many said, than the last 13th was, when only hail fell out of Heaven, not madness rose out of Tophet, ruining worse than crops!
In these same days, as Chronology will teach us, hot old Marquis Mirabeau lies stricken down, at Argenteuil,—not within sound of these alarm-guns; for he properly is not there, and only the body of him now lies, deaf and cold for ever. It was on Saturday night that he, drawing his last life-breaths, gave up the ghost there;—Cleaving a world, which would never go to his mind, now broken out, seemingly, into deliration and the culbute générale. What is it to him, departing elsewhither, on his long journey? The old Château Mirabeau stands silent, far off, on its scarped rock, in that 'gorge of two windy valleys'; the pale-fading spectre now of a Château: this huge World-riot, and France, and the World itself, fades also, like a shadow on the great still mirror-sea; and all shall be as God wills.
Young Mirabeau, sad of heart, for he loved this crabbed brave old Father; sad of heart, and occupied with sad cares,—is withdrawn from Public History. The great crisis transacts itself without him.[1]
STORM AND VICTORY
But, to the living and the struggling, a new, Fourteenth morning dawns. Under all roofs of this distracted City is the nodus of a drama, not untragical, crowding towards solution. The bustlings and preparings, the tremors and menaces; the tears that fell from old eyes! This day, my sons, ye shall quit you like men. By the memory of your fathers' wrongs, by the hope of your children's rights! Tyranny impends in
- ↑ Fils Adoptif, Mirabeau, vi. l. 1.
