This is the second grand attempt by our Girondin Friends of Order, to extinguish that black-spot in their domain; and we see they have made it far blacker and wider than before!  Anarchy, September Massacre:  it is a thing that lies hideous in the general imagination; very detestable to the undecided Patriot, of Respectability:  a thing to be harped on as often as need is.  Harp on it, denounce it, trample it, ye Girondin Patriots:—­and yet behold, the black-spot will not trample down; it will only, as we say, trample blacker and wider:  fools, it is no black-spot of the surface, but a well-spring of the deep!  Consider rightly, it is the apex of the everlasting Abyss, this black-spot, looking up as water through thin ice;—­say, as the region of Nether Darkness through your thin film of Gironde Regulation and Respectability; trample it not, lest the film break, and then—!

The truth is, if our Gironde Friends had an understanding of it, where were French Patriotism, with all its eloquence, at this moment, had not that same great Nether Deep, of Bedlam, Fanaticism and Popular wrath and madness, risen unfathomable on the Tenth of August?  French Patriotism were an eloquent Reminiscence; swinging on Prussian gibbets.  Nay, where, in few months, were it still, should the same great Nether Deep subside?—­Nay, as readers of Newspapers pretend to recollect, this hatefulness of the September Massacre is itself partly an after-thought:  readers of Newspapers can quote Gorsas and various Brissotins approving of the September Massacre, at the time it happened; and calling it a salutary vengeance! (See Hist.  Parl. xvii. 401; Newspapers by Gorsas and others, cited ibid. 428.) So that the real grief, after all, were not so much righteous horror, as grief that one’s own power was departing?  Unhappy Girondins!

In the Jacobin Society, therefore, the decided Patriot complains that here are men who with their private ambitions and animosities, will ruin Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood, all three:  they check the spirit of Patriotism, throw stumbling-blocks in its way; and instead of pushing on, all shoulders at the wheel, will stand idle there, spitefully clamouring what foul ruts there are, what rude jolts we give!  To which the Jacobin Society answers with angry roar;—­with angry shriek, for there are Citoyennes too, thick crowded in the galleries here.  Citoyennes who bring their seam with them, or their knitting-needles; and shriek or knit as the case needs; famed Tricoteuses, Patriot Knitters;—­Mere Duchesse, or the like Deborah and Mother of the Faubourgs, giving the keynote.  It is a changed Jacobin Society; and a still changing.  Where Mother Duchess now sits, authentic Duchesses have sat.  High-rouged dames went once in jewels and spangles; now, instead of jewels, you may take the knitting-needles and leave the rouge:  the rouge will gradually give place to natural brown, clean washed or even unwashed; and Demoiselle Theroigne herself get scandalously fustigated.