Krayenhoff
II
THE REVOLUTION
ÇA IRA.
Indeed and it will.
While William is still bobbing up and down on the uncomfortable North Sea, the republic, left without a Stadholder, left without the whole superstructure of its ancient government, is wildly and hilariously dancing around a high pole. On top of this pole is a hat adorned with a tricoloured sash. At the foot of the pole stands a board upon which is painted "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality." The music for the festivities is provided by the drums and fifes of the French soldiers. The melody that is being played is the "Marseillaise." Soon the Hollanders shall provide the music themselves to the tune of some 40,000,000 guilders a year. And they shall dance a gay little two-step across every battlefield of Europe.
The worst of the revolution of 1795, from our point of view, was its absolute sincerity and its great honesty of purpose. The modern immigrant approaching the shores of the promised land in total ignorance of what he is about to discover, but with a deep conviction that soon all will be well, is no more naïve and simple in his unwarranted optimism that was the good patriot who during the first months of the year 1796 welcomed the bedraggled French sansculottes as his very dear deliverers and put his best guestroom at the disposal of some Parisan tough in red, white, and blue pantaloons. Verily the millennium had come. Never, until within our own days of amateur sociology and of self-searching and devotion to the woes of our humbler brethren, has there been such conscientious desire to lift the world bodily out of its wicked old groove and put it upon a newer and better road. Whether this hysterical joy, this unselfish ecstasy, about a new life was founded upon a sound and tangible basis few people knew and fewer cared. The sacred fire burned in their breasts and that was enough.
It was no time for a minute analogy of inner sentiments. The world was all astir with great events ... allons enfants de la Patrie, and the devil take the hindmost.
Meanwhile, since in all enthusiasm, genuine or otherwise, there must be some method; since the music of brass bands does not fill empty stomachs, but a baker has to bake bread; since, to come to our point, the old order of things had been destroyed, but no state can continue without some sort of order—meanwhile, what was the exact status of this good land?