206), there is ominous silence on Pragmatic Sanction; "beginning of March," there is virtual avowal of SALVO JURE (ib.

279);--open avowal on Belleisle's advent (ib.

305).] And they persisted in it, there being no other for them.

An enlightened public grinned sardonically, and was not taken in; but, as so many others were eating their Covenants, under equally poor subterfuges, the enlightened public could not grin long on any individual,--could only gape mutely, with astonishment, on all.

A glorious example of veracity and human nobleness, set by the gods of this lower world to their gazing populations, who could read in the Gazettes! What is truth, falsity, human Kingship, human Swindlership?
Are the Ten Commandments only a figure of speech, then?
And it was some beggarly Attorney-Devil that built this sublunary world and us?
Questions might rise; had long been rising;--but now there was about enough, and the response to them was falling due; and Belleisle himself, what is very notable, had been appointed to get ready the response.
Belleisle (little as Belleisle dreamt of it, in these high Enterprises) was ushering in, by way of response, a RAGNAROK, or Twilight of the Gods, which, as "French Revolution, or Apotheosis of SANSCULOTTISM," is now well known;--and that is something to consider of! DOWNBREAK OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION; MANNER OF THE CHIEF ARTISTS IN HANDLING THEIR COVENANTS.
The operation once accomplished on its own Pragmatic Covenant, France found no difficulty with the others.