144 Travels in France 



formed;, La Villanella Rapita, by Bianchi^, a delicious composi- 

 tion. Can it be believed that this people, who so lately valued 

 nothing at an opera but the dances, and could hear nothing but 

 a squall, — now attend with feeling to Italian melodies, applaud 

 with taste and rapture, and this without the meretricious aid of 

 a single dance! The music of this piece is chamiing. elegantly 

 playful, airy, and pleasing, with a duet, between Signora Mandini 

 and Vigagnoni, of the first lustre. The former is a most fascinat- 

 ing singer, — her voice nothing, but her grace, expression, soul, all 

 strung to exquisite sensibility. 



2^th. The criticisms that are made on Monsieur Necker's 

 conduct, even by his friends, if above the level of the people, are 

 severe. It is positively asserted that Abbe Syeyes, Messrs. 

 Mounier, Chapellier, Bernave, Target, Tourette, Rabaud, and 

 other leaders, were almost on their knees to him to insist 

 peremptorily on his resignation being accepted, as they were well 

 convinced that his retreat would throw the queen's party into 

 infinitely greater difficulties and embarrassment than any other 

 circumstance. But his vanity prevailed over all their efforts, 

 to listen to the insidious persuasions of the queen, who spoke to 

 him in a style of asking a request that would keep the crown on 

 the king's head ; at the same time that he yielded to do it, con- 

 trary to the interest of the friends of liberty, he courted the 

 huzzas of the mob of Versailles, in a manner that did much mis- 

 chief. The ministers never go to and from the king's apartment 

 on foot across the court, which Monsieur Necker took this 

 opportunity of doing, though he himself had not done it in quiet 

 times, in order to court the flattery of being called the father of 

 the people, and moving with an immense and shouting multitude 

 at his heels. Nearly at the time that the queen, in an audience 

 almost private, spoke as above to M. Necker, she received the 

 deputation from the nobility with the Dauphin in her hand, 

 whom she presented to them, claiming of their honour the pro- 

 tection of her son's rights ; clearly implying that, if the step the 

 king had taken was not steadily asserted, the monarchy would be 

 lost and the nobility sunk. While M. Necker's mob was heard 

 through every apartment of the chateau, the king passed in his 

 coach to Marly, through a dead and mournful silence, — and that 

 just after having given to his people, and the cause of liberty, 

 more perhaps than ever any monarch had done before. Of such 

 materials are all mobs made, — so impossible is it to satisfy in 

 moments like these, when the heated imagination dresses every 

 visionary project of the brain in the bewitching colours of liberty. 



