means; you will be governed, as I have already told you, solely by philosophy and reason.  Those who are to treat you in this manner will all be philosophers, will all, at every moment, have on their lips the phrases you have uttered within the hour, will repeat your maxims, will quote, like yourselves, the stanzas of Diderot and of “La Pucelle."’ — ’And when will all this happen?’ — ’Six years will not pass before what I tell you will be accomplished.’ — ‘Well, these are miracles,’ exclaims La Harpe, ‘and you leave me out?’ — ’You will be no less a miracle, for you will then be a Christian.’ — ‘Ah,’ interposes Champfort, I breathe again; if we are to die only when La Harpe becomes a Christian we are immortals.’ — ‘As to that, we women,’ says the Duchesse de Gramont, ’are extremely fortunate in being of no consequence in revolutions.  It is understood that we are not to blame, and our sex . . ’ — ’Your sex, ladies, will not protect you this time. . . .  You will be treated precisely as men, with no difference whatever. . . .  You, Madame la Duchesse, will be led to the scaffold, you and many ladies besides yourself in a cart with your hands tied behind your back.’ — ’Ah, in that event, I hope to have at least a carriage covered with black.’ — ’No, Madame, greater ladies than yourself will go, like yourself in a cart and with their hands tied like yours.’ — ‘Greater ladies!  What!  Princesses of the blood!’ — ’Still greater ladies than those . . .’They began to think the jest carried too far.  Madame de Gramont, to dispel the gloom, did not insist on a reply to her last exclamation, contenting herself by saying in the lightest tone, ’And they will not even leave one a confessor!’ — ’No, Madame, neither you nor any other person will be allowed a confessor; the last of the condemned that will have one, as an act of grace, will be . . .’  He stopped a moment.  ’Tell me, now, who is the fortunate mortal enjoying this prerogative?’ — ’It is the last that will remain to him, and it will be the King of France.’”

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Note: 

[1] Laharpe, or La Harpe, Jean François. (Paris 1739-1803).  Author and critic, made a member of the Academy in 1776. (Sr). ----------------------------------------
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END OF VOLUME NOTES: 

NOTE 1.

On the number of ecclesiastics and nobles.

These approximate estimates are arrived at in the following manner: