"Why, it was from the middle class," he said, "that the oppressors of the people were drawn. It is they who were farmers-general, collectors, and officials of all kinds. It is they who ground down the nation and enriched themselves with the spoil. It is not the nobles who dirtied their hands with money wrung from the poor. By all means let the middle class have a share in the government; but it is not a share they desire. The clergy are to have no voice; the nobility are to have no voice; the king himself is to be a cipher. All power is to be placed in the hands of these men, the chosen of the scum of the great towns, the mere mouthpieces of the ignorant mob. It is not order that these gentry are organizing, it is disorder." Such were the opinions of the marquis, but he was tolerant of other views, and at the gatherings at the chateau Harry heard opinions of all kinds expressed. During his rambles alone he entered as much as he could into conversation with the peasants, with woodcutters, foresters, and villagers. He found that the distress which prevailed everywhere was terrible. The people scarcely kept life together, and many had died of absolute starvation. He found a feeling of despair everywhere, and a dull hatred of all who were above them in the world. Harry had difficulty in making them talk, and at first could obtain only sullen monosyllables. His dress and appearance showed him to belong to the hated classes, and set them against him at once; but when he said that he was English, and that in England people were watching with great interest what was passing in France, they had no hesitation in speaking. Harry's motives in endeavouring to find out what were the feelings of the people at large, were not those of mere curiosity. He was now much attached to the marquis and his family; and the reports which came from all parts of France, as well as from Paris, together with the talk among the visitors at the chateau, convinced him that the state of affairs was more serious than the marquis was inclined to admit. The capture of the Bastille and the slaughter of its defenders--the massacres of persons obnoxious to the mob, not only in the streets of Paris but in those of other great towns, proved that the lower class, if they once obtained the upper hand, were ready to go all lengths; while the number of the nobility who were flocking across the frontier showed that among this body there existed grievous apprehensions as to the future.