Scaramouche

when he left the sleepy village of Gavrillac. Lying the night at a roadside inn, and setti

the new philosophies of social life, exercising his wits upon these new ideas merely as a fencer exercises his eye and wrist with the foils, without ever suffering himself to be deluded into supposing the issue a real one, he found himself suddenly converted into a revol

erday have succeeded in deceiving himself. But it is at least certain that, looking back in cold blood now, he had no single delusio

affording him complete immunity for this and any other crimes that it pleased him to commit, why, then the e

n into that beautiful city of Nantes, rendered by its spacious streets

ed out over the tree-bordered quay and the broad bosom of the Loire, on which argosies of all nations rode at anchor. The

kyards, bellows-menders, rat-catchers, water-carriers, ink-sellers, and other itinerant pedlars. And, sprinkled through this proletariat mass that came and went in constant movement, Andre–Louis beheld tradesmen in sober garments, merchants in long, fur-lined coats; occasionally a merchant-prince rolling along in his two-horse cabriolet to the whip-crackings and shouts of "Gare!" from his coachman; occasionally a dainty lady carried past in her sedan-chair, with perhaps a mincing abbe from the episcopal court tripping along in

bitants of that wealthy, industrious city were to be seen in the human stream

would depend upon what happened at Rennes. If it was true that the King had dissolved the States of Brittany, then all should be well, and the malcontents would have no pretext for further disturbances. There had been trouble and to spare in Nantes already. They wanted no repet

crowded that he was compelled almost to fight his way through to the steps of the magnificent Ionic porch. A word would have sufficed to have opened a way for him at once. But guile moved him t

taves, a guard as hurriedly assembled by the merchants as it was evidently necessary. One of

nounced himsel

ed and went up the steps in the wake of the usher. At the top,

he announced. "Bring

ame, mo

lier's warning of the danger with which his mission was fraught

matters nothing; I am the mouth

tico Andre–Louis waited, his eyes straying out ever and anon

crowding out into the portico, jostling one

messenger f

y Chamber of that city to inform you h

r na

he less we mention nam

ravity. He was a corpulent, florid m

t. Then -"Come into

will deliver my message fr

The great mer

est number of Nantais of all ranks, and it is my desire - and the desire of those whom

rue that the King has

ning for a glimpse of this slim young man who had brought forth the president and more than half the numbers of

r Chamber, monsieur," said h

be

the steps, but leaving clear the topmost

ating the entire assembly. He removed his hat, and launched the opening bombshell of that address wh

ty of Nantes, I have com

ilence that followed he surveyed

to you what is taking place, and to invite you in this dreadfu

nstantly the cry was taken up by others,

Omnibus - all for all. Let that suffice you now. I am a herald, a mouthpiece, a voice; no more. I come to announce to you that since the privileged orders,

Andre–Louis waited, and gradually the preternatural gravity of his countenance came to be observed, and to beget the su

ogance, have elected to ignore the royal dissolution, and in despite of

ilogue to the announcement that had been so rapturously

oner than yield an inch of the unconscionable privileges by which too long already they have flourished, to the misery of a whole nation, they will make a mock of royal auth

plause, but the majority of the

the privileges of clergy and nobility. For the third time now has he been called to office, and at last it seems we are to have States General in spite of Privilege. But what the privileged orders can no longer prevent, they are determined to stultify. Since it is now a settled thing that these States General are to meet, at least the nobles and the clergy will see to it - unless we take measures to prevent them - by packing the Third Estate with their own creatures, and denying it all effective representati

nation that moved his hearers swelled u

nd only obstacles in those orders whose phrenetic egotism sees in the tears and suffering of the unfortunate an odious tribute which they would pass on to their generations still unborn. Realizing from the barbarity of the means emp

we should stand indivisibly united, especially the young and vigorous, especially those who have had the good fortune to

had caught them in the snare of his orato

d in advance against any tyrannical decrees that should declare us seditious when we have none but pure and just intentions. Let us make oath upon the honour of our motherland that should any of us be seized by an unjust tribunal, intending against us

amusement that the wealthy merchants who had been congregated upon the steps, and who now came crowding about him to shake

to adopt those philosophies to the practical purposes of life was most acutely felt at present by those bourgeois who found themselves debarred by Privilege from the expansion their wealth permitted them.

id to harmonize with the expressed will of the sovereign himself - long delayed. Who shall say how far it may have strengthened the hand of Necker, when on the 27th of that same month of November he compelled the Council to adopt the most significant and comprehensive of all those measures to which clergy and nobility had