar or stellar brightness, is this
which the Armies give it. That same fervour of Jacobinism which
internally fills France with hatred, suspicions, scaffolds and
Reason-worship, does, on the Frontiers, shew itself as a glorious
_Pro patria mori_. Ever since Dumouriez’s defection, three
Convention Representatives attend every General. Committee of
_Salut_ has sent them, often with this Laconic order only: ‘Do
thy duty, _Fais ton devoir_.’ It is strange, under what
impediments the fire of Jacobinism, like other such fires, will
burn. These Soldiers have shoes of wood and pasteboard, or go
booted in hayropes, in dead of winter; they skewer a bass mat
round their shoulders, and are destitute of most things. What
then? It is for Rights of Frenchhood, of Manhood, that they
fight: the unquenchable spirit, here as elsewhere, works
miracles. ‘With steel and bread,’ says the Convention
Representative, ‘one may get to China.’ The Generals go fast to
the guillotine; justly and unjustly. From which what inference?
This among others: That ill-success is death; that in victory
alone is life! To conquer or die is no theatrical palabra, in
these circumstances: but a practical truth and necessity. All
Girondism, Halfness, Compromise is swept away. Forward, ye
Soldiers of the Republic, captain and man! Dash with your Gaelic
impetuosity, on Austria, England, Prussia, Spain, Sardinia; Pitt,
Cobourg, York, and the Devil and the World! Behind us is but the
Guillotine; before us is Victory, Apotheosis and Millennium
without end!

See accordingly, on all Frontiers, how the Sons of Night,
astonished after short triumph, do recoil;—the Sons of the
Republic flying at them, with wild _Ça-ira_ or Marseillese _Aux
armes_, with the temper of cat-o’-mountain, or demon incarnate;
which no Son of Night can stand! Spain, which came bursting
through the Pyrenees, rustling with Bourbon banners, and went
conquering here and there for a season, falters at such
cat-o’-mountain welcome; draws itself in again; too happy now
were the Pyrenees impassable. Not only does Dugommier, conqueror
of Toulon, drive Spain back; he invades Spain. General Dugommier
invades it by the Eastern Pyrenees; General Muller shall invade
it by the Western. _Shall_, that is the word: Committee of _Salut
Public_ has said it; Representative Cavaignac, on mission there,
must see it done. Impossible! cries Muller,—Infallible! answers
Cavaignac. Difficulty, impossibility, is to no purpose. ‘The
Committee is deaf on that side of its head,’ answers Cavaignac,
‘_n’entend pas de cette oreille là_. How many wantest thou, of
men, of horses, cannons? Thou shalt have them. Conquerors,
conquered or hanged, forward we must.’[723] Which things also,
even as the Representative spake them, were _done_. The Spring of
the new Year sees Spain invaded: and redoubts are carried, and
Passes and Heights of the most scarped description; Spanish
Field-officerism struck mute at such cat-o’-mountain spirit, the
cannon forgetting to fire.[724] Swept are the Pyrenees; Town
after Town flies up, burst by terror or the petard. In the course
of another year, Spain will crave Peace; acknowledge its sins and
the Republic; nay, in Madrid, there will be joy as for a victory,
that even Peace is got.

Few things, we repeat, can be notabler than these Convention
Representatives, with their power more than kingly. Nay at bottom
are they not Kings, _Able-men_, of a sort; chosen from the Seven
Hundred and Forty-nine French Kings; with this order, Do thy
duty? Representative Levasseur, of small stature, by trade a mere
pacific Surgeon-Accoucheur, has mutinies to quell; mad hosts (mad
at the Doom of Custine) bellowing far and wide; he alone amid
them, the one small Representative,—small, but as hard as flint,
which also carries _fire_ in it! So too, at Hondschooten, far in
the afternoon, he declares that the battle is not lost; that it
must be gained; and fights, himself, with his own obstetric
hand;—horse shot under him, or say on foot, “up to the haunches
in tide-water;” cutting stoccado and passado there, in defiance
of Water, Earth, Air and Fire, the choleric little Representative
that he was! Whereby, as natural, Royal Highness of York had to
withdraw,—occasionally at full gallop; like to be swallowed by
the tide: and his Siege of Dunkirk became a dream, realising only
much loss of beautiful siege-artillery and of brave lives.[725]

