Chapter 1: 6.I

Make the Constitution.

Here perhaps is the place to fix, a little more precisely, what
these two words, _French Revolution_, shall mean; for, strictly
considered, they may have as many meanings as there are speakers
of them. All things are in revolution; in change from moment to
moment, which becomes sensible from epoch to epoch: in this
Time-World of ours there is properly nothing else but revolution
and mutation, and even nothing else conceivable. Revolution, you
answer, means _speedier_ change. Whereupon one has still to ask:
How speedy? At what degree of speed; in what particular points of
this variable course, which varies in velocity, but can never
stop till Time itself stops, does revolution begin and end; cease
to be ordinary mutation, and again become such? It is a thing
that will depend on definition more or less arbitrary.

For ourselves we answer that French Revolution means here the
open violent Rebellion, and Victory, of disimprisoned Anarchy
against corrupt worn-out Authority: how Anarchy breaks prison;
bursts up from the infinite Deep, and rages uncontrollable,
immeasurable, enveloping a world; in phasis after phasis of
fever-frenzy;—till the frenzy burning itself out, and what
elements of new Order it held (since all Force holds such)
developing themselves, the Uncontrollable be got, if not
reimprisoned, yet harnessed, and its mad forces made to work
towards their object as sane regulated ones. For as Hierarchies
and Dynasties of all kinds, Theocracies, Aristocracies,
Autocracies, Strumpetocracies, have ruled over the world; so it
was appointed, in the decrees of Providence, that this same
Victorious Anarchy, Jacobinism, Sansculottism, French Revolution,
Horrors of French Revolution, or what else mortals name it,
should have its turn. The “destructive wrath” of Sansculottism:
this is what we speak, having unhappily no voice for singing.

Surely a great Phenomenon: nay it is a _transcendental_ one,
overstepping all rules and experience; the crowning Phenomenon of
our Modern Time. For here again, most unexpectedly, comes antique
Fanaticism in new and newest vesture; miraculous, as all
Fanaticism is. Call it the Fanaticism of “making away with
formulas, _de humer les formules_.” The world of formulas, the
_formed_ regulated world, which all habitable world is,—must
needs hate such Fanaticism like death; and be at deadly variance
with it. The world of formulas must conquer it; or failing that,
must die execrating it, anathematising it;—can nevertheless in
nowise prevent its being and its having been. The Anathemas are
there, and the miraculous Thing is there.

Whence it cometh? Whither it goeth? These are questions! When the
age of Miracles lay faded into the distance as an incredible
tradition, and even the age of Conventionalities was now old; and
Man’s Existence had for long generations rested on mere formulas
which were grown hollow by course of time; and it seemed as if no
Reality any longer existed but only Phantasms of realities, and
God’s Universe were the work of the Tailor and Upholsterer
mainly, and men were buckram masks that went about becking and
grimacing there,—on a sudden, the Earth yawns asunder, and amid
Tartarean smoke, and glare of fierce brightness, rises
SANSCULOTTISM, many-headed, fire-breathing, and asks: What think
ye of _me?_ Well may the buckram masks start together,
terror-struck; “into expressive well-concerted groups!” It is
indeed, Friends, a most singular, most fatal thing. Let whosoever
is but buckram and a phantasm look to it: ill verily may it fare
with him; here methinks he cannot much longer be. Wo also to many
a one who is not wholly buckram, but partially real and human!
The age of Miracles has come back! “Behold the World-Phoenix, in
fire-consummation and fire-creation; wide are her fanning wings;
loud is her death-melody, of battle-thunders and falling towns;
skyward lashes the funeral flame, enveloping all things: it is
the Death-Birth of a World!”

Whereby, however, as we often say, shall one unspeakable blessing
seem attainable. This, namely: that Man and his Life rest no more
on hollowness and a Lie, but on solidity and some kind of Truth.
Welcome, the beggarliest truth, so it _be_ one, in exchange for
the royallest sham! Truth of any kind breeds ever new and better
truth; thus hard granite rock will crumble down into soil, under
the blessed skyey influences; and cover itself with verdure, with
fruitage and umbrage. But as for Falsehood, which in like
contrary manner, grows ever falser,—what can it, or what should
it do but decease, being ripe; decompose itself, gently or even
violently, and return to the Father of it,—too probably in flames
of fire?

Sansculottism will burn much; but what is incombustible it will
not burn. Fear not Sansculottism; recognise it for what it is,
the portentous, inevitable end of much, the miraculous beginning
of much. One other thing thou mayest understand of it: that it
too came from God; for has it not _been?_ From of old, as it is
written, are His goings forth; in the great Deep of things;
fearful and wonderful now as in the beginning: in the whirlwind
also He speaks! and the wrath of men is made to praise Him.—But
to gauge and measure this immeasurable Thing, and what is called
_account for it_, and reduce it to a dead logic-formula, attempt
not! Much less shalt thou shriek thyself hoarse, cursing it; for
that, to all needful lengths, has been already done. As an
actually existing Son of Time, _look_, with unspeakable manifold
interest, oftenest in silence, at what the Time did bring:
therewith edify, instruct, nourish thyself, or were it but to
amuse and gratify thyself, as it is given thee.

