They are Frenchmen, and Frenchmen of the eighteenth century; brought up in the amenities of the utmost refinement, accustomed to deferential manners, to constant kind attentions and mutual obligations, so thoroughly imbued with the instinct of good breeding that their conversation seems almost insipid to strangers.[2106]--And suddenly they find themselves on the thorny soil of politics, exposed to insulting debates, flat contradictions, venomous denunciation, constant detraction and open invective; engaged in a battle in which every species of weapon peculiar to a parliamentary life is employed, and in which the hardiest veterans are scarcely able to keep cool.

Judge of the effect of all this on inexperienced, highly strung nerves, on men of the world accustomed to the accommodations and amiabilities of universal urbanity.

They are at once beside themselves .-- And all the more so because they never anticipated a battle; but, on the contrary, a festival, a grand and charming idyll, in which everybody, hand in hand, would assemble in tears around the throne and save the country amid mutual embraces.

Necker himself arranges, like a theater, the chamber in which the sessions of the Assembly are to be held.[2107] "He was not disposed to regard the Assemblies of the States-General as anything but a peaceful, imposing, solemn, august spectacle, which the people would enjoy;" and when the idyll suddenly changes into a drama, he is so frightened that it seems to him as if a landslide had occurred that threatened, during the night, to break down the framework of the building .-- At the time of the meeting of the States-General, everybody is delighted; all imagine that they are about to enter the promised land.

During the procession of the 4th of May, "tears of joy," says the Marquis de Ferrieres, "filled my eyes...