a shop hard by:  in the basket are female change of raiment and two knives!  Poor Cecile, examined by Committee, declares she “wanted to see what a tyrant was like:”  the change of raiment was “for my own use in the place I am surely going to.”—­“What place?”—­“Prison; and then the Guillotine,” answered she.—­Such things come of Charlotte Corday; in a people prone to imitation, and monomania!  Swart choleric men try Charlotte’s feat, and their pistols miss fire; soft blooming young women try it, and, only half-resolute, leave their knives in a shop.

O Pitt, and ye Faction of the Stranger, shall the Republic never have rest; but be torn continually by baited springs, by wires of explosive spring-guns?  Swart Amiral, fair young Cecile, and all that knew them, and many that did not know them, lie locked, waiting the scrutiny of Tinville.

Chapter 3.6.IV.

Mumbo-Jumbo.

But on the day they call Decadi, New-Sabbath, 20 Prairial, 8th June by old style, what thing is this going forward, in the Jardin National, whilom Tuileries Garden?

All the world is there, in holydays clothes:  (Vilate, Causes Secretes de la Revolution de 9 Thermidor.) foul linen went out with the Hebertists; nay Robespierre, for one, would never once countenance that; but went always elegant and frizzled, not without vanity even,—­and had his room hung round with seagreen Portraits and Busts.  In holyday clothes, we say, are the innumerable Citoyens and Citoyennes:  the weather is of the brightest; cheerful expectation lights all countenances.  Juryman Vilate gives breakfast to many a Deputy, in his official Apartment, in the Pavillon ci-devant of Flora; rejoices in the bright-looking multitudes, in the brightness of leafy June, in the auspicious Decadi, or New-Sabbath.  This day, if it please Heaven, we are to have, on improved Anti-Chaumette principles:  a New Religion.

Catholicism being burned out, and Reason-worship guillotined, was there not need of one?  Incorruptible Robespierre, not unlike the Ancients, as Legislator of a free people will now also be Priest and Prophet.  He has donned his sky-blue coat, made for the occasion; white silk waistcoat broidered with silver, black silk breeches, white stockings, shoe-buckles of gold.  He is President of the Convention; he has made the Convention decree, so they name it, decreter the ’Existence of the Supreme Being,’ and likewise ’ce principe consolateur of the Immortality of the Soul.’  These consolatory principles, the basis of rational Republican Religion, are getting decreed; and here, on this blessed Decadi, by help of Heaven and Painter David, is to be our first act of worship.