Clootz and Chaumette, who called themselves Anacharsis and Anaxagoras,
celebrated the worship of the Goddess of Reason. Bonfires of feudality;
Goddesses of Liberty in plaster; trees of liberty planted in every
square; altars _de la patrie_; huge rag-dolls representing Anarchy and
Discord; Cleobis and Biton dragging their revered parents through the
streets; _bonnets rouges, banderolles, ca iras, carmagnoles,
fraternisations, accolades_; the properties, as well as the text of the
plays, borrowed from Ancient Greece or Rome. What a bewildering
retrospect! A period well summed up by Emerson:--"To-day, pasteboard
and filigree; to-morrow, madness and murder." _Tigre-singe_, Voltaire's
epigrammatic definition, describes his countrymen of the Reign of
Terror in two words.
Neglected by all parties, and disgusted with all, Paine moved to a
remote quarter of Paris, and took rooms in a house which had once
belonged to Mme. de Pompadour. Brissot, Thomas Christie, Mary
Wolstonecraft, and Joel Barlow were his principal associates. Two
Englishmen, "friends of humanity," and an ex-officer of the
_garde-du-corps_ lodged in the same building.
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