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Travels in France 



refuge in some distant city. This message, and placing guards 

 at the hall of the states, are the result of long and repeated 

 councils, held in the king's presence at Marly, where he has been 

 shut up for some days, seeing nobody; and no person admitted, 

 even to the officers of the court, without jealousy and circum- 

 spection. The king's brothers have no seat in the council, but 

 the Count d'Artois incessantly attends the resolutions, conveys 

 them to the queen, and has long conferences with her. When 

 this news arrived at Paris, the Palais Royal was in a flame, the 

 coffee - houses, pamphlet - shops, corridors, and gardens were 

 crowded, — alarm and apprehension sat in every eye, — the reports 

 that were circulated eagerly, tending to show the violent inten- 

 tions of the court, as if it was bent on the utter extirpation of the 

 French nation, except the party of the queen, are perfectly in- 

 credible for their gross absurdity ; but nothing was so glaringly 

 ridiculous but the mob swallowed it with indiscrim nating faith. 

 It was, however, curious to remark among people of another 

 description (for I was in several parties after the news arrived), 

 that the balance of opinions was clearly that the national 

 assembly, as it called itself, had gone too far — had been too pre- 

 cipitate — and too violent — had taken steps that the mass of the 

 people would not support. From which we may conclude that 

 if the court, having seen the tendency of their late proceedings, 

 shall pursue a firm and politic plan, the popular cause will have 

 little to boast. 



215/. It is impossible to have any other employment at so 

 critical a moment than going from house to house demanding 

 news; and remarking the op nions and ideas most current. The 

 present moment is, of all others, perhaps that which is most 

 pregnant with the future destiny of France. The step the 

 commons have taken of declaring themselves the national 

 assembly, independent of the other orders, and of the king him- 

 self, precluding a dissolution, is in fact an assumption of all the 

 authority in the kingdom. They have at one stroke converted 

 themselves into the long parliament of Charles I. It needs not 

 the assistance of much penetration to see that if such a preten- 

 sion and declaration are not done away, king, lords, and clergy- 

 are deprived of their shares in the legislature of France. So 

 bold, and apparently desperate a step, full in the teeth of every 

 other interest in the re Im, equally destructive to the. royal 

 authority, by parliaments and the army, can never be allowed. 

 If it, is not opposed, all other powers will lie in ruins around 

 that of the common. With what anxious expectation must one 



