.

.

In a single leap you pass from misery to extravagance,...the country deserted, or if a gentleman in it, you find him in some wretched hole to save that money which is lavished with profusion in the luxuries of a capital." "A coach," says M.de Montlosier, "set out weekly from the principal towns in the provinces for Paris and was not always full, which tells us about the activity in business.

There was a single journal called the Gazette de France, appearing twice a week, which represents the activity of minds."[1334] Some magistrates of Paris in exile at Bourges in 1753 and 1754 give the following picture of that place: "A town in which no one can be found with whom you can talk at your ease on any topic whatever, reasonably or sensibly.

The nobles, three-fourths of them dying of hunger, rotting with pride of birth, keeping apart from men of the robe and of finance, and finding it strange that the daughter of a tax-collector, married to a counselor of the parliament of Paris, should presume to be intelligent and entertain company.