When Lamartine, in the face of a mob still excited with battle and bloodshed, still drunken with the intoxication of victory, demanding, of those whom the chances of a destiny-fraught hour had placed at their head in the perilous post of command, they scarce knew what, and yet ready to recommence destruction and death were it not granted—when Lamartine tore aside the blood-red banner of terror, that had been seized on as the symbol of the newly proclaimed French Republic, and lifted aloft the tricolor flag as the true standard of the Republic of peace and order which he hoped to found, he did not only an act of personal courage—one to be mentioned among the great traits of heroism in the annals of history—but he consummated a deed upon which the destiny of France, perhaps of the whole world, for the moment depended. To those far away, who know not the strange compound that forms the character of the French, the mere change of one flag for another may appear a matter of but little moment: but in truth it was one of almost inestimable importance, for the destiny of the country depended on it. And this Lamartine knew. He knew his people too—he knew how easily they are led away by the outward show, how completely their sentiments would be engaged in the outward symbols; and he reared the symbol of order against the banner of violence and blood; though he raised it aloft at the hazard of his life. At that moment the poet-statesman stood forth a man ready to die for his convictions: at that moment, guns, pikes, swords, daggers, every instrument of death was directed at his head by a furious mob, screaming for that ideal, the Republic, from which it had been taught by demagogues to expect some vague, supernatural, at least wholly visionary good, as if it were a talisman to raise up a golden age by the mere power of its name; a mob, senseless, enraged, and deaf to reason, flushed with the acquisition of sudden and sovereign power, and yet goaded by the idea that treachery was at hand to snatch it from their grasp. In the face of such an assemblage, before the historical old building of the HÔtel de Ville of Paris,—upon those steps on which so many scenes of history had already passed, and none, perhaps, more important in its results than this,—he stood forth, pale, but erect and resolute: a single word from the crowd, the cry "he is a traitor! he deceives us!" might have been the signal for his massacre: a gesture might have done the deed: the wag of one nerve of a finger on the lock of the gun might have levelled him, and with him France, at once: and he knew it. He knew, too, that Fate was in his hands; he knew that in that seemingly senseless change of colours on a flag-staff lay the destiny of Paris; and he was prepared to fall a victim or to rise a hero. To the red flag popular fancy attached the idea of violence, war, revenge; it was the bloody pirate flag of propagandism by force of arms, by the terror of the scaffold. The tricolor flag, although it had waved over many a ruin, many a deed of horror, in the dreadful history of the past, had led on the nation to glory and military renown; for the last eighteen years it had typified the national watchwords of that time, "Liberty and Public Order;" and it was set forth once more, under a more democratic rule, but not a rule of anarchy—liberty, public order, peace. To each symbol was attached a sentiment. On the one symbol, on the one sentiment, Lamartine had staked the future destinies of France, as he had staked the hazard of his life. Unsupported he stood before those yelling, suspicious, infuriated thousands. He was the man of the moment. A powerful appeal to the feelings of such a mob—one of those appeals, one of those words of history that are carried down to all posterity—one of those electric touches of simultaneous sentiment, which often suddenly pervade great crowds, seemingly thrilling through all frames at once alike, coming as it were from some supernatural influence, but which few mortal men know how to direct, when, and far less as they would—such an appeal was to be made—such a word to be spoken—such a blow given. Again we repeat, he was the man of the moment—for he was the man of high poetic sentiment. Thence alone could come the electric stroke; and it was struck. The simple eloquence of the poet's heartfelt convictions fell over the crowd. He raised the tricolor banner; guns, swords, and pikes were lowered: "Vive Lamartine!" burst from every mouth: the cause of humanity was gained—for the time at least. That symbol stamped the sentiment of the future French Republic.

Spite of the frivolous, sceptical, denying, and, in latter years, positive and anti-poetical character of the French people, there is no nation more easily led away by a word, however incomprehensible—an idea, however vague; but when that word, that idea, is embodied in an outward symbol, it is remarkable with what blind tenacity the French will cling to it, hoist it on high, worship it. What the deism of the Encyclopedists could not effect in the revolution of the last century; what even the frantic political atheism of the sect that followed in their footsteps could not accomplish over the masses; what the persecution of the priesthood could not establish over the minds of the people, was wrought by the personification of atheism in the embodiment of the Goddess of Reason. When the reason that denied a Godhead stood before them in a living and material form, the people fell down and worshipped; the orgies of atheism in the face of that half-naked bacchante form became universal.

This spirit arises, probably, from the theatrical nature of the people. Individually each Frenchman seems to consider that he is born to act a part, not only in the stage of life in general, but in his own individual sphere, act a part as a comedian, a part he assumes, not the part that Providence has destined for him; in fact, to use a French expression, he must always poser et faire de l'effet. Louis XIV. acted the comedy of royalty, not as if he had a conviction of his real kingship, but as if he was "making believe;" he throned it always like a tragedy king—he posa on his throne. Even to the lower classes—and perhaps they more than any other—the Frenchman of this day, however quiet and estimable in private life, will poser as an actor, as soon as he has an audience, and shows himself "before the face of men," be it in the salon, or the tribune, or at the street corner. So strong is the desire for theatrical effect, especially among the lower classes, that each homme du peuple seems ever to be striving to set up for a hero on his own little stage of existence, even if that hero be a villain. Among the more reckless of them in latter years, the mania de faire parler de soi has frequently gone as far as committing suicide or atrocious crime, in order to die with eclat or a coup de thÉÂtre. The opportunities afforded to the people by successive revolutions, of showing themselves off in characters that have been applauded "to the echo" as noble and sublime, have contributed to foster that craving for notoriety and part-acting in the eyes of the world, which an overweening vanity of character, and the desire for effect, have made a portion of their habitual life. It may be a question even, whether, in scenes of popular convulsion, the reckless courage of the French—unquestionable as is that courage—does not arise from a sort of fancy that the whole drama of contention they are acting is, in a manner, unreal—that they are but actors on a living stage—that the whole, in fact, is a theatrical part. To see them attitudinising on a barricade, with flag and sabre raised aloft, flinging up their arms in picture-like gesture, and sweeping back their hair to give effect to their tableau, it might be natural to suppose so. With this theatrical mania, then, so prevalent in all classes, it follows very naturally that the outward show, the embodied sentiment, the symbol, in fact, should assert such a powerful sway over their excitable minds.

