Parlements have been tamed, more than once. Set to perch “on the peaks of rocks in accessible except by litters,” a Parlement grows reasonable. O Maupeou, thou bold man, had we left thy work where it was!—But apart from exile, or other violent methods, is there not one method, whereby all things are tamed, even lions? The method of hunger! What if the Parlement’s supplies were cut off; namely its Lawsuits! Minor Courts, for the trying of innumerable minor causes, might be instituted: these we could call _Grand Bailliages_. Whereon the Parlement, shortened of its prey, would look with yellow despair; but the Public, fond of cheap justice, with favour and hope. Then for Finance, for registering of Edicts, why not, from our own Œil-de-Bœuf Dignitaries, our Princes, Dukes, Marshals, make a thing we could call _Plenary Court_; and there, so to speak, do our registering ourselves? St. Louis had his Plenary Court, of Great Barons;[82] most useful to him: our Great Barons are still here (at least the Name of them is still here); our necessity is greater than his. Such is the Loménie-Lamoignon device; welcome to the King’s Council, as a light-beam in great darkness. The device seems feasible, it is eminently needful: be it once well executed, great deliverance is wrought. Silent, then, and steady; now or never!—the World shall see one other Historical Scene; and so singular a man as Loménie de Brienne still the Stage-manager there. Behold, accordingly, a Home-Secretary Bréteuil “beautifying Paris,” in the peaceablest manner, in this hopeful spring weather of 1788; the old hovels and hutches disappearing from our Bridges: as if for the State too there were halcyon weather, and nothing to do but beautify. Parlement seems to sit acknowledged victor. Brienne says nothing of Finance; or even says, and prints, that it is all well. How is this; such halcyon quiet; though the Successive Loan did not fill? In a victorious Parlement, Counsellor Goeslard de Monsabert even denounces that “levying of the Second Twentieth on strict valuation;” and gets decree that the valuation shall not be strict,—not on the privileged classes. Nevertheless Brienne endures it, launches no Lettre-de-Cachet against it. How is this?