THE IMPROVISED COMMUNE. As for the Spontaneous Commune, one may say that there never was on Earth a stranger Town-Council. Administration, not of a great City, but of a great Kingdom, in a state of revolt and phrenzy, this is the task that has fallen to it. Enrolling, provisioning, judging; devising, deciding, doing, endeavouring to do: one wonders the human brain did not give way under all this, and reel. But happily human brains have such a talent of taking up simply what they can carry, and ignoring all the rest; leaving all the rest, as if it were not there! Whereby somewhat is verily shifted for; and much shifts for itself. This Improvised Commune walks along, nothing doubting: promptly making front, without fear or flurry, at what moment soever, to the wants of the moment. Were the world on fire, one improvised tricolor Municipal has but one life to lose. They are the elixir and chosen men of Sansculottic Patriotism; promoted to the forlorn-hope; unspeakable victory or a high gallows, this is their meed. They sit there, in the Townhall, these astonishing tricolor Municipals; in Council General; in Committee of Watchfulness (de Surveillance, which will even become de Salut Public, of Public Salvation), or what other Committees and SubCommittees are needful;-managing infinite Correspondence; passing infinite Decrees: one hears of a Decree being 'the ninety-eighth of the day.' Ready! is the word. They carry loaded pistols in their pocket; also some improvised luncheon by way of meal. Or indeed, by and by, traiteurs contract for the supply of repasts, to be eaten on the spot,-too lavishly, as it was afterwards grumbled. Thus they: girt in their tricolor sashes; Municipal note-paper in the one hand, fire-arms in the other. They have their Agents out all over France; speaking in town houses, market-places, highways and byways; agitating, urging to arm; all hearts tingling to hear. Great is the fire of Anti-Aristocrat eloquence; nay some, as Bibliopolic Momoro, seem to hint afar off at something which smells of Agrarian THE RISING IN LA VENDÉE. 133 Law, and a surgery of the overswoln dropsical strongbox itself; whereat indeed the bold Bookseller runs risk of being hanged, and Ex-Constituent Buzot has to smuggle him off. French Revolution, vol. iii., p. 9. THE RISING IN LA VENDÉE. While the Prussian batteries were playing their briskest at Longwi in the North-east, and our dastardly Lavergne saw nothing for it but surrender, south-westward, in remote, patriarchal La Vendée, that sour ferment about Nonjuring Priests, after long working, is ripe, and explodes: at the wrong moment for us! And so we have eight thousand Peasants at Châtillon-sur-Sèvre who will not be balloted for soldiers; will not have their Curates molested. To whom Bonchamps, Larochejaquelins, and Seigneurs enough of a Royalist turn, will join themselves; with Stofflets and Charettes; with Heroes and Chouan Smugglers; and the loyal warmth of a simple people, blown into flame and fury by theological and seignorial bellows! So that there shall be fighting from behind ditches, death-volleys bursting out of thickets and ravines of rivers; huts burning, feet of the pitiful women hurrying to refuge with their children on their back; seedfields fallow, whitened with human bones;'eighty thousand, of all ages, ranks, sexes, flying at once across 'the Loire,' with wail borne far on the winds: and in brief, for years coming, such a suite of scenes as glorious war has not offered in these late ages, not since our Albigenses and Crusadings were over,- -save indeed some chance Palatinate, or so, we might have to burn, by way of exception.' The 'eightthousand at Châtillon' will be got dispelled for the moment; the fire scattered, not extinguished. To the dints and bruises of outward battle there is to be added henceforth a deadlier internal gangrene. This rising in La Vendée reports itself at Paris on Wednesday the 29th of August;-just as we had got our Electors elected; and, in spite of Brunswick and Longwi, were hoping still to have a National Convention, if it pleased Heaven. But indeed otherwise this Wednesday is to be regarded as one of the notablest Paris had yet seen: gloomy tidings come successively, like Job's messengers; are met by gloomy answers. Of Sardinia rising to invade the South-east, and Spain threatening the South, we do not speak. But are not the Prussians masters of Longwi (treacherously yielded, one would say); and preparing to besiege Verdun? Clairfait and his Austrians are encompassing Thionville; darkening the North. Not Metland now, but the Clermontais is getting harried: flying hulans and hussars have been seen on the Chalons Road, almost as far as Sainte-Menehould. Heart, ye Patriots; if ye lose heart, ye lose all! It is not without a dramatic emotion that one reads in the Parliamentary Debates of this Wednesday evening 'past seven o'clock,' the scene with the military fugitives from Longwi. Wayworn, dusty, disheartened, these poor men enter the Legislative, about sunset or after; give the most pathetic detail of the frightful pass they were in: Prussians billowing round by the myriad, volcanically spouting fire for fifteen hours: we, scattered sparse on the ramparts, hardly a cannoneer to two guns; our dastard Commandant Lavergne nowhere showing face; the priming would not catch; there was no powder in the bombs,—what could we do? Mourir, Die!" answer prompt voices; and the dusty fugitives must shrink elsewhither for comfort.