Also it has to hear of Royalist Camp of Jales:  Jales mountain-girdled Plain, amid the rocks of the Cevennes; whence Royalism, as is feared and hoped, may dash down like a mountain deluge, and submerge France!  A singular thing this camp of Jales; existing mostly on paper.  For the Soldiers at Jales, being peasants or National Guards, were in heart sworn Sansculottes; and all that the Royalist Captains could do was, with false words, to keep them, or rather keep the report of them, drawn up there, visible to all imaginations, for a terror and a sign,—­if peradventure France might be reconquered by theatrical machinery, by the picture of a Royalist Army done to the life! (Dampmartin, Evenemens, i. 208.) Not till the third summer was this portent, burning out by fits and then fading, got finally extinguished; was the old Castle of Jales, no Camp being visible to the bodily eye, got blown asunder by some National Guards.

Also it has to hear not only of Brissot and his Friends of the Blacks, but by and by of a whole St. Domingo blazing 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 every where 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 Bouille.  Of sailors, nay the very galley-slaves, at Brest, needing also to be cannonaded; but with no Bouille 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. (See Deux Amis, iii. c. 14; iv. c. 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 14.  Expedition 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), &c.)

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 Cote 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 Cote 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 Experience, shall sever the bond; till death do us part!  Of such may the Heavens have mercy; for the Earth, with her rigorous Necessity, will have none.