But what a stir in the outer courts of the Palais, when Paris finds its Parlement trundled off to Troyes in Champagne; and nothing left but a few mute Keepers of records; the Demosthenic thunder become extinct, the martyrs of liberty clean gone!  Confused wail and menace rises from the four thousand throats of Procureurs, Basoche-Clerks, Nondescripts, and Anglomaniac Noblesse; ever new idlers crowd to see and hear; Rascality, with increasing numbers and vigour, hunts mouchards.  Loud whirlpool rolls through these spaces; the rest of the City, fixed to its work, cannot yet go rolling.  Audacious placards are legible, in and about the Palais, the speeches are as good as seditious.  Surely the temper of Paris is much changed.  On the third day of this business (18th of August), Monsieur and Monseigneur d’Artois, coming in state-carriages, according to use and wont, to have these late obnoxious Arretes and protests ‘expunged’ from the Records, are received in the most marked manner.  Monsieur, who is thought to be in opposition, is met with vivats and strewed flowers; Monseigneur, on the other hand, with silence; with murmurs, which rise to hisses and groans; nay, an irreverent Rascality presses towards him in floods, with such hissing vehemence, that the Captain of the Guards has to give order, “Haut les armes (Handle arms)!”—­at which thunder-word, indeed, and the flash of the clear iron, the Rascal-flood recoils, through all avenues, fast enough.  (Montgaillard, i. 369.  Besenval, &c.) New features these.  Indeed, as good M. de Malesherbes pertinently remarks, “it is a quite new kind of contest this with the Parlement:”  no transitory sputter, as from collision of hard bodies; but more like “the first sparks of what, if not quenched, may become a great conflagration.” (Montgaillard, i. 373.)

This good Malesherbes sees himself now again in the King’s Council, after an absence of ten years:  Lomenie would profit if not by the faculties of the man, yet by the name he has.  As for the man’s opinion, it is not listened to;—­wherefore he will soon withdraw, a second time; back to his books and his trees.  In such King’s Council what can a good man profit?  Turgot tries it not a second time:  Turgot has quitted France and this Earth, some years ago; and now cares for none of these things.  Singular enough:  Turgot, this same Lomenie, and the Abbe Morellet were once a trio of young friends; fellow-scholars in the Sorbonne.  Forty new years have carried them severally thus far.

Meanwhile the Parlement sits daily at Troyes, calling cases; and daily adjourns, no Procureur making his appearance to plead.  Troyes is as hospitable as could be looked for:  nevertheless one has comparatively a dull life.  No crowds now to carry you, shoulder-high, to the immortal gods; scarcely a Patriot or two will drive out so far, and bid you be of firm courage.  You are in furnished lodgings, far from home and domestic comfort:  little to do, but wander over the unlovely Champagne fields; seeing the grapes ripen; taking counsel about the thousand-times consulted:  a prey to tedium; in danger even that Paris may forget you.  Messengers come and go:  pacific Lomenie is not slack in negotiating, promising; D’Ormesson and the prudent elder Members see no good in strife.