General Houchard, it would appear, stood behind a hedge, on this
Hondschooten occasion; wherefore they have since guillotined him.
A new General Jourdan, late Serjeant Jourdan, commands in his
stead: he, in long-winded Battles of Watigny, “murderous
artillery-fire mingling itself with sound of Revolutionary
battle-hymns,” forces Austria behind the Sambre again; has hopes
of purging the soil of Liberty. With hard wrestling, with
artillerying and _ça-ira_-ing, it shall be done. In the course of
a new Summer, Valenciennes will see itself beleaguered; Condé
beleaguered; whatsoever is yet in the hands of Austria
beleaguered and bombarded: nay, by Convention Decree, we even
summon them _all_ “either to surrender in twenty-four hours, or
else be put to the sword;”—a high saying, which, though it
remains unfulfilled, may shew what spirit one is of.

Representative Drouet, as an Old-Dragoon, could fight by a kind
of second nature; but he was unlucky. Him, in a night-foray at
Maubeuge, the Austrians took alive, in October last. They stript
him almost naked, he says; making a shew of him, as King-taker of
Varennes. They flung him into carts; sent him far into the
interior of Cimmeria, to “a Fortress called Spitzberg” on the
Danube River; and left him there, at an elevation of perhaps a
hundred and fifty feet, to his own bitter reflections.
Reflections; and also devices! For the indomitable Old-dragoon
constructs wing-machinery, of Paperkite; saws window-bars:
determines to fly down. He will seize a boat, will follow the
River’s course: land somewhere in Crim Tartary, in the Black Sea
or Constantinople region: _à la_ Sindbad! Authentic History,
accordingly, looking far into Cimmeria, discerns dimly a
phenomenon. In the dead night-watches, the Spitzberg sentry is
near fainting with terror: Is it a huge vague Portent descending
through the night air? It is a huge National Representative
Old-dragoon, descending by Paperkite; too rapidly, alas! For
Drouet had taken with him “a small provision-store, twenty pounds
weight or thereby;” which proved accelerative: so he fell,
fracturing his leg; and lay there, moaning, till day dawned, till
you could discern clearly that he was not a Portent but a
Representative![726]

Or see Saint-Just, in the Lines of Weissembourg, though
physically of a timid apprehensive nature, how he charges with
his “Alsatian Peasants armed hastily” for the nonce; the solemn
face of him blazing into flame; his black hair and tricolor
hat-taffeta flowing in the breeze; These our Lines of
Weissembourg were indeed forced, and Prussia and the Emigrants
rolled through: but we _re_-force the Lines of Weissembourg; and
Prussia and the Emigrants roll back again still faster,—hurled
with bayonet charges and fiery _ça-ira_-ing.

_Ci-devant_ Sergeant Pichegru, _ci-devant_ Sergeant Hoche, risen
now to be Generals, have done wonders here. Tall Pichegru was
meant for the Church; was Teacher of Mathematics once, in Brienne
School,—his remarkablest Pupil there was the Boy Napoleon
Buonaparte. He then, not in the sweetest humour, enlisted
exchanging ferula for musket; and had got the length of the
halberd, beyond which nothing could be hoped; when the Bastille
barriers falling made passage for him, and he is here. Hoche bore
a hand at the literal overturn of the Bastille; he was, as we
saw, a Serjeant of the _Gardes Françaises_, spending his pay in
rushlights and cheap editions of books. How the Mountains are
burst, and many an Enceladus is disemprisoned: and Captains
founding on Four parchments of Nobility, are blown with their
parchments across the Rhine, into Lunar Limbo!

