第47章

Besenval, during these extraordinary operations, of Payment two-fifths in Paper, and change of Prime Minister, had been out on a tour through his District of Command; and indeed, for the last months, peacefully drinking the waters of Contrexeville. Returning now, in the end of August, towards Moulins, and 'knowing nothing,' he arrives one evening at Langres; finds the whole Town in a state of uproar (grande rumeur). Doubtless some sedition; a thing too common in these days! He alights nevertheless; inquires of a 'man tolerably dressed,' what the matter is?--"How?" answers the man, "you have not heard the news? The Archbishop is thrown out, and M. Necker is recalled; and all is going to go well!" (Besenval, iii. 366.)

Such rumeur and vociferous acclaim has risen round M. Necker, ever from 'that day when he issued from the Queen's Apartments,' a nominated Minister. It was on the 24th of August: 'the galleries of the Chateau, the courts, the streets of Versailles; in few hours, the Capital; and, as the news flew, all France, resounded with the cry of Vive le Roi! Vive M.

Necker! (Weber, i. 342.) In Paris indeed it unfortunately got the length of turbulence.' Petards, rockets go off, in the Place Dauphine, more than enough. A 'wicker Figure (Mannequin d'osier),' in Archbishop's stole, made emblematically, three-fifths of it satin, two-fifths of it paper, is promenaded, not in silence, to the popular judgment-bar; is doomed; shriven by a mock Abbe de Vermond; then solemnly consumed by fire, at the foot of Henri's Statue on the Pont Neuf;--with such petarding and huzzaing that Chevalier Dubois and his City-watch see good finally to make a charge (more or less ineffectual); and there wanted not burning of sentry-boxes, forcing of guard-houses, and also 'dead bodies thrown into the Seine over-night,' to avoid new effervescence. (Histoire Parlementaire de la Revolution Francaise; ou Journal des Assemblees Nationales depuis 1789 (Paris, 1833 et seqq.), i. 253. Lameth, Assemblee Constituante, i. (Introd.) p. 89.)

Parlements therefore shall return from exile: Plenary Court, Payment two-fifths in Paper have vanished; gone off in smoke, at the foot of Henri's Statue. States-General (with a Political Millennium) are now certain; nay, it shall be announced, in our fond haste, for January next: and all, as the Langres man said, is 'going to go.'

To the prophetic glance of Besenval, one other thing is too apparent: that Friend Lamoignon cannot keep his Keepership. Neither he nor War-minister Comte de Brienne! Already old Foulon, with an eye to be war-minister himself, is making underground movements. This is that same Foulon named ame damnee du Parlement; a man grown gray in treachery, in griping, projecting, intriguing and iniquity: who once when it was objected, to some finance-scheme of his, "What will the people do?"--made answer, in the fire of discussion, "The people may eat grass:" hasty words, which fly abroad irrevocable,--and will send back tidings!

Foulon, to the relief of the world, fails on this occasion; and will always fail. Nevertheless it steads not M. de Lamoignon. It steads not the doomed man that he have interviews with the King; and be 'seen to return radieux,' emitting rays. Lamoignon is the hated of Parlements: Comte de Brienne is Brother to the Cardinal Archbishop. The 24th of August has been; and the 14th September is not yet, when they two, as their great Principal had done, descend,--made to fall soft, like him.

And now, as if the last burden had been rolled from its heart, and assurance were at length perfect, Paris bursts forth anew into extreme jubilee. The Basoche rejoices aloud, that the foe of Parlements is fallen;