t this Republic and National Tigress is a New
Birth; a Fact of Nature among Formulas, in an Age of Formulas; and to
look, oftenest in silence, how the so genuine Nature-Fact will demean
itself among these. For the Formulas are partly genuine, partly
delusive, supposititious: we call them, in the language of metaphor,
regulated modelled shapes; some of which have bodies and life still in
them; most of which, according to a German Writer, have only emptiness,
'glass-eyes glaring on you with a ghastly affectation of life, and in
their interior unclean accumulation of beetles and spiders!' But the
Fact, let all men observe, is a genuine and sincere one; the sincerest
of Facts: terrible in its sincerity, as very Death. Whatsoever is
equally sincere may front it, and beard it; but whatsoever is not?--

Chapter 3.5.IV.

Carmagnole complete.

Simultaneously with this Tophet-black aspect, there unfolds itself
another aspect, which one may call a Tophet-red aspect: the Destruction
of the Catholic Religion; and indeed, for the time being of Religion
itself. We saw Romme's New Calendar establish its Tenth Day of Rest;
and asked, what would become of the Christian Sabbath? The Calendar
is hardly a month old, till all this is set at rest. Very singular, as
Mercier observes: last Corpus-Christi Day 1792, the whole world, and
Sovereign Authority itself, walked in religious gala, with a quite
devout air;--Butcher Legendre, supposed to be irreverent, was like to
be massacred in his Gig, as the thing went by. A Gallican Hierarchy, and
Church, and Church Formulas seemed to flourish, a little brown-leaved or
so, but not browner than of late years or decades; to flourish, far
and wide, in the sympathies of an unsophisticated People; defying
Philosophism, Legislature and the Encyclopedie. Far and wide, alas,
like a brown-leaved Vallombrosa; which waits but one whirlblast of the
November wind, and in an hour stands bare! Since that Corpus-Christi
Day, Brunswick has come, and the Emigrants, and La Vendee, and
eighteen months of Time: to all flourishing, especially to brown-leaved
flourishing, there comes, were it never so slowly, an end.

On the 7th of November, a certain Citoyen Parens, Curate of
Boissise-le-Bertrand, writes to the Convention that he has all his life
been preaching a lie, and is grown weary of doing it; wherefore he will
now lay down his Curacy and stipend, and begs that an august Convention
would give him something el