Even the brief interval of my Brighton visit had curiously changed the aspect of the metropolis. The emigration was in full force, and every spot was crowded with foreign visages. Sallow cheeks and starting eyes, scowling brows and fierce mustaches, were the order of the day; the monks and the military had run off together. The English language was almost overwhelmed by the perpetual jargon of all the loud-tongued provincialities of France. But the most singular portion was the ecclesiastical. The streets and parks were filled with the unlucky sheep of the Gallican church, scattered before the teeth and howl of the republican wolf; and England saw, for the first time, the secrets of the monastery poured out before the light of day. The appearance of some among this sable multitude, though venerable and dignified, could not prevent the infinite grotesque of the others from having its effect on the spectator. The monks and priesthood of France amounted to little less than a hundred and fifty thousand. All were now thrown up from the darkness of centuries before a wondering world. I had Milton's vision of Limbo before my eyes. "Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars, A violent cross wind from either coast Blew them transverse. Then might ye see Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tost, And flutter'd into rags; their reliques, beads, Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls, The sport of winds." The mire was fully stirred up in which the hierarchy had enjoyed its sleep and sunshine for a thousand years. The weeds and worms had been fairly scraped off, which for a thousand years had grown upon the keel of the national vessel, and of which the true wonder was, that the vessel had been able to make sail with them clinging to her so long. In fact, I was thus present at one of the most remarkable phenomena of the whole Revolution. The flight of a noblesse was nothing to this change. The glittering peerage of France, created by a court, and living in perpetual connexion with the court, as naturally followed its fate as a lapdog follows the fortunes of its mistress; but here was a digging up of the moles, an extermination of the bats, a general extrusion of the subversive principle, to a race of existence which, whether above or below ground, seemed almost to form a part of the soil. Monkery was broken up, like a ship dashed against the shores of the bay of Biscay. The ship was not only wrecked, but all its fragments continued to be tossed on the ceaseless surge. The Gallican church was flung loose over Europe, at a time when all Europe itself was in commotion. I own, to the discredit of my political foresight, that I thought its forms and follies extinguished for ever. The snake was more tenacious of life than I had dreamed. But if I erred, I did not err alone.