orld of
Knaves, to educe an Honesty from their united action;"--how cumbrous a
problem, you may see in Chancery Law Courts, and some other places!
Till at length, by Heaven's just anger, but also by Heaven's great
grace, the matter begins to stagnate; and this problem is becoming to
all men a _palpably_ hopeless one.

THE PROCESSION

From 'The French Revolution'

We dwell no longer on the mixed shouting Multitude, for now, behold,
the Commons Deputies are at hand! Which of these Six Hundred
individuals, in plain white cravat, that have come up to regenerate
France, might one guess would become their _king_? For a king or
leader they, as all bodies of men, must have, be their work what it
may; there is one man there who, by character, faculty, position, is
fittest of all to do it; that man, as future, not-yet-elected king
walks there among the rest. He with the thick black locks, will it be?
With the _hure_, as himself calls it, or black _boar's-head_, fit to
be "shaken" as a senatorial portent? Through whose shaggy beetle-brows
and rough-hewn, seamed, carbuncled face there look natural ugliness,
small-pox, incontinence, bankruptcy,--and burning fire of genius, like
comet-fire glaring fuliginous through murkiest confusions? It is
Gabriel Honore Riquetti de Mirabeau, the world-compeller; man-ruling
Deputy of Aix! According to the Baroness de Stael, he steps proudly
along, though looked at askance here, and shakes his black
_chevelure_, or lion's mane, as if prophetic of great deeds.

Yes, Reader, that is the Type-Frenchman of this epoch, as Voltaire was
of the last. He is French in his aspirations, acquisitions, in his
virtues, in his vices; perhaps more French than any other man;--and
intrinsically such a mass of manhood too. Mark him well. The National
Assembly were all different without that one; nay, he might say, with
the old Despot:--"The National Assembly? I am that."

Of a southern climate, of wild southern blood:--for the Riquettis, or
Arrighettis, had to fly from Florence and the Guelfs, long centuries
ago, and settled in Provence, where from generation to generation they
have ever approved themselves a peculiar kindred, irascible,
indomitable, sharp-cutting, true, like the steel they wore; of an
intensity and activity that sometimes verged towards madness, yet did
not reach it. One ancient Riquetti, in mad fulfillment of a mad vow,
chains two Mountains together, and the chain, with its "iron star of