ion; whereat the world still gazes and shudders.

But, for the rest, let no man ask History to explain by cause-and-effect
how the business proceeded henceforth. This battle of Mountain and
Gironde, and what follows, is the battle of Fanaticisms and Miracles;
unsuitable for cause-and-effect. The sound of it, to the mind, is as a
hubbub of voices in distraction; little of articulate is to be gathered
by long listening and studying; only battle-tumult, shouts of triumph,
shrieks of despair. The Mountain has left no Memoirs; the Girondins
have left Memoirs, which are too often little other than long-drawn
Interjections, of Woe is me and Cursed be ye. So soon as History can
philosophically delineate the conflagration of a kindled Fireship,
she may try this other task. Here lay the bitumen-stratum, there the
brimstone one; so ran the vein of gunpowder, of nitre, terebinth and
foul grease: this, were she inquisitive enough, History might partly
know. But how they acted and reacted below decks, one fire-stratum
playing into the other, by its nature and the art of man, now when all
hands ran raging, and the flames lashed high over shrouds and topmast:
this let not History attempt.

The Fireship is old France, the old French Form of Life; her creed a
Generation of men. Wild are their cries and their ragings there, like
spirits tormented in that flame. But, on the whole, are they not gone,
O Reader? Their Fireship and they, frightening the world, have sailed
away; its flames and its thunders quite away, into the Deep of Time. One
thing therefore History will do: pity them all; for it went hard with
them all. Not even the seagreen Incorruptible but shall have some
pity, some human love, though it takes an effort. And now, so much once
thoroughly attained, the rest will become easier. To the eye of
equal brotherly pity, innumerable perversions dissipate themselves;
exaggerations and execrations fall off, of their own accord. Standing
wistfully on the safe shore, we will look, and see, what is of interest
to us, what is adapted to us.

Chapter 3.3.II.

Culottic and Sansculottic.

Gironde and Mountain are now in full quarrel; their mutual rage, says
Toulongeon, is growing a 'pale' rage. Curious, lamentable: all these men
have the word Republic on their lips; in the heart of every one of them
is a passionate wish for something which he calls Republic: yet see
their death-quarrel! So, however, are men made. Creatures who live