Admit, at the same time, that it was most natural.  Man lives by Hope:  Pandora when her box of gods’-gifts flew all out, and became gods’-curses, still retained Hope.  How shall an irrational mortal, when his high-place is never so evidently pulled down, and he, being irrational, is left resourceless,—­part with the belief that it will be rebuilt?  It would make all so straight again; it seems so unspeakably desirable; so reasonable,—­would you but look at it aright!  For, must not the thing which was continue to be; or else the solid World dissolve?  Yes, persist, O infatuated Sansculottes of France!  Revolt against constituted Authorities; hunt out your rightful Seigneurs, who at bottom so loved you, and readily shed their blood for you,—­in country’s battles as at Rossbach and elsewhere; and, even in preserving game, were preserving you, could ye but have understood it:  hunt them out, as if they were wild wolves; set fire to their Chateaus and Chartiers as to wolf-dens; and what then?  Why, then turn every man his hand against his fellow!  In confusion, famine, desolation, regret the days that are gone; rueful recall them, recall us with them.  To repentant prayers we will not be deaf.

So, with dimmer or clearer consciousness, must the Right Side reason and act.  An inevitable position perhaps; but a most false one for them.  Evil, be thou our good:  this henceforth must virtually be their prayer.  The fiercer the effervescence grows, the sooner will it pass; for after all it is but some mad effervescence; the World is solid, and cannot dissolve.

For the rest, if they have any positive industry, it is that of plots, and backstairs conclaves.  Plots which cannot be executed; which are mostly theoretic on their part;—­for which nevertheless this and the other practical Sieur Augeard, Sieur Maillebois, Sieur Bonne Savardin, gets into trouble, gets imprisoned, and escapes with difficulty.  Nay there is a poor practical Chevalier Favras who, not without some passing reflex on Monsieur himself, gets hanged for them, amid loud uproar of the world.  Poor Favras, he keeps dictating his last will at the ‘Hotel-de-Ville, through the whole remainder of the day,’ a weary February day; offers to reveal secrets, if they will save him; handsomely declines since they will not; then dies, in the flare of torchlight, with politest composure; remarking, rather than exclaiming, with outspread hands:  “People, I die innocent; pray for me.” (See Deux Amis, iv. c. 14, 7; Hist.  Parl. vi. 384.) Poor Favras;—­type of so much that has prowled indefatigable over France, in days now ending; and, in freer field, might have earned instead of prowling,—­to thee it is no theory!