se
frivolities in order that they may have the right to accuse it of
frivolity and thoughtlessness. They thus give patriotism the appearance
of faction, and these emblems divide those they should rally. However
great the vogue that counsels them to-day, they will never be
universally adopted, for every man really devoted to the public welfare
will be quite indifferent to a _bonnet rouge_. Liberty will neither be
more majestic nor more glorious in this garb, but the very signs with
which you adorn her will serve as a pretext for dissension amongst her
children. A civil war, commencing in sarcasm and ending in bloodshed,
may be caused by a ridiculous manifestation. I leave you to meditate on
these ideas."

XV.

Whilst this letter was being read, the president, a timorous man, who
perceived the agency of Robespierre in the advice of Petion, had quietly
removed from his head the repudiated _bonnet rouge_, and the members of
the society, one after another, followed his example. Robespierre alone,
who had never adopted this bauble of the fashion, and with whom Petion
had concerted his letter, mounted the tribune, and said, "I, in common
with the major of Paris, respect every thing that bears the image of
liberty; but we have a sign which recalls to us constantly our oath to
live and die free, and here is this sign. (He showed his cockade.) The
citizens, who have adopted the _bonnet rouge_ through a laudable
patriotism, will lose nothing by laying it aside. The friends of the
Revolution will continue to recognise each other by the sign of virtue
and of reason. These emblems are ours alone; all those may be imitated
by traitors and aristocrats. In the name of France, I rally you again to
the only standard that strikes terror into her foes. Let us alone retain
the cockade and the banner, beneath which the constitution was born."

The _bonnet rouge_ instantly disappeared in the Assembly; but even the
voice of Robespierre, and the resolutions of the Jacobins, could not
arrest the outbreak of enthusiasm that had placed the sign of _avenging
equality_ ("_l'egalite vengeresse_") on every head; and the evening
of the day on which it was repudiated at the Jacobins saw it inaugurated
at all the theatres. The bust of Voltaire, the destroyer of prejudice,
was adorned with the Phrygian cap of liberty, amidst the shouts of the
spectators, whilst the cap and pike became the uniform and weapon of the
citizen soldier. The Girondists, who