her, in
uncertain loitering and wavering. Mirabeau himself had to complain that
they only gave him half confidence, and always had some plan within his
plan. Had they fled frankly with him, to Rouen or anywhither, long ago!
They may fly now with chance immeasurably lessened; which will go on
lessening towards absolute zero. Decide, O Queen; poor Louis can
decide nothing: execute this Flight-project, or at least abandon
it. Correspondence with Bouille there has been enough; what profits
consulting, and hypothesis, while all around is in fierce activity of
practice? The Rustic sits waiting till the river run dry: alas with you
it is not a common river, but a Nile Inundation; snow melting in the
unseen mountains; till all, and you where you sit, be submerged.

Many things invite to flight. The voice Journals invites; Royalist
Journals proudly hinting it as a threat, Patriot Journals rabidly
denouncing it as a terror. Mother Society, waxing more and more
emphatic, invites;--so emphatic that, as was prophesied, Lafayette and
your limited Patriots have ere long to branch off from her, and form
themselves into Feuillans; with infinite public controversy; the victory
in which, doubtful though it look, will remain with the unlimited
Mother. Moreover, ever since the Day of Poniards, we have seen
unlimited Patriotism openly equipping itself with arms. Citizens denied
'activity,' which is facetiously made to signify a certain weight of
purse, cannot buy blue uniforms, and be Guardsmen; but man is greater
than blue cloth; man can fight, if need be, in multiform cloth, or even
almost without cloth--as Sansculotte. So Pikes continued to be hammered,
whether those Dirks of improved structure with barbs be 'meant for
the West-India market,' or not meant. Men beat, the wrong way, their
ploughshares into swords. Is there not what we may call an 'Austrian
Committee,' Comite Autrichein, sitting daily and nightly in the
Tuileries? Patriotism, by vision and suspicion, knows it too well! If
the King fly, will there not be Aristocrat-Austrian Invasion; butchery,
replacement of Feudalism; wars more than civil? The hearts of men are
saddened and maddened.

Dissident Priests likewise give trouble enough. Expelled from their
Parish Churches, where Constitutional Priests, elected by the Public,
have replaced them, these unhappy persons resort to Convents of Nuns, or
other such receptacles; and there, on Sabbath, collecting assemblages of
Anti-Cons