he
noblest of all living Frenchwomen,--and will be seen, one day. O blessed
rather while unseen, even of herself! For the present she gazes, nothing
doubting, into this grand theatricality; and thinks her young dreams are
to be fulfilled.

From dawn to dusk, as we said, it lasts; and truly a sight like
few. Flourishes of drums and trumpets are something: but think of an
'artificial Rock fifty feet high,' all cut into crag-steps, not without
the similitude of 'shrubs!' The interior cavity, for in sooth it is
made of deal,--stands solemn, a 'Temple of Concord:' on the outer summit
rises 'a Statue of Liberty,' colossal, seen for miles, with her Pike and
Phrygian Cap, and civic column; at her feet a Country's Altar, 'Autel de
la Patrie:'--on all which neither deal-timber nor lath and plaster, with
paint of various colours, have been spared. But fancy then the banners
all placed on the steps of the Rock; high-mass chaunted; and the civic
oath of fifty thousand: with what volcanic outburst of sound from iron
and other throats, enough to frighten back the very Saone and Rhone; and
how the brightest fireworks, and balls, and even repasts closed in that
night of the gods! (Hist. Parl. xii. 274.) And so the Lyons Federation
vanishes too, swallowed of darkness;--and yet not wholly, for our brave
fair Roland was there; also she, though in the deepest privacy, writes
her Narrative of it in Champagneux's Courier de Lyons; a piece which
'circulates to the extent of sixty thousand;' which one would like now
to read.

But on the whole, Paris, we may see, will have little to devise; will
only have to borrow and apply. And then as to the day, what day of all
the calendar is fit, if the Bastille Anniversary be not? The particular
spot too, it is easy to see, must be the Champ-de-Mars; where many a
Julian the Apostate has been lifted on bucklers, to France's or the
world's sovereignty; and iron Franks, loud-clanging, have responded to
the voice of a Charlemagne; and from of old mere sublimities have been
familiar.

Chapter 2.1.IX.

Symbolic.

How natural, in all decisive circumstances, is Symbolic Representation
to all kinds of men! Nay, what is man's whole terrestrial Life but a
Symbolic Representation, and making visible, of the Celestial invisible
Force that is in him? By act and world he strives to do it; with
sincerity, if possible; failing that, with theatricality, which latter
also may have its meaning. An Almack's Masquer