As for the Spontaneous Commune, one may say that there never was on Earth a stranger Town-Council. Administration, not of a great City, but of a great Kingdom in a state of revolt and frenzy, this is the task that has fallen to it. Enrolling, provisioning, judging; devising, deciding, doing, endeavouring to do: one wonders the human brain did not give way under all this, and reel. But happily human brains have such a talent of taking up simply what they can carry, and ignoring all the rest; leaving all the rest, as if it were not there! Whereby somewhat is verily shifted for; and much shifts for itself. This Improvised Commune walks along, nothing doubting; promptly ****** front, without fear or flurry, at what moment soever, to the wants of the moment. Were the world on fire, one improvised tricolor Municipal has but one life to lose. They are the elixir and chosen-men of Sansculottic Patriotism; promoted to the forlorn-hope; unspeakable victory or a high gallows, this is their meed. They sit there, in the Townhall, these astonishing tricolor Municipals; in Council General; in Committee of Watchfulness (de Surveillance, which will even become de Salut Public, of Public Salvation), or what other Committees and Sub-committees are needful;--managing infinite Correspondence; passing infinite Decrees: one hears of a Decree being 'the ninety-eighth of the day.'
Ready! is the word. They carry loaded pistols in their pocket; also some improvised luncheon by way of meal. Or indeed, by and by, traiteurs contract for the supply of repasts, to be eaten on the spot,--too lavishly, as it was afterwards grumbled. Thus they: girt in their tricolor sashes;
Municipal note-paper in the one hand, fire-arms in other. They have their Agents out all over France; speaking in townhouses, market-places, highways and byways; agitating, urging to arm; all hearts tingling to hear. Great is the fire of Anti-Aristocrat eloquence: nay some, as Bibliopolic Momoro, seem to hint afar off at something which smells of Agrarian Law, and a surgery of the overswoln dropsical strong-box itself;--whereat indeed the bold Bookseller runs risk of being hanged, and Ex-Constituent Buzot has to smuggle him off. (Memoires de Buzot (Paris, 1823), p. 88.)
Governing Persons, were they never so insignificant intrinsically, have for most part plenty of Memoir-writers; and the curious, in after-times, can learn minutely their goings out and comings in: which, as men always love to know their fellow-men in singular situations, is a comfort, of its kind.
Not so, with these Governing Persons, now in the Townhall! And yet what most original fellow-man, of the Governing sort, high-chancellor, king, kaiser, secretary of the home or the foreign department, ever shewed such a phasis as Clerk Tallien, Procureur Manuel, future Procureur Chaumette, here in this Sand-waltz of the Twenty-five millions, now do? O brother mortals,--thou Advocate Panis, friend of Danton, kinsman of Santerre;
Engraver Sergent, since called Agate Sergent; thou Huguenin, with the tocsin in thy heart! But, as Horace says, they wanted the sacred memoir-writer (sacro vate); and we know them not. Men bragged of August and its doings, publishing them in high places; but of this September none now or afterwards would brag. The September world remains dark, fuliginous, as Lapland witch-midnight;--from which, indeed, very strange shapes will evolve themselves.
Understand this, however: that incorruptible Robespierre is not wanting, now when the brunt of battle is past; in a stealthy way the seagreen man sits there, his feline eyes excellent in the twilight. Also understand this other, a single fact worth many: that Marat is not only there, but has a seat of honour assigned him, a tribune particuliere. How changed for Marat; lifted from his dark cellar into this luminous 'peculiar tribune!'
All dogs have their day; even rabid dogs. Sorrowful, incurable Philoctetes Marat; without whom Troy cannot be taken! Hither, as a main element of the Governing Power, has Marat been raised. Royalist types, for we have 'suppressed' innumerable Durosoys, Royous, and even clapt them in prison,--Royalist types replace the worn types often snatched from a People's-Friend in old ill days. In our 'peculiar tribune' we write and redact: Placards, of due monitory terror; Amis-du-Peuple (now under the name of Journal de la Republique); and sit obeyed of men. 'Marat,' says one, 'is the conscience of the Hotel-de-Ville.' Keeper, as some call it, of the Sovereign's Conscience;--which surely, in such hands, will not lie hid in a napkin!
Two great movements, as we said, agitate this distracted National mind: a rushing against domestic Traitors, a rushing against foreign Despots. Mad movements both, restrainable by no known rule; strongest passions of human nature driving them on: love, hatred; vengeful sorrow, braggart Nationality also vengeful,--and pale Panic over all! Twelve Hundred slain Patriots, do they not, from their dark catacombs there, in Death's dumb-shew, plead (O ye Legislators) for vengeance? Such was the destructive rage of these Aristocrats on the ever-memorable Tenth. Nay, apart from vengeance, and with an eye to Public Salvation only, are there not still, in this Paris (in round numbers) 'thirty thousand Aristocrats,' of the most malignant humour; driven now to their last trump-card?--Be patient, ye Patriots: our New High Court, 'Tribunal of the Seventeenth,' sits; each Section has sent Four Jurymen; and Danton, extinguishing improper judges, improper practices wheresoever found, is 'the same man you have known at the Cordeliers.' With such a Minister of Justice shall not Justice be done?--Let it be swift then, answers universal Patriotism; swift and sure!--One would hope, this Tribunal of the Seventeenth is swifter than most.