famed in such work (for Abbé Lefèvre could only distribute powder) blesses tricolor cloth for the National Guard; and makes it a National Tricolor Flag; victorious, or to be victorious, in the cause of civil and religious liberty all over the world. Fauchet, we say, is the man for Te-Deums, and public Consecrations;—to which, as in this instance of the Flag, our National Guard will 'reply with volleys of musketry,' Church and Cathedral though it be;[1] filling Notre Dame with such noisiest fuliginous Amen, significant of several things.
On the whole, we will say our new Mayor Bailly, our new Commander Lafayette named also 'Scipio-Americanus,' have bought their preferment dear. Bailly rides in gilt state-coach, with beef-eaters and sumptuosity; Camille Desmoulins, and others, sniffing at him for it: Scipio bestrides the 'white charger,' and waves with civic plumes in sight of all France. Neither of them, however, does it for nothing; but, in truth, at an exorbitant rate. At this rate, namely: of feeding Paris, and keeping it from fighting. Out of the City-funds, some seventeen thousand of the utterly destitute are employed digging on Montmarte, at tenpence a day, which buys them, at market price, almost two pounds of bad bread:—they look very yellow, when Lafayette goes to harangue them. The Townhall is in travail, night and day; it must bring forth Bread, a Municipal Constitution, regulations of all kinds, curbs on the Sansculottic Press; above all, Bread, Bread.
Purveyors prowl the country far and wide, with the appetite of lions; detect hidden grain, purchase open grain; by gentle means or forcible, must and will find grain. A most thankless task; and so difficult, so dangerous,—even if a man did gain some trifle by it! On the 19th of August, there is food for one day.[2] Complaints there are that the food is spoiled, and produces an effect on the intestines: not corn but plaster-of-paris! Which effect on the intestines, as well as that 'smarting in the throat and palate,' a Townhall Proclamation
