Their tenants and serfs--for they are still nothing but serfs--are at the mercy of their lords, who may flog them and throw them into prison, almost at their pleasure; and will grind the last sou out of them, that they may cut a good figure at court.
"In this part of France things are more as they are in England.

The nobles and seigneurs are like your country gentlemen.

They live in their chateaux, they mix with their people and take an interest in them, they go to their fetes, and the ladies visit the sick, and in all respects they live as do your country squires; paying a visit for a few weeks each year to Paris, and spending the rest of their time on their estates.

But it is not from the country that the members of the Assembly who are the most urgent for reforms and violent in their speech come, but from the towns.

There were two writers, Voltaire and Rousseau, who have done enormous mischief.
Both of them perceived that the state of things was wrong; but they went to extremes, made fun of the church, and attacked institutions of all sorts.