sudden find ourselves Insurrectionary Magistrates, with extraneous Committee of Ninety-six sitting by us; and a Citoyen Henriot, one whom some accuse of Septemberism, is made Generalissimo of the National Guard; and, since six o’clock, the tocsins ring and the drums beat:—­Under which peculiar circumstances, what would an august National Convention please to direct us to do? (Compare Debats de la Convention (Paris, 1828), iv. 187-223; Moniteur, Nos. 152, 3, 4, An 1er.)

Yes, there is the question!  “Break the Insurrectionary Authorities,” answers some with vehemence.  Vergniaud at least will have “the National Representatives all die at their post;” this is sworn to, with ready loud acclaim.  But as to breaking the Insurrectionary Authorities,—­alas, while we yet debate, what sound is that?  Sound of the Alarm-Cannon on the Pont Neuf; which it is death by the Law to fire without order from us!

It does boom off there, nevertheless; sending a sound through all hearts.  And the tocsins discourse stern music; and Henriot with his Armed Force has enveloped us!  And Section succeeds Section, the livelong day; demanding with Cambyses’-oratory, with the rattle of muskets, That traitors, Twenty-two or more, be punished; that the Commission of Twelve be irrecoverably broken.  The heart of the Gironde dies within it; distant are the Seventy-two respectable Departments, this fiery Municipality is near!  Barrere is for a middle course; granting something.  The Commission of Twelve declares that, not waiting to be broken, it hereby breaks itself, and is no more.  Fain would Reporter Rabaut speak his and its last-words; but he is bellowed off.  Too happy that the Twenty-two are still left unviolated!—­Vergniaud, carrying the laws of refinement to a great length, moves, to the amazement of some, that ‘the Sections of Paris have deserved well of their country.’  Whereupon, at a late hour of the evening, the deserving Sections retire to their respective places of abode.  Barrere shall report on it.  With busy quill and brain he sits, secluded; for him no sleep to-night.  Friday the last of May has ended in this manner.

The Sections have deserved well:  but ought they not to deserve better?  Faction and Girondism is struck down for the moment, and consents to be a nullity; but will it not, at another favourabler moment rise, still feller; and the Republic have to be saved in spite of it?  So reasons Patriotism, still Permanent; so reasons the Figure of Marat, visible in the dim Section-world, on the morrow.  To the conviction of men!—­And so at eventide of Saturday, when Barrere had just got it all varnished in the course of the day, and his Report was setting off in the evening mail-bags, tocsin peals out again!  Generale is beating; armed men taking station in the Place Vendome and elsewhere for the night; supplied with provisions and liquor.  There under the summer stars will they wait, this night, what is to be seen and to be done, Henriot and Townhall giving due signal.