Listen to the shouts that greet him: Hurrah for the author of the Henriade! the defender of Calas, the author of La Pucelle! Nobody of the present day would utter the first, nor especially the last hurrah. This indicates the tendency of the century; not only were writers called upon for ideas, but again for antagonistic ideas. To render an aristocracy inactive is to render it rebellious; people are more willing to submit to rules they have themselves helped to enforce. Would you rally them to the support of the government? Then let them take part in it. If not they stand by as an onlooker and see nothing but the mistakes it commits, feeling only its irritations, and disposed only to criticize and to hoot at it. In fact, in this case, they are as if in the theater, where they go to be amused, and, especially, not to be put to any inconvenience. What inconveniences in the established order of things, and indeed in any established order!—In the first place, religion. To the amiable "idlers" whom Voltaire describes,4211 to "the 100,000 persons with nothing to do but to play and to amuse themselves," religion is the most disagreeable of pedagogues, always scolding, hostile to sensible amusement and free discussion, burning books which one wants to read, and imposing dogmas that are no longer comprehensible. In plain terms religion is an eyesore, and whoever wishes to throw stones at her is welcome.—There is another bond, the moral law of the sexes. It seems onerous to men of pleasure, to the companions of Richelieu, Lauzun and Tilly, to the heroes of Crebillon the younger, and all others belonging to that libertine and gallant society for whom license has become the rule. Our fine gentlemen are quite ready to adopt a theory which justifies their practices.4212 They are very glad to be told that marriage is conventional and a thing of prejudice. Saint—Lambert obtains their applause at supper when, raising a glass of champagne, he proposes as a toast a return to nature and the customs of Tahiti4213. The last fetter of all is the government, the most galling, for it enforces the rest and keeps man down with its weight, along with the added weight of the others. It is absolute, it is centralized, it works through favorites, it is backward, it makes mistakes, it has reverses: how many causes of discontent embraced in a few words! It is opposed by the vague and suppressed resentment of the former powers which it has dispossessed, the provincial assemblies, the parliaments, the grandees of the provinces, the old stock of nobles, who, like the Mirabeau, retain the old feudal spirit, and like ChÂteaubriand's father, call the AbbÉ Raynal a "master-man." Against it is the spite of all those who imagine themselves frustrated in the distribution of offices and of favors, not only the provincial nobility who remain outside4214 while the court nobility are feasting at the royal banquet, but again the majority of the courtiers who are obliged to be content with crumbs, while the little circle of intimate favorites swallow down the large morsels. It has against it the ill-humor of those under its direction who, seeing it play the part of Providence and providing for all, accuses it of everything, the high price of bread as well as of the decay of a highway. It has against it the new humanity which, in the most elegant drawing-rooms, lays to its charge the maintenance of the antiquated remains of a barbarous epoch, ill-imposed, ill-apportioned and ill-collected taxes, sanguinary laws, blind prosecutions, atrocious punishments, the persecution of the Protestants, lettres-de-cachet, and prisons of State. And I do not include its excesses, its scandals, its disasters and its disgraces,—Rosbach, the treaty of Paris, Madame du Barry, and bankruptcy.—Disgust intervenes, for everything is decidedly bad. The spectators of the play say to each other that not only is the piece itself poor, but the theater is badly built, uncomfortable, stifling and contracted, to such a degree that, to be at one's ease, the whole thing must be torn down and rebuilt from cellar to garret.

Just at this moment the new architects appear, with their specious arguments and their ready-made plans, proving that every great public structure, religious and moral, and all communities, cannot be otherwise than barbarous and unhealthy, since, thus far, they are built up out of bits and pieces, by degrees, and generally by fools and savages, in any event by common masons, who built aimlessly, feeling their way and devoid of principles. As far as they are concerned, they are genuine architects, and they have principles, that is to say, Reason, Nature, and the Rights of Man, straightforward and fruitful principles which everybody can understand, all that has to be done is to draw their consequences making it possible to replace the imperfect tenements of the past with the admirable edifice of the future.—To irreverent, Epicurean and philanthropic malcontents the temptation is a great one. They readily adopt maxims which seem in conformity with their secret wishes; at least they adopt them in theory and in words. The imposing terms of liberty, justice, public good, man's dignity, are so admirable, and besides so vague! What heart can refuse to cherish them, and what intelligence can foretell their innumerable applications? And all the more because, up to the last, the theory does not descend from the heights, being confined to abstractions, resembling an academic oration, constantly dealing with Natural Man (homme en soi) of the social contract, with an imaginary and perfect society. Is there a courtier at Versailles who would refuse to proclaim equality in the lands of the Franks!—Between the two stories of the human intellect, the upper where abstract reasoning is spun and the lower where an active faith reposes, communication is neither complete nor immediate. A number of principles never leave the upper stories; they remain there as curiosities, so many fragile, clever mechanisms, freely to be seen but rarely employed. If the proprietor sometimes transfers them to the lower story he makes but a partial use of them; established customs, anterior and more powerful interests and instincts restrict their employment. In this respect he is not acting in bad faith, but as a man; each of us professing truths which he does not put in practice. One evening Target, a dull lawyer, having taken a pinch from the snuff-box of the MarÉchale de Beauvau, the latter, whose drawing room is a small democratic club, is amazed at such monstrous familiarity. Later, Mirabeau, on returning home just after having voted for the abolition of the titles of nobility, takes his servant by the ear, laughingly proclaiming in his thunderous voice, "Look here, you rascal, I trust that to you I shall always be Monsieur le Comte!"—This shows to what extent new theories are admitted into an aristocratic brain. They occupy the whole of the upper story, and there, with a pleasing murmur, they weave the web of interminable conversation; their buzzing lasts throughout the century; never have the drawing-rooms seen such an outpouring of fine sentences and of fine words. Something of all this drops from the upper to the lower story, if only as dust, I mean to say, hope, faith in the future, belief in Reason, a love of truth, the generous and youthful good intentions, the enthusiasm that quickly passes but which may, for a while, become self-abnegation and devotion.