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He followed the progress of the British arms with a minute and intelligent attention which from a very early date communicated itself to his son; and the hearty patriotism of Lord Macaulay is perhaps in no small degree the consequence of what his father suffered from the profane and rapacious sansculottes of the revolutionary squadron.
And yet the supply does not come. Yes, and moreover, this great body of enthusiastic demanders are no mere poor and helpless people, ignorant fisher-peasants, half- mad monks, scatter-brained sansculottes none of those, in short, the expression of whose needs has shaken the world so often before, and will do yet again.
As for the poor, they were meeting their match in the gilded youth of Paris, who with clubbed sticks asserted the right of the rich to be merry. If the sansculottes attempted to restore the days of the Terror, the National Guards of Paris were ready to sweep them back into the slums. Such was their fate on May 20th, shortly after Buonaparte's arrival at Paris.
Do you think the sansculottes like to be commanded by the Count de Canclaux, the Viscount de Miranda, the Viscount de Beauharnais, the Count de Valence, the Marquis de Custine, and the Duke de Biron?" "What a combination!" "And the Duke de Chartres!" "Son of Egalité. By the way, when will he be king?" "Never!" "He aspires to the throne, and his very crimes serve to promote his interests."
The trials beside their Terror function of upholding a minority government were great public shows for the howling rabble and leering sansculottes, the hoodlums of Paris whom even the masters dared not offend. The riff-raff acted exactly as at any of their own celebrations and feastings.
The patriot ranks close up. The wilder element of the sansculottes grasps the helm of State. In the desperate need of a dictatorship to cope against the foreign invasion, Danton procures from the Legislature absolute power for a little inner group, the Committee of Public Safety.
A grand family affair for the house of Bourbon; the branch of France succoring and protecting the branch of Madrid, that is to say, performing an act devolving on the elder; an apparent return to our national traditions, complicated by servitude and by subjection to the cabinets of the North; M. le Duc d'Angouleme, surnamed by the liberal sheets the hero of Andujar, compressing in a triumphal attitude that was somewhat contradicted by his peaceable air, the ancient and very powerful terrorism of the Holy Office at variance with the chimerical terrorism of the liberals; the sansculottes resuscitated, to the great terror of dowagers, under the name of descamisados; monarchy opposing an obstacle to progress described as anarchy; the theories of '89 roughly interrupted in the sap; a European halt, called to the French idea, which was making the tour of the world; beside the son of France as generalissimo, the Prince de Carignan, afterwards Charles Albert, enrolling himself in that crusade of kings against people as a volunteer, with grenadier epaulets of red worsted; the soldiers of the Empire setting out on a fresh campaign, but aged, saddened, after eight years of repose, and under the white cockade; the tricolored standard waved abroad by a heroic handful of Frenchmen, as the white standard had been thirty years earlier at Coblentz; monks mingled with our troops; the spirit of liberty and of novelty brought to its senses by bayonets; principles slaughtered by cannonades; France undoing by her arms that which she had done by her mind; in addition to this, hostile leaders sold, soldiers hesitating, cities besieged by millions; no military perils, and yet possible explosions, as in every mine which is surprised and invaded; but little bloodshed, little honor won, shame for some, glory for no one.
The Sansculottes could not be coarser than that. Marie Antoinette used to go and spend the night drinking with her boon-companions, so that she returned home about eleven o'clock the next morning exhausted; that was coarse conduct for such a fine lady." "You may draw the long bow to-night, Jaques; but to-morrow take care of your head!
The beard movement was then in its infancy, and any man except a dragoon who wore hair on his face was regarded as a dangerous character, with whom it was compromising to be seen in any public place a person in sympathy with sansculottes, and who would dispense with trousers but for his fear of the police.
As for the poor, they were meeting their match in the gilded youth of Paris, who with clubbed sticks asserted the right of the rich to be merry. If the sansculottes attempted to restore the days of the Terror, the National Guards of Paris were ready to sweep them back into the slums. Such was their fate on May 20th, shortly after Buonaparte's arrival at Paris.
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