140 Travels in France 



d'Orleans, amongst them; the Bishop of Rodez, Abbe Syeyes^ 

 and Monsieur Rabaud St. Etienne. This was one of the most 

 striking instances of the impression made on men of different 

 ranks by great events. In the streets, and in the church of St. 

 LouiSj such anxiety was in every face, that the importance of 

 the moment was written in the physiognomy; and all the 

 common forms and salutations of habitual civility lost in atten- 

 tion : but amongst a class so much higher as those I dined with, 

 I was struck with the difference. There were not, in thirty 

 persons, five in whose countenances you could guess that any 

 extraordinary event was going forward: more of the conversa- 

 tion was indifferent than I should have expected. Had it all 

 been so, there would have been no room for wonder; but observa- 

 tions were made of the greatest freedom, and so received as to 

 mark that there was not the least impropriety in making them. 

 In such a case, would not one have expected more energy of 

 feeling and expression, and more attention in conversation to 

 the crisis that must in its nature fill every bosom ? Yet they 

 ate, and drank, and sat, and walked, loitered and smirked and 

 smiled, and chatted with that easy indifference that made me 

 stare at their insipidity. Perhaps there is a certain nonchalance 

 that is natural to people of fashion from long habit, and which 

 marks them from the vulgar, who have a thousand asperities in 

 the expression of their feelings that cannot be found on the 

 polished surface of those whose manners are smoothed by society, 

 not worn by attrition. Such an observation would therefore in 

 all common cases be unjust; but I confess the present moment, 

 which is beyond all question the most critical that France has 

 seen from the foundation of the monarchy, since the council was 

 assembled that must finally determine the king's conduct, was 

 such as might have accounted for a behaviour totally different. 

 The Due d'Orl cans' presence might do a little, but not much; 

 his manner might do more ; for it was not without some disgust 

 that I observed him several times playing off that small sort of 

 wit and flippant readiness to titter which, I suppose, is a part of 

 his character or it would not have appeared to-day. From his 

 manner he seemed not at all displeased. The Abbe Syeyes has 

 a remarkable physiognomy, a quick rolling eye; penetrating the 

 ideas of other people, but so cautiously reserved as to guard his 

 own. There is as much character in his air and manner as there 

 is vacuity of it in the countenance of Monsieur Rabaud St. 

 Etienne, whose physiognomy, however, is far from doing him 

 justice, for he has undoubted talents. It seems agreed that if, 



