France -- Civilization; France -- Politics and government; France -- Social life and customs
to make sport for the great at the expense of the little, but here, on
the contrary, it is the little who laugh at the expense of the great."
Hence the success of the piece.--Hence a steward of a chateau has found
a Raynal in the library, the furious declamation of which so delights
him that he can repeat it thirty years later without stumbling, or a
sergeant in the French guards embroiders waistcoats during the night
to earn the money with which to purchase the latest books.--After the
gallant picture of the boudoir comes the austere and patriotic picture;
"Belisarious" and the "Horatii" of David reflect the new attitude both
of the public and of the studios[4333] The spirit is that of Rousseau,
"the republican spirit;"[4334] the entire middle class, artists,
employees, curates, physicians, attorneys, advocates, the lettered and
the journalists, all are won over to it; and it is fed by the worst as
well as the best passions, ambition, envy, desire for freedom, zeal for
the public welfare and the consciousness of right.
V. Revolutionary Passions.
Its effects therein.--The formation of revolutionary
passions.--Leveling instincts.--The craving for dominion.--
The Third-Estate decides and constitutes the nation.--
Chimeras, ignorance, exaltation.
All these passions intensify each other. There is nothing like a wrong
to quicken the sentiment of justice. There is nothing like the sentiment
of justice to quicken the injury proceeding from a wrong[4335]. The
Third-Estate, considering itself deprived of the place to which it
is entitled, finds itself uncomfortable in the place it occupies and,
accordingly, suffers through a thousand petty grievances it would not,
formerly, have noticed. On discovering that he is a citizen a man is
irritated at being treated as a subject, no one accepting an inferior
position alongside of one of whom he believes himself the equal. Hence,
during a period of twenty years, the ancient régime while attempting
to grow easier, appear to be still more burdensome, and its pinpricks
exasperate as if they were so many wounds. Countless instances might
be quoted instead of one.--At the theater in Grenoble, Barnave,[4336] a
child, is with his mother in a box which the Duc de Tonnerre, governor
of the province, had assigned to one of his satellites. The manager of
the theater, and next an officer of the guard, request Madame Barnave to
withdraw. She refuses, whereupon the governor orders four fusiliers to
force her out. The audience in the stalls had already taken the matter
up, and violence was feared, when M. Barnave, advised of the affront,
entered and led his wife away, exclaiming aloud, "I leave by order of
the governor." The indignant public, all the bourgeoisie, agreed among
themselves not to enter the theater again without an apology being
made; the theater, in fact, remaining empty several months, until Madame
Barnave consented to reappear there. This outrage afterwards recurred to
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