he shadows of Night, blustering, rainy; and all paths grow
dark. Strangest Night ever seen in these regions,--perhaps since the
Bartholomew Night, when Versailles, as Bassompierre writes of it, was a
chetif chateau. O for the Lyre of some Orpheus, to constrain, with touch
of melodious strings, these mad masses into Order! For here all
seems fallen asunder, in wide-yawning dislocation. The highest, as
in down-rushing of a World, is come in contact with the lowest: the
Rascality of France beleaguering the Royalty of France; 'ironshod
batons' lifted round the diadem, not to guard it! With denunciations of
bloodthirsty Anti-national Bodyguards, are heard dark growlings against
a Queenly Name.

The Court sits tremulous, powerless; varies with the varying temper
of the Esplanade, with the varying colour of the rumours from Paris.
Thick-coming rumours; now of peace, now of war. Necker and all the
Ministers consult; with a blank issue. The Oeil-de-Boeuf is one tempest
of whispers:--We will fly to Metz; we will not fly. The royal Carriages
again attempt egress;--though for trial merely; they are again driven in
by Lecointre's Patrols. In six hours, nothing has been resolved on; not
even the Acceptance pure and simple.

In six hours? Alas, he who, in such circumstances, cannot resolve in six
minutes, may give up the enterprise: him Fate has already resolved
for. And Menadism, meanwhile, and Sansculottism takes counsel with the
National Assembly; grows more and more tumultuous there. Mounier returns
not; Authority nowhere shews itself: the Authority of France lies,
for the present, with Lecointre and Usher Maillard.--This then is the
abomination of desolation; come suddenly, though long foreshadowed as
inevitable! For, to the blind, all things are sudden. Misery which,
through long ages, had no spokesman, no helper, will now be its own
helper and speak for itself. The dialect, one of the rudest, is, what it
could be, this.

At eight o'clock there returns to our Assembly not the Deputation; but
Doctor Guillotin announcing that it will return; also that there is
hope of the Acceptance pure and simple. He himself has brought a Royal
Letter, authorising and commanding the freest 'circulation of grains.'
Which Royal Letter Menadism with its whole heart applauds. Conformably
to which the Assembly forthwith passes a Decree; also received with
rapturous Menadic plaudits:--Only could not an august Assembly contrive
further to "fix the p