A cry went
up from thousands of throats--'Sergius Thord!'--followed by an
extraordinary clamour of passionate plaudits, as the excited people
recognised the grand head and commanding aspect of their own particular
Apostle of Liberty. He,--stretching out his hands with a gesture of
mingled authority and entreaty,--pacified the raging sea of
contradictory and conflicting voices as if by magic,--and the horrid
clamour died down into a dull roar, which in its turn subsided into
silence.
"Friends and brothers!" he cried; "Be calm! Be patient! What spirit
possesses you to thus destroy the chances of your own peace! What is
your aim? Justice? Ay--justice!--but how can you gain this by being
yourselves unjust? Will you remedy Wrong by injuring Right? Nay--this
must not be!--this cannot be, with _you_, whose passion for
liberty is noble,--whose love for truth is fixed and resolute,--and who
seek no more than is by human right your own! This sudden tempest, by
which your souls are tossed, is like an angry gust upon the sea, which
wrecks great vessels and drowns brave men;--be something more than the
semblance of the capricious wind which destroys without having reason
to know why it is bent on destruction! What are you here for? What
would you do?"
A confused shouting answered him, in which cries of 'Perousse!' and
'The King!' were most prominent.
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