Another question which at every new turn will rise on us,
requiring ever new reply is this: Where the French Revolution
specially _is?_ In the King’s Palace, in his Majesty’s or her
Majesty’s managements, and maltreatments, cabals, imbecilities
and woes, answer some few:—whom we do not answer. In the National
Assembly, answer a large mixed multitude: who accordingly seat
themselves in the Reporter’s Chair; and therefrom noting what
Proclamations, Acts, Reports, passages of logic-fence, bursts of
parliamentary eloquence seem notable within doors, and what
tumults and rumours of tumult become audible from
without,—produce volume on volume; and, naming it History of the
French Revolution, contentedly publish the same. To do the like,
to almost any extent, with so many Filed Newspapers, _Choix des
Rapports, Histoires Parlementaires_ as there are, amounting to
many horseloads, were easy for us. Easy but unprofitable. The
National Assembly, named now Constituent Assembly, goes its
course; making the Constitution; but the French Revolution also
goes _its_ course.

In general, may we not say that the French Revolution lies in the
heart and head of every violent-speaking, of every
violent-thinking French Man? How the Twenty-five Millions of
such, in their perplexed combination, acting and counter-acting
may give birth to events; which event successively is the
cardinal one; and from what point of vision it may best be
surveyed: this is a problem. Which problem the best insight,
seeking light from all possible sources, shifting its point of
vision whithersoever vision or glimpse of vision can be had, may
employ itself in solving; and be well content to solve in some
tolerably approximate way.

As to the National Assembly, in so far as it still towers eminent
over France, after the manner of a car-borne _Carroccio_, though
now no longer in the van; and rings signals for retreat or for
advance,—it is and continues a reality among other realities. But
in so far as it sits making the Constitution, on the other hand,
it is a fatuity and chimera mainly. Alas, in the never so heroic
building of Montesquieu-Mably card-castles, though shouted over
by the world, what interest is there? Occupied in that way, an
august National Assembly becomes for us little other than a
Sanhedrim of pedants, not of the gerund-grinding, yet of no
fruitfuller sort; and its loud debatings and recriminations about
Rights of Man, Right of Peace and War, _Veto suspensif, Veto
absolu_, what are they but so many Pedant’s-curses, “May God
confound you for your _Theory of Irregular Verbs!_”

A Constitution can be built, Constitutions enough _à la Sieyes:_
but the frightful difficulty is that of getting men to come and
live in them! Could Sieyes have drawn thunder and lightning out
of Heaven to sanction his Constitution, it had been well: but
without any thunder? Nay, strictly considered, is it not still
true that without some such celestial sanction, given visibly in
thunder or invisibly otherwise, no Constitution can in the long
run be worth much more than the waste-paper it is written on? The
Constitution, the set of Laws, or prescribed Habits of Acting,
that men will live under, is the one which images their
Convictions,—their Faith as to this wondrous Universe, and what
rights, duties, capabilities they have there; which stands
sanctioned therefore, by Necessity itself, if not by a seen
Deity, then by an unseen one. Other laws, whereof there are
always enough _ready_-made, are usurpations; which men do not
obey, but rebel against, and abolish, by their earliest
convenience.

The question of questions accordingly were, Who is it that
especially for rebellers and abolishers, can make a Constitution?
He that can image forth the general Belief when there is one;
that can impart one when, as here, there is none. A most rare
man; ever as of old a god-missioned man! Here, however, in defect
of such transcendent supreme man, Time with its infinite
succession of merely superior men, each yielding his little
contribution, does much. Force likewise (for, as Antiquarian
Philosophers teach, the royal Sceptre was from the first
something of a Hammer, to _crack_ such heads as could not be
convinced) will all along find somewhat to do. And thus in
perpetual abolition and reparation, rending and mending, with
struggle and strife, with present evil and the hope and effort
towards future good, must the Constitution, as all human things
do, build itself forward; or unbuild itself, and sink, as it can
and may. O Sieyes, and ye other Committeemen, and Twelve Hundred
miscellaneous individuals from all parts of France! What is the
Belief of France, and yours, if ye knew it? Properly that there
shall be no Belief; that all formulas be swallowed. The
Constitution which will suit that? Alas, too clearly, a
No-Constitution, an Anarchy;—which also, in due season, shall be
vouchsafed you.

But, after all, what can an unfortunate National Assembly do?
Consider only this, that there are Twelve Hundred miscellaneous
individuals; not a unit of whom but has his own
thinking-apparatus, his own speaking-apparatus! In every unit of
them is some belief and wish, different for each, both that
France should be regenerated, and also that he individually
should do it. Twelve Hundred separate Forces, yoked
miscellaneously to any object, miscellaneously to all sides of
it; and bid pull for life!

Or is it the nature of National Assemblies generally to do, with
endless labour and clangour, Nothing? Are Representative
Governments mostly at bottom Tyrannies too! Shall we say, the
_Tyrants_, the ambitious contentious Persons, from all corners of
the country do, in this manner, get gathered into one place; and
there, with motion and counter-motion, with jargon and hubbub,
_cancel_ one another, like the fabulous Kilkenny Cats; and
produce, for net-result, _zero;_—the country meanwhile
_governing_ or guiding _itself_, by such wisdom, recognised or
for most part unrecognised, as may exist in individual heads here
and there?—Nay, even that were a great improvement: for, of old,
with their Guelf Factions and Ghibelline Factions, with their Red
Roses and White Roses, they were wont to cancel the whole country
as well. Besides they do it now in a much narrower cockpit;
within the four walls of their Assembly House, and here and there
an outpost of Hustings and Barrel-heads; do it with tongues too,
not with swords:—all which improvements, in the art of producing
zero, are they not great? Nay, best of all, some happy Continents
(as the Western one, with its Savannahs, where whosoever has four
willing limbs finds food under his feet, and an infinite sky over
his head) can do without governing.—What Sphinx-questions; which
the distracted world, in these very generations, must answer or
die!