Chapter 2: 1.xi

As in the Age of Gold.

Meanwhile to Paris, ever going and returning, day after day, and
all day long, towards that Field of Mars, it becomes painfully
apparent that the spadework there cannot be got done in time.
There is such an area of it; three hundred thousand square feet:
for from the Ecole militaire (which will need to be done up in
wood with balconies and galleries) westward to the Gate by the
river (where also shall be wood, in triumphal arches), we count
same thousand yards of length; and for breadth, from this
umbrageous Avenue of eight rows, on the South side, to that
corresponding one on the North, some thousand feet, more or less.
All this to be scooped out, and wheeled up in slope along the
sides; high enough; for it must be rammed down there, and shaped
stair-wise into as many as “thirty ranges of convenient seats,”
firm-trimmed with turf, covered with enduring timber;—and then
our huge pyramidal Fatherland’s-Altar, _Autel de la Patrie_, in
the centre, also to be raised and stair-stepped! Force-work with
a vengeance; it is a World’s Amphitheatre! There are but fifteen
days good; and at this languid rate, it might take half as many
weeks. What is singular too, the spademen seem to work lazily;
they will not work double-tides, even for offer of more wages,
though their tide is but seven hours; they declare angrily that
the human tabernacle requires occasional rest!

Is it Aristocrats secretly bribing? Aristocrats were capable of
that. Only six months since, did not evidence get afloat that
subterranean Paris, for we stand over quarries and catacombs,
dangerously, as it were midway between Heaven and the Abyss, and
are hollow underground,—was charged with gunpowder, which should
make us “leap?” Till a Cordelier’s Deputation actually went to
examine, and found it—carried off again![295] An accursed,
incurable brood; all asking for “passports,” in these sacred
days. Trouble, of rioting, château-burning, is in the Limousin
and elsewhere; for they are busy! Between the best of Peoples and
the best of Restorer-Kings, they would sow grudges; with what a
fiend’s-grin would they see this Federation, looked for by the
Universe, fail!

Fail for want of spadework, however, it shall not. He that has
four limbs, and a French heart, can do spadework; and will! On
the first July Monday, scarcely has the signal-cannon boomed;
scarcely have the languescent mercenary Fifteen Thousand laid
down their tools, and the eyes of onlookers turned sorrowfully of
the still high Sun; when this and the other Patriot, fire in his
eye, snatches barrow and mattock, and himself begins indignantly
wheeling. Whom scores and then hundreds follow; and soon a
volunteer Fifteen Thousand are shovelling and trundling; with the
heart of giants; and all in right order, with that extemporaneous
adroitness of theirs: whereby _such_ a lift has been given, worth
three mercenary ones;—which may end when the late twilight
thickens, in triumph shouts, heard or heard of beyond Montmartre!

A sympathetic population will _wait_, next day, with eagerness,
till the tools are free. Or why wait? Spades elsewhere exist! And
so now bursts forth that effulgence of Parisian enthusiasm,
good-heartedness and brotherly love; such, if Chroniclers are
trustworthy, as was not witnessed since the Age of Gold. Paris,
male and female, precipitates itself towards its South-west
extremity, spade on shoulder. Streams of men, without order; or
in order, as ranked fellow-craftsmen, as natural or accidental
reunions, march towards the Field of Mars. Three-deep these
march; to the sound of stringed music; preceded by young girls
with green boughs, and tricolor streamers: they have shouldered,
soldier-wise, their shovels and picks; and with one throat are
singing _ça-ira_. Yes, _pardieu ça-ira_, cry the passengers on
the streets. All corporate Guilds, and public and private Bodies
of Citizens, from the highest to the lowest, march; the very
Hawkers, one finds, have ceased bawling for one day. The
neighbouring Villages turn out: their able men come marching, to
village fiddle or tambourine and triangle, under their Mayor, or
Mayor and Curate, who also walk bespaded, and in tricolor sash.
As many as one hundred and fifty thousand workers: nay at certain
seasons, as some count, two hundred and fifty thousand; for, in
the afternoon especially, what mortal but, finishing his hasty
day’s work, would run! A stirring city: from the time you reach
the Place Louis Quinze, southward over the River, by all Avenues,
it is one living throng. So many workers; and no mercenary
mock-workers, but real ones that lie freely to it: each Patriot
_stretches_ himself against the stubborn glebe; hews and wheels
with the whole weight that is in him.

