The distance between the altar and the throne is a short one, and yet it requires thirty years for opinion to overcome it. No political or social attacks are yet made during the first half of the century. The irony of the "Lettres Persanes"is as cautious as it is delicate, and the "Esprit des Lois" is conservative. As to the AbbÉ de Saint-Pierre his reveries provoke a smile, and when he undertakes to censure Louis XIV the Academy strikes him off its list. At last, the economists on one side and the parliamentarians on the other, give the signal.—Voltaire says4234 that "about 1750 the nation, satiated with verse, tragedies, comedies, novels, operas, romantic histories, and still more romantic moralizings, and with disputes about grace and convulsions, began to discuss the question of corn." What makes bread dear? Why is the laborer so miserable? What constitutes the material and limits of taxation? Ought not all land to pay taxes, and should one piece pay more than its net product? These are the questions that find their way into drawing-rooms under the king's auspices, by means of Quesnay, his physician, "his thinker," the founder of a system which aggrandizes the sovereign to relieve the people, and which multiplies the number of tax-payers to lighten the burden of taxation.—At the same time, through the opposite door, other questions enter, not less novel. "Is France4235 a mild and representative monarchy or a government of the Turkish stamp? Are we subject to the will of an absolute master, or are we governed by a limited and regulated power?. . . The exiled parliaments are studying public rights at their sources and conferring together on these as in the academies. Through their researches, the opinion is gaining ground in the public mind that the nation is above the king, as the universal church is above the pope."—The change is striking and almost immediate. "Fifty years ago," says d'Argenson, again, "the public showed no curiosity concerning matters of the State. Today everybody reads his Gazette de Paris, even in the provinces. People reason at random on political subjects, but nevertheless they occupy themselves with them."—Conversation having once provided itself with this diet holds fast to it, the drawing-rooms, accordingly, opening their doors to political philosophy, and, consequently, to the Social Contract, to the Encyclopedia, to the preachings of Rousseau, Mably, d'Holbach, Raynal, and Diderot. In 1759, d'Argenson, who becomes excited, already thinks the last hour has come. "We feel the breath of a philosophical anti-monarchical, free government wind; the idea is current, and possibly this form of government, already in some minds, is to be carried out the first favorable opportunity. Perhaps the revolution might take place with less opposition than one supposes, occurring by acclamation.4236

The time is not yet come, but the seed is coming up. Bachaumont, in 1762, notices a deluge of pamphlets, tracts and political discussions, "a rage for arguing on financial and government matters." In 1765, Walpole states that the atheists, who then monopolize conversation, inveigh against kings as well as against priests. A formidable word, that of citizen, imported by Rousseau, has entered into common speech, and the matter is settled on the women adopting it as they would a cockade. "As a friend and a citoyenne could any news be more agreeable to me than that of peace and the health of my dear little one?"4237 Another word, not less significant, that of energy, formerly ridiculous, becomes fashionable, and is used on every occasion4238. Along with language there is a change of sentiment, ladies of high rank passing over to the opposition. In 1771, says the scoffer Bezenval, after the exile of the Parliament "social meetings for pleasure or other purposes had become petty States-Generals in which the women, transformed into legislators, established the premises and confidently propounded maxims of public right." The Comtesse d'Egmont, a correspondent of the King of Sweden, sends him a paper on the fundamental law of France, favoring the Parliament, the last defender of national liberty, against the encroachments of Chancellor Maupeou. "The Chancellor," she says,4239 "within the last six months has brought people to know the history of France who would have died without any knowledge of it. . . . I have no doubt, sire," she adds, "that you never will abuse the power an enraptured people have entrusted to you without limitation. . . . May your reign prove the epoch of the re-establishment of a free and independent government, but never the source of absolute authority." Numbers of women of the first rank, Mesdames de la Marck, de Boufflers, de Brienne, de Mesmes, de Luxembourg, de Croy, think and write in the same style. "Absolute power," says one of these, "is a mortal malady which, insensibly corrupting moral qualities, ends in the destruction of states. . . . The actions of sovereigns are subject to the censure of their subjects as to that of the universe. . . . France is undone if the present administration lasts."4240—When, under Louis XVI, a new administration proposes and withdraws feeble measures of reform, their criticism shows the same firmness: "Childishness, weakness, constant inconsistency," writes another,4241 "incessant change; and always worse off than we were before. Monsieur and M. le Comte d'Artois have just made a journey through the provinces, but only as people of that kind travel, with a frightful expenditure and devastation along the whole road, coming back extraordinarily fat; Monsieur is as big as a hogshead; as to M. le Comte d'Artois he is bringing about order by the life he leads."—An inspiration of humanity animates these feminine breasts along with that of liberty. They interest themselves in the poor, in children, in the people; Madame d'Egmont recommends Gustavus III to plant Dalecarlia with potatoes. On the appearance of the engraving published for the benefit of Calas4242 "all France and even all Europe, hastens to subscribe for it, the Empress of Russia giving 5,000 livres4243. "Agriculture, economy, reform, philosophy," writes Walpole, "are bon ton, even at the court."—President Dupaty having drawn up a memorandum in behalf of three innocent persons, sentenced "to be broken on the wheel, everybody in society is talking about it;" "idle conversation no longer prevails in society," says a correspondent of Gustavus III4244 "since it is that which forms public opinion. Words have become actions. Every sensitive heart praises with joy a publication inspired by humanity and which appears full of talent because it is full of feeling." When Latude is released from the prison of BicÊtre Mme. de Luxembourg, Mme. de Boufflers, and Mme. de StaËl dine with the grocer-woman who "for three years and a half moved heaven and earth" to set the prisoner free. It is owing to the women, to their sensibility and zeal, to a conspiracy of their sympathies, that M. de Lally succeeds in the rehabilitation of his father. When they take a fancy to a person they become infatuated with him; Madame de Lauzun, very timid, goes so far as to publicly insult a man who speaks ill of M. Necker.—It must be borne in mind that, in this century, the women were queens, setting the fashion, giving the tone, leading in conversation and naturally shaping ideas and opinions4245. When they take the lead on the political field we may be sure that the men will follow them: each one carries her drawing room circle with her.