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041 - Book 7 Chapter 2 O Richard O my King · The French Revolution Volume 1 - The Bastille

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  Speaker 1: The French Revolution, A history by Thomas Carlyle, Volume one,
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  Speaker 1: Book seven, The Insurrection of Women, Chapter two, Oh, Richard O,
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  Speaker 1: My King. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Read by Peter Dan Book seven, Chapter two, O Richard O,
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  Speaker 1: My King. For alas neither is the town hall itself
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  Speaker 1: without misgivings. The nether san scolotic world has been suppressed hitherto,
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  Speaker 1: but then the upper court world. Symptoms there are that
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  Speaker 1: the oid of birth is rallying more than once in
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  Speaker 1: the town hall san hedram. Often enough from those outspoken
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  Speaker 1: Baker's cues, has the wish uttered itself? Oh, that our
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  Speaker 1: restorer of French liberty were here, that he could see
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  Speaker 1: with his own eyes, not with the false eyes of
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  Speaker 1: queens and cabals, and his really good heart be enlightened,
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  Speaker 1: for falsehood still environs him, intriguing dukes de Guiche with
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  Speaker 1: bodyguards scouts of we a new flight of intriguers now
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  Speaker 1: that the old is flown? What else means this advent
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  Speaker 1: of the regiment to Fland entering Versailles, as we hear
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  Speaker 1: on the twenty third of September, with two pieces of cannon,
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  Speaker 1: did not the Versailles National Guard do duty of the chateau.
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  Speaker 1: Had they not Swiss hundred Swiss Guard de Corps bodyguards,
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  Speaker 1: Sir called nay, it would seem the number of bodyguards
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  Speaker 1: on duty has by a maneuver been doubled. The new
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  Speaker 1: relieving battalion of them arrived at its time, but the
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  Speaker 1: old relieved one does not depart. Actually, there runs a
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  Speaker 1: whisper through the best informed upper circles, or a nod
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  Speaker 1: still more portentous than whispering of his majesty's flying to
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  Speaker 1: Metz of a bond to stand by him therein which
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  Speaker 1: has been signed by no bless and clergy to the
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  Speaker 1: incredible amount of thirty or even of sixty thousand. Lafayette
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  Speaker 1: coldly whispers it and coldly asseverates it. Count d'estang at
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  Speaker 1: the dinner table, and Destang, one of the bravest men,
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  Speaker 1: quakes to the core lest some lackey overhear it, and
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  Speaker 1: tumbles thoughtful without sleep all night. A regiment flounder, as
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  Speaker 1: we said, is clearly arrived. His Majesty, they say, hesitates
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  Speaker 1: about sanctioning. The fourth of August makes observations of chilling
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  Speaker 1: tenor on the very rights of man likewise, may not
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  Speaker 1: all persons the bakerscuse themselves discern on the streets of
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  Speaker 1: Paris the most astonishing number of officers on furlough crosses of
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  Speaker 1: Saint Louis and such like. Some reckon from a thousand
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  Speaker 1: to twelve hundred officers of all uniforms, nay, one uniform
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  Speaker 1: never before seen by eye, green faced with red, the
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  Speaker 1: trickler cockade is not always visible. But what in the
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  Speaker 1: name of heaven may these black cockades, which somewhere foreshadow
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  Speaker 1: hunger wets everything, especially suspicion and indignation. Realities themselves in
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  Speaker 1: this Paris have grown unreal, preternatural phanfasms once more stalk
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  Speaker 1: through the brain of hungry France. Oh ye, laggards and dastards,
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  Speaker 1: cry shrill voices from the cues. If ye had the
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  Speaker 1: hearts of men, ye would take your pikes and second
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  Speaker 1: hand firelocks and look into it. Not leave your wives
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  Speaker 1: and daughters to be starved, murdered and worse, Peace women.
