address is presented to the Convention and Robespierre has a
resolution adopted, ordering it to be sent to the armies, to foreign
powers and all the Communes. More applause, more embraces, and more
cheers. -- On the 9th of August,[37] by order of the Convention, the
delegates meet in the Tuileries garden, where, divided into as many
groups as there are departments, they study the program drawn up by
David, in order to familiarize themselves with the parts they are to
play in the festival of the following day.

What an odd festival and how well it expresses the spirit of the time!
It is a sort of opera played in the streets by the public authorities,
with triumphant chariots, altars, censers, an Ark of the Covenant,
funeral urns, classic banners and other trappings! Its divinities
consist of plaster statues representing Nature, Liberty, the People,
and Hercules, all of which are personified abstractions, like those
painted on the ceiling of a theater. In all this there is no
spontaneity nor sincerity; the actors, whose consciences tell them
that they are only actors, render homage to symbols which they know to
be nothing but symbols, while the mechanical procession,[38] the
invocations, the apostrophes, the postures, the gestures are regulated
beforehand, the same as by a ballet-manager. To any truth-loving
person all this must seem like a charade performed by puppets. -- But
the festival is colossal, well calculated to stimulate the imagination
and excite pride through physical excitement.[39] On this grandiose
stage the delegates become quite intoxicated with their part; for,
evidently, theirs is the leading part; they represent twenty-six
millions of Frenchmen, and the sole object of this ceremony is to
glorify the national will of which they are the bearers. -- On the
Place de la Bastille[40] where the gigantic effigy of nature pours
forth from its two breasts "the regenerating water," Hérault, the