[The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle]@TWC D-Link bookThe French Revolution CHAPTER 1 5/8
An unclean Social Anomaly; but in duel against another worse! The exiled Parlement is felt to have 'covered itself with glory.' There are quarrels in which even Satan, bringing help, were not unwelcome; even Satan, fighting stiffly, might cover himself with glory,--of a temporary sort. But what a stir in the outer courts of the Palais, when Paris finds its Parlement trundled off to Troyes in Champagne; and nothing left but a few mute Keepers of records; the Demosthenic thunder become extinct, the martyrs of liberty clean gone! Confused wail and menace rises from the four thousand throats of Procureurs, Basoche-Clerks, Nondescripts, and Anglomaniac Noblesse; ever new idlers crowd to see and hear; Rascality, with increasing numbers and vigour, hunts mouchards.
Loud whirlpool rolls through these spaces; the rest of the City, fixed to its work, cannot yet go rolling.
Audacious placards are legible, in and about the Palais, the speeches are as good as seditious.
Surely the temper of Paris is much changed.
On the third day of this business (18th of August), Monsieur and Monseigneur d'Artois, coming in state-carriages, according to use and wont, to have these late obnoxious Arretes and protests 'expunged' from the Records, are received in the most marked manner.
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