Under such omens, however, we have reached the spring of 1788.  By no path can the King’s Government find passage for itself, but is everywhere shamefully flung back.  Beleaguered by Twelve rebellious Parlements, which are grown to be the organs of an angry Nation, it can advance nowhither; can accomplish nothing, obtain nothing, not so much as money to subsist on; but must sit there, seemingly, to be eaten up of Deficit.

The measure of the Iniquity, then, of the Falsehood which has been gathering through long centuries, is nearly full?  At least, that of the misery is!  For the hovels of the Twenty-five Millions, the misery, permeating upwards and forwards, as its law is, has got so far,—­to the very Oeil-de-Boeuf of Versailles.  Man’s hand, in this blind pain, is set against man:  not only the low against the higher, but the higher against each other; Provincial Noblesse is bitter against Court Noblesse; Robe against Sword; Rochet against Pen.  But against the King’s Government who is not bitter?  Not even Besenval, in these days.  To it all men and bodies of men are become as enemies; it is the centre whereon infinite contentions unite and clash.  What new universal vertiginous movement is this; of Institution, social Arrangements, individual Minds, which once worked cooperative; now rolling and grinding in distracted collision?  Inevitable:  it is the breaking-up of a World-Solecism, worn out at last, down even to bankruptcy of money!  And so this poor Versailles Court, as the chief or central Solecism, finds all the other Solecisms arrayed against it.  Most natural!  For your human Solecism, be it Person or Combination of Persons, is ever, by law of Nature, uneasy; if verging towards bankruptcy, it is even miserable:—­and when would the meanest Solecism consent to blame or amend itself, while there remained another to amend?

These threatening signs do not terrify Lomenie, much less teach him.  Lomenie, though of light nature, is not without courage, of a sort.  Nay, have we not read of lightest creatures, trained Canary-birds, that could fly cheerfully with lighted matches, and fire cannon; fire whole powder-magazines?  To sit and die of deficit is no part of Lomenie’s plan.  The evil is considerable; but can he not remove it, can he not attack it?  At lowest, he can attack the symptom of it:  these rebellious Parlements he can attack, and perhaps remove.  Much is dim to Lomenie, but two things are clear:  that such Parlementary duel with Royalty is growing perilous, nay internecine; above all, that money must be had.  Take thought, brave Lomenie; thou Garde-des-Sceaux Lamoignon, who hast ideas!  So often defeated, balked cruelly when the golden fruit seemed within clutch, rally for one other struggle.  To tame the Parlement, to fill the King’s coffers:  these are now life-and-death questions.

Parlements have been tamed, more than once.  Set to perch ’on the peaks of rocks in accessible except by litters,’ a Parlement grows reasonable.  O Maupeou, thou bold man, had we left thy work where it was!—­But apart from exile, or other violent methods, is there not one method, whereby all things are tamed, even lions?  The method of hunger!  What if the Parlement’s supplies were cut off; namely its Lawsuits!