ed spectacles'
of Pedantry, wounded Vanity; which yield the most portentous fallacious
spectrum. Carping and complaining forever of Plots and Anarchy, they
will do one thing: prove, to demonstration, that the Reality will
not translate into their Formula; that they and their Formula are
incompatible with the Reality: and, in its dark wrath, the Reality will
extinguish it and them! What a man kens he cans. But the beginning of
a man's doom is that vision be withdrawn from him; that he see not the
reality, but a false spectrum of the reality; and, following that, step
darkly, with more or less velocity, downwards to the utter Dark; to
Ruin, which is the great Sea of Darkness, whither all falsehoods,
winding or direct, continually flow!

This Tenth of March we may mark as an epoch in the Girondin destinies;
the rage so exasperated itself, the misconception so darkened itself.
Many desert the sittings; many come to them armed. (Meillan, Memoires,
pp. 85, 24.) An honourable Deputy, setting out after breakfast, must
now, besides taking his Notes, see whether his Priming is in order.

Meanwhile with Dumouriez in Belgium it fares ever worse. Were it again
General Miranda's fault, or some other's fault, there is no doubt
whatever but the 'Battle of Nerwinden,' on the 18th of March, is
lost; and our rapid retreat has become a far too rapid one. Victorious
Cobourg, with his Austrian prickers, hangs like a dark cloud on the
rear of us: Dumouriez never off horseback night or day; engagement every
three hours; our whole discomfited Host rolling rapidly inwards, full
of rage, suspicion, and sauve-qui-peut! And then Dumouriez himself, what
his intents may be? Wicked seemingly and not charitable! His despatches
to Committee openly denounce a factious Convention, for the woes it
has brought on France and him. And his speeches--for the General has no
reticence! The Execution of the Tyrant this Dumouriez calls the Murder
of the King. Danton and Lacroix, flying thither as Commissioners once
more, return very doubtful; even Danton now doubts.

Three Jacobin Missionaries, Proly, Dubuisson, Pereyra, have flown forth;
sped by a wakeful Mother Society: they are struck dumb to hear the
General speak. The Convention, according to this General, consists of
three hundred scoundrels and four hundred imbeciles: France cannot do
without a King. "But we have executed our King." "And what is it to me,"
hastily cries Dumouriez, a General of no reticence