Let us turn now from the glittering illuminated streets.
What is that unusual light, streaming dimly, and in blurred rays, across the damp night air, from the windows of the chapel of St Hyacinthe, attached to the church of the Assumption in the Rue St Honoré? In such a place, at such an hour, it has something ghastly and unearthly in its nature. And hark! from within there comes a noise of hoarse murmuring, which swells sometimes suddenly into discordant shouts, that are almost groans. The impression conveyed by both sight and sound is little like any that Paris, even on its murkiest nights, and under its most dismal veil, ever bestowed on you before. The unwary wanderer in Paris streets by night, in search of romance, may have had visions of theft, assassination, misery, crime, before his eyes, in the dark silent thoroughfares, but always visions of a most positive earthly nature; now he cannot help fancying himself transported into some old town of mystic Germany, with some fantastic, mysterious, unearthly, Hoffmannish deed going on near him. Are the headless dead, among the victims of a prior revolution, risen from their bloody vaults, to beckon unto their ghastly crew new victims of another? or are demons rejoicing in that once sanctified building, that the reign of men's most evil passions should have begun again in that disturbed and fermenting city? Such is the first impression the dim scene conveys. Do you ever remember such in other days? Let us follow those dark forms that are gliding across the court of the church, and mounting the steps of the illumined chapel. We enter; and the scene, although neither ghastly nor demoniac, is scarcely less strange than if spectres and demons had animated the interior. Faintly lighted by a few dripping candles is the long dismantled chapel; and damp, dreary, funereal-looking, is the whole scene. A dim crowd, in this "darkness visible," is fermenting, thronging, struggling, and pushing in the aisle. At the further end, in that vaulted semicircle where once stood the altar of the Lord, rises a complicated scaffolding behung with black cloth. With your imagination already excited, you may fancy the dark construction a death-scaffold for the execution of a criminal—it is only the death-scaffold of the social state of France. We are in the midst of a republican club. On the highest platform, occupying the space where was the altar, sit president and secretaries of the society—the new divinities of the consecrated building. Yes! the new divinities; for they arrogate to themselves the same right against which they declaimed as blasphemy in kings—the "right divine." You will not listen long before they tell you so; besides, their first maxim is, "La voix du peuple est la voix de Dieu." On the lower platform before them stand the orators. Hark to the doctrines that they promulgate for the subversion of all existing order in the country, amidst shouts and screams, and cries of violent opposition sometimes, but generally of applause. See! the haggard, lanky-haired republican youths, who have shouted out all their fury, give way to a quiet, respectable-looking old man, whose gray hairs glimmer faintly in the candle-light. A feeling of greater calm comes over you: you imagine, after all this "sound and fury, signifying nothing," his old head will pacify the hot, maddened blood of frantic boys. What does he say?—"Yes, the republic is one and indivisible—it is more than indivisible—it is God!" You shrink back disgusted. Can the rhapsody of republican fanaticism go further? Are these Christian men? or are they really evil unearthly beings in a human form? The confused scene around you is almost enough to make you think so. But real enough is the eternal clatter of the president's hammer on his table. He rolls his eyes furiously; he browbeats every orator who may not be of his own individual opinion, and dares to be "moderate" when he is "exalté;" and when your head aches—your heart has ached long ago—with the furious noise of the president's hammer, which you expect every moment to smash the table to pieces, you edge your way out of the dark fermenting crowd, and hurry forth, glad to breathe the purer air of heaven.
