Finally, a decision is arrived at. The bravest, well armed get into skiffs, approach the vessel cautiously, choose the most favorable time and spot, rush on board, and take possession; and are perfectly astonished to find neither enemies nor arms. - Nevertheless, the priests are confined on board, and their deputies, must make their appearance before the mayor. The latter, a former usher and good Jacobin, being the most frightened, is the most violent. He refuses to stamp the passports, and, seeing two priests approach, one provided with a sword-cane and the other with an iron-pointed stick, thinks that there is to be a sudden attack. "Here are two more of them," he exclaims with terror; "they are all going to land. My friends, the town is in danger! " - On hearing this the crowd becomes alarmed, and threatens the deputies; the cry of "To the lamp post!" is heard, and, to save them, National Guards are obliged to conduct them to prison in the center of a circle of bayonets. -It must be noted that these madmen are "at bottom the kindest people in the world." After the boarding of the ship, one of the most ferocious, by profession a barber, seeing the long beards of these poor priests, instantly cools down, draws forth his tools, and good-naturedly sets to work, spending several hours in shaving them. In ordinary times ecclesiastics received nothing but salutations; three years previously they were "respected as fathers and guides." But at the present moment the rustic, the man of the lower class, is out of his bearings. Forcibly and against nature, he has been made a theologian, a politician, a police captain, a local independent sovereign; and in such a position his head is turned. Among these people who seem to have lost their senses, only one, an officer of the National Guard, remains cool; he is, besides, very polite, well-behaved, and an agreeable talker; he comes in the evening to comfort the prisoners and to take tea with them in prison; in fact, he is accustomed to tragedies and, thanks to his profession, his nerves are in repose - this person is the executioner. The others, "whom one would take for tigers," are bewildered sheep; but they are not the less dangerous; for, carried away by their delirium, they bear down with their mass on whatever gives them umbrage. - On the road from Paris to Lyons[79] Roland's commissioners witness this terrible fright. "The people are constantly asking what our generals and armies are doing; they have vengeful expressions frequently on their lips. Yes, they say, we will set out, but we must (at first) purge the interior."Something appalling is in preparation. The seventh jacquerie is drawing near, this one universal and final - at first brutal, and then legal and systematic, undertaken and carried out on the strength of abstract principles by leaders worthy of the means they employ. Nothing like it ever occurred in history; for the first time we see brutes gone mad, operating on a grand scale and for a long time, under the leadership of blockheads who have become insane.
There is a certain strange malady commonly encountered in the quarters of the poor. A workman, over-taxed with work, in misery and badly fed, takes to drink; he drinks more and more every day, and liquors of the strongest kind. After a few years his nervous system, already weakened by spare diet, becomes over-excited and out of balance. An hour comes when the brain, under a sudden stroke, ceases to direct the machine; in vain does it command, for it is no longer obeyed; each limb, each joint, each muscle, acting separately and for itself starts convulsively through discordant impulses.
Meanwhile the man is gay; he thinks himself a millionaire, a king, loved and admired by everybody; he is not aware of the mischief he is doing to himself he does not comprehend the advice given him, he refuses the remedies offered to him, he sings and shouts for entire days, and, above all, drinks more than ever. - At last his face grows dark and his eyes become blood-shot. Radiant visions give way to black and monstrous phantoms; he sees nothing around him hut menacing figures, traitors in ambush, ready to fall upon him unawares, murderers with upraised arms ready to cut his throat, executioners preparing torments for him; and he seems to be wading in a pool of blood. So he precipitates, and, in order that he himself may not be killed, he kills. No one is more to be dreaded, for his delirium sustains him; his strength is prodigious, his movements unforeseen, and he endures, without heeding them, suffering and wounds under which a healthy man would succumb. -France, like such a madman, exhausted by fasting under the monarchy, drunk by the unhealthy drug of the Social-Contract, and by countless other adulterated or fiery beverages, is suddenly struck with paralysis of the brain; at once she is convulsed in every limb through the incoherent play and contradictory twitching of her discordant organs. At this time she has traversed the period of joyous madness, and is about to enter upon the period of somber delirium: behold her capable of daring, suffering, and doing all, capable of incredible exploits and abominable barbarities, the moment her guides, as erratic as herself, indicate an enemy or an obstacle to her fury.
THE END.
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