coffs and
groans;--till, ere long, certain Patriots in disorderly sufficient
number, proceed thither, for a night or for nights, and groan it out of
pain. Vivacious alone shall the Mother-Society and her family be. The
very Cordeliers may, as it were, return into her bosom, which will have
grown warm enough.

Fatal-looking! Are not such Societies an incipient New Order of Society
itself? The Aggregative Principle anew at work in a Society grown
obsolete, cracked asunder, dissolving into rubbish and primary atoms?

Chapter 2.1.VI.

Je le jure.

With these signs of the times, is it not surprising that the dominant
feeling all over France was still continually Hope? O blessed Hope, sole
boon of man; whereby, on his strait prison walls, are painted beautiful
far-stretching landscapes; and into the night of very Death is shed
holiest dawn! Thou art to all an indefeasible possession in this
God's-world: to the wise a sacred Constantine's-banner, written on the
eternal skies; under which they shall conquer, for the battle itself is
victory: to the foolish some secular mirage, or shadow of still waters,
painted on the parched Earth; whereby at least their dusty pilgrimage,
if devious, becomes cheerfuller, becomes possible.

In the death-tumults of a sinking Society, French Hope sees only the
birth-struggles of a new unspeakably better Society; and sings, with
full assurance of faith, her brisk Melody, which some inspired fiddler
has in these very days composed for her,--the world-famous ca-ira. Yes;
'that will go:' and then there will come--? All men hope: even Marat
hopes--that Patriotism will take muff and dirk. King Louis is not
without hope: in the chapter of chances; in a flight to some Bouille; in
getting popularized at Paris. But what a hoping People he had, judge by
the fact, and series of facts, now to be noted.

Poor Louis, meaning the best, with little insight and even less
determination of his own, has to follow, in that dim wayfaring of his,
such signal as may be given him; by backstairs Royalism, by official or
backstairs Constitutionalism, whichever for the month may have convinced
the royal mind. If flight to Bouille, and (horrible to think!) a drawing
of the civil sword do hang as theory, portentous in the background, much
nearer is this fact of these Twelve Hundred Kings, who sit in the Salle
de Manege. Kings uncontrollable by him, not yet irreverent to him. Could
kind management of these but prospe