Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/28

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12
THE FEAST OF PIKES
[BK. I. CH. II.

skyward; blazing in literal fire, and in far worse metaphorical; beaconing the nightly main. Also of the shipping interest, and the landed interest, and all manner of interests, reduced to distress. Of Industry everywhere manacled, bewildered; and only Rebellion thriving. Of sub-officers, soldiers and sailors in mutiny by land and water. Of soldiers, at Nanci, as we shall see, needing to be cannonaded by a brave Bouillé. Of sailors, nay the very galley-slaves, at Brest, needing also to be cannonaded, but with no Bouillé to do it. For indeed, to say it in a word, in those days there was no King in Israel, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes.[1]

Such things has an august National Assembly to hear of, as it goes on regenerating France. Sad and stern: but what remedy? Get the Constitution ready; and all men will swear to it: for do not 'Addresses of adhesion' arrive by the cartload? In this manner, by Heaven's blessing, and a Constitution got ready, shall the bottomless fire-gulf be vaulted in, with rag-paper; and Order will wed Freedom, and live with her there,—till it grow too hot for them. O Côté Gauche, worthy are ye, as the adhesive Addresses generally say, to 'fix the regards of the Universe'; the regards of this one poor Planet, at lowest!—

Nay, it must be owned, the Côté Droit makes a still madder figure. An irrational generation; irrational, imbecile, and with the vehement obstinacy characteristic of that; a generation which will not learn. Falling Bastilles, Insurrections of Women, thousands of smoking Manorhouses, a country bristling with no crop but that of Sansculottic steel: these were tolerably didactic lessons; but them they have not taught. There are still men, of whom it was of old written, Bray them in a mortar! Or, in milder language. They have wedded their delusions: fire nor steel, nor any sharpness of

  1. See Deux Amis, iii. c. 14; iv. c. 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 14. Expédition des Volontaires de Brest sur Lannion; Les Lyonnais Sauveurs des Dauphinois; Massacre au Mans; Troubles du Maine (Pamphlets and Excerpts, in Hist. Parl. iii. 251: iv. 162–168), etc.