Where this will end? In the Abyss, one may prophecy; whither all
Delusions are, at all moments, travelling; where this Delusion has now
arrived. For if there be a Faith, from of old, it is this, as we often
repeat, that no Lie can live for ever. The very Truth has to change
its vesture, from time to time; and be born again. But all Lies have
sentence of death written down against them, and Heaven's Chancery
itself; and, slowly or fast, advance incessantly towards their hour.
'The sign of a Grand Seigneur being landlord,' says the vehement
plain-spoken Arthur Young, 'are