d also 'dead bodies thrown into the Seine over-night,' to avoid new
effervescence. (Histoire Parlementaire de la Revolution Francaise; ou
Journal des Assemblees Nationales depuis 1789 (Paris, 1833 et seqq.), i.
253. Lameth, Assemblee Constituante, i. (Introd.) p. 89.)
Parlements therefore shall return from exile: Plenary Court, Payment
two-fifths in Paper have vanished; gone off in smoke, at the foot of
Henri's Statue. States-General (with a Political Millennium) are now
certain; nay, it shall be announced, in our fond haste, for January
next: and all, as the Langres man said, is 'going to go.'
To the prophetic glance of Besenval, one other thing is too apparent:
that Friend Lamoignon cannot keep his Keepership. Neither he nor
War-minister Comte de Brienne! Already old Foulon, with an eye to be
war-minister himself, is making underground movements. This is that same
Foulon named ame damnee du Parlement; a man grown gray in treachery,
in griping, projecting, intriguing and iniquity: who once when it
was objected, to some finance-scheme of his, "What will the people
do?"--made answer, in the fire of discussion, "The people may eat
grass:" hasty words, which fly abroad irrevocable,--and will send back
tidings!
Foulon, to the relief of the world, fails on this occasion; and will
always fail. Nevertheless it steads not M. de Lamoignon. It steads not
the doomed man that he have interviews with the King; and be 'seen to
return radieux,' emitting rays. Lamoignon is the hated of Parlements:
Comte de Brienne is Brother to the Cardinal Archbishop. The 24th of
August has been; and the 14th September is not yet, when they two, as
their great Principal had done, descend,--made to fall soft, like him.
And now, as if the last burden had been rolled from its heart, and
assurance were at length perfect, Paris bursts forth anew into extreme
jubilee. The Basoche rejoices aloud, that the foe of Parlements is
fallen; Nobility, Gentry, Commonalty have rejoiced; and rejoice. Nay
now, with new emphasis, Rascality itself, starting suddenly from its dim
depths, will arise and do it,--for down even thither the new Political
Evangel, in some rude version or other, has penetrated. It is Monday,
the 14th of September 1788: Rascality assembles anew, in great force,
in the Place Dauphine; lets off petards, fires blunderbusses, to an
incredible extent, without interval, for eighteen hours. There is again
a wicker Figure, 'Mannequin of osier:' the
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