Such an obstacle has been pointed out to them during the last two years, it is the Ministry, the Court, the Government, in short the entire ancient régime. Whoever protests against it in favor of the people is sure to be followed as far, and perhaps even farther, than he chooses to lead.--The moment the Parliament of a large city refuses to register fiscal edicts it finds a riot at its service. On the 7th of June 1788, at Grenoble, tiles rain down on the heads of the soldiery, and the military force is powerless. At Rennes, to put down the rebellious city, an army and after this a permanent camp of four regiments of infantry and two of cavalry, under the command of a Marshal of France, is required.[1206]--The following year, when the Parliaments now side with the privileged class, the disturbances again begin, but this time against the Parliaments. In February 1789, at Besançon and at Aix, the magistrates are hooted at, chased in the streets, besieged in the town hall, and obliged to conceal themselves or take to flight.--If such is the disposition in the provincial capitals, what must it be in the capital of the kingdom? For a start, in the month of August, 1788, after the dismissal of Brienne and Lamoignon, the mob, collected on the Place Dauphine, constitutes itself judge, burns both ministers in effigy, disperses the watch, and resists the troops: no sedition, as bloody as this, had been seen for a century. Two days later, the riot bursts out a second time; the people are seized with a resolve to go and burn the residences of the two ministers and that of Dubois, the lieutenant of police.--Clearly a new ferment has been infused among the ignorant and brutal masses, and the new ideas are producing their effect. They have for a long time imperceptibly been filtering downwards from layer to layer After having gained over the aristocracy, the whole of the lettered portion of the Third-Estate, the lawyers, the schools, all the young, they have insinuated themselves drop by drop and by a thousand fissures into the class which supports itself by the labor of its own hands. Noblemen, at their toilettes, have scoffed at Christianity, and affirmed the rights of man before their valets, hairdressers, purveyors, and all those that are in attendance upon them. Men of letters, lawyers, and attorneys have repeated, in the bitterest tone, the same diatribes and the same theories in the coffee-houses and in the restaurants, on the promenades and in all public places. They have spoken out before the lower class as if it were not present, and, from all this eloquence poured out without precaution, some bubbles besprinkle the brain of the artisan, the publican, the messenger, the shopkeeper, and the soldier.