Hence it is that a year suffices to convert mute discontent into
political passion. From the 5th of July 1787, on the invitation of the
King, who convokes the States-General and demands advice from everybody,
both speech and the press alter in tone.[1207] Instead of general
conversation of a speculative turn there is preaching, with a view
to practical effect, sudden, radical, and close at hand, preaching as
shrill and thrilling as the blast of a trumpet. Revolutionary pamphlets
appear in quick succession: "Qu'est-ce que le Tiers?" by Sieyès;
"Mémoire pour le Peuple Français," by Cerutti; "Considerations sur les
Intérêts des Tiers-Etat," by Rabtau Saint-Etienne; "Ma Pétition," by
Target; "Les Droits des Etats-généraux," by M. d'Entraigues, and, a
little later, "La France libre," par Camille Desmoulins, and others by
hundreds and thousands.[1208] All of which are repeated and amplified
in the electoral assemblies, where new-made citizens come to declaim and
increase their own excitement.[1209] The unanimous, universal and daily
shout rolls along from echo to echo, into barracks and into faubourgs,
into markets, workshops, and garrets. In the month of February, 1789,
Necker avows "that obedience is not to be found anywhere, and that
even the troops are not to be relied on." In the month of May, the
fisherwomen, and next the greengrocers, of the town market halls come to
recommend the interests of the people to the bodies of electors, and to
sing rhymes in honor of the Third-Estate. In the month of June pamphlets
are in all hands; "even lackeys are poring over them at the gates
of hotels." In the month of July, as the King is signing an order, a
patriotic valet becomes alarmed and reads it over his shoulder.--There
is no illusion here; it is not merely the bourgeoisie which ranges
itself against the legal authorities and against the established regime.
It is the entire people as well. The craftsmen, the shopkeepers and
the domestics, workmen of every kind and degree, the mob underneath the
people, the vagabonds, street rovers, and beggars, the whole multitude,
which, bound down by anxiety for its daily bread, had never lifted
its eyes to look at the great social order of which it is the lowest
stratum, and the whole weight of which it bears.
III.--The Réveillon affair.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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