Amiable infants, _aimables enfans!_ They do the “_police des
l’atelier_” too, the guidance and governance, themselves; with
that ready will of theirs, with that extemporaneous adroitness.
It is a true brethren’s work; all distinctions confounded,
abolished; as it was in the beginning, when Adam himself delved.
Longfrocked tonsured Monks, with short-skirted Water-carriers,
with swallow-tailed well-frizzled _Incroyables_ of a Patriot
turn; dark Charcoalmen, meal-white Peruke-makers; or
Peruke-wearers, for Advocate and Judge are there, and all Heads
of Districts: sober Nuns sisterlike with flaunting Nymphs of the
Opera, and females in common circumstances named unfortunate: the
patriot Rag-picker, and perfumed dweller in palaces; for
Patriotism like New-birth, and also like Death, levels all. The
Printers have come marching, Prudhomme’s all in Paper-caps with
_Révolutions de Paris_ printed on them; as Camille notes; wishing
that in these great days there should be a _Pacte des Ecrivains_
too, or Federation of Able Editors.[296] Beautiful to see! The
snowy linen and delicate pantaloon alternates with the soiled
check-shirt and bushel-breeches; for both have cast their coats,
and under both are four limbs and a set of Patriot muscles. There
do they pick and shovel; or bend forward, yoked in long strings
to box-barrow or overloaded tumbril; joyous, with one mind. Abbé
Sieyes is seen pulling, wiry, vehement, if too light for draught;
by the side of Beauharnais, who shall get Kings though he be
none. Abbé Maury did not pull; but the Charcoalmen brought a
mummer guised like him, so he had to pull in effigy. Let no
august Senator disdain the work: Mayor Bailly, Generalissimo
Lafayette are there;—and, alas, shall be there again another day!
The King himself comes to see: sky-rending _Vive-le-Roi;_ “and
suddenly with shouldered spades they form a guard of honour round
him.” Whosoever can come comes, to work, or to look, and bless
the work.

Whole families have come. One whole family we see clearly, of
three generations: the father picking, the mother shovelling, the
young ones wheeling assiduous; old grandfather, hoary with
ninety-three years, holds in his arms the youngest of all:[297]
frisky, not helpful this one; who nevertheless may tell it to
_his_ grandchildren; and how the Future and the Past alike looked
on, and with failing or with half-formed voice, faltered their
_ça-ira_. A vintner has wheeled in, on Patriot truck, beverage of
wine: ‘Drink not, my brothers, if ye are not dry; that your cask
may last the longer;’ neither did any drink, but men “evidently
exhausted.” A dapper Abbé looks on, sneering. ‘To the barrow!’
cry several; whom he, lest a worse thing befal him, obeys:
nevertheless one wiser Patriot barrowman, arriving now,
interposes his ‘_arrêtez;_’ setting down his own barrow, he
snatches the Abbé’s; trundles it fast, like an infected thing;
forth of the Champ-de-Mars circuit, and discharges it _there_.
Thus too a certain person (of some quality, or private capital,
to appearance), entering hastily, flings down his coat, waistcoat
and two watches, and is rushing to the thick of the work: ‘But
your watches?’ cries the general voice.—‘Does one distrust his
brothers?’ answers he; nor were the watches stolen. How beautiful
is noble-sentiment: like gossamer gauze, beautiful and cheap;
which will stand no tear and wear! Beautiful cheap gossamer
gauze, thou film-shadow of a raw-material of Virtue, which art
not woven, nor likely to be, into Duty; thou art better than
nothing, and also worse!

