3 i4 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



the narrow spectacles of those about them. Turgot, the 

 most modest of men, had only to convince four per- 

 sons of his merit : first of all, Abbe Yery, his fellow- 

 student in the Sorbonne, a man of very enlightened 

 mind, who spoke of him with great admiration to a 

 very clever woman, Madame de Maurepas ; she men- 

 tioned him to her husband, and he presented him to 

 Louis XYI. "With universal suffrage the candidature 

 is not quite so simple an affair. But there is a reverse 

 to the medal. All that was needed to bring about the 

 fall of the Minister who alone might have saved the 

 monarchy were a few courtiers' epigrams and a 

 change in the views held by Maurepas. What a long 

 chapter might be written anent the blunders of a 

 limited suffrage ! Our time is not more frivolous than 

 those which preceded it. We are told that this is the 

 reign of mediocrity. Well, sir, this reign began 

 some time ago. The sum of good sense which emerges 

 from any given society for the purposes of govern- 

 ment has always been very small. The man cast in a 

 higher mould who is anxious to do what is right has 

 always been obliged to lend himself to the weakness of 

 the masses. Poor humanity ! In order to be of ser- 

 vice to it, one must adapt oneself to its measure, speak 

 its language, adopt its prejudices, and enter with it 

 into the workshop, the slums, the lodging-house, and 

 the tavern ! 



" You did well, therefore, not to allow yourself to 

 be baulked by the petty susceptibilities which, if they 



