at the history of this Period
has so generally been written in hysterics. Exaggeration abounds,
execration, wailing; and, on the whole, darkness. But thus too, when
foul old Rome had to be swept from the Earth, and those Northmen, and
other horrid sons of Nature, came in, 'swallowing formulas' as the
French now do, foul old Rome screamed execratively her loudest; so that,
the true shape of many things is lost for us. Attila's Huns had arms of
such length that they could lift a stone without stooping. Into the body
of the poor Tatars execrative Roman History intercalated an alphabetic
letter; and so they continue Ta-r-tars, of fell Tartarean nature, to
this day. Here, in like manner, search as we will in these multi-form
innumerable French Records, darkness too frequently covers, or sheer
distraction bewilders. One finds it difficult to imagine that the Sun
shone in this September month, as he does in others. Nevertheless it is
an indisputable fact that the Sun did shine; and there was weather and
work,--nay, as to that, very bad weather for harvest work! An unlucky
Editor may do his utmost; and after all, require allowances.

He had been a wise Frenchman, who, looking, close at hand, on this waste
aspect of a France all stirring and whirling, in ways new, untried, had
been able to discern where the cardinal movement lay; which tendency
it was that had the rule and primary direction of it then! But at
forty-four years' distance, it is different. To all men now, two
cardinal movements or grand tendencies, in the September whirl,
have become discernible enough: that stormful effluence towards the
Frontiers; that frantic crowding towards Townhouses and Council-halls in
the interior. Wild France dashes, in desperate death-defiance, towards
the Frontiers, to defend itself from foreign Despots; crowds towards
Townhalls and Election Committee-rooms, to defend itself from domestic
Aristocrats. Let the Reader conceive well these two cardinal movements;
and what side-currents and endless vortexes might depend on these.
He shall judge too, whether, in such sudden wreckage of all old
Authorities, such a pair of cardinal movements, half-frantic in
themselves, could be of soft nature? As in dry Sahara, when the winds
waken, and lift and winnow the immensity of sand! The air itself
(Travellers say) is a dim sand-air; and dim looming through it, the
wonderfullest uncertain colonnades of Sand-Pillars rush whirling from
this side and from