decency of society in general, but nothing can possibly be gained by any individual. Nevertheless, it was in this absolutely impracticable manner, that the exaggerated feelings of the French legislators, at this period of total change, undertook to equalize the nation which they were regenerating. [Sidenote: ABOLITION OF TITLES OF HONOUR.] With a view to this great experiment upon human society, the Assembly abolished all titles of honour,[125] all armorial bearings, and even the insignificant titles of Monsieur and Madame; which, meaning nothing but phrases of common courtesy, yet, with other expressions of the same kind, serve to soften the ordinary intercourse of human life, and preserve that gentleness of manners which the French, by a happy name, were wont to call "La petite morale." The first of these abrogations affected the nobles in particular. In return for their liberal and unlimited surrender of their essential powers and privileges, they were now despoiled of their distinction and rank in society;--as if those who had made prisoner and plundered a cavalier, should, last of all, have snatched away in derision the plume from his hat. The aristocracy of France, so long distinguished as the flower of European chivalry, were now, so far as depended on the legislature, entirely abolished. The voice of the nation had pronounced against them a general sentence of degradation, which, according to the feelings of the order, could only be the punishment of some foul and disgraceful crime; and the condition of the ex-nobles might justly have been described as Bolingbroke paints his own, "Eating the bitter bread of banishment, Whilst you have fed upon my signories, Dispark'd my parks, and fell'd my forest woods, From my own windows torn my household coat, Razed out my impress, leaving me no sign, Save men's opinions and my living blood, To show the world I was a gentleman."[126]