During July and August of that year Lafayette was "in service" with the Black Mousquetaires. In September, when his period of active duty was over and he could do as he chose, he had himself exposed to smallpox, and he and his wife and mother-in-law shut themselves up in a house at Chaillon, hired for the occasion, where during his illness and convalescence Madame d'Ayen devoted herself to her new son night and day.
Even while the rafters of Ste.-Geneviève were echoing to sobs and prayers for the old king's recovery, people whispered under their breath what they really thought of him; and by the time Lafayette and his wife could take their places in the world again Louis XV had been systematically forgotten. His grandson, the new king, was a well-meaning young man, only three years older than Lafayette. One of the king's intimates said that the chief trouble with Louis XVI was that he lacked self-confidence. Marie Antoinette, his queen, was fond of pleasure, and for four long years, ever since their marriage, they had been obliged to fill the difficult position of heirs apparent, hampered by all the restraints of royalty while enjoying precious few of its privileges. Like every one else, they were anxious to get the period of mourning well over and to see the real beginning of their reign, which promised to be long and prosperous. Nobody realized that the time had come when the sins and abuses of previous reigns must be paid for, and that the country was on the verge of one of the greatest revolutions of history.
To outward appearance it was a time of hope. Population was increasing rapidly; inventions and new discoveries were being made every day. "More truths concerning the external world were discovered in France during the latter half of the eighteenth century than during all preceding periods together," says Buckle. Even in the lifetime of the old king it had been impossible to stem the tide of progress: what more natural than to believe these blessings would continue, now that his evil influence was removed?
Not only had discoveries been made; they had been brought within the reach of more people than ever before. About the time Lafayette was born the first volume of a great book called the Encyclopedia had made its appearance in the French language, modeled after one already produced in England. Priests had denounced it; laws had been made ordering severe penalties for its use. But it was too valuable to be given up and volume after volume continued to appear. Voltaire wrote an audacious imaginary account of the way it was used in the palace. The king's favorite did not know how to mix her rouge; the king's ministers wanted to learn about gunpowder. The forbidden book was sent for. A procession of lackeys staggered into the room, bending under the weight of twenty huge volumes, and everybody found the information desired. The bit of audacity hid a great truth. The Encyclopedia had brought knowledge to the people and all were anxious to profit by it.
"The people," however, were not considered by nobles who lived in palaces. Indeed, they were only beginning to consider themselves—beginning dimly to comprehend that their day was dawning. Two decades would have to pass before they were fully awake, but the scene was already being set for their great drama. Paris, the largest city in France, had increased in size one-third during the past twenty-five years. The old theory had been that too large a town was a public menace, both to health and to government. Nine times already in its history the limits of Paris had been fixed and had been outgrown. It now held between seven hundred thousand and eight hundred thousand souls. When viewed from the tower of Notre Dame it spread out ten or twelve miles in circumference, round as an orange, and cut into two nearly equal parts by the river Seine.
"One is a stranger to one's neighbor in this vast place," a man wrote soon after this. "Sometimes one learns of his death only by receiving the invitation to his funeral." "Two celebrated men may live in this city twenty-five years and never meet." "So many chimneys send forth warmth and smoke that the north wind is tempered in passing over the town." Streets were so narrow and houses so high that dwellers on the lower floors "lived in obscurity"; while elsewhere there were palaces like the great house belonging to the De Noailles family with its garden large enough to stage a small hunt. Such gardens were carefully walled away from the public. These walled-in gardens and the high, evil-smelling houses in which people lived "three hundred years behind the times," crowded together and hungry from birth to death, were equally prophetic of the awakening to come; for the improvements celebrated by this writer in describing old Paris were either of a kind to let light in upon the people or to make conditions more intolerable for them.
Advertising signs no longer creaked from iron gibbets, threatening to tumble and crush the passers-by. Spurs as big as cartwheels and the huge gloves and giant boots which formerly proclaimed the business carried on under them had been banished or were now screwed securely to the walls, which gave the streets a clean-shaven appearance. The candle lanterns that used to splutter and drip and go out, leaving Paris in darkness, were replaced, on nights when the moon was off duty, by lamps burning "tripe-oil" and fitted with reflectors. By means of this brilliant improvement fashionable quarters were almost safe after nightfall, whereas in former years there had been danger of attack and robbery, even within pistol-shot of the grand home where Lafayette went to live after his marriage. In addition to the lights glowing steadily under their reflectors—one light to every seventy or one hundred inhabitants—there were many professional lantern-bearers whose business in life was escorting wayfarers to and from their homes. Paris after nightfall was atwinkle, for "to live by candle-light is a sign of opulence."
There was a fire department, newly installed, ready to come on call, and, strange to say, "it cost absolutely nothing to be rescued." That, however, was the only cheap thing in Paris. "The poorer one is the more it costs to live!" was a cry that rose then, as now, in all its bitterness. With money anything could be bought. Voltaire declared that a Roman general on the day of his triumph never approached the luxury to be found here. Wares came to the city from the ends of the earth, and Parisians invented new wares of their own. Somebody had contrived umbrellas like those used in the Orient, except that these folded up when not in use. Somebody else had invented the business of renting them at a charge of two liards to gallants crossing the Pont Neuf who wished to shield their complexions. There were little stations at each end of the bridge where the money could be paid or the umbrella given up. Even seasons of the year set no limit to extravagance in Paris. "A bouquet of violets in the dead of winter costs two louis (about nine dollars), and some women wear them!"
Water was delivered daily to the tall houses, from carts, by a force of twenty thousand men, who carried it as high as the seventh floor for a trifle more than it cost to cross the Pont Neuf under the shade of an umbrella. Drivers sent their water-carts skidding over the slime, for the narrow, cobble-paved streets were black with slippery mud. Coaches and other vehicles swung around corners and dashed along at incredible speed, while pedestrians fled in every direction. There were no sidewalks and no zones of safety. The confusion was so great that dignified travel by sedan-chair had become well-nigh impossible. King Louis XV once said, "If I were chief of police I would forbid coaches"; but, being only King Louis, he had done nothing. Pedestrians were often run down; then there would be even greater confusion for a few moments, but only the shortest possible halt to traffic. "When on the pavements of Paris it is easy to see that the people do not make the laws," said one who had suffered.
These people who suffered in Paris at every turn were now beginning to find a cyclopedia of their own in another invention of comparatively recent date—the cafés, warmed and lighted, where even men who had not sous enough to satisfy their hunger might cheat their stomachs with a thimbleful of sour wine or a morsel of food, and sit for hours listening and pondering the talk of others who came and went. There was much talk, and in one part of Paris or another it touched upon every known subject. Each café had its specialty; politics in one, philosophy in another, science in a third. Men of the same cast of mind gravitated toward the same spot. Cafés had already become schools. Soon they were to become political clubs. It was a wonderful way to spread new ideas.