Those, consequently, who know the character of the nation cannot but be aware of the importance, in the guidance of the people, of the symbol in which the sentiment is to be embodied. Those who do not even reason upon this fact, feel it instinctively; and the importance attached by both parties, the moderates and ultra-violent republicans, to the symbols which each party strives to make predominate, is visible in many of their acts. The one party is constantly endeavouring to remove all such as recall to mind the recollection of a bloody and destructive past; the other is as constantly using all its efforts to renew and adopt them, and to make them the rallying banner of the faction. The Republic, forced upon all France by the active violence of a small minority in the capital alone, has been accepted by the majority, partly from that feeling of resignation with which most meet a fait accompli—partly from the desire to maintain a statu quo, whatever it may be, for the sake of peace and order—partly from the conviction that, under the circumstances, when a dynasty so hastily fled in alarm before an insurrection, and left the country to its fate, no other form of government was possible for the moment. But let a symbol of the past be raised, of that past to which so many look back with horror, and, as yet at least, indignation and scorn will be shown by the better-thinking majority, by whom the importance of the act, slight as it may appear in our eyes, is instinctively felt and understood.

When Paris was, for many days and almost weeks, given up to the fanciful caprices of a mob, that pocketed the public money and repaid it by the fantastic diversions of its idleness—when it streamed about the streets with banners, and flags, and ribbons and music, carrying about bedizened may-poles, and grubbing holes on every Place, before every public monument, in every street, in almost every hole and corner of all Paris, in which to plant them, it was not the yelling of the crowd, it was not the incessant firing of guns and letting off of crackers by night as well as day, it was not the compulsory subscription À domicile for the expenses of a mob's fÊte of every moment, it was not the threatening cry of "des lampions—illuminate in our honour, or we break your windows," it was not the tumult, the constraint, the menace that cast a vague terror over the public mind;—it was the feeling that scenes of a terrible memory were about to be acted over again;—it was the knowledge that such had been in gone-by times the gay, green, laughing prologue to a hideous tragedy;—it was the consciousness that the so-called trees of liberty were symbols in the minds of a mob of an era of license, and riot, and carnage—that the pike, and the sabre, and the axe were the accessories of the gay picture, although still in the dimness of a dark background—that the leaves those bare stems might bear were to sprout, perchance, with spots of blood upon their young verdure. Men looked askance: the symbol of a people's drunkenness in power was waving before their windows: how far, they asked, was the sentiment that thus darkly arose in their minds, predominant also in the minds of the mob, when it raised that symbol? It was in vain they reasoned, that the France of the nineteenth century was no longer the France of the eighteenth—that the bloodthirstiness and the reckless cruelty had passed away from the character of a people advanced in civilisation—that the present had no analogy with the past: it was in vain they sought a reassurance in the fact that the pale priest was dragged from the church to bestow his blessing, with all the pomp of Catholic ecclesiastical ceremony, upon the symbol, and give a seemingly religious sanction to a people's fantastic rite of patriotism—that there was consequently a feeling of holiness in the people's mind in the accomplishment of that ceremony. On the contrary, the very mockery alarmed: the very compulsory attendance of the clergy seemed to prove that there was rather a desire in the mob to show its power than to attach a sanctity, which it needed not otherwise in common life, to the deeds it did: a terror, vague, ill-defined, unreasoned, but none the less real, floated over every mind. The symbol flaunted abroad the sentiment of the past. It was not until the authorities too late issued decrees, to prohibit the further practice of these fantastic allegorical popular manifestations, that confidence, or rather forgetfulness of the uneasiness that such demonstrations of popular sentiment had instinctively conveyed, began slowly to return to the public mind. The trees of liberty stand, it is true, and flourish, and put forth leaves, amid the flags, and ribbons, and withered wreaths, and tricolor streamers, which flaunt, and twine, and flutter around them; but it was not the fact—it was the sentiment that caused alarm. As a symbol, however, they remain: and may yet re-evoke the sentiment that for a while has been forgotten, and still act a part in the future troubled chronicles of the streets of Paris.

