Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 02.djvu/154

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
128
STATES-GENERAL
[BK. IV. CH. III.

carpentered, bedizened for them; their very costume has been fixed: a grand controversy which there was, as to 'slouch-hats or slouched-hats,' for the Commons Deputies, has got as good as adjusted. Ever new strangers arrive: loungers, miscellaneous persons, officers on furlough,—as the worthy Captain Dampmartin, whom we hope to be acquainted with: these also, from all regions, have repaired hither, to see what is toward. Our Paris Committees, of the Sixty Districts, are busier than ever; it is now too clear, the Paris Elections will be late.


On Monday, the 27th day of April, Astronomer Bailly notices that the Sieur Réveillon is not at his post. The Sieur Réveillon, 'extensive Paper Manufacturer of the Rue Saint-Antoine': he, commonly so punctual, is absent from Electoral Committee;—and even will never reappear there. In those 'immense Magazines of velvet paper' has aught befallen? Alas, yes! Alas, it is no Montgolfier rising there today; but Drudgery, Rascality, and the Suburb that is rising! Was the Sieur Réveillon, himself once a journeyman, heard to say that 'a journeyman might live handsomely on fifteen sous a-day'? Some sevenpence halfpenny: 'tis a slender sum! Or was he only thought, and believed, to be heard saying it? By this long chafing and friction, it would appear, the National temper has got electric.

Down in those dark dens, in those dark heads and hungry hearts, who knows in what strange figure the new Political Evangel may have shaped itself; what miraculous 'Communion of Drudges' may be getting formed! Enough: grim individuals, soon waxing to grim multitudes, and other multitudes crowding to see, beset that Paper-Warehouse; demonstrate, in loud ungrammatical language (addressed to the passions too), the insufficiency of sevenpence halfpenny a-day. The City-watch cannot dissipate them; broils arise and bellowings: Réveillon, at his wits' end, entreats the Populace, entreats the Authorities. Besenval, now in active command, Commandant of Paris, does,