What high feats of arms, therefore, were done in these Fourteen
Armies; and how, for love of Liberty and hope of Promotion,
low-born valour cut its desperate way to Generalship; and, from
the central Carnot in _Salut Public_ to the outmost drummer on
the Frontiers, men strove for their Republic, let readers fancy.
The snows of Winter, the flowers of Summer continue to be stained
with warlike blood. Gaelic impetuosity mounts ever higher with
victory; spirit of Jacobinism weds itself to national vanity: the
Soldiers of the Republic are becoming, as we prophesied, very
Sons of Fire. Barefooted, barebacked: but with bread and iron you
can get to China! It is one Nation against the whole world; but
the Nation has that within her which the whole world will not
conquer. Cimmeria, astonished, recoils faster or slower; all
round the Republic there rises fiery, as it were, a magic ring of
musket-volleying and _ça-ira_-ing. Majesty of Prussia, as Majesty
of Spain, will by and by acknowledge his sins and the Republic:
and make a Peace of Bâle.

Foreign Commerce, Colonies, Factories in the East and in the
West, are fallen or falling into the hands of sea-ruling Pitt,
enemy of human nature. Nevertheless what sound is this that we
hear, on the first of June, 1794; sound of as war-thunder borne
from the Ocean too; of tone most piercing? War-thunder from off
the Brest waters: Villaret-Joyeuse and English Howe, after long
manœuvring have ranked themselves there; and are belching fire.
The enemies of human nature are on their own element; cannot be
conquered; cannot be kept from conquering. Twelve hours of raging
cannonade; sun now sinking westward through the battle-smoke: six
French Ships taken, the Battle lost; what Ship soever can still
sail, making off! But how is it, then, with that _Vengeur_ Ship,
she neither strikes nor makes off? She is lamed, she cannot make
off; strike she will not. Fire rakes her fore and aft, from
victorious enemies; the _Vengeur_ is sinking. Strong are ye,
Tyrants of the Sea; yet we also, are we weak? Lo! all flags,
streamers, jacks, every rag of tricolor that will yet run on
rope, fly rustling aloft: the whole crew crowds to the upper
deck; and, with universal soul-maddening yell, shouts _Vive la
République_,—sinking, sinking. She staggers, she lurches, her
last drunk whirl; Ocean yawns abysmal: down rushes the _Vengeur_,
carrying _Vive la République_ along with her, unconquerable, into
Eternity![727] Let foreign Despots think of that. There is an
Unconquerable in man, when he stands on his Rights of Man: let
Despots and Slaves and all people know this, and only them that
stand on the Wrongs of Man tremble to know it.—So has History
written, nothing doubting, of the sunk _Vengeur_.

—Reader! Mendez Pinto, Münchausen, Cagliostro, Psalmanazar have
been great; but they are not the greatest. O Barrère, Barrère,
Anacreon of the Guillotine! must inquisitive pictorial History,
in a new edition, ask again, “How _is_ it with the _Vengeur_,” in
this its glorious suicidal sinking; and, with resentful brush,
dash a bend-sinister of contumelious lamp-black through thee and
it? Alas, alas! The _Vengeur_, after fighting bravely, did sink
altogether as other ships do, her captain and above two-hundred
of her crew escaping gladly in British boats; and this same
enormous inspiring Feat, and rumour “of sound most piercing,”
turns out to be an enormous inspiring Non-entity, extant nowhere
save, as falsehood, in the brain of Barrère! Actually so.[728]
Founded, like the World itself, on _Nothing;_ proved by
Convention Report, by solemn Convention Decree and Decrees, and
wooden “_Model of the Vengeur;_” believed, bewept, besung by the
whole French People to this hour, it may be regarded as Barrère’s
masterpiece; the largest, most inspiring piece of _blague_
manufactured, for some centuries, by any man or nation. As such,
and not otherwise, be it henceforth memorable.