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030 - Book 5 Chapter 5 Give us Arms · 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 five, The Third Estate, Chapter five, Give us Arms.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
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  Speaker 1: Peter Dan, Book five, Chapter five, Give us Arms. On Monday.
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  Speaker 1: The huge city has awoke, not to its week day industry,
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  Speaker 1: to what a different one. The working man has become
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  Speaker 1: a fighting man. Has one want only that of arms.
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  Speaker 1: The industry of all crafts has paused, except it be
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  Speaker 1: the smith's fiercely hammering pikes, and in a faint degree,
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  Speaker 1: the kitcheners cooking off hand victuals for bouche VARs toujours.
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  Speaker 1: Women too are sowing cockades. Not now of green, which
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  Speaker 1: being d'Artois color the Hotel d'a villa has had to
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  Speaker 1: interfere in it, but of red and blue, our old
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  Speaker 1: Paris colors. These, once based on a ground of institutional white,
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  Speaker 1: are the famed tricola, which, if prophecy ern not, will
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  Speaker 1: go round the world all shops, unless it be the
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  Speaker 1: bakers and vintners. As shut. Paris is in the streets,
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  Speaker 1: rushing foaming, like some venice wine glass into which you
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  Speaker 1: had dropped poison. The tocsin by order is pealing madly
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  Speaker 1: from all steeples arms ye elector municipals, thou flessels with
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  Speaker 1: thy eschevns give us arms, Flesslles gives what he can, fallacious,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps insidious promises of arms from Charleville, order to seek
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  Speaker 1: arms here, order to seek them there. The new municipals
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  Speaker 1: give what they can, some three hundred and sixty in
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  Speaker 1: different firelocks, the equipment of the city watch. A man
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  Speaker 1: in wooden shoes and without coat directly clutches one of
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  Speaker 1: them and mounts guard also as hinted, and order to
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  Speaker 1: all smiths to make pikes with their whole soul. Heads
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  Speaker 1: of districts are in fervor, consultation, subordinate patriotism, romes distracted,
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  Speaker 1: ravenous for arms. Hitherto at the Hotel de Villa was
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  Speaker 1: only such modicum of indifferent firelocks as we have seen.
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  Speaker 1: At the so called Arsenal, there lies nothing but rust,
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  Speaker 1: rubbish and saltpetra. Overlooked too by the guns of the Bastille.
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  Speaker 1: His Majesty's repository, what they call guard merbler is forced
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  Speaker 1: and ransacked. Tapestries enough and gordries, but of serviceable fighting
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  Speaker 1: gear small stock, two silver mounted cannons, there are an
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  Speaker 1: ancient gift from His Majesty of Siam to Louis fourteenth
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  Speaker 1: guilt sword of the good henri antique chivalry, arms and armor.
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  Speaker 1: These and such as these the necessitous patriotism snatches greedily
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  Speaker 1: for want of better. The Siamese cannons go trundling on
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  Speaker 1: an errand they were not meant for. Among the indifferent
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  Speaker 1: firelocks are seen turney lancers, the princely helm and hauberk,
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  Speaker 1: glittering the mid ill hatted heads, as in a time
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  Speaker 1: when all times in their possessions are suddenly sent jumbling.
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  Speaker 1: At the Maison de Saint Lazare Lazarre house, once now
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  Speaker 1: a correction house with priests, there was no trace of arms,
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  Speaker 1: but on the other hand, corn plainly to a culpable extent,
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  Speaker 1: out with it to market. In this scarcity of grains,
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  Speaker 1: heavens will fifty two carts in long row hardly carry
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  Speaker 1: it to the whole or bled well Truly, ye, reverend fathers,
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  Speaker 1: was your pantry filled fatter your larders over generous your
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  Speaker 1: wine bins, ye, plotting exasperators of the poor, traitorous for
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  Speaker 1: stallers of bread? Vain is protesting entreaty on bare knees.
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  Speaker 1: The house of Saint Lazarus has that in it which
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  Speaker 1: comes not out by protesting. Behold, how from every window
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  Speaker 1: it vomits mere torrents of furniture, of bellowing, and hurly burly,
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  Speaker 1: the cellars also leaking wine till as was natural smoke
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  Speaker 1: rose kindled, some say by the desperate Saint lazarrests themselves
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  Speaker 1: desperate of other riddance, and the establishment vanished from this
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  Speaker 1: world in flame. Remark nevertheless, that a thief set on
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  Speaker 1: or not by aristocrats, being detected there is instantly hanged.
