All that was elegant and in good taste in aristocratic society met at the Hôtel de La Rochefoucauld[384], at the _soirées_ of Mesdames de Poix, d'Hénin, de Simiane, de Vaudreuil, in the few _salons_ that remained open of the upper magisterial circle. At M. Necker's, at M. le Comte de Montmorin's, at the houses of the different ministers gathered (in addition to Madame de Staël, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, Mesdames de Beaumont[385] and de Sérilly[386]) all the new lights of France and all the liberties of the new manners. The shoemaker knelt to take the measure of your foot in the uniform of an officer of the National Guard; the monk who on Friday trailed his white or black gown along the ground appeared on Sunday in a round hat and a lay coat; the shorn Capuchin read the paper in the public-house, and in the midst of a circle of frivolous women, a nun appeared gravely seated: it was an aunt or a sister turned out of her monastery. The crowd visited these convents thrown open to the world like the travellers who, at Grenada, wander through the deserted halls of the Alhambra, or, at Tivoli, linger beneath the columns of the Sibyl's temple. For the rest, many duels and love-affairs, prison attachments and political friendships, mysterious meetings among ruins, under a tranquil sky, amid nature's peace and poetry; silent, remote, solitary walks, mingled with undying oaths and indefinable affections, to the dull tumult of a fleeing world, to the distant noise of a crumbling society, which threatened in its fall to crush the happiness set at the foot of events. Those who had lost sight of each other for twenty-four hours were not sure of ever meeting again. Some went the revolutionary way; others contemplated civil war; others set out for Ohio, sending ahead plans for country-houses to be built among the savages; others went to join the Princes: all this cheerfully, often without a sou in their pockets, the Royalists declaring that the thing would come to an end one of these mornings by a decree of Parliament, the patriots, quite as airy in their hopes, foretelling the reign of peace and happiness together with that of liberty. People sang: La sainte chandelle d'Arras, Le flambeau de la Provence, S'ils ne nous éclairent pas, Mettent le feu dans la France; On ne peut pas les toucher, Mais on espère les moucher[387]. And that was how people spoke of Robespierre and Mirabeau! "It is as little within the power of any earthly faculty," wrote L'Éstoile[388], "to keep the French people from talking as to hide the sun in the ground or bury it in a hole." The Palace of the Tuileries, a great gaol filled with sentenced prisoners, rose erect amid these festivals of destruction. The condemned themselves made merry while waiting for the "cart," the "shears," and the "red shirt" which had been put out to dry; and through the windows one saw the dazzling illuminations of the Queen's circle. [Sidenote: The newspapers.]