low through it; and, outside the
inner wall, all round it. There are committee-rooms, guard-rooms,
robing-rooms: really a noble Hall; where upholstery, aided by the
subject fine-arts, has done its best; and crimson tasseled cloths, and
emblematic fleurs-de-lys are not wanting.

The Hall is ready: the very costume, as we said, has been settled; and
the Commons are not to wear that hated slouch-hat (chapeau clabaud),
but one not quite so slouched (chapeau rabattu). As for their manner of
working, when all dressed: for their 'voting by head or by order' and
the rest,--this, which it were perhaps still time to settle, and in few
hours will be no longer time, remains unsettled; hangs dubious in the
breast of Twelve Hundred men.

But now finally the Sun, on Monday the 4th of May, has
risen;--unconcerned, as if it were no special day. And yet, as his first
rays could strike music from the Memnon's Statue on the Nile, what tones
were these, so thrilling, tremulous of preparation and foreboding, which
he awoke in every bosom at Versailles! Huge Paris, in all conceivable
and inconceivable vehicles, is pouring itself forth; from each Town
and Village come subsidiary rills; Versailles is a very sea of men. But
above all, from the Church of St. Louis to the Church of Notre-Dame:
one vast suspended-billow of Life,--with spray scattered even to
the chimney-pots! For on chimney-tops too, as over the roofs, and up
thitherwards on every lamp-iron, sign-post, breakneck coign of vantage,
sits patriotic Courage; and every window bursts with patriotic Beauty:
for the Deputies are gathering at St. Louis Church; to march in
procession to Notre-Dame, and hear sermon.

Yes, friends, ye may sit and look: boldly or in thought, all France, and
all Europe, may sit and look; for it is a day like few others. Oh, one
might weep like Xerxes:--So many serried rows sit perched there; like
winged creatures, alighted out of Heaven: all these, and so many more
that follow them, shall have wholly fled aloft again, vanishing into
the blue Deep; and the memory of this day still be fresh. It is the
baptism-day of Democracy; sick Time has given it birth, the numbered
months being run. The extreme-unction day of Feudalism! A superannuated
System of Society, decrepit with toils (for has it not done much;
produced you, and what ye have and know!)--and with thefts and brawls,
named glorious-victories; and with profligacies, sensualities, and
on the whole with dota