Horrible, in Lands that had known equal justice!  Not so unnatural in Lands that had never known it.  Le sang qui coule est-il donc si pure? asks Barnave; intimating that the Gallows, though by irregular methods, has its own.—­Thou thyself, O Reader, when thou turnest that corner of the Rue de la Vannerie, and discernest still that same grim Bracket of old Iron, wilt not want for reflections.  ‘Over a grocer’s shop,’ or otherwise; with ‘a bust of Louis xiv. in the niche under it,’ or now no longer in the niche,—­it still sticks there:  still holding out an ineffectual light, of fish-oil; and has seen worlds wrecked, and says nothing.

But to the eye of enlightened Patriotism, what a thunder-cloud was this; suddenly shaping itself in the radiance of the halcyon weather!  Cloud of Erebus blackness:  betokening latent electricity without limit.  Mayor Bailly, General Lafayette throw up their commissions, in an indignant manner;—­need to be flattered back again.  The cloud disappears, as thunder-clouds do.  The halcyon weather returns, though of a grayer complexion; of a character more and more evidently not supernatural.

Thus, in any case, with what rubs soever, shall the Bastille be abolished from our Earth; and with it, Feudalism, Despotism; and, one hopes, Scoundrelism generally, and all hard usage of man by his brother man.  Alas, the Scoundrelism and hard usage are not so easy of abolition!  But as for the Bastille, it sinks day after day, and month after month; its ashlars and boulders tumbling down continually, by express order of our Municipals.  Crowds of the curious roam through its caverns; gaze on the skeletons found walled up, on the oubliettes, iron cages, monstrous stone-blocks with padlock chains.  One day we discern Mirabeau there; along with the Genevese Dumont. (Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. 305.) Workers and onlookers make reverent way for him; fling verses, flowers on his path, Bastille-papers and curiosities into his carriage, with vivats.

Able Editors compile Books from the Bastille Archives; from what of them remain unburnt.  The Key of that Robber-Den shall cross the Atlantic; shall lie on Washington’s hall-table.  The great Clock ticks now in a private patriotic Clockmaker’s apartment; no longer measuring hours of mere heaviness.  Vanished is the Bastille, what we call vanished:  the body, or sandstones, of it hanging, in benign metamorphosis, for centuries to come, over the Seine waters, as Pont Louis Seize; (Dulaure:  Histoire de Paris, viii. 434.) the soul of it living, perhaps still longer, in the memories of men.

So far, ye august Senators, with your Tennis-Court Oaths, your inertia and impetus, your sagacity and pertinacity, have ye brought us.  “And yet think, Messieurs,” as the Petitioner justly urged, “you who were our saviours, did yourselves need saviours,”—­the brave Bastillers, namely; workmen of Paris; many of them in straightened pecuniary circumstances!  (Moniteur:  Seance du Samedi