In this long line of unemployed, excited men, swaying to and fro before the shop-door, dark thoughts are fermenting: "if the bakers find no flour to-night to bake with, we shall have nothing to eat to-morrow." An appalling idea;--in presence of which the whole power of the Government is not too strong; for to keep order in the midst of famine nothing avails but the sight of an armed force, palpable and threatening.

Under Louis XIV and Louis XV there had been even greater hunger and misery; but the outbreaks, which were roughly and promptly put down, were only partial and passing disorders.

Some rioters were at once hung, and others were sent to the galleys.

The peasant or the workman, convinced of his impotence, at once returned to his stall or his plow.

When a wall is too high one does not even think of scaling it .-- But now the wall is cracking--all its custodians, the clergy, the nobles, the Third-Estate, men of letters, the politicians, and even the Government itself, making the breach wider.