Procureur Chaumette enlarged upon his original idea; like a true artist
who sees the broad effect of a picture at a glance and then fills in the
minute details, he was already busy elaborating his scheme.

"The goddess must be beautiful ... not too young ... Reason can only
go hand in hand with the riper age of second youth ... she must be
decked out in classical draperies, severe yet suggestive ... she must be
rouged and painted ... for she is a mere idol ... easily to be appeased
with incense, music and laughter."

He was getting deeply interested in his subject, seeking minutiae of
detail, with which to render his theme more and more attractive.

But patience was never the characteristic of the Revolutionary
Government of France. The National Assembly soon tired of
Chaumette's dithyrambic utterances. Up aloft on the Mountain,
Danton was yawning like a gigantic leopard.

Soon Henriot was on his feet. He had a far finer scheme than that of
the Procureur to place before his colleagues. A grand National fete,
semi-religious in character, but of the new religion which destroyed
and desecrated and never knelt in worship.

Citizen Chaumette's Goddess of Reason by all means--Henriot
conceded that the idea was a good one--but the goddess merely as a
figure-head: around her a procession of unfrocked and apostate
priests, typifying the destruction of ancient hierarchy, mules carrying
loads of sacred vessels, the spoils of ten thousand churches of France,
and ballet girls in bacchanalian robes, dancing the Carmagnole around