of stilts and an incapacity for seeing things
as they are and of so describing them. Men of talent, Isnard, Guadet,
Vergniaud himself, are carried away by hollow sonorous phrases like a
ship with too much canvas for its ballast. Their minds are stimulated by
souvenirs of their school lessons, the modern world revealing itself
to them only through their Latin reminiscences.--Francois de Nantes is
exasperated at the pope "who holds in servitude the posterity of Cato
and of Scoevola."--Isnard proposes to follow the example of the Roman
senate which, to allay discord at home, got up an outside war:
between old Rome and France of 1792, indeed, there is a striking
resemblance.--Roux insists that the Emperor (of Austria) should give
satisfaction before the 1st of March; "in a case like this the Roman
people would have fixed the term of delay; why shouldn't the French
people fix one?..." "The circle of Popilius" should be drawn around
those petty, hesitating German princes. When money is needed to
establish camps around Paris and the large towns, Lasource proposes to
dispose of the national forests and is amazed at any objection to the
measure. "Coesar's soldiers," he exclaims, "believing that an ancient
forest in Gaul was sacred, dared not lay the axe to it; are we to share
their superstitious respect?"[2212]--Add to this collegiate lore the
philosophic dregs deposited in all minds by the great sophist then in
vogue. Lariviere reads in the tribune[2213] that page of the "Contrat
Social," where Rousseau declares that the sovereign may banish members
"of an unsocial religion," and punish with death "one who, having
publicly recognized the dogmas of civil religion, acts as if he did
not believe in them." On which, another hissing parrot, M. Filassier,
exclaims, "I put J. J. Rousseau's proposition into the form of a motion
and demand a vote on it."--In like manner it is proposed to grant very
young girls the right of marrying in spite of their parents by stating,
according to the "Nouvelle Heloise"

"that a girl thirteen or fourteen years old begins to sigh for the union
which nature dictates. She struggles between passion and duty, so that,
if she triumphs, she becomes a martyr, something that is rare in nature.
It may happen that a young person prefers the serene shame of defeat to
a wearisome eight year long struggle."

Divorce is inaugurated to "preserve in matrimony that happy peace of
mind which renders the sentiments live