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  Speaker 1: The heart of man is busy and heavy. Patriotism driven
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  Speaker 1: out by patroltism, knows not what to resolve on the
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  Speaker 1: truth is the euder Boeuf has rallied to a certain
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  Speaker 1: unknown extent, a changed eude boeuf, with Versailles national guards
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  Speaker 1: in their tricolor cockades doing duty. There a court all
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  Speaker 1: flaring with trickola. Yet even to a trickle a court
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  Speaker 1: men will rally ye loyal hearts burnt out seigneurs, rally
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  Speaker 1: round your queen with wishes which will produce hopes, which
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  Speaker 1: will produce attempts. For Indeed, self preservation being such a
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  Speaker 1: law of nature, what can a rallied court do but
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  Speaker 1: attempt an endeavor, or call it plot With such wisdom
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  Speaker 1: and unwisdom as it has, they will fly escorted to
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  Speaker 1: mets where brave Bouye commands. They will raise the royal standard.
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  Speaker 1: The bond signatures shall become armed men. Will not the
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  Speaker 1: king so languid Their bond, if at all signed, must
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  Speaker 1: be signed without his privity. Unhappy king, he has but
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  Speaker 1: one resolution, not to have a civil war, for the
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  Speaker 1: rest he still hunts. Having ceased lock making, he still
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  Speaker 1: dozes and digests. Is clay in the hands of the potter?
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  Speaker 1: Ill will it fare with him in a world where
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  Speaker 1: all is helping itself? Where As has been written, whosoever
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  Speaker 1: is not hammer must be stithy and the very hiss
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  Speaker 1: upon the wall grows there in that chink, because the
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  Speaker 1: whole universe could not prevent its growing. But as for
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  Speaker 1: the coming up of this regiment to Flander, may it
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  Speaker 1: not be urged that there were sact derouge petitions and
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  Speaker 1: continual meal mobs, undebauched soldiers be their plotter. Any dim
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  Speaker 1: elements of a plot are always good. Did not the
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  Speaker 1: Versailles municipality, an old monarchic one not yet refounded into
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  Speaker 1: a democratic instantly second the proposal, Nay? The very Versailles
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  Speaker 1: National Guard, wearied with continual duty at the chateau, did
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  Speaker 1: not object. Only Draper Laquantra, who is now Major Laquantra,
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  Speaker 1: shook his head. Yes, friends, surely it was natural this
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  Speaker 1: regiment de Flanders should be sent for since it could
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  Speaker 1: be got. It was natural that at sight of military bandoliers,
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  Speaker 1: the heart of the rallied oi de bouf should revive,
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  Speaker 1: and maids of honor and gentlemen of honor speak comfortable
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  Speaker 1: words to epauleted defenders and to one another. Natural also,
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  Speaker 1: and mere common civility, that the body guards, a regiment
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  Speaker 1: of gentlemen, should invite their Flander brethren to a dinner
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  Speaker 1: of welcome. Such invitation in the last days of September
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  Speaker 1: is given and accepted. Dinners are defined as the ultimate
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  Speaker 1: act of communion. Men that can have communion in nothing else,
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  Speaker 1: can sympathetically eat together, can still rise into some glow
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  Speaker 1: of brotherhood over food and wine. The dinner is fixed
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  Speaker 1: on for Thursday, the first of October, and ought to
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  Speaker 1: have a fine effect. Further, as such dinner may be
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  Speaker 1: rather extensive, and even the non commissioned and the common
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  Speaker 1: man be introduced to sea and to hear, could not
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  Speaker 1: his Majesty's opera apartment, which has lain quite silent ever
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  Speaker 1: since Kaiser Joseph was here, be obtained for the purpose.