Young Boarding-school Boys, College Students, shout _Vive la
Nation_, and regret that they have yet “only their sweat to
give.” What say we of Boys? Beautifullest Hebes; the loveliest of
Paris, in their light air-robes, with riband-girdle of tricolor,
are there; shovelling and wheeling with the rest; their Hebe eyes
brighter with enthusiasm, and long hair in beautiful
dishevelment: hard-pressed are their small fingers; but they make
the patriot barrow go, and even force it to the summit of the
slope (with a little tracing, which what man’s arm were not too
happy to lend?)—then bound down with it again, and go for more;
with their long locks and tricolors blown back: graceful as the
rosy Hours. O, as that evening Sun fell over the Champ-de-Mars,
and tinted with fire the thick umbrageous boscage that shelters
it on this hand and on that, and struck direct on those Domes and
two-and-forty Windows of the Ecole Militaire, and made them all
of burnished gold,—saw he on his wide zodiac road other such
sight? A living garden spotted and dotted with such flowerage;
all colours of the prism; the beautifullest blent friendly with
the usefullest; all growing and working brotherlike there, under
one warm feeling, were it but for days; once and no second time!
But Night is sinking; these Nights too, into Eternity. The
hastiest Traveller Versailles-ward has drawn bridle on the
heights of Chaillot: and looked for moments over the River;
reporting at Versailles what he saw, not without tears.[298]

Meanwhile, from all points of the compass, Federates are
arriving: fervid children of the South, “who glory in their
Mirabeau;” considerate North-blooded Mountaineers of Jura; sharp
Bretons, with their Gaelic suddenness; Normans not to be
overreached in bargain: all now animated with one noblest fire of
Patriotism. Whom the Paris brethren march forth to receive; with
military solemnities, with fraternal embracing, and a hospitality
worthy of the heroic ages. They assist at the Assembly’s Debates,
these Federates: the Galleries are reserved for them. They assist
in the toils of the Champ-de-Mars; each new troop will put its
hand to the spade; lift a hod of earth on the Altar of the
Fatherland. But the flourishes of rhetoric, for it is a
gesticulating People; the moral-sublime of those Addresses to an
august Assembly, to a Patriot Restorer! Our Breton Captain of
Federates kneels even, in a fit of enthusiasm, and gives up his
sword; he wet-eyed to a King wet-eyed. Poor Louis! These, as he
said afterwards, were among the bright days of his life.

Reviews also there must be; royal Federate-reviews, with King,
Queen and tricolor Court looking on: at lowest, if, as is too
common, it rains, our Federate Volunteers will file through the
inner gateways, Royalty standing dry. Nay there, should some stop
occur, the beautifullest fingers in France may take you softly by
the lapelle, and, in mild flute-voice, ask: ‘Monsieur, of what
Province are you?’ Happy he who can reply, chivalrously lowering
his sword’s point, ‘Madame, from the Province your ancestors
reigned over.’ He that happy “Provincial Advocate,” now
Provincial Federate, shall be rewarded by a sun-smile, and such
melodious glad words addressed to a King: ‘Sire, these are your
faithful Lorrainers.’ Cheerier verily, in these holidays, is this
“skyblue faced with red” of a National Guardsman, than the dull
black and gray of a Provincial Advocate, which in workdays one
was used to. For the same thrice-blessed Lorrainer shall, this
evening, stand sentry at a Queen’s door; and feel that he could
die a thousand deaths for her: then again, at the outer gate, and
even a third time, she shall see him; nay he will make her do it;
presenting arms with emphasis, “making his musket jingle again”:
and in her salute there shall again be a sun-smile, and that
little blonde-locked too hasty Dauphin shall be admonished,
‘Salute then, Monsieur, don’t be unpolite;’ and therewith she,
like a bright Sky-wanderer or Planet with her little Moon, issues
forth peculiar.[299]

But at night, when Patriot spadework is over, figure the sacred
rights of hospitality! Lepelletier Saint-Fargeau, a mere private
senator, but with great possessions, has daily his “hundred
dinner-guests;” the table of Generalissimo Lafayette may double
that number. In lowly parlour, as in lofty saloon, the wine-cup
passes round; crowned by the smiles of Beauty; be it of
lightly-tripping Grisette, or of high-sailing Dame, for both
equally have beauty, and smiles precious to the brave.