“And, indeed,” thought Ned, “what reforms were ever compelled without pressure, and what pressure, that was considerate of the pressed, was ever effective?”
Now he ran downstairs in haste to inquire of Madame Gamelle the reason of the popular excitement. He found the good woman herself fluttered by it to an uncommon degree. She put the pledge into a half-empty tub of potatoes (a something despised vegetable in the France of that date), that she might gesticulate the more comprehensively.
“It is news,” she cried; “a fine ‘facer’ to the notables. How they will squirm, the rascals! We are to have the double representation. It is decreed by Louis, the good king.”
“Rather by Sieyes and M. d’Entraigues, is it not?”
“Oh, çà! That is the way to talk. But you forget the Minister of Finance, who shall go into the calendar of saints, cheek by jowl with St Antoine himself.”
On the very noon following that of the declaration respecting the Tiers Etat, lo! there was new commotion in the streets, and holiday faces and footsteps hurrying westward. Again Ned descended and again inquired. Madame received him with a shrill cackle:—
“Oh yes! it is excitement and all excitement, as you say. But what infamy that I am chained to my kennel like a vicious dog.”
“What is to do then, madame?”
“But this, monsieur: a gas-balloon is to ascend from the garden of the Thuilleries at two o’clock.”
Ned sniggered.