The time is not yet come, but the seed is coming up.  Bachaumont, in 1762, notices a deluge of pamphlets, tracts and political discussions, “a rage for arguing on financial and government matters.”  In 1765, Walpole states that the atheists, who then monopolize conversation, inveigh against kings as well as against priests.  A formidable word, that of citizen, imported by Rousseau, has entered into common speech, and the matter is settled on the women adopting it as they would a cockade.  “As a friend and a citoyenne could any news be more agreeable to me than that of peace and the health of my dear little one?"[37] Another word, not less significant, that of energy, formerly ridiculous, becomes fashionable, and is used on every occasion[38].  Along with language there is a change of sentiment, ladies of high rank passing over to the opposition.  In 1771, says the scoffer Bezenval, after the exile of the Parliament “social meetings for pleasure or other purposes had become petty States-Generals in which the women, transformed into legislators, established the premises and confidently propounded maxims of public right.”  The Comtesse d’Egmont, a correspondent of the King of Sweden, sends him a paper on the fundamental law of France, favoring the Parliament, the last defender of national liberty, against the encroachments of Chancellor Maupeou.  “The Chancellor,” she says,[39] “within the last six months has brought people to know the history of France who would have died without any knowledge of it. . . .  I have no doubt, sire,” she adds, “that you never will abuse the power an enraptured people have entrusted to you without limitation. . . .  May your reign prove the epoch of the re-establishment of a free and independent government, but never the source of absolute authority.”  Numbers of women of the first rank, Mesdames de la Marck, de Boufflers, de Brienne, de Mesmes, de Luxembourg, de Croy, think and write in the same style.  “Absolute power,” says one of these, “is a mortal malady which, insensibly corrupting moral qualities, ends in the destruction of states. . . .  The actions of sovereigns are subject to the censure of their subjects as to that of the universe. . . .  France is undone if the present administration lasts."[40] - When, under Louis XVI, a new administration proposes and withdraws feeble measures of reform. their criticism shows the same firmness:  “Childishness, weakness, constant inconsistency,” writes another,[41] “incessant change; and always worse off than we were before.  Monsieur and M. le Comte d’Artois have just made a journey through the provinces, but only as people of that kind travel, with a frightful expenditure and devastation along the whole road, coming back extraordinarily fat; Monsieur is as big as a hogshead; as to M. le Comte d’Artois he is bringing about order by the life he leads.” — An inspiration of humanity animates these feminine breasts along with that of liberty.  They interest