There is one object, above all, that is accepted and recognised as a symbol of the past—as a symbol, in fact, of terror and violence: it is the Phrygian cap of liberty. So dear does this symbol appear to the would-be Roman heart of the violent republican, that he seems not to be able to perform any act, not only of his political but of his social existence, without its evidence before his eyes. This graceless head-dress—graceless, inasmuch as, instead of being allowed to fall into a natural curve, and rounded knob above, as is even the fashion to the present day of its offspring the lazzaroni cap of Naples, it is cut into a stiff, constrained, and badly imitated form of natural folds—this graceless head-dress seems the idol of his day-dreams, the bodily presence of the deity he falls down and worships, the ecstatical and rhapsodical apparition of the visions of his sleep. It figures in his allegorical pictures, surrounded by the rays of a sun of glory, like an emblem of the Godhead or the Trinity: it must be placed upon its sanctuary in his room like the crucifix in the oratory of the Catholic: it must be stamped upon his coins like the Mother of God upon the kreutzer pieces of Catholic Austria. When it is placed upon his head, all his very self seems changed—he dreams but of violence, he raves but of blood: it seems like a talisman that, once it touches his skull, disturbs his intellects, heats his brains, causes his mouth to open to vomit forth destruction and death to all his fancied enemies: it is the cap of the fairy-tale that renders not invisible but brings into reality and action all that is reckless, cruel, arbitrary, hateful in his nature. He may be in private life the mild and gentle man, full of suavity and affection, the loving husband, and the kind father; let him don the Phrygian cap of liberty, and he thinks it necessary to put on the face and wear the heart of a demon—he is tyrannical, brutal, implacable; all that lends not a hand to his sweeping designs, in furtherance of his exalted opinions, must be mown down, or torn up like the tares amidst the wheat, and flung into the pit of destruction; and, in his mind, the good grain is rare; but, when the tares are rooted out of the land, the good grain will flourish and multiply, he thinks: and the raising of this symbol, of the Phrygian cap of liberty, on high, he fancies, will cause the dazzled eyes of those he calls reactionary counter-revolutionists to blink and close, if it cast them not utterly to the earth with the force of an African coup de soleil by the mere brilliancy of those rays of glory his imagination has shed around it. No less, on the contrary, is this symbol of the past history of the old republic a hateful eyesore to the vast majority, composed of the better-thinking mass of the citizens of France in their new republic: the attempt at its second deification fills them with an instinctive disgust: and, as yet—alas! this as yet must be ever repeated with foreboding emphasis by those who stand looking on as spectators of the dangerous game which a country is playing,—who see an active and violent minority engaged in flogging and goading it on in the fatal path, already traced in blood, and a passive majority looking on and holding forth its hand, too feeble to stop it in its mad career, much less to tear, with vigour, the frantic drivers from their seat;—as yet, then, France rejects the Phrygian cap of liberty from among its republican symbols, as the harbinger of a sentiment that it would gladly repudiate, as it would throw a veil over the past. Frantic republicans, then, may worship it: a few of the men of the people, proud of their violent opinions, prompted by party rulers, and eager to make an effect, may publicly place it on their heads, and swagger with it through the streets of Paris or of Lyons: a few loose women, still more reckless, may stick it jauntily over their brows, and fancy themselves new goddesses of reason: citizen Louis Blanc, as one of the members of the ultra-minority of the provisional government, may have it engraved upon his visiting-cards, flaming with the above-mentioned rays of glory, amidst banners and joined hands, and other such allegorical emblems of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity;" but the sentiment of the country at large rejects the evil symbol, and looks upon it with aversion. A striking instance of this horror was exhibited in the French colony of Algeria. There also, as in the greater part of France, the establishment of the republic was received as a fait accompli, against which resistance was useless, and as a necessity, under the circumstances of the hour. The republic was accepted unwillingly, and without the enthusiasm of which French papers have lied to us; but with resignation—by some, perhaps, with hope: and Algeria saw the prince, who had been sent to rule its destinies, and his brother, both there honoured and beloved, depart from its shores with regret and tears, and marks of the deepest sympathy and honour. The population of Algeria then looked on and waited. When the liberty-tree-planting mania reached the distant shores of Africa, it saw a band of men erecting the tree upon a public square, and still looked on in indifference. But when upon the summit was placed the Phrygian cap of liberty, popular indignation at once broke forth; the liberty-tree gardeners were attacked; a riot broke out, and it was not until the obnoxious symbol was removed, by order of the authorities, that this effervescence, that had nigh led to bloodshed, for the maintenance on one hand of a symbol, for its overthrow on the other, could be appeased. The population of Algeria felt how deeply the sentiment was connected with this symbol in French minds; and that, where facts of such vital importance had not produced resistance, the symbol brought it forth at once, even to death, for the triumph of the principles of each party. When once the blood-red cap of liberty shall be lifted aloft in France, "to be seen of the eyes of men," and call for the bowed head and the bended knee, it will be time for all honest men to take sword in hand, or quit the country, as the plague-smitten land that soon will be a desert, blood-stained waste.

The red colour, the colour of blood, in fact—the colour of that flag which Lamartine rejected, is in and by itself adopted as the symbol of the ultra-republican sentiment. Tacitly it is adopted as the banner of the party of violence and terror; instinctively it is avoided by the advocates for moderate republican progress. The fellow that flares along the boulevards with a red cravat may be recognised at once as one of those who call themselves the only true and pure democrats: his symbol will not belie him; and see how his brow is knit! see how his eyes roll! see how furiously he sticks out his black beard! He considers it necessary, lest his symbol should not sufficiently declare his character, to look as extravagantly uncompromising as possible, and tell the world at large, by the wag of the beard, the roll of the eye, and the knit of the brow, that he is one of those enemies of tyranny who would grasp it all in their own hands; one of those friends of liberty who claim it only for themselves, and would crush it in those whose opinions may be a thought milder; one of those redressers of the wrongs of the oppressed, who would advocate the strongest oppression, despotism, dictatorship,—no matter what,—provided that strong enough it be, against that "foul and infamous majority of the country," that dares to say "nay" when he says "ay." This republican Sir Jupiter Tonans wears a red cockade, in defiance of the government, or rather with the knowledge how he is supported by its factious minority; and if he smear not his face with red like the Indian, scarcely less savage than himself, he hopes to smear his hands of that colour soon, and of the purest and most natural blood-red tint. Already he follows the cry of his leading ultra journals, "aux armes! aux armes!" He declares that the country is betrayed, and the republic in danger; because, in the universal suffrage that has been given it, the nation has proclaimed the triumph of moderate opinions and the defeat of his party, because the minority has not worked its evil will, because a faction has been condemned by the judgment of the nation. He hopes, however, to compensate himself by shortly imbruing his hands in the blood of his countrymen, to the greater glory of his favourite colour. He tosses his head proudly as he walks; his brow, his beard, his eyes, as well as his cravat, all cry "aux armes!" See how he sneers upon the tricolor banner as he passes. Let him alone, and he will declare the tricolor suspect: his symbol, the red, is alone to be acknowledged: those who recognise it not shall amply be taxed with their life's blood to supply its dye. Awful is this symbol; but it is the general symbol of the sentiment of the soi-disant "pure democratic," ever-revolutionising party of violence and force: it is the symbol of that party which, were you to ask them what was meant by a republic, would seriously inform you, a constant state of convulsive revolution, to lop off, break down, and destroy; the rebuilding on the ruins is with them but a matter of very secondary consideration.

