t, perceptibly smoke. For as
yet all lies so solid, peaceable; and doubts not, as was said, that
it will endure while Time runs. Do not all love Liberty and the
Constitution? All heartily;--and yet with degrees. Some, as Chevalier
Jaucourt and his Right Side, may love Liberty less than Royalty, were
the trial made; others, as Brissot and his Left Side, may love it more
than Royalty. Nay again of these latter some may love Liberty more than
Law itself; others not more. Parties will unfold themselves; no mortal
as yet knows how. Forces work within these men and without: dissidence
grows opposition; ever widening; waxing into incompatibility and
internecine feud: till the strong is abolished by a stronger; himself in
his turn by a strongest! Who can help it? Jaucourt and his Monarchists,
Feuillans, or Moderates; Brissot and his Brissotins, Jacobins, or
Girondins; these, with the Cordelier Trio, and all men, must work what
is appointed them, and in the way appointed them.

And to think what fate these poor Seven Hundred and Forty-five are
assembled, most unwittingly, to meet! Let no heart be so hard as not to
pity them. Their soul's wish was to live and work as the First of the
French Parliaments: and make the Constitution march. Did they not, at
their very instalment, go through the most affecting Constitutional
ceremony, almost with tears? The Twelve Eldest are sent solemnly to
fetch the Constitution itself, the printed book of the Law. Archivist
Camus, an Old-Constituent appointed Archivist, he and the Ancient
Twelve, amid blare of military pomp and clangour, enter, bearing the
divine Book: and President and all Legislative Senators, laying
their hand on the same, successively take the Oath, with cheers and
heart-effusion, universal three-times-three. (Moniteur, Seance du 4
Octobre 1791.) In this manner they begin their Session. Unhappy mortals!
For, that same day, his Majesty having received their Deputation
of welcome, as seemed, rather drily, the Deputation cannot but feel
slighted, cannot but lament such slight: and thereupon our cheering
swearing First Parliament sees itself, on the morrow, obliged to explode
into fierce retaliatory sputter, of anti-royal Enactment as to how
they, for their part, will receive Majesty; and how Majesty shall not
be called Sire any more, except they please: and then, on the following
day, to recal this Enactment of theirs, as too hasty, and a mere sputter
though not unprovoked.

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