Chapter 1: 7.iii

Black Cockades.

But fancy what effect this Thyestes Repast and trampling on the
National Cockade, must have had in the _Salle des Menus;_ in the
famishing Bakers’-queues at Paris! Nay such Thyestes Repasts, it
would seem, continue. Flandre has given its Counter-Dinner to the
Swiss and Hundred Swiss; then on Saturday there has been another.

Yes, here with us is famine; but yonder at Versailles is food;
enough and to spare! Patriotism stands in queue, shivering
hungerstruck, insulted by Patrollotism; while bloodyminded
Aristocrats, heated with excess of high living, trample on the
National Cockade. Can the atrocity be true? Nay, look: green
uniforms faced with red; black cockades,—the colour of Night! Are
we to have military onfall; and death also by starvation? For
behold the Corbeil Cornboat, which used to come twice a-day, with
its Plaster-of-Paris meal, now comes only once. And the Townhall
is deaf; and the men are laggard and dastard!—At the Café de Foy,
this Saturday evening, a new thing is seen, not the last of its
kind: a woman engaged in public speaking. Her poor man, she says,
was put to silence by his District; their Presidents and
Officials would not let him speak. Wherefore she here with her
shrill tongue will speak; denouncing, while her breath endures,
the Corbeil-Boat, the Plaster-of-Paris bread, sacrilegious
Opera-dinners, green uniforms, Pirate Aristocrats, and those
black cockades of theirs!—

Truly, it is time for the black cockades at least, to vanish.
Them Patrollotism itself will not protect. Nay, sharp-tempered
“M. Tassin,” at the Tuileries parade on Sunday morning, forgets
all National military rule; starts from the ranks, wrenches down
one black cockade which is swashing ominous there; and tramples
it fiercely into the soil of France. Patrollotism itself is not
without suppressed fury. Also the Districts begin to stir; the
voice of President Danton reverberates in the Cordeliers:
People’s-Friend Marat has flown to Versailles and back
again;—swart bird, not of the halcyon kind![232]

And so Patriot meets promenading Patriot, this Sunday; and sees
his own grim care reflected on the face of another. Groups, in
spite of Patrollotism, which is not so alert as usual, fluctuate
deliberative: groups on the Bridges, on the Quais, at the
patriotic Cafés. And ever as any black cockade may emerge, rises
the many-voiced growl and bark: _À bas_, Down! All black cockades
are ruthlessly plucked off: one individual picks his up again;
kisses it, attempts to refix it; but a “hundred canes start into
the air,” and he desists. Still worse went it with another
individual; doomed, by extempore _Plebiscitum_, to the Lanterne;
saved, with difficulty, by some active
_Corps-de-Garde_.—Lafayette sees signs of an effervescence; which
he doubles his Patrols, doubles his diligence, to prevent. So
passes Sunday, the 4th of October 1789.

Sullen is the male heart, repressed by Patrollotism; vehement is
the female, irrepressible. The public-speaking woman at the
Palais Royal was not the only speaking one:—Men know not what the
pantry is, when it grows empty, only house-mothers know. O women,
wives of men that will only calculate and not act! Patrollotism
is strong; but Death, by starvation and military onfall, is
stronger. Patrollotism represses male Patriotism: but female
Patriotism? Will Guards named National thrust their bayonets into
the bosoms of women? Such thought, or rather such dim unshaped
raw-material of a thought, ferments universally under the female
night-cap; and, by earliest daybreak, on slight hint, will
explode.