He sees his grievances no longer singly as before, but in mass, and coupled with the enormity of evils under which his fellows suffer.

Besides this, they begin to disentangle the causes of their misery: the King is good--why then do his collectors take so much of our money?
This or that canon or nobleman is not unkind--why then do they make us pay in their place ?--Imagine that a sudden gleam of reason should allow a beast of burden to comprehend the contrast between the species of horse and mankind.

Imagine, if you can, what its first ideas would be in relation to the coachmen and drivers who bridle and whip it and again in relation to the good-natured travelers and sensitive ladies who pity it, but who to the weight of the vehicle add their own and that of their luggage.
Likewise, in the mind of the peasant, athwart his perplexed brooding, a new idea, slowly, little by little, is unfolded:--that of an oppressed multitude of which he makes one, a vast herd scattered far beyond the visible horizon, everywhere ill used, starved, and fleeced.

Towards the end of 1788 we begin to detect in the correspondence of the intendants and military commandants the dull universal muttering of coming wrath.

Men's characters seem to change; they become suspicious and restive .-- And just at this moment, the Government, dropping the reins, calls upon them to direct themselves.[1111].