Ferment there is ever enough now in the streets of Paris by night: it ceases not. There are throngs pouring in and out of all the various thousand-and-one republican clubs of Paris, like wasps about their nest; but it is in the dim night air, and not in the bright sunlight of day—in dirty coats and smocks, and not with bright wings and variegated bodies. The wasp, too, stings only when he is attacked—the republican wasps seek to attack that they may sting. The al fresco clubs also crowd the Boulevards, in the chance medley confusion of all men and all principles. But see! there is here again, in the Rue du Faubourg du Roule, a confusion of a still more complicated nature—the swarming in and out of the small district school-house is even more virulent than is usual. It is another night-scene, such as the old habitué of Paris never witnessed, certainly. What is occurring? Let us crowd in with the others. What a scene of frantic confusion! A crowd springing upon benches, howling, screeching, yelling. At the further end of the low room is a ruined gallery, in which stands, surrounded by his friends, a man dressed in a red scarf, with the red cap of liberty on his head: he has a pike in his hand, and he vainly endeavours to make himself heard by the excited crowd. For some time you will be unable to comprehend the nature of the scene: at last you discover that an ultra republican, of the most inflamed ideas, wants to establish a Jacobin club. A "Jacobin club!" There is terror in the very word, and in all the fearful recollections it conveys. But here the good sense of the artisans and small tradespeople of the district is against so appalling a reminiscence of a fatal time. "Down with the bonnet rouge!" they cry. "Down with the red scarf! No Jacobins! no Jacobins! their day is gone. No terror!" Thank God! there is some good sense still among the people. "Down with the president—away with him!" they cry. He doffs at last his blood-red Phrygian cap—they are not content: he doffs his blood-red scarf—they are not content: he lays aside his red cravat—they are not content: the pike—all—his very principles, probably, if they would have them. But no. They make a rush at last up into the "tribune;" they drive the would-be Jacobin and his friends down. In vain a small minority declares them all "aristocrats—paid agents of legitimacy"—I know not what republican names of reproach. The honest workmen thrust the party forth from their district school-house. They escort these objects of their contempt with ironical politeness to a side-door, bearing the candles they have seized from the tribune in their hands. The door is closed over the Jacobin party—a shout of triumph resounds. But in the street, before the school, is long a noisy throng. The good moon, although now and then obscured by passing clouds, shines kindly on it. She seems to smile more kindly upon those who have done a good deed, although a deed of suppressed violence, than on most of the distracted throngs she illumines in her course over the disturbed city. Good moon! would we could accept thy augury, and hope for holy calm! The scenes thou shinest upon cannot continue thus, 'tis true. A change must come—a change for the better or the worse. Heaven grant that our foreboding prove not true—that, when thou comest forth in thy fulness again, another month, thou mayest smile on better order, on calmer groups!
Before we part company, old habitué of Paris, we must cast a glance at all the public buildings we pass. On all—public offices, columns, fountains, monuments, churches, dismantled palaces—on all alike floats the republican banner—on all are painted in broad characters the words, "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!" "Fraternité!" Vain word, when each man grows day by day more and more bitterly his neighbour's enemy. "Egalité!" Vain word again, and vain word ever, spite of the efforts of the rulers of France to bring down to one level all the intelligence, the talent, the feelings, and passions of human nature, that Providence, in its holy wisdom, has made so different and so unequal. "Liberté!" Vainest word of all! In the present state of things, there is constraint in every scheme, tyranny in every tendency, despotism in every doctrine.
But enough. We will not begin to discuss and speculate upon the destinies of France. All this sketch would strive to do, is to convey an idea, however vague, of the present outward state of Republican Paris.
THE SPANIARD IN SICILY.
The insatiable spider, who, after securing in her gossamer meshes ample store of flies for the day's consumption, again repairs, with unwarrantable greed, to the outer circles of the delicate network, in quest of fresh and superfluous victims, must not wonder if, on return to the heart of the citadel, she finds a rival Arachne busy in the larder, and either is expelled from her own cobweb, or suffers seriously in ejecting the intruder. At risk of offending his admiring biographer by so base a parallel, we compare Charles of Anjou to the greedy spider, and think him justly punished for his rash cupidity by the evils it entailed. This French count, who, although a king's brother, had no chance of a crown save through aggressive conquest, found himself, whilst still in the vigour of life, and as the result of papal favour, great good fortune, and of his own martial energy, sovereign of an extensive and flourishing realm. King of Southern Italy, Protector of the North, Count of Provence, Vicar of Tuscany, Senator of Rome, all-powerful with the Pope—whose word had then such weight that his friendship was worth an army, whilst from his malison men shrunk as from the dreaded and inextinguishable fire of Greece—Charles of Anjou was still unsatisfied. The royal spider had cast his web afar; it embraced wide possessions, with whose enjoyment he might well have been content, whose administration claimed his undivided attention. But on their verge an object glittered from which he could not avert his eyes, whose acquisition engrossed his every thought. "'Twas the clime of the East, 'twas the land of the sun," the gorgeous and romantic region so attractive to European conquerors. Doubtless, crusading zeal had some share in his oriental cravings; but ambition was his chief motor. He was willing enough to wrest Palestine from the infidel, but his plan of campaign led first to Constantinople. His notion was to seek at St Sophia's mosque the key of Christ's sepulchre.