It is well known that period was marked by a violent and determined reaction in certain aristocratic circles against the invasion of the democracy. Perhaps no other period in history presents such strange contrasts. On the one hand public opinion, queen of the new world, proclaimed the doctrines of equality, contempt for social distinctions, the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire and Diderot; on the other, the ruling powers, terrified by a progress which they dared not oppose, attempted a tardy resistance which was destined to hurl them into the abyss; but to one whose horizon was narrow, to whom the morrow was not revealed, that resistance assumed formidable proportions, and a weak and gentle woman like Madame d'Estrelle was certain to be alarmed by it. Like all of her caste she fancied that she could read the destiny of France in the conduct of the court; and there were times when the king, in dire dismay, tried to resuscitate the monarchy of Louis XIV.; distressing and vain efforts, which, however, when looked at from a certain point of view, seemed serious enough to irritate the people and to increase the arrogance of the privileged classes. The court and city had acclaimed Voltaire's triumph; on the morrow of that triumph the clergy refused him a tomb. Mirabeau had written a masterpiece against the arbitrary use of _lettres de cachet._ The king had said of Beaumarchais: "If his play--_the Marriage of Figaro_--is acted, we may as well destroy the Bastille!" The third estate grew in enlightenment, in ambition, in real worth; the court reëstablished privileges in the army as well as among the clergy, and decided--which Cardinal de Richelieu would not have dared to do--that, in order to be a military officer or a prelate, an applicant must prove four generations of noble blood. The American Constitution had just proclaimed the principles of Jean-Jacques's _Social Contract_; Washington and Lafayette were dreaming of the enfranchisement of the slaves; the French ministry granted additional facilities to the slave trade; the lower clergy became more democratic from day to day; the Sorbonne tried to pick a quarrel with Buffon, and the upper clergy demanded a new law to _repress the art of writing_; public opinion was aroused against capital punishment, the _preliminary torture_ was still in use. The queen had protected Beaumarchais; Raynal was forced to go into exile.