hus is Danton's battle-pledge taken up: there is, as he said there
would be, 'war without truce or treaty, ni treve ni composition.'
Wherefore, close now with one another, Formula and Reality, in
death-grips, and wrestle it out; both of you cannot live, but only one!

Chapter 3.3.VIII.

In Death-Grips.

It proves what strength, were it only of inertia, there is in
established Formulas, what weakness in nascent Realities, and
illustrates several things, that this death-wrestle should still have
lasted some six weeks or more. National business, discussion of the
Constitutional Act, for our Constitution should decidedly be got ready,
proceeds along with it. We even change our Locality; we shift, on the
Tenth of May, from the old Salle de Manege, into our new Hall, in the
Palace, once a King's but now the Republic's, of the Tuileries. Hope and
ruth, flickering against despair and rage, still struggles in the minds
of men.

It is a most dark confused death-wrestle, this of the six weeks.
Formalist frenzy against Realist frenzy; Patriotism, Egoism, Pride,
Anger, Vanity, Hope and Despair, all raised to the frenetic pitch:
Frenzy meets Frenzy, like dark clashing whirlwinds; neither understands
the other; the weaker, one day, will understand that it is verily swept
down! Girondism is strong as established Formula and Respectability: do
not as many as Seventy-two of the Departments, or say respectable Heads
of Departments, declare for us? Calvados, which loves its Buzot, will
even rise in revolt, so hint the Addresses; Marseilles, cradle of
Patriotism, will rise; Bourdeaux will rise, and the Gironde Department,
as one man; in a word, who will not rise, were our Representation
Nationale to be insulted, or one hair of a Deputy's head harmed! The
Mountain, again, is strong as Reality and Audacity. To the Reality of
the Mountain are not all furthersome things possible? A new Tenth of
August, if needful; nay a new Second of September!--

But, on Wednesday afternoon, twenty-fourth day of April, year 1793,
what tumult as of fierce jubilee is this? It is Marat returning from
Revolutionary Tribunal! A week or more of death-peril: and now there
is triumphant acquittal; Revolutionary Tribunal can find no accusation
against this man. And so the eye of History beholds Patriotism, which
had gloomed unutterable things all week, break into loud jubilee,
embrace its Marat; lift him into a chair of triumph, bear him
shoulder-high through