in Plot of Insurrection.  Roland and young Barbaroux have spread out the Map of France before them, Barbaroux says ‘with tears:’  they consider what Rivers, what Mountain ranges are in it:  they will retire behind this Loire-stream, defend these Auvergne stone-labyrinths; save some little sacred Territory of the Free; die at least in their last ditch.  Lafayette indites his emphatic Letter to the Legislative against Jacobinism; (Moniteur, Seance du 18 Juin 1792.) which emphatic Letter will not heal the unhealable.

Forward, ye Patriots whose audacity has no limits; it is you now that must either do or die!  The sections of Paris sit in deep counsel; send out Deputation after Deputation to the Salle de Manege, to petition and denounce.  Great is their ire against tyrannous Veto, Austrian Committee, and the combined Cimmerian Kings.  What boots it?  Legislative listens to the ‘tocsin in our hearts;’ grants us honours of the sitting, sees us defile with jingle and fanfaronade; but the Camp of Twenty Thousand, the Priest-Decree, be-vetoed by Majesty, are become impossible for Legislative.  Fiery Isnard says, “We will have Equality, should we descend for it to the tomb.”  Vergniaud utters, hypothetically, his stern Ezekiel-visions of the fate of Anti-national Kings.  But the question is:  Will hypothetic prophecies, will jingle and fanfaronade demolish the Veto; or will the Veto, secure in its Tuileries Chateau, remain undemolishable by these?  Barbaroux, dashing away his tears, writes to the Marseilles Municipality, that they must send him ’Six hundred men who know how to die, qui savent mourir.’ (Barbaroux, p. 40.) No wet-eyed message this, but a fire-eyed one;—­which will be obeyed!

Meanwhile the Twentieth of June is nigh, anniversary of that world-famous Oath of the Tennis-Court:  on which day, it is said, certain citizens have in view to plant a Mai or Tree of Liberty, in the Tuileries Terrace of the Feuillants; perhaps also to petition the Legislative and Hereditary Representative about these Vetos;—­with such demonstration, jingle and evolution, as may seem profitable and practicable.  Sections have gone singly, and jingled and evolved:  but if they all went, or great part of them, and there, planting their Mai in these alarming circumstances, sounded the tocsin in their hearts?

Among King’s Friends there can be but one opinion as to such a step:  among Nation’s Friends there may be two.  On the one hand, might it not by possibility scare away these unblessed Vetos?  Private Patriots and even Legislative Deputies may have each his own opinion, or own no-opinion:  but the hardest task falls evidently on Mayor Petion and the Municipals, at once Patriots and Guardians of the public Tranquillity.  Hushing the matter down with the one hand; tickling it up with the other!  Mayor Petion and Municipality may lean this way; Department-Directory with Procureur-Syndic Roederer having a Feuillant tendency, may lean that.  On the whole, each man must act according to his one opinion or to his two opinions; and all manner of influences, official representations cross one another in the foolishest way.  Perhaps after all, the Project, desirable and yet not desirable, will dissipate itself, being run athwart by so many complexities; and coming to nothing?