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  Speaker 1: Look also at the chateaus prison, the debtors prison of
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  Speaker 1: La Force is broken from without, and they that sat
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  Speaker 1: in bondage to aristocrats go free. Hearing of which the
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  Speaker 1: Falons at the Chatealais do, likewise dig up their pavements
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  Speaker 1: and stand on the offensive with the best prospects. Had
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  Speaker 1: not patriotism, passing that way, fired a volley into the
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  Speaker 1: falon world and crushed it down again under hatches. Patriotism
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  Speaker 1: consorts not with thieving and felony, Surely also punishment this
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  Speaker 1: day hitches if she still hitch after crime with frightful
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  Speaker 1: shoes of swiftness. Some score or two of wretched persons
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  Speaker 1: found prostrate with drink in the cellars of that Saint
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  Speaker 1: lazare are in d Magnan hailed to prison. The jailer
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  Speaker 1: has no room, whereupon other place of security. Not suggesting itself,
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  Speaker 1: it is written only poondee they hang them. Brief is
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  Speaker 1: the word not without significance, be it true or untrue.
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  Speaker 1: In such circumstances, the aristocrat, the unpatriotic rich man, is
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  Speaker 1: packing up for departure, but he shall not get departed.
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  Speaker 1: A wooden shod force has seized all barriers, burnt or not.
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  Speaker 1: All that enters, all that seeks to issue, is stopped
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  Speaker 1: there and dragged to the hotel. De villa. Coaches, tumbrels,
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  Speaker 1: plate furniture, meny meal sacks. In time, even flocks and
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  Speaker 1: herds encumber the place de grave, and so it roars
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  Speaker 1: and rages and brays, drums, beating steeples, pealing criers, rushing
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  Speaker 1: with handbells. Oi ye, o ye. All men to their
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  Speaker 1: districts to be enrolled. The districts have met in gardens,
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  Speaker 1: open squares are getting marshaled into volunteer troops. No hot
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  Speaker 1: ball has yet fallen from Bessonval's camp. On the contrary,
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  Speaker 1: deserters with their arms are continually dropping in Nay. Now
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  Speaker 1: a joy of joys. At two in the afternoon, the
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  Speaker 1: Guard Franseilles, being ordered to Saint Denis and flatly declining,
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  Speaker 1: have come over in a body. It is a fact
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  Speaker 1: worth many three thousand, six hundred of the best fighting men,
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  Speaker 1: with complete accouterment, with cannoneers even and cannon their officers
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  Speaker 1: are left standing alone, could not so much as succeed
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  Speaker 1: in spiking the guns. The very Swiss, it may now
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  Speaker 1: be hoped Chateauvieux and the others will have doubts about
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  Speaker 1: fighting Upperisian militia, which some think it were better to
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  Speaker 1: name National Guard is prospering as heart could wish. It
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  Speaker 1: promised to be forty eight thousand, but will in few
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  Speaker 1: hours double and quadruple that number. Invincible if we had
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  Speaker 1: only arms. But see the promised charle of boxes marked attillery.
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  Speaker 1: Here there are arms enough conceived the blank face of
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  Speaker 1: patriotism when it found them filled with rags, foul linen,
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  Speaker 1: candle ends and bits of wood provost of the merchants.
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  Speaker 1: How is this neither at the chartru convent, whether we
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  Speaker 1: were sent with signed order, Is there, or ever was
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  Speaker 1: there any weapon of war? Nay, here in this sane boat,
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  Speaker 1: safe under tarpolings, had not the nose of patriotism been
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  Speaker 1: of the finest A five thousand weight of gunpowder not
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  Speaker 1: coming in, but surreptitiously going out. What meanest thou fless cells?
