eir
magnanimity, and their justice. Adoration is paid to this new sovereign:
he is publicly and officially told, in the Assembly and by the press,
that he possesses every virtue, all rights and all powers. If he spills
blood it is inadvertently, on provocation, and always with an infallible
instinct. Moreover, says a deputy, "this blood, was it so pure?" The
greater number of people prefers the theories of their books to the
experience of their eyes; they persist in the idyll, which they have
fashioned for themselves. At the worst their dream, driven out from the
present, takes refuge in the future. To-morrow, when the Constitution is
complete, the people, made happy, will again become wise: let us endure
the storm, which leads us on to so noble a harbor.

Meanwhile, beyond the King, inert and disarmed, beyond the Assembly,
disobeyed or submissive, appears the real monarch, the people--that is
to say, a crowd of a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand individuals
gathered together at random, on an impulse, on an alarm, suddenly and
irresistibly made legislators, judges, and executioners. A formidable
power, undefined and destructive, on which no one has any hold, and
which, with its mother, howling and misshapen Liberty, sits at the
threshold of the Revolution like Milton's two specters at the gates of
Hell.

. . . Before the gates there sat
On either side a formidable shape;
The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair,
but ended foul in many a scaly fold
Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm'd
With mortal sting: about her middle round
A cry of hell hounds never ceasing bark'd
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous peal: yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturb'd their noise, into her womb,
And kennel there; yet there still bark'd and howl'd
Within unseen. . .
........the other shape,
If shape it might be call'd, that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,
Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd
For each seem'd either: black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.

The monster moving onward came as fast,
With horrid strides; hell trembled as he strode.

*****

[Footnote 1201: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of M.
Miron, lieutenant