Chapter 3.4.IV.

O Nature.

But looking more specially into Paris City, what is this that History, on the 10th of August, Year One of Liberty, ‘by old-style, year 1793,’ discerns there?  Praised be the Heavens, a new Feast of Pikes!

For Chaumette’s ‘Deputation every day’ has worked out its result:  a Constitution.  It was one of the rapidest Constitutions ever put together; made, some say in eight days, by Herault Sechelles and others:  probably a workmanlike, roadworthy Constitution enough;—­on which point, however, we are, for some reasons, little called to form a judgment.  Workmanlike or not, the Forty-four Thousand Communes of France, by overwhelming majorities, did hasten to accept it; glad of any Constitution whatsoever.  Nay Departmental Deputies have come, the venerablest Republicans of each Department, with solemn message of Acceptance; and now what remains but that our new Final Constitution be proclaimed, and sworn to, in Feast of Pikes?  The Departmental Deputies, we say, are come some time ago;—­Chaumette very anxious about them, lest Girondin Monsieurs, Agio-jobbers, or were it even Filles de joie of a Girondin temper, corrupt their morals. (Deux Amis, xi. 73.) Tenth of August, immortal Anniversary, greater almost than Bastille July, is the Day.

Painter David has not been idle.  Thanks to David and the French genius, there steps forth into the sunlight, this day, a Scenic Phantasmagory unexampled:—­whereof History, so occupied with Real-Phantasmagories, will say but little.

For one thing, History can notice with satisfaction, on the ruins of the Bastille, a Statue of Nature; gigantic, spouting water from her two mammelles.  Not a Dream this; but a Fact, palpable visible.  There she spouts, great Nature; dim, before daybreak.  But as the coming Sun ruddies the East, come countless Multitudes, regulated and unregulated; come Departmental Deputies, come Mother Society and Daughters; comes National Convention, led on by handsome Herault; soft wind-music breathing note of expectation.  Lo, as great Sol scatters his first fire-handful, tipping the hills and chimney-heads with gold, Herault is at great Nature’s feet (she is Plaster of Paris merely); Herault lifts, in an iron saucer, water spouted from the sacred breasts; drinks of it, with an eloquent Pagan Prayer, beginning, “O Nature!” and all the Departmental Deputies drink, each with what best suitable ejaculation or prophetic-utterance is in him;—­amid breathings, which become blasts, of wind-music; and the roar of artillery and human throats:  finishing well the first act of this solemnity.