Chapter 1.7.III.

Black Cockades.

But fancy what effect this Thyestes Repast and trampling on the National
Cockade, must have had in the Salle des Menus; in the famishing
Bakers'-queues at Paris! Nay such Thyestes Repasts, it would seem,
continue. Flandre has given its Counter-Dinner to the Swiss and Hundred
Swiss; then on Saturday there has been another.

Yes, here with us is famine; but yonder at Versailles is food; enough
and to spare! Patriotism stands in queue, shivering hungerstruck,
insulted by Patrollotism; while bloodyminded Aristocrats, heated with
excess of high living, trample on the National Cockade. Can the atrocity
be true? Nay, look: green uniforms faced with red; black cockades,--the
colour of Night! Are we to have military onfall; and death also by
starvation? For behold the Corbeil Cornboat, which used to come twice
a-day, with its Plaster-of-Paris meal, now comes only once. And the
Townhall is deaf; and the men are laggard and dastard!--At the Cafe de
Foy, this Saturday evening, a new thing is seen, not the last of its
kind: a woman engaged in public speaking. Her poor man, she says, was
put to silence by his District; their Presidents and Officials would
not let him speak. Wherefore she here with her shrill tongue will
speak; denouncing, while her breath endures, the Corbeil-Boat, the
Plaster-of-Paris bread, sacrilegious Opera-dinners, green uniforms,
Pirate Aristocrats, and those black cockades of theirs!--