When, in the disastrous insurrection of Rouen, the ultra party used all its instruments, and excited a few misguided artisans to take up arms for the purpose of annulling the "universal suffrage" elections, that had turned out in favour of the moderate majority, the "red" was hoisted as the symbol of the party sentiment. Whatever may have since been written by the party journals, there was no doubt, at this time, of the republican opinions of both parties; the violent faction took upon itself the denomination of the "red republic," and thought to stigmatise the moderates by the title of the "blue republic." Red and blue were the rallying symbols,—the red, of anarchy and violence; the blue, of order and moderation. Throughout the country, during the many insurrections that burst out on account of the triumph of the moderate party in the elections, the symbol was ever the same: that of the party of order varied, but that of the ultra faction was invariably the same. In the many strange and curious episodes that followed the revolution in Paris of February,—it is necessary to distinguish by dates, since, before these lines are printed, none can tell but that another may have already taken place,—that of those strange gangs, who constituted themselves the soi-disant guardians of the Tuileries, or the defenders of the cannon of the HÔtel de Ville, was one of the most extraordinary, and by these men the same colour was adopted as their symbol: they bound red cravats about their necks, and tied red scarfs around their waists. The band of brigands that had assumed the governorship of the palace of the Tuileries, was with difficulty ejected from it, after much weak parleying and truckling on the part of the government, and was at length reduced by a threat of famine; but that of the HÔtel de Ville maintained its power. It was thought necessary to come to a compromise with it, by legally instituting it as the "Republican Guard" of the seat of government; but nothing could persuade the self-organised troop to remove its ill-omened, blood-red, ultra-republican symbols from neck or body: the point was yielded, and the republican guard is still looked upon with apprehension, as it scours the streets on horseback, or frowns on quiet citizens on foot, flaunting its red scarfs abroad. Among the other anomalous circumstances that were born of a state of things consecutive upon a republican revolution, was also the mysterious existence of that editor of a violent ultra journal, who instituted, on his own authority, a comitÉ de salut public, and sent a band of myrmidons into the streets of Paris to arrest, upon the warrant of his autocratic will, all unfortunate citizens who might be detected in the groups, upon public places, discoursing moderation, and who were consequently to be treated as reactionnaires and contre-revolutionnaires—or, in other words, as the suspects of this new self-appointed montagnard rÉgime.

These myrmidons were all decorated with the fatal symbol, in neckcloth and scarf, around their blouses. Who were they? who connived at their illegal proceedings? how came it that the editor of the Commune de Paris was permitted to have a body-guard at his service, employed to arrest the inhabitants of Paris at his will? For a long time all was mystery: no one could tell, or could do more than hint at the solution of these questions. With difficulty the truth was learnt. As connected with the red symbol of violence and terror, and the history of the parties formed in the new French republic, the story of Citizen Sobrier, the self-instituted president of a comitÉ de salut public, unrecognised by any authority, edict or decree, the self-appointed PrefÊt de Police, No. 2, as he was called by a people that jokes of things the most serious, is a curious and not uninteresting one. When, in a moment of insurrection and disorder, an armed and tumultuous handful of republicans in the Chamber of Deputies changed the destinies of a country, and hastily consented to the appointment of those few men, whose names came uppermost, as the Provisional Government of the country, and then declared them elected by the general voice of the "sovereign people," a certain CaussidiÈre posted off to the PrefÊcture de Police, established himself in its bureau, and, when questioned what he did there, declared that he was as much elected PrefÊt de Police by the voice of the sovereign people, as the other good gentlemen members of the government. This argument was a clinching one; and it prevailed. But, lo and behold! a little later arrived another PrefÊt de Police, equally elected upon the same principles by the voice of the sovereign people: and Citizen Sobrier declared himself equally authorised to wield the authority of the Parisian police. The two divine missionaries—divine by that "voix du peuple qui est la voix de Dieu," agreed for a time to share the power as double delegates; but two wild tiger-cats live seldom amicably in the same cage according to the laws of nature, even be it that of republican fraternity.[28] After much snarling and showing of teeth, Citizen Sobrier was fairly driven out by his brother tiger-cat, and retreated back to his editorial den, vowing vengeance against the elected of the voice of the sovereign people. Citizen Sobrier, however, was the friend of the minister of the interior, the chief of the ultra violent minority in the government; and by the connivance of Citizen Ledru-Rollin, a sop was thrown to Cerberus: the money he demanded was lavished upon him for the support of his ultra journal, above all for the support of the body-guard, supplied him from the ranks of the republican guard of the Hotel de Ville, and incorporated by him under the title of his "Montagnards:" and his authority, thus connived at and protected, was used, as before stated, to harass and arrest the suspects of modern days among the citizens of Paris, until they rose to protest by petition and remonstrance against this monstrous illegal abuse. Since then the lustre of the red banner of Citizen Sobrier has been dimmed for a season; and Parisians can talk peace and moderation upon the boulevards without being bodily arrested by living agents of the hated symbol. Another proof of the abhorrence in which this fatal symbol, the red colour, is held by the better-thinking French republicans, may be deduced from circumstances that attended the dispersion of a Jacobin club in the first days of the revolution. When the club was declared dissolved, and the would-be president was turned out of the room by the indignant majority of the inhabitants of the district of Paris in which it was attempted to establish it, the cry "À bas les Jacobins" was but little heard; the general indignation was excited by the red symbols worn by the baffled institutor of the club—the general cry was "Down with the red cravat! down with the red scarf! down with the blood of the guillotine!" Those who cried this were workmen, men of the people,—at most small shopkeepers: but they felt instinctively the force of the symbol; they dreaded its influence; they feared its propagation of the sentiment connected with it; they attached themselves to its downfall. The visible symbol had more importance in their minds than the sentiment itself; and perhaps no expression of sentiments, however violent, would have excited an outburst of indignation so general and strong as did the blood-red symbol.

