The French Revolution · Thomas Carlyle
Chapter 3.6.IV. Mumbo-Jumbo.
But on the day they call _Décadi_, New-Sabbath, 20 _Prairial_, 8th June by old style, what thing is this going forward, in the Jardin National, whilom Tuileries Garden? All the world is there, in holydays clothes:[743] foul linen went out with the Hébertists; nay Robespierre, for one, would never once countenance that; but went always elegant and frizzled, not without vanity even,—and had his room hung round with seagreen Portraits and Busts. In holyday clothes, we say, are the innumerable Citoyens and Citoyennes: the weather is of the brightest; cheerful expectation lights all countenances. Juryman Vilate gives breakfast to many a Deputy, in his official Apartment, in the Pavillon _ci-devant_ of Flora; rejoices in the bright-looking multitudes, in the brightness of leafy June, in the auspicious _Décadi_, or New-Sabbath. This day, if it please Heaven, we are to have, on improved Anti-Chaumette principles: a New Religion. Catholicism being burned out, and Reason-worship guillotined, was there not need of one? Incorruptible Robespierre, not unlike the Ancients, as Legislator of a free people will now also be Priest and Prophet. He has donned his sky-blue coat, made for the occasion; white silk waistcoat broidered with silver, black silk breeches, white stockings, shoe-buckles of gold. He is President of the Convention; he has made the Convention _decree_, so they name it, _décréter_ the “Existence of the Supreme Being,” and likewise “_ce principe consolateur_ of the Immortality of the Soul.” These consolatory principles, the basis of rational Republican Religion, are getting decreed; and here, on this blessed _Décadi_, by help of Heaven and Painter David, is to be our first act of worship.
See, accordingly, how after Decree passed, and what has been called “the scraggiest Prophetic Discourse ever uttered by man,”—Mahomet Robespierre, in sky-blue coat and black breeches, frizzled and powdered to perfection, bearing in his hand a bouquet of flowers and wheat-ears, issues proudly from the Convention Hall; Convention following him, yet, as is remarked, with an interval. Amphitheatre has been raised, or at least _Monticule_ or Elevation; hideous Statues of Atheism, Anarchy and such like, thanks to Heaven and Painter David, strike abhorrence into the heart. Unluckily however, our Monticule is too small. On the top of it not half of us can stand; wherefore there arises indecent shoving, nay treasonous irreverent growling. Peace, thou Bourdon de l’Oise; peace, or it may be worse for thee! The seagreen Pontiff takes a torch, Painter David handing it; mouths some other froth-rant of vocables, which happily one cannot hear; strides resolutely forward, in sight of expectant France; sets his torch to Atheism and Company, which are but made of pasteboard steeped in turpentine. They burn up rapidly; and, from within, there rises “by machinery” an incombustible Statue of Wisdom, which, by ill hap, gets besmoked a little; but does stand there visible in as serene attitude as it can.
And then? Why, then, there is other Processioning, scraggy Discoursing, and—this _is_ our Feast of the _Être Suprême;_ our new Religion, better or worse, is come!—Look at it one moment, O Reader, not two. The Shabbiest page of Human Annals: or is there, that thou wottest of, one shabbier? Mumbo-Jumbo of the African woods to me seems venerable beside this new Deity of Robespierre; for this is a _conscious_ Mumbo-Jumbo, and _knows_ that he is machinery. O seagreen Prophet, unhappiest of windbags blown nigh to bursting, what distracted Chimera among realities are thou growing to! This then, this common pitch-link for artificial fireworks of turpentine and pasteboard; _this_ is the miraculous Aaron’s Rod thou wilt stretch over a hag-ridden hell-ridden France, and bid her plagues cease? Vanish, thou and it!—‘_Avec ton Être Suprême_,’ said Billaud, ‘_tu commences à m’embêter:_ With thy _Être Suprême_ thou beginnest to be a bore to me.’[744] Catherine Théot, on the other hand, “an ancient serving-maid seventy-nine years of age,” inured to Prophecy and the Bastille from of old, sits, in an upper room in the Rue-de-Contrescarpe, poring over the Book of Revelations, with an eye to Robespierre; finds that this astonishing thrice-potent Maximilien really is the Man spoken of by Prophets, who is to make the Earth young again. With her sit devout old Marchionesses, _ci-devant_ honourable women; among whom Old-Constituent Dom Gerle, with his addle head, cannot be wanting. They sit there, in the Rue-de-Contrescarpe; in mysterious adoration: Mumbo is Mumbo, and Robespierre is his Prophet. A conspicuous man this Robespierre. He has his volunteer Bodyguard of _Tappe-durs_, let us say _Strike-sharps_, fierce Patriots with feruled sticks; and Jacobins kissing the hem of his garment. He enjoys the admiration of many, the worship of some; and is well worth the wonder of one and all.
There is indeed danger of that; were not the Republican faith great, it were already done. See, for example, on the 17th of June, what a _Batch_, Fifty-four at once! Swart Amiral is here, he of the pistol that missed fire; young Cecile Renault, with her father, family, entire kith and kin; the widow of d’Espréménil; old M. de Sombreuil of the Invalides, with his Son,—poor old Sombreuil, seventy-three years old, his Daughter saved him in September, and it was but for _this_. Faction of the Stranger, fifty-four of them! In red shirts and smocks, as Assassins and Faction of the Stranger, they flit along there; red baleful Phantasmagory, towards the land of Phantoms. Meanwhile will not the people of the Place de la Révolution, the inhabitants along the Rue Saint-Honoré, as these continual Tumbrils pass, begin to look gloomy? Republicans too have bowels. The Guillotine is shifted, then again shifted; finally set up at the remote extremity of the South-East:[745] Suburbs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau it is to be hoped, if they have bowels, have very tough ones.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.