Paris 145 



I feel great anxiety to know what will be the result of the delibera- 

 tions of the commons, after their first protests are over, against 

 the military violence which was so unjustifiably and injudiciously 

 used. Had the king's proposition come after the supplies were 

 granted, and on any inferior question, it would be quite another 

 affair; but to offer this before one shilling is granted, or a step 

 taken, makes all the difference imaginable. — Evening — The 

 conduct of the court is inexplicable and without plan : while the 

 late step was taken, to secure the orders sitting separate, a great 

 body of the clergy has been permitted to go to the commons, and 

 the Due d 'Orleans at the head of forty-seven of the nobility has 

 done the same: and, what is equally a proof of the unsteadiness 

 of the court, the commons are in the common hall of the states, 

 contrary to the express command of the king. The fact is, the 

 seance royale was contrary to the personal feelings of the king,and 

 he was brought to it by the council, with much difficulty; and 

 when it afterwards became, as it did every hour, to give new and 

 effective orders to support the system then laid down, it was 

 necessary to have a new battle for every point; and thus the 

 scheme was only opened and not persisted in: — this is the report 

 and apparently authentic: it is easy to see that that step had 

 better, on a thousand reasons, not have been taken at all for all 

 vigour and effect of government will be lost, and the people be 

 more assuming than ever. Yesterday at Versailles the mob was 

 violent, — they insulted and even attacked all the clergy and 

 nobility that are known to be strenuous for preserving the 

 separation of orders. The Bishop of Beauvais had a stone on his 

 head, that almost struck him down.^ The Archbishop of Paris 

 had all his windows broken and forced to move his lodgings, 

 and the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld hissed and hooted. The 

 confusion is so great that the court have only the troops to 

 depend on; and it is now said confidently that if an order is 

 given to the French guards to fire on the people they will refuse 

 obedience : this astonishes all, except those who know how they 

 have been disgusted by the treatment, conduct, and manoeuvres 

 of the Due de Chatelet, their colonel: so wretchedly have the 

 affairs of the court, in every particular, been managed; so 

 miserable its choice of the men in offices, even such as are the 

 most intimately connected with its safety, and even existence. 



^ If they had knocked him on the head, he would not have been an 

 object of much pity. At a meeting of the societj' of agriculture in the 

 country, where common farmers were admitted to dine with people of the 

 first rank, this proud fool made difficulties of sitting down in such company. 

 — Author's note. 