Although they cannot, of course, find their place as "symbols," inasmuch as music cannot be said to assume an outward and bodily form, yet the "patriotic hymns," as they are called, which are to be heard upon all occasions, by day and by night, screamed discordantly in chorus by a people that vaunts its musical capabilities, but invariably sings out of tune,—shouted by groups of workmen, assuming the nature of a very inharmonious glee in knots,—yelled at the top of voices in quartets, duos, and trios of wandering gamins,—screeched in ear-rending solos,—whistled by workmen,—bawled by little children, hummed by women, or played on hand-organs on the boulevards, and hunting-horns at the street corners,—may be also taken as expressions of sentiments. The "Marseillaise" is accepted as a traditionary musical accompaniment of all liberal, and especially republican revolutionary movements in France. As the revolutionary movement is incontestible, and as the establishment of the republic is looked upon as a fait accompli, nothing can be said upon its being chorussed incessantly,—much as, internally, many a musical ear may flinch from the torture committed upon it by the hideous disharmony of its executors,—much as the words may be repulsive to many feelings, and appear senseless in the mouths of the citizens of a republic established upon a basis of peace and order—much as many a heart may beat painfully, the flesh creep with a shudder upon many a body, and the hair stand on an end on many a head, on hearing that fearful melody, however finely it may be composed, which recalls to so many a mind the horrors of past days—scenes of pikes supporting bleeding heads, a parent dead upon the scaffold, or a narrow personal escape from death. But the Marseillaise has in general been accepted as the symbolical hymn of the republic, and people "make up their minds to it." The newly-composed hymn of the Girondins, as it is called, affords little cause for horror and dismay, more especially as it has been taken from a drama, in which the terrors of the first revolution have been placed upon the stage with a truth and force of nature sufficient to cause every soul that witnesses them to shudder with apprehension, at the barest thought of their possible return. The eternal recurrence at all times to the ear of the words, "Mourir pour la patrie, c'est le sort le plus digne d'envie," may raise a smile when heard from such mouths as often chorus it about, or may again appear an anomaly in the character officially assumed by the present republic—but the Girondin hymn is connected with no thought of past evil or of living terror. Both these melodies, then, are accepted without any repugnance, except the repugnance that the wearied ear must feel at hearing the same notes dinned into it at all times, in all places, and with every species of disharmony. But there are other melodies, from which the better-thinking mass draws back with horror and disgust—they are looked upon as symbolical of terror, violence, and bloodshed—they turn the soul "sick with fear." If a body of workmen—and, for the character of the French republic be it said, that this is of rare occurrence—or a mob, formed of those fearful hordes that come rushing down upon the city from the distant faubourgs, or seem to spring out of the earth one knows not whence, at all times of tumult or disorderly movement—be heard shouting the Carmagnole or the "Ca ira," of terrific memory, men turn aside; for such fellows who can sing such songs cannot be otherwise than ruffians of the lowest description, or, at best, men led astray by the violence of the party rancour instilled into them by evil-thinking exaltÉs, or too young and foolish, or too reckless and headstrong, to know the fearful importance of the words they sing, and the terror they inspire. Let it be hoped that in truth they know not what words they use, when they howl, "Les aristocrates À la lanterne—les aristocrates on les tuera," and the inflammatory consequences the repetition of such words may bring forth. As yet the "Ca ira" is heard but seldom, and but partially. When this symbolical chaunt of destruction and death shall be chorussed aloud by a populace in general mass, then most assuredly will the sentiment also have been spread abroad, and widely—the sentiment of envy, rancour, intolerance, and bloodshed—the sentiment of 1793; and then may France be assured that she is lost—that she has fallen into the very slough and mire of blood and terror. Heaven protect her from the "Ca ira!" One of the first acts of a legally-constituted authority should be to punish every wretch who dared even to hum it under his breath.

