They are gala-nights, these last of September; Paris may well dance, and the Universe: the Edifice of the Constitution is completed! Completed; nay revised , to see that there was nothing insufficient in it; solemnly proffered to his Majesty; solemnly accepted by him, to the sound of cannon-salvoes, on the fourteenth of the month.
And now by such illumination, jubilee, dancing and fire-working, do we joyously handsel the new Social Edifice, and first raise heat and reek there, in the name of Hope. The Revision, especially with a throne standing on its vertex, has been a work of difficulty, of delicacy.
In the way of propping and buttressing, so indispensable now, something could be done; and yet, as is feared, not enough. A repentant Barnave Triumvirate, our Rabauts, Duports, Thourets, and indeed all Constitutional Deputies did strain every nerve: but the Extreme Left was so noisy; the People were so suspicious, clamorous to have the work ended: and then the loyal Right Side sat feeble-petulant all the while, and as it were pouting and petting; unable to help, had they even been willing.
To such transcendency of fret, and desperate hope that worsening of the bad might the sooner end it and bring back the good, had our unfortunate loyal Right Side now come! However, one finds that this and the other little prop has been added, where possibility allowed. Civil-list and Privy-purse were from of old well cared for. King's Constitutional Guard, Eighteen hundred loyal men from the Eighty-three Departments, under a loyal Duke de Brissac; this, with trustworthy Swiss besides, is of itself something.
The old loyal Bodyguards are indeed dissolved, in name as well as in fact; and gone mostly towards Coblentz. A most notable Corps of men; which has its place in World-History;—though to us, so is History written, they remain mere rubrics of men; nameless; a shaggy Grenadier Mass, crossed with buff-belts. And yet might we not ask: What Argonauts, what Leonidas' Spartans had done such a work?
