France -- History -- Louis XVI, 1774-1793; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799
As for this Parlement of Paris, now turned out to the street, we
will without reluctance leave it there. The Beds of Justice it
had to undergo, in the coming fortnight, at Versailles, in
registering, or rather refusing to register, those new-hatched
Edicts; and how it assembled in taverns and tap-rooms there, for
the purpose of Protesting,[88] or hovered disconsolate, with
outspread skirts, not knowing where to assemble; and was reduced
to lodge Protest “with a Notary;” and in the end, to sit still
(in a state of forced “vacation”), and do nothing; all this,
natural now, as the burying of the dead after battle, shall not
concern us. The Parlement of Paris has as good as performed its
part; doing and misdoing, so far, but hardly further, could it
stir the world.
Loménie has removed the evil then? Not at all: not so much as the
symptom of the evil; scarcely the _twelfth_ part of the symptom,
and exasperated the other eleven! The Intendants of Provinces,
the Military Commandants are at their posts, on the appointed 8th
of May: but in no Parlement, if not in the single one of Douai,
can these new Edicts get registered. Not peaceable signing with
ink; but browbeating, bloodshedding, appeal to primary club-law!
Against these Bailliages, against this Plenary Court, exasperated
Themis everywhere shows face of battle; the Provincial Noblesse
are of her party, and whoever hates Loménie and the evil time;
with her attorneys and Tipstaves, she enlists and operates down
even to the populace. At Rennes in Brittany, where the historical
Bertrand de Moleville is Intendant, it has passed from fatal
continual duelling, between the military and gentry, to
street-fighting; to stone-volleys and musket-shot: and still the
Edicts remained unregistered. The afflicted Bretons send
remonstrance to Loménie, by a Deputation of Twelve; whom,
however, Loménie, having heard them, shuts up in the Bastille. A
second larger deputation he meets, by his scouts, on the road,
and persuades or frightens back. But now a third largest
Deputation is indignantly sent by _many_ roads: refused audience
on arriving, it meets to take council; invites Lafayette and all
Patriot Bretons in Paris to assist; agitates itself; becomes the
_Breton Club_, first germ of—the _Jacobins’ Society._[89]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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