ls which they know to be nothing but
symbols, while the mechanical procession,[1138] the invocations, the
apostrophes, the postures, the gestures are regulated beforehand, the
same as by a ballet-manager. To any truth-loving person all this must
seem like a charade performed by puppets.--But the festival is colossal,
well calculated to stimulate the imagination and excite pride through
physical excitement.[1139] On this grandiose stage the delegates become
quite intoxicated with their part; for, evidently, theirs is the leading
part; they represent twenty-six millions of Frenchmen, and the sole
object of this ceremony is to glorify the national will of which they
are the bearers.--On the Place de la Bastille[1140] where the gigantic
effigy of nature pours forth from its two breasts "the regenerating
water," Herault, the president, after offering libations and saluting
the new goddess, passes the cup to the eighty-seven elders (les doyens)
of the eighty-seven departments, each "summoned by sound of drum and
trumpet" to step forward and drink in his turn, while cannon belch forth
their thunders as if for a monarch. After the eighty-seven have passed
the cup around, the artillery roars. The procession them moves on, and
the delegates again are assigned the place of honor. The elders, holding
an olive-branch in one hand, and a pike in the other, with a streamer on
the end of it bearing the name of their department, "bound to each other
by a small three-color ribbon," surround the Convention as if to
convey the idea that the nation maintains and conducts its legal
representative. Behind them march the rest of the eight thousand
delegates, likewise holding olive-branches and forming a second distinct
body, the largest of all, and on which all eyes are centered. For, in
their wake, "their is no longer any distinction between persons and
functionaries," all being confounded together, marching pell-mell,
executive council, city officials, judges scattered about haphazard and,
by virtue of equality, lost in the crowd. At each station, thanks to
their insignia, the delegates form the most conspicuous element. On
reaching the last one, that of the Champ de Mars, they alone with the
Convention, ascend the steps leading to the alter of the country; on the
highest platform stands the eldest of all alongside the president of
the Convention, also standing; thus graded above each other, the seven
thousand, who envelope the seven hundred an