Germ. 12]
for Bread and a Constitution. Tuileries Sentries do their best; but it serves not: the Ocean-tide sweeps them away; inundates the Convention Hall itself; howling, 'Bread and the Constitution!'
Unhappy Senators, unhappy People, there is yet, after all toils and broils, no Bread, no Constitution. 'Du pain, pas tant de longs discours. Bread, not bursts of Parliamentary eloquence!' so wailed the Menads of Maillard, five years ago and more; so wail ye to this hour. The Convention, with unalterable countenance, with what thought one knows not, keeps its seat in this waste howling chaos; rings its storm-bell from the Pavilion of Unity. Section Lepelletier, old Filles Saint-Thomas, who are of the money-changing species; these and Gilt Youthhood fly to the rescue: sweep chaos forth again, with levelled bayonets. Paris is declared 'in a state of siege.' Pichegru, Conqueror of Holland, who happens to be here, is named Commandant, till the disturbance end. He, in one day so to speak, ends it. Accomplishes the transfer of Billaud, Collot and Company; dissipating all opposition 'by two cannon-shots,' blank cannon-shots, and the terror of his name; and thereupon, announcing, with a Laconicism which should be imitated, 'Representatives, your decrees are executed,'[1] lays down his Commandantship.
This Revolt of Germinal, therefore, has passed, like a vain cry. The Prisoners rest safe in Ham, waiting for ships; some nine-hundred 'chief Terrorists of Paris' are disarmed. Sansculottism, swept forth with bayonets, has vanished, with its misery, to the bottom of Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau.—Time was when Usher Maillard with Menads could alter the course of Legislation; but that time is not. Legislation seems to have got bayonets; Section Lepelletier takes its firelock, not for us! We retire to our dark dens; our cry of hunger is called a Plot of Pitt; the Saloons glitter, the flesh-coloured Drawers gyrate as before. It was for 'The Cabarus,'
- ↑ Moniteur, Séance du 13 Germinal (2d April), 1795.