For the same reason a protest should be made against the singing of the "Marseillaise" by the far-famed actress, Mademoiselle Rachel, at the first theatre of France, and more especially since this terrific exhibition is given also upon the occasions when the theatre is gratuitously opened to the public. The terrible vigour of this actress in the delineation of the worst and fiercest passions of the human breast—anger, rage, scorn, malice—is well known to the world. The singing of the "Marseillaise" has excited a tumult of enthusiasm. At a time when all the theatres in Paris languished, and pined away to the bare benches, and even died—some of them from inanition, poor things!—the ThÉÂtre FranÇais was nightly crammed to its throat in the very upper galleries, to gaze upon this strange spectacle. Before witnessing this feat of Mademoiselle Rachel, it was natural to suppose that she would assume the part of an inspired Joan of Arc, leading on a people to combat and victory. Bitter was the disappointment of those who indulged this poetic fancy. Her gestures, while singing the patriotic hymn, are energetic, if not grand, her attitudes fine, her poses plastiques picture-like; but what is the whole character of her delivery—what the expression she bestows? Those of hatred, malice, revenge, bloodthirstiness. She calls "to arms" as Satan may have summoned the accursed angels. She is not for a moment the inspired guardian angel of a suffering country, heaven-sent to avenge its wrongs: she is the demon of darkness scattering destruction and death from the sheer love of death and destruction. Her flatterers have called her "a Muse"—then she must needs be the Muse of Vengeance! the Muse of Malice! the Muse of Blood! She sinks her voice to sing the words, "Amour sacrÉ de la patrie;" but with what a spirit of concentrated bitterness does she pronounce them! There is not a breath of love in the least inflexion of her voice: every tone breathes "hate—hate—hate," with all the bitterness of hatred. What a look of fury, malice, scorn, and reckless revenge possesses her face during her whole delivery! One would suppose that she must have some private wrongs of her own to avenge upon society, or upon the denounced aristocracy of society, so spontaneous appears the flood of blood-mixed bile that flows from her lips. A shudder pervades your whole frame, your hair stands on end; and willingly would you turn away your head with horror and disgust, did she not fascinate you by the power of her energy, and cast an evil spell upon you by the charm of the sculptured beauty of her forcible attitudes. Ay! would a sculptor study a true model of a demon of revenge, he could not study a better one than Mademoiselle Rachel, as she delivers the Marseillaise. But it is this very fascination that is dangerous. Hundreds of spectators, who applaud with frenzy, leave the theatre instinctively connecting in their minds the Marseillaise with all the most fearful and deadly passions of the human breast. The bitterness of bitterness pervades their recollection of it—a vision of the demon-like actress floats before their eyes; they murmur the melody themselves involuntarily, with the same feelings of hatred, revenge, and bloodthirstiness. Oh! anathema on the actress who would inspire the citizens of France with feelings so vile—who knows her power over the masses, and so fearfully misuses it—who, when she might modify, exaggerates, and goads on to fury! The evil that this representation may produce is incalculable. Who can tell how far the leaven of gall that she infuses into the popular melody, that is in every body's mouth, and rings in every body's ear, may not leaven the whole sentiment connected with it? Yes! woe and anathema to the actress! The more terrible sentiment connected with the symbol had faded from men's minds, and she would again connect the symbol with sentiments of terror and revenge.

