The descriptions of Fama by Virgil, Æneid, iv, 17 6, seqq., and Ovid Metamorph. xii, 40, seqq., are more diffuse and overcharged, departing from the simplicity of the Greek conception.
We may notice, as partial illustrations of what is here intended, those sudden, unaccountable impressions of panic terror which occasionally ran through the ancient armies or assembled multitudes, and which were supposed to be produced by Pan or by Nymphs—indeed sudden, violent, and contagious impressions of every kind, not merely of fear. Livy, x, 28. “Victorem equitatum velut lymphaticus pavor dissipat.” ix, 27. “Milites, incertum ob quam causam, lymphatis similes ad arma discurrunt,”—in Greek, νυμφόληπτοι: compare Polyæn, iv. 3, 26, and an instructive note of Mutzel, ad Quint. Curt. iv, 46, 1 (iv, 12, 14).
But I cannot better illustrate that idea, which the Greeks invested with divinity under the name of Φήμη, than by transcribing a striking passage from M. Michelet’s Histoire de la Révolution Françoise. The illustration is the more instructive, because the religious point of view, which in Herodotus is predominant,—and which, to the believing mind, furnishes an explanation preëminently satisfactory,—has passed away in the historian of the nineteenth century, and gives place to a graphic description of the real phenomenon, of high importance in human affairs; the common susceptibilities, common inspiration and common spontaneous impulse, of a multitude, effacing for the time each man’s separate individuality.
M. Michelet is about to describe that ever-memorable event, the capture of the Bastile, on the 14th of July, 1789 (ch. vii, vol. i, p. 105).
“Versailles, avec un gouvernement organisé, un roi, des ministres, un général, une armée, n’étoit qu’hésitation, doute, incertitude, dans la plus complète anarchie morale.
“Paris, bouleversé, délaissé de toute autorité légale, dans un désordre apparent, atteignit, le 14 Juillet, ce qui moralement est l’ordre le plus profond, l’unanimité des esprits.
“Le 13 Juillet, Paris ne songeait qu’à se defendre. Le 14, il attaqua.
“Le 13, au soir, il y avoit encore des doutes, il n’y en eut plus le matin. Le soir étoit plein de troubles, de fureur désordonnée. Le matin fut lumineux et d’une sérénité terrible.
“Une idée se leva sur Paris avec le jour, et tous virent la même lumière. Une lumière dans les esprits, et dans chaque cœur une voix: Va, et tu prendras la Bastille!
“Cela étoit impossible, insensé, étrange à dire;... Et tous le crurent néanmoins. Et cela se fit.