-Yes, Mourir, that is now the word. Be Longwi a proverb and a hissing among French strongplaces: let it (says the Legislative) be obliterated rather, from the shamed face of the Earth ;-and so there has gone forth Decree, that Longwi shall, were the Prussians once out of it, 'be rased,' and exist only as ploughed ground. French Revolution, vol. iii., p. 15. SENTENCE OF DEATH. 135 SENTENCE OF DEATH. Is Louis Capet guilty of conspiring against Liberty? Shall our Sentence be itself final, or need ratifying by Appeal to the People? If guilty, what Punishment? This is the form agreed to, after uproar and several hours of tumultuous indecision these are the Three successive Questions, whereon the Convention shall now pronounce. Paris floods round their Hall; multitudinous, many-sounding Europe, and all Nations listen for their answer. Deputy after Deputy shall answer to his name: Guilty or not Guilty? : As to the Guilt, there is, as above hinted, no doubt in the mind of Patriot men. Overwhelming majority pronounces Guilt; the unanimous Convention votes for Guilt; only some feeble twenty-eight voting not Innocence, but refusing to vote at all. Neither does the Second Question prove doubtful, whatever the Girondins might calculate. Would not Appeal to the People be another name for civil war? Majority of two to one answers that there shall be no Appeal: this also is settled. Loud Patriotism, now at ten o'clock, may hush itself for the night; and retire to its bed not without hope. Tuesday has gone well. On the morrow comes, What Punishment? On the morrow is the tug of war. Consider therefore if, on this Wednesday morning, there is an affluence of Patriotism; if Paris stands a-tiptoe, and all Deputies are at their post! Seven-hundred and Forty-nine honourable Deputies; only some twenty absent on mission, Duchâtel and some seven others absent by sickness. Meanwhile expectant Patriotism and Paris standing a-tiptoe, have need of patience. For this Wednesday again passes in debate and effervescence; Girondins proposing that a majority of three-fourths shall be required; Patriots fiercely resisting them. Danton, who has just got back from mission in the Netherlands, does obtain⚫ order of the day' on this Girondin proposal; nay he obtains further that we decide sans désemparer, in Permanentsession, till we have done. And so, finally, at eight in the evening this Third stupendous Voting, by roll-call or appel nominal, does begin. What Punishment? Girondins undecided, Patriots decided, men afraid of Royalty, men afraid of Anarchy, must answer here and now. Infinite Patriotism, dusky in the lamp-light, floods all corridors, crowds all galleries; sternly waiting to hear. Shrill-sounding Ushers summon you by Name and Depart ment; you must rise to the Tribune, and say. Eye-witnesses have represented this scene of the Third Voting, and of the votings that grew out of it; a scene protracted, like to be endless, lasting, with few brief intervals, from Wednesday till Sunday morning; as one of the strangest seen in the Revolution. Long night wears itself into day; morning's paleness is spread over all faces; and again the wintry shadows sink, and the dim lamps are lit: but through day and night and the vicissitudes of hours, Member after Member is mounting continually those Tribune-steps; pausing aloft there, in the clearer upper light, to speak his Fate-word; then diving down into the dusk and throng again. Like Phantoms in the hour of midnight; most spectral, pandemonial! Never did President Vergniaud, or any terrestrial President, superintend the like. A King's Life, and so much else that depends thereon, hangs trembling in the balance. Man after man mounts; the buzz hushes itself till he have spoken; Death; Banishment; Imprisonment till the Peace. Many say, Death; with what cautious well-studied phrases and paragraphs they could devise, of explanation, of enforcement, of faint recommendation to mercy. Many too say, Banishment; something short of Death. The balance trembles, none can yet guess whitherward. Whereat anxious Patriotism bellows; irrepressible by Ushers. The poor Girondins, many of them, under such fierce bellowing of Patriotism, say Death; justifying, motivant, that most miserable word of theirs, by some brief casuistry and jesuitry. Vergniaud himself says, Death; justifying by jesuitry. Rich Lepelletier Saint-Fargeau had been of the Noblesse, and then of the Patriot Left Side, in the Con |