All tendencies to return upon the bloody track of the past are equally condemnable: every symbolical reminiscence of that past is equally to be avoided. It ought to be scouted by the good sense of the better-thinking citizens of France, and put down by all the moral force that public remonstrance, reasoning, satire, and ridicule may command in the public prints. There was a time when a new-born French republic, in the heyday folly of its early youth, and with all the silly fancies of silly puerile years—and who of us, as a youngster, has not had such?—sought for its models, and emblems, and symbols, in the most ancient republics of Europe; and weened that, if it assumed the outward forms, and wore the names of those old times, it must necessarily inherit the supposed virtues of the days of Greece and Rome: those virtues which, to its fancy, consisted chiefly in uncompromising sternness, and soi-disant patriotic hard-heartedness. And, like a silly boy, the first French republic rendered itself ridiculous by its extravagant absurdities. Like a stage-struck hero of the same age, it exaggerated and overacted its part: it fancied that it had but to put on the robe, and take the name, and strut and swagger; and that it would act the part, if not to the life, at least with wonderful effect. Unlike the silly boy, however, it went beyond the contemptible,—it became frantic, furious, bloodyminded—it became terrible: its hot young brains were turned, and dreamt bad dreams of cruelty and carnage. Those were the days when men unbaptised themselves of their old names, and called themselves "Brutus," and "Aristides," and "Scevola," and "Leonidas," and deemed themselves great and doughty patriots, with all the virtues of the antique, because they had so put their names down among the dramatis personÆ in the bill of the play. Those were the days when women wore Grecian tunics, and exposed their naked charms to the inclemencies of a foggy northern sky; and happy would the results of all this nonsense have been, had the republic only caught a cold, or a sore throat, or a toothach: unfortunately, it caught a fever, a sore soul, and a heartach. Those were the days when fasces were carried abroad in public fÊtes, as emblems of liberty,—fasces! those true emblems of constraint and tyranny—of constraint by the stick, of tyranny by the axe,—fasces! such as lictors carried before Nero; and the fasces were stamped upon the coins of the republic, surmounted by a cap of liberty! Those were the days when Greece and Rome were soi-disant models, greedily swallowed, ill digested, and producing nausea, loathing, and sickness. The Grecian and the Roman symbols, therefore, were symbols to be avoided and repulsed. They remind of the past; they prepare people's minds for its return; they bring with them visions of blood. In the very heart's core of the people, with the Grecian allegories, and the Spartan virtues, and the fasces, are intimately connected comitÉs de salut public, and denunciations unto death, and the guillotine. Away with them then! refer not to them again! repel them, second French republic, from your fÊtes, and your public ceremonies, and your coins! They are all so many prickly whips to drive men's minds back to the bloody past, and urge them again along the self-same blood-stained road. Surely, too, the day of such worn-out theatrical humbug is past: the world has grown more civilised and more sensible: the age of allegorical absurdities is gone by. True! the world has also lost much of its poetry and romance; and there may be those who regret it, and would be foolish still; but all this Greco-Franco republican romance and poetry, borrowed of the ancients, is now sadly out of place. What do I say?—is to be shunned as the plague-fraught garment from the East, that, when thrown upon your shoulders, may extend a fatal disease far and wide among the land, that may become another robe of Nessus to burn and consume you to the bones; and when once thrown on, not to be torn away again without tearing with it the healthful flesh, and the very blood of life. And yet there are those who would seem determined ever to refer back to the past days, ever to spur along the old road, and who appear to dream that they can never produce the effect they want, but by spreading the poisoned garment over the back of France. There has been a reckless Minister of the Interior, who, hand-in-hand with a strong-minded but ill-judging woman, full of strange subversive fancies, which she proclaims with a masculine voice, and in a nominal masculine garb, seems to forget the importance of such symbols over the easily exciteable imaginations of the French, or perhaps even—may God forgive him, if so it be!—adopts the symbols of the past, in order to prepare the way for its return, and for the return to his own hands of the tyranny of democratic despotism. It is he who has declared it his high will, that the spirit of the country should be travaillÉ—i. e. tortured—to his own furious sense: and, in truth, the maintenance of such symbols is a pretty and convenient manner to travailler the public spirit with all the taking gaudiness of outward show. As Minister of the Interior, he is supreme institutor and instigator of popular fÊtes, and public republican ceremonies: and, whether of his own fancy, or under the influence of the promptings of minor masters of ceremonies, or of those who would be such, he appears determined that modern republican shows, festivities, and ceremonials, should bring back as many reminiscences of those of a fatal time as possible. In the funeral ceremony of the interment of those who fell in the days of February,—which, in its very nature, as well as from the immense masses it called forth of men of all classes, all corporations, all bodies of the state, citizen troops, and military, with music, and banners, and streaming ribands, was sufficiently imposing,—in this ceremony Paris was again bid to delight itself with the aspect of modern lictors preceding the members of the Provisional Government, with antique fasces—those eternal emblematical fasces,—that had been borrowed from the boards of the ci-devant ThÉÂtre Francais, where they had been used, poor dirty old things, to be paraded by knock-kneed bearers before all the bloody tyrants of the classic drama of France: they were "freshened up," it is true, and made smart, to meet the time and circumstance, by being bound with new tri-color ribands: but they were no less foolish symbols, and worse than foolish, from the effect they might have on sentiments. But this was but the caviare to the feast. A new republican fÊte is prepared by the same minister of the interior, and that, too, at a time when the public treasury is empty, and a national bankruptcy stares the country in the face—a fÊte that has no purpose as an anniversary, unless it be some anniversary of a time to be forgotten—an uncalled-for fÊte, that is to be symbolical of a republican word called "Fraternity," the sense of which no one in France seems, by any effort, to be able to understand,—in fact, to be the vague vain emblem of a vague vain word. What does the programme of this fÊte set forth? Antique cars, bearing Grecian allegorical personifications of the new-old deities of the day, drawn by huge oxen with gilded horns, borrowed of the Eleusinian mysteries!—and little Lacedemonian girls in white Grecian tunics, singing French patriotic hymns on the boulevards under Grecian pavilions,—hear it, shade of Coleman's Mr Sterling, and rejoice!—and Grecian tripods with burning flames at street-corners—and painted Grecian statues, allegorical of all sorts of fancied Grecian virtues, under the trees of the Champs ElysÉes—and nonsense only knows how many other Grecian attributes of canvass and pasteboard, and carpentry-work, and stage decoration in all manner of high places. Out upon them all! Were we to turn to some edict of the past, issued for the celebration of the pure and mighty virtues of the days of the Convention, we should find exactly the same programme of some fÊte of fraternity in those fraternal times, ordained and arranged by the famous artist, Citizen David, the pure taste of whose classic pictures all amateurs, who have visited Paris, may have had the happiness of admiring in the galleries of the ci-devant Louvre.

No less to be condemned, for similar reasons, as uselessly and even deleteriously calling into life the past, was the edict of the Provisional Government, enacting that the representatives of the people in the national assembly should have a uniform costume, similar to that worn by the heroes of the Convention. This idea emanated, doubtless, from the same violent and misdirected source as the Greco-republican programme de fÊte: but why, it may be asked, did the more sensible and moderate majority of that government lend its hand to sign such a decree? The immense, majority, however, of the representatives of the people, who are unwilling, at the same time, to be the representatives of the ideas of '93, have, in their good sense, done justice to this edict, by their disdain of its ordinances, and their refusal to wear the costume imposed upon them. They felt the full force of the symbol they were told to adopt; they felt the dangerous importance of the sentiment that would be attached to it: they rejected the symbol; and they disavowed the sentiment. And they did well. The cocked hat with its gold-lace border, such as may be seen, in pictures, on the head or in the hand of Danton or St Just, was declared simply absurd, if nothing more: the tri-color scarf, to be bound round their waists, with its gold fringe, was thought puerile; but the celebrated white waistcoat, the fatal white waistcoat, with its broad lappels flung back upon the shoulders—that waistcoat known only under the popular names of the "gilet À la Robespierre,"—or the "gilet À la guillotine"—the new representatives of the people of a new republic, founded upon other principles, flung aside with indignation. The "gilet À la Robespierre!"—the very name was sufficient to excite feelings of abhorrence; and the edict, although it of course withheld the name, raised a storm of angry remonstrance and refusal. The whole affair,—the edict as the indignation,—may be considered as puerile, frivolous, and unworthy of strong feeling. But, again it must be repeated, the men who were told to don this costume knew what the sentiment would be that such a display of symbolical attire would excite; and a great importance was attached to it, which men in other countries may not understand, but which those who know the French, and their facility to be led away by the outward symbol, will entirely appreciate. It may seem ridiculous to say—and yet it may not be far off the truth—that many a representative of the people, who may now talk sage and sensible moderation, might have thundered forth the excess of democratic violence, had his bosom borne across it the "gilet À la Robespierre."

