Noblemen, at their toilettes, have scoffed at Christianity, and affirmed the rights of man before their valets, hairdressers, purveyors, and all those that are in attendance upon them.

Men of letters, lawyers, and attorneys have repeated, in the bitterest tone, the same diatribes and the same theories in the coffee-houses and in the restaurants, on the promenades and in all public places.

They have spoken out before the lower class as if it were not present, and, from all this eloquence poured out without precaution, some bubbles besprinkle the brain of the artisan, the publican, the messenger, the shopkeeper, and the soldier.
Hence it is that a year suffices to convert mute discontent into political passion.

From the 5th of July 1787, on the invitation of the King, who convokes the States-General and demands advice from everybody, both speech and the press alter in tone.[1207] Instead of general conversation of a speculative turn there is preaching, with a view to practical effect, sudden, radical, and close at hand, preaching as shrill and thrilling as the blast of a trumpet.

Revolutionary pamphlets appear in quick succession: "Qu'est-ce que le Tiers ?" by Sieyes; "Memoire pour le Peuple Francais," by Cerutti; "Considerations sur les Interets des Tiers-Etat," by Rabtau Saint-Etienne; "Ma Petition," by Target; "Les Droits des Etats-generaux," by M.d'Entraigues, and, a little later, "La France libre," par Camille Desmoulins, and others by hundreds and thousands.[1208] All of which are repeated and amplified in the electoral assemblies, where new-made citizens come to declaim and increase their own excitement.[1209] The unanimous, universal and daily shout rolls along from echo to echo, into barracks and into faubourgs, into markets, workshops, and garrets.