nt. Busy, ye
Twenty-five French Millions; ye foreign Potentates, minatory Emigrants,
German drill-serjeants; each do what his hand findeth! Thou, O Reader,
at such safe distance, wilt see what they make of it among them.

Consider therefore this pitiable Twentieth of June as a futility; no
catastrophe, rather a catastasis, or heightening. Do not its Black
Breeches wave there, in the Historical Imagination, like a melancholy
flag of distress; soliciting help, which no mortal can give? Soliciting
pity, which thou wert hard-hearted not to give freely, to one and all!
Other such flags, or what are called Occurrences, and black or bright
symbolic Phenomena; will flit through the Historical Imagination: these,
one after one, let us note, with extreme brevity.

The first phenomenon is that of Lafayette at the Bar of the Assembly;
after a week and day. Promptly, on hearing of this scandalous Twentieth
of June, Lafayette has quitted his Command on the North Frontier, in
better or worse order; and got hither, on the 28th, to repress the
Jacobins: not by Letter now; but by oral Petition, and weight
of character, face to face. The august Assembly finds the step
questionable; invites him meanwhile to the honours of the sitting.
(Moniteur, Seance du 28 Juin 1792.) Other honour, or advantage, there
unhappily came almost none; the Galleries all growling; fiery Isnard
glooming; sharp Guadet not wanting in sarcasms.

And out of doors, when the sitting is over, Sieur Resson, keeper of the
Patriot Cafe in these regions, hears in the street a hurly-burly; steps
forth to look, he and his Patriot customers: it is Lafayette's carriage,
with a tumultuous escort of blue Grenadiers, Cannoneers, even Officers
of the Line, hurrahing and capering round it. They make a pause opposite
Sieur Resson's door; wag their plumes at him; nay shake their fists,
bellowing A bas les Jacobins; but happily pass on without onslaught.
They pass on, to plant a Mai before the General's door, and bully
considerably. All which the Sieur Resson cannot but report with sorrow,
that night, in the Mother Society. (Debats des Jacobins Hist. Parl.
xv. 235.) But what no Sieur Resson nor Mother Society can do more than
guess is this, That a council of rank Feuillants, your unabolished
Staff of the Guard and who else has status and weight, is in these very
moments privily deliberating at the General's: Can we not put down the
Jacobins by force? Next day, a Review shall be held,