’the shape was noticeable;’ and now only sympathetic interjections, titterings, teeheeings, and resolute good-humour will avail.  A deluge; an incessant sheet or fluid-column of rain;—­such that our Overseer’s very mitre must be filled; not a mitre, but a filled and leaky fire-bucket on his reverend head!—­Regardless of which, Overseer Talleyrand performs his miracle:  the Blessing of Talleyrand, another than that of Jacob, is on all the Eighty-three departmental flags of France; which wave or flap, with such thankfulness as needs.  Towards three o’clock, the sun beams out again:  the remaining evolutions can be transacted under bright heavens, though with decorations much damaged. (Deux Amis, v. 143-179.)

On Wednesday our Federation is consummated:  but the festivities last out the week, and over into the next.  Festivities such as no Bagdad Caliph, or Aladdin with the Lamp, could have equalled.  There is a Jousting on the River; with its water-somersets, splashing and haha-ing:  Abbe Fauchet, Te-Deum Fauchet, preaches, for his part, in ’the rotunda of the Corn-market,’ a Harangue on Franklin; for whom the National Assembly has lately gone three days in black.  The Motier and Lepelletier tables still groan with viands; roofs ringing with patriotic toasts.  On the fifth evening, which is the Christian Sabbath, there is a universal Ball.  Paris, out of doors and in, man, woman and child, is jigging it, to the sound of harp and four-stringed fiddle.  The hoariest-headed man will tread one other measure, under this nether Moon; speechless nurselings, infants as we call them, (Greek), crow in arms; and sprawl out numb-plump little limbs,—­impatient for muscularity, they know not why.  The stiffest balk bends more or less; all joists creak.

Or out, on the Earth’s breast itself, behold the Ruins of the Bastille.  All lamplit, allegorically decorated:  a Tree of Liberty sixty feet high; and Phrygian Cap on it, of size enormous, under which King Arthur and his round-table might have dined!  In the depths of the background, is a single lugubrious lamp, rendering dim-visible one of your iron cages, half-buried, and some Prison stones,—­Tyranny vanishing downwards, all gone but the skirt:  the rest wholly lamp-festoons, trees real or of pasteboard; in the similitude of a fairy grove; with this inscription, readable to runner:  ‘Ici l’on danse, Dancing Here.’  As indeed had been obscurely foreshadowed by Cagliostro (See his Lettre au Peuple Francais, London, 1786.) prophetic Quack of Quacks, when he, four years ago, quitted the grim durance;—­to fall into a grimmer, of the Roman Inquisition, and not quit it.