Part 3 (1/2)
”On se _croit_ en Republique, parce que quelques demi-quarterons de farceurs occupent les memes places, emargent les memes appointements, pratiquent les memes abus, que ceux qu'on a renverses a leur benefice.
”On se _croit_ un peuple opprime, heroque, que brise ses fers, et n'est qu'un domestique capricieux qui aime a changer de maitres.
”On _croit_ au genie d'avocats de sixieme ordre, qui ne se sont jetes dans la politique et n'aspirent au gouvernement despotique de la France que faute d'avoir pu gagner honnetement, sans grand travail, dans l'exercice d'un profession correcte, une vie obscure humectee de chopes.
”On _croit_ que des hommes devoyes, decla.s.ses, decaves, fruits secs, etc., qui n'ont etudie que le 'domino a quatre' et le 'bezigue en quinze cents' se reveillent un matin,--apres un sommeil alourdi par le tabac et la biere--possedant la science de la politique, et l'art de la guerre; et aptes a etre dictateurs, generaux, ministres, prefets, sous-prefets, etc.
”Et les soi-disant conservateurs eux-memes _croient_ que la France peut se relever et vivre tant qu'on n'aura pas fait justice de ce pretendu suffrage universel qui est le contraire du suffrage universel.
”Les croyances out subi le sort de ce serpent de la fable--coupe, hache par morceaux, dont chaque troncon devenait un serpent.
”Les croyances se sont changees en monnaie--en billon de credulites.
”Et pour finir la liste bien incomplete des croyances et des credulites--vous _croyez_, vous, qu'on ne croit a rien!”
CHAPTER II.
UNDER THE DRACHENFELS.
1. Without ign.o.bly trusting the devices of artificial memory--far less slighting the pleasure and power of resolute and thoughtful memory--my younger readers will find it extremely useful to note any coincidences or links of number which may serve to secure in their minds what may be called Dates of Anchorage, round which others, less important, may swing at various cables' lengths.
Thus, it will be found primarily a most simple and convenient arrangement of the years since the birth of Christ, to divide them by fives of centuries,--that is to say, by the marked periods of the fifth, tenth, fifteenth, and, now fast nearing us, twentieth centuries.
And this--at first seemingly formal and arithmetical--division, will be found, as we use it, very singularly emphasized by signs of most notable change in the knowledge, disciplines, and morals of the human race.
2. All dates, it must farther be remembered, falling within the fifth century, begin with the number 4 (401, 402, etc.); and all dates in the tenth century with the number 9 (901, 902, etc.); and all dates in the fifteenth century with the number 14 (1401, 1402, etc.)
In our immediate subject of study, we are concerned with the first of these marked centuries--the fifth--of which I will therefore ask you to observe two very interesting divisions.
All dates of years in that century, we said, must begin with the number 4.
If you halve it for the second figure, you get 42.
And if you double it for the second figure, you get 48.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate II.--THE BIBLE OF AMIENS. NORTHERN PORCH BEFORE RESTORATION.]
Add 1, for the third figure, to each of these numbers, and you get 421 and 481, which two dates you will please fasten well down, and let there be no drifting about of them in your heads.
For the first is the date of the birth of Venice herself, and her dukedom, (see 'St. Mark's Rest,' Part I., p. 30); and the second is the date of birth of the French Venice, and her kingdom; Clovis being in that year crowned in Amiens.
3. These are the great Birthdays--Birthdates--in the fifth century, of Nations. Its Deathdays we will count, at another time.
Since, not for dark Rialto's dukedom, nor for fair France's kingdom, only, are these two years to be remembered above all others in the wild fifth century; but because they are also the birth-years of a great Lady, and greater Lord, of all future Christendom--St.
Genevieve, and St. Benedict.
Genevieve, the 'white wave' (Laughing water)--the purest of all the maids that have been named from the sea-foam or the rivulet's ripple, unsullied,--not the troubled and troubling Aphrodite, but the Leucothea of Ulysses, the guiding wave of deliverance.
White wave on the blue--whether of pure lake or sunny sea--(thenceforth the colours of France, blue field with white lilies), she is always the type of purity, in active brightness of the entire soul and life--(so distinguished from the quieter and restricted innocence of St. Agnes),--and all the traditions of sorrow in the trial or failure of n.o.ble womanhood are connected with her name; Ginevra, in Italian, pa.s.sing into Shakespeare's Imogen; and Guinevere, the torrent wave of the British mountain streams, of whose pollution your modern sentimental minstrels chant and moan to you, lugubriously useless;--but none tell you, that I hear, of the victory and might of this white wave of France.
4. A shepherd maid she was--a tiny thing, barefooted, bare-headed--such as you may see running wild and innocent, less cared for now than their sheep, over many a hillside of France and Italy. Tiny enough;--seven years old, all told, when first one hears of her: ”Seven times one are seven, (I am old, you may trust me, linnet, linnet[10]),” and all around her--fierce as the Furies, and wild as the winds of heaven--the thunder of the Gothic armies, reverberate over the ruins of the world.