There are other symbols of the great watchwords of the day; those ill understood and oft misconstrued words,—those words which are so constantly put forward by the violent to mean the very contrary of what they are intended to express,—the words "LibertÉ! EgalitÉ! FraternitÉ!" and these symbols men think it necessary to exhibit on all occasions. So be it. They are the rallying cry of the new republic; let them be symbolised. But let men take care how, and in what manner, it be done. In the new coins of the republic, upon which the three mystic words shine, they are strangely enough typified—the old die of the old coin of the old republic has been used; and perhaps the allegorical personages that figure on them had then another signification. As it is, the Hercules in the midst, with the two ladies by his side, may be interpreted in various ways. Curious speculators in allegories would in vain endeavour to affix each of these three personages to each of the abstractions they are supposed to represent: there are many, at all events, who decline the task. Which does Hercules typify? Liberty perchance—the liberty, then, of force. Or, if the ladies alone represent the qualities that are of the feminine gender in the French language, which of the three is absent? which of the three is excluded from being symbolised on the coins of the French republic? This would be, again, a difficult task to investigate. All the three are so constantly called in question, so continually menaced, above all, so little comprehended in general in the first steps of the French republic, that it would be hard to say which is the least recognised, although many may give their votes in favour of the first of the three good dames. But it is not alone upon the coins that the three deities find their emblems. Lithographic prints, of every species of good or bad drawing, display them in a bodily form to admiring eyes at every print-shop. Led away by pictures, as by all other outward and visible emblems, the French are easily inflamed by such productions. And, again, a protest should be entered against the character commonly given to the republican deities—against that of goddess Liberty more especially. She is almost invariably represented in an attitude of demoniacal vengeance, worthy of Mademoiselle Rachel. She has the so-called cap of liberty, of course, upon her head, but her hand always grasps a sabre, or a pike, or some such deadly weapon; her countenance is furious, angry, vengeful. Why should Liberty be represented thus, then, as a bloodthirsty angel of wrath? why should she be an object to be dreaded and not loved? Rulers of France, ye should have a care how the divinity ye proclaim is symbolised to the eyes of the people! the effect produced, in the fostering of the sentiment, may be more important than ye choose to think or to acknowledge. The same reprehension should be cast upon the greater part of those models and pictures which are exhibited in the Ecole des beaux arts, for the prize to be given for the best personification of the French Republic. The great majority of these models represent, once more, a perfect fury of wrath, in all the extravagance of frantic theatrical gesture. But, my good artists, this is a representation of a French Republic such as it was in the worst moments of its last reign—not of the French Republic proclaimed as the living exemplification, not only of liberty, equality, and fraternity, but of peace, and order, and love! Could you do nothing better than make bad imitations of a detestable past? It will be for the famous Minister of the Interior, probably, to decide which of these personifications is to be raised on high as the symbol of the republic. He who offered the prize will probably award it: Paris, then, will soon see what sentiment is to be taught, in the name of all France, to attach to the symbol.

There is another little trait connected with a people's sentiments that, slight as it is, may be of more influence in the direction which the violence of popular commotion may take. This little trait, although born of an evil and violent feeling, may have a tendency that not only will not be a harmful one, but may protect from harm. At the commencement of the revolution,—upon every greater or lesser demonstration of popular feeling,—the first cry, to the rich or the supposed rich, was to illuminate their houses in honour of the sovereign people, or rather of those who assumed the rank and title of sovereignty wholly to themselves. Above the cries, "À bas les riches! À bas les aristocrats!" prevailed the cry "des lampions! des lampions!" So often, and for so long a time, was this cry heard in the streets of Paris, that it has now taken the distinct form of one of those popular shouts used upon all occasions. Is the mob angry, or is it merry, it cries "des lampions!" Is it angry only, this cry often changes its wrath to merriment: is it impatient, it cries "des lampions!" is it witty, "des lampions!" By day as well as night, on all popular occasions, the cry is heard, and now never fails to excite a laugh. In the theatres, is a piece to be damned?—the pit and the galleries cry, "des lampions!" Does a declaimer in a street crowd displease the multitude?—it cries again, "des lampions!" The words, then, have become a popular demonstrative cry; and who can tell how much in the future this habit may efface the hideous cry of "À la lanterne?"—how much the cry for light may cause the people to forget the cry for the darkness of death upon the lamp-post—how much, in truth, popular sentiment may be hereafter influenced by a trait of popular habit so slight, so frivolous, so ridiculous, and yet, perhaps, so important in its results. Should it have this working, there are many who have lost their temper at the ear-rending, monotonous, irritating cry of "des lampions," who may bless the day when the fancy of the mob adopted this popular and almost historical cry. Who can tell, indeed, upon what a trifle may depend the direction given to a people's outbreak, to the course of a revolution, to the destinies of a country?

Since the courageous action of Lamartine gave a first stamp to the character of the revolution, by putting down a dangerous sentiment in its bloody symbol, the violent party has in vain again endeavoured, as yet, to assume its lost supremacy. The horizon is dark with its menace, it is true, and its thunder growls, its lightnings flash, from time to time: the storm may be dispersed, or it may break forth, and then pass away. This is for the future. But whatever men may rule the destinies of France, they should, like Lamartine, be well aware that if the French people must be amused with constant displays of symbols, those symbols must be chosen with care, as the direct, and leading, and active instigators of their sentiments.