[84] "I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) who live without government, enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former public opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did any where. Among the latter, under the pretense of governing, they have divided their nations into two classes—wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate."—Thomas Jefferson. Life by Henry S. Randall, vol. i., p. 464.
[85] Tils Adoptif, vol. v., p. 256.
[86] Art. Mirabeau, Biographie Moderne.
[87] "The popular assemblies were to vote by acclamation (à haute voix). They did not suppose that inferior people in such a mode of election, in presence of the nobles and Notables, would possess sufficient firmness to oppose them—enough assurance to pronounce other names than those which were dictated to them."—Michelet, vol. i., p. 76.
[88] "The long-looked-for has come at last; wondrous news of victory, deliverance, enfranchisement, sounds magical through every heart. To the proud strong man it has come whose strong hands shall be no more gyved. The weary day-drudge has heard of it; the beggar with his crust moistened in tears. What! to us also has hope reached—down even to us? Hunger and hardship are not to be eternal? The bread we extorted from the rugged glebe, and with the toil of our sinews reaped, and ground, and kneaded into loaves, was not wholly for another then, but we shall cut of it and be filled?"—Carlyle, vol. i., p. 118.
[89] "The prelates and dignified clergy felt the utmost disquietude at the number of curés and ecclesiastics of inferior rank who attended them as members of the States-General. It was evident, from their conversation, habits, and manners, that they participated in the feelings of the Tiers Etat, with whom they lived in constant communication; and that the unjust exclusion of the middling ranks from the dignities and emoluments of the Church had excited as much dissatisfaction in the ecclesiastical classes as the invidious privileges of the noblesse had awakened in the laity."—Alison's History of Europe, vol. i., p. 68.
[90] Michelet, vol. i., p. 77. Desodoards, vol. i., p. 135. Rabaud, vol. i., p. 41. De Tocqueville, Old Régime, vol. i., p. 144.
[91] Michelet, vol. i., p. 78. Mémoire présenté au Roi par Monseigneur Compte d'Artois (Charles X.), M. le Prince de Condé, M. le Duc de Bourbon, M. le Duc d'Enghien, et M. le Prince de Conti.
[92] It has been denied that the nobles were guilty of this act. For proof see Mémoires de Bensenval, tome ii., p. 347; L'Œuvre des Sept Jours, p. 411; Exposé Justificatif; Bailly's Mémoires, tome ii., p. 51. M. Rabaud de St. Etienne writes: "If the agents of despotism devised this infernal stratagem, as was afterward believed, it makes one crime more to be added to all those of which despotism had already become guilty."
[93] "A hall had been hastily got ready; the costumes were determined upon, and a humiliating badge had been imposed upon the Tiers Etat. Men are not less jealous of their dignity than of their rights. With a very just pride the instructions forbade the deputies to condescend to any degrading ceremonial."—Thiers, vol. i., p. 35.