--I can only exclaim as
Poultier, a deputy, did, on a similar occasion--"Francais, Francais,
serez vous toujours Francais?"--(Frenchmen, Frenchmen, will you never
cease to be Frenchmen?)
--But the mandates for such celebrations reach not the heart: flowers
were gathered, and flags planted, with the scrupulous exactitude of
fear;* yet all was cold and heavy, and a discerning government must have
read in this anxious and literal obedience the indication of terror and
hatred.
* I have more than once had occasion to remark the singularity of
popular festivities solemnized on the part of the people with no
other intention but that of exact obedience to the edicts of
government. This is so generally understood, that Richard, a deputy
on mission at Lyons, writes to the Convention, as a circumstance
extraordinary, and worthy of remark, that, at the repeal of a decree
which was to have razed their city to the ground, a rejoicing took
place, _"dirigee et executee par le peuple, les autorites
constitutees n'ayant fait en quelque sorte qu'y assister,"_--
(directed and executed by the people, the constituted authorities
having merely assisted at the ceremony).
--Even the prisons were insultingly decorated with the mockery of
colours, which, we are told, are the emblems of freedom; and those whose
relations have expired on the scaffold, or who are pining in dungeons for
having heard a mass, were obliged to listen with apparent admiration to a
discourse on the charms of religious liberty.
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