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  Speaker 1: Tis a ticklish game, that of amusing us. Cat plays
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  Speaker 1: with captive mouse, but mouse with enraged cat, with enraged
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  Speaker 1: national tiger. Meanwhile, the faster o, ye black apron smith's
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  Speaker 1: smite with strong arm and willing heart. This man and
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  Speaker 1: that all stroke from head to heel shall thunder, alternating
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  Speaker 1: and ply the great forge hammer till stiffy real and
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  Speaker 1: rear again, while ever and Anon overhead booms the alarm
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  Speaker 1: cannon for the city has now got gunpowder. Pikes are fabricated,
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  Speaker 1: fifty thousand of them in six and thirty hours. Judge
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  Speaker 1: whether the Black apron have been idle dig trenches, unpave
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  Speaker 1: the streets, Ye others assiduous man and maid cram the
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  Speaker 1: earth with barrel barricades at each of them. A volunteer
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  Speaker 1: sentry pile the windstones in window sills and upper rooms
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  Speaker 1: have scolding pitch at least boiling water. Ready, ye, weak
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  Speaker 1: old women, to pour it and dash it on royal
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  Speaker 1: a lamonde with your old skinny arms, your shrill curses
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  Speaker 1: along with it will not be wanting. Patrols of the
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  Speaker 1: newborn National Guard bearing torches scar the streets all that night,
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  Speaker 1: which otherwise are vacant, yet illuminated in every window by
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  Speaker 1: order strange, looking like some naphtha lighted city of the dead,
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  Speaker 1: with here and there a flight of perturbed ghosts. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: poor mortals, Hey, ye make this earth bitter for each other,
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  Speaker 1: this fearful and wonderful life, fearful and horrible. And Satan
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  Speaker 1: has his place in all hearts. Such agonies and ragings
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  Speaker 1: and wailings he have and have had in all times,
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  Speaker 1: to be buried all in so deep silence, and the
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  Speaker 1: salt sea is not swollen with your tears. Great Meanwhile
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  Speaker 1: is the moment when tidings of freedom reach us, when
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  Speaker 1: the long enthralled soul from amidst its chains and squalid
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  Speaker 1: stagnancy arises. Were it still only in blindness and bewilderment
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  Speaker 1: and swears by him that made it that it will
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  Speaker 1: be free? Free? Understand that well. It is the deep commandment,
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  Speaker 1: dimmer or clearer of our whole being to be free.
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  Speaker 1: Freedom is the one purport wisely aimed at or unwisely
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  Speaker 1: of all man's struggles, toilings and sufferings in this earth. Yes, Supreme,
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  Speaker 1: is such a moment, if thou have known it vision
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  Speaker 1: as of a flame girt sinae in this our waste pilgrimage,
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  Speaker 1: which thenceforth wants not its pillar of cloud by day
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  Speaker 1: and pillar of fire by night. Something It is, even nay,
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  Speaker 1: something considerable, when the chains have grown corrosive, poisonous, to
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  Speaker 1: be free from oppression by our fellow man. Forward, ye
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  Speaker 1: maddened sons of France. Be it towards this destiny or
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  Speaker 1: towards that around you is but salvation, falsehood, corruption, and
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  Speaker 1: the clam of death. Where ye are is no abiding
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  Speaker 1: imagination may imperfectly figure how common d'Art bessonval in the
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  Speaker 1: chond Mars has worn out these sorrowful hours insurrection all
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  Speaker 1: round his men. Melting away from Versailles to the most
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  Speaker 1: pressing messages, comes no answer, or once only some vague
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  Speaker 1: word of answer, which is worse than none. A council
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  Speaker 1: of officers can decide merely that there is no decision.
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  Speaker 1: Colonels inform him, weeping, that I do not think their
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  Speaker 1: men will fight. Cruel uncertainty is here war God Brollier
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  Speaker 1: sits yonder inaccessible in his olympus, does not descend terra clad,
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  Speaker 1: does not produce his whiff of grape shot, sends no
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  Speaker 1: orders truly. In the Chateau of Versailles, all seems mystery.