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  Speaker 1: The whole of the opera is granted. The sullon Dercule
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  Speaker 1: shall be drawing room, not only the offices of Flander,
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  Speaker 1: but of the Swiss, of the hundred Swiss Naya, the
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  Speaker 1: Vasai National Guard, such of them as have any loyalty,
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  Speaker 1: shall feast. It will be a repast like few. And
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  Speaker 1: now suppose this repast, the solid part of it transacts it,
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  Speaker 1: and the first bottle over, suppose the customary loyal toasts drunk,
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  Speaker 1: the king's health, the Queen's with deafening vivats that of
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  Speaker 1: the nation omitted or even rejected. Suppose Champagne flowing with
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  Speaker 1: pot valorous speeches, with instrumental music, empty feathered heads growing
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  Speaker 1: ever the noisier in their own emptiness, in each other's noise.
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  Speaker 1: Her Majesty, who looks unusually sad to night, his Majesty,
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  Speaker 1: sitting dulled with the day's hunting, is told that the
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  Speaker 1: sight of it would cheer her. Behold, she enters there,
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  Speaker 1: issuing from her staterooms like the moon from the clouds,
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  Speaker 1: this fairest, unhappy queen of hearts, royal husband by her side,
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  Speaker 1: young Dauphin in her arms. She descends from the boxes
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  Speaker 1: amid splendors and acclaim, walks queenlike round the tables, gracefully escorted,
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  Speaker 1: gracefully nodding, her looks, full of sorrow, yet of gratitude,
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  Speaker 1: and daring with the hope of France on her mother bosom,
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  Speaker 1: the band striking up, Oh Richard, Ohm al wi luniver
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  Speaker 1: tabandan o Richard, Oh, my King, and world is all
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  Speaker 1: forsaking thee good man, do other than rise to height
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  Speaker 1: of pity of loyal valor, good featherheaded, young ensigns do
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  Speaker 1: other than by white bourbon cockades handed them from fair fingers,
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  Speaker 1: by waving of swords drawn to pledge the Queen's health
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  Speaker 1: by trampling of national cockades, by scaling the boxes. Whence
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  Speaker 1: intrusive murmurs may come by vociferation, tripudiation, sound, fury, and
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  Speaker 1: distraction within doors and without testify what tempest tossed state
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  Speaker 1: of vacuity they are in till champagne and tripudiation do
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  Speaker 1: their work, and all lies silent, horizontal, passively slumbering with
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  Speaker 1: meed of battle dreams. A natural repast in ordinary times,
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  Speaker 1: a harmless one, now fatal as that of Thiestes, as
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  Speaker 1: that of Job's sons, when a strong wind smote the
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  Speaker 1: foe as of their banquet house. Poor Ill advised Marie Antoinette,
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  Speaker 1: with a woman's vehemence, not with the sovereign's foresight. It
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  Speaker 1: was so natural, yet so unwise. Next day, in public
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  Speaker 1: speech of ceremony, her Majesty declares herself delighted with the Thursday.
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  Speaker 1: The heart of the ohid birth glows into hope, into daring,
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  Speaker 1: which is premature. Rallied maids of honor waited on by
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  Speaker 1: abbas so white cockades, distribute them with words with glances
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  Speaker 1: to appauletted youths, who in return may kiss not without
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  Speaker 1: fervor the fair sewing fingers. Captains of horse and footgo
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  Speaker 1: swashing with enormous white cockades. Nay one Versailles National captain
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  Speaker 1: had mounted the like. So witching were the words and glances,
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  Speaker 1: and laid aside his trickoler Well may mayor la Quantra
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  Speaker 1: shake his head with a look of severity and speak audible,
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  Speaker 1: resentful words. But now a swashbuckler with a enormous white
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  Speaker 1: cockade overhearing, the Major invites him insolently once and then
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  Speaker 1: again elsewhere to recant, and, failing that, to dure which
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  Speaker 1: latter feat. Major Laquantra declares that he will not perform,
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  Speaker 1: not at least by any known laws of fence, that
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  Speaker 1: he nevertheless will, according to mere lure of nature, by
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  Speaker 1: durk and blade, exterminate any vile gladiator who may insult
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  Speaker 1: him or the nation. Whereupon, for the Major, who is
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  Speaker 1: actually drawing his implement, they are parted, and no wessned
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  Speaker 1: slit end of Book seven, Chapter two