as right and indispensable, since
such had become the Belief of men; but once also is enough.

They have made the Constitution, these Twelve Hundred Jean-Jacques
Evangelists; not without result. Near twenty-nine months they sat,
with various fortune; in various capacity;--always, we may say, in that
capacity of carborne Caroccio, and miraculous Standard of the Revolt of
Men, as a Thing high and lifted up; whereon whosoever looked might hope
healing. They have seen much: cannons levelled on them; then suddenly,
by interposition of the Powers, the cannons drawn back; and a war-god
Broglie vanishing, in thunder not his own, amid the dust and downrushing
of a Bastille and Old Feudal France. They have suffered somewhat: Royal
Session, with rain and Oath of the Tennis-Court; Nights of Pentecost;
Insurrections of Women. Also have they not done somewhat? Made the
Constitution, and managed all things the while; passed, in these
twenty-nine months, 'twenty-five hundred Decrees,' which on the average
is some three for each day, including Sundays! Brevity, one finds, is
possible, at times: had not Moreau de St. Mery to give three thousand
orders before rising from his seat?--There was valour (or value) in
these men; and a kind of faith,--were it only faith in this, That
cobwebs are not cloth; that a Constitution could be made. Cobwebs
and chimeras ought verily to disappear; for a Reality there is. Let
formulas, soul-killing, and now grown body-killing, insupportable,
begone, in the name of Heaven and Earth!--Time, as we say, brought forth
these Twelve Hundred; Eternity was before them, Eternity behind: they
worked, as we all do, in the confluence of Two Eternities; what work was
given them. Say not that it was nothing they did. Consciously they
did somewhat; unconsciously how much! They had their giants and their
dwarfs, they accomplished their good and their evil; they are gone,
and return no more. Shall they not go with our blessing, in these
circumstances; with our mild farewell?

By post, by diligence, on saddle or sole; they are gone: towards the
four winds! Not a few over the marches, to rank at Coblentz. Thither
wended Maury, among others; but in the end towards Rome,--to be clothed
there in red Cardinal plush; in falsehood as in a garment; pet son (her
last-born?) of the Scarlet Woman. Talleyrand-Perigord, excommunicated
Constitutional Bishop, will make his way to London; to be Ambassador,
spite of the Self-denying Law; br