head: "Helas, Monsieur, all that I do
here is as good as simply nothing." Gallant Faussigny, visible this
one time in History, advances frantic, into the middle of the Hall,
exclaiming: "There is but one way of dealing with it, and that is
to fall sword in hand on those gentry there, sabre a la main sur ces
gaillards la," (Moniteur, Seance du 21 Aout, 1790.) franticly indicating
our chosen Thirty on the extreme tip of the Left! Whereupon is clangour
and clamour, debate, repentance,--evaporation. Things ripen towards
downright incompatibility, and what is called 'scission:' that fierce
theoretic onslaught of Faussigny's was in August, 1790; next August will
not have come, till a famed Two Hundred and Ninety-two, the chosen of
Royalism, make solemn final 'scission' from an Assembly given up to
faction; and depart, shaking the dust off their feet.

Connected with this matter of sword in hand, there is yet another thing
to be noted. Of duels we have sometimes spoken: how, in all parts
of France, innumerable duels were fought; and argumentative men
and messmates, flinging down the wine-cup and weapons of reason and
repartee, met in the measured field; to part bleeding; or perhaps not to
part, but to fall mutually skewered through with iron, their wrath and
life alike ending,--and die as fools die. Long has this lasted, and
still lasts. But now it would seem as if in an august Assembly itself,
traitorous Royalism, in its despair, had taken to a new course: that of
cutting off Patriotism by systematic duel! Bully-swordsmen, 'Spadassins'
of that party, go swaggering; or indeed they can be had for a trifle of
money. 'Twelve Spadassins' were seen, by the yellow eye of Journalism,
'arriving recently out of Switzerland;' also 'a considerable number
of Assassins, nombre considerable d'assassins, exercising in
fencing-schools and at pistol-targets.' Any Patriot Deputy of mark
can be called out; let him escape one time, or ten times, a time there
necessarily is when he must fall, and France mourn. How many cartels has
Mirabeau had; especially while he was the People's champion! Cartels by
the hundred: which he, since the Constitution must be made first, and
his time is precious, answers now always with a kind of stereotype
formula: "Monsieur, you are put upon my List; but I warn you that it is
long, and I grant no preferences."

Then, in Autumn, had we not the Duel of Cazales and Barnave; the two
chief masters of tongue-shot meeting