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  Speaker 1: In the town of Versailles, were we there, all is rumor, alarm,
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  Speaker 1: and indignation. An august National Assembly sits to appearance, menaced
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  Speaker 1: with death, endeavoring to defy death. It has resolved that
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  Speaker 1: Necker carries with him the regrets of the nation. It
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  Speaker 1: has sent solemn deputation over to the chateau with entreaty
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  Speaker 1: to have these troops withdrawn in vain. His majesty, with
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  Speaker 1: a singular composure, invites us to be busy, rather with
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  Speaker 1: our own duty making the constitution, foreign pandas and such like,
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  Speaker 1: go pricking and prancing with a swashbuckler air, with an
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  Speaker 1: eye too probably to the salle D's maneux. Were it
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  Speaker 1: not for the grim looking countenances that crowd all avenues,
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  Speaker 1: there be firm ye National Senators, the cynosure of a firm,
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  Speaker 1: grim looking people. The Auguste National Senators determine that there
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  Speaker 1: shall at least be permanent session till this thing end. Wherein, however,
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  Speaker 1: consider that worthy la franc de Pompignon, our new president,
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  Speaker 1: whom we have named by ye successor, is an old man,
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  Speaker 1: wearied with many things. He is the brother of that
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  Speaker 1: Pompignon who meditated lamentably on the book of lamentations. Say
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  Speaker 1: vous pourcois jeremis, sir LaMonte tout la vis se quyll
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  Speaker 1: o previore que Pompeignon le tra duray poor Bishop Pompignon withdraws,
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  Speaker 1: having got Lafayette for helper, or substitute this latter as
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  Speaker 1: nocturnal vice president, with a thin house and disconsolate humor
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  Speaker 1: sits sleepless with lights, unsnuffed, waiting what the ours will
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  Speaker 1: bring so Adversailles, but at Paris, agitated besson Val, before
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  Speaker 1: retiring for the night, has stepped over to old Monsieur
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  Speaker 1: de Sombroy of the Hotel des Invalide. Hard By Monsieur
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  Speaker 1: de Sombroy has what is a great secret. Some eight
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  Speaker 1: and twenty thousand stand of muskets deposited in his cellars.
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  Speaker 1: There but no trust in the temper of his invalide.
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  Speaker 1: This day, for example, he sent twenty of the fellows
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  Speaker 1: down to unscrew those muskets, lest sedition might snatch at them.
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  Speaker 1: But scarcely in six hours. Had the twenty unscrewed, twenty
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  Speaker 1: gunlocks or dog's heads shen of locks, each invalid his
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  Speaker 1: dog's head, if ordered to fire, they would, he imagines,
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  Speaker 1: turn their cannon against himself. Unfortunate, old military gentleman, it
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  Speaker 1: is your hour, not of glory. Old Marquis de l'urnee, too,
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  Speaker 1: of the bastiller, has pulled up his drawbridges long since
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  Speaker 1: and retired into his interior, with sentries walking on his
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  Speaker 1: battlements under the midnight sky aloft over the glare of
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  Speaker 1: illuminated Paris, whom a national patrol passing that way takes
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  Speaker 1: the liberty of firing at seven shots towards twelve at night,
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  Speaker 1: which do not take effect. This was the thirteenth day
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  Speaker 1: of July seventeen eighty nine, a worse day, many said,
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  Speaker 1: than the last thirteenth was when only hale fell out
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  Speaker 1: of heaven, not madness rose out of toufat ruining worse
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  Speaker 1: than crops. In these same days, as chronology will teach us,
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  Speaker 1: hot old Marquis Mirabeau lies stricken down at ancient toy,
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  Speaker 1: not within sound of these alarm guns, for he properly
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  Speaker 1: is not there, and only the body of him now
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  Speaker 1: lies deaf and cold. For ever. It was on Saturday
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  Speaker 1: night that he, drawing his last life breaths, gave up
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  Speaker 1: the ghost there, leaving a world which would never go
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  Speaker 1: to his mind, now broken out seemingly into deluration and
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  Speaker 1: the kulbout general. What is it to him departing elsewhither
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  Speaker 1: on his long journey. The old Chateau Mirabeau stands silent,
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  Speaker 1: far off on its scarped rock, in that gorge of
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  Speaker 1: two windy valleys, the pale, fading specter now of a chateau,
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  Speaker 1: this huge world riot in France, and the world itself
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  Speaker 1: fades also like a shadow on the great still mirror sea.
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  Speaker 1: And all shall be as God wills. Young Mirabeau sad
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  Speaker 1: of heart, for he loved this crabbed, brave old father.
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  Speaker 1: Sad of heart and occupied with sad cares is withdrawn
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  Speaker 1: from public history, The great crisis transacts itself without him,
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  Speaker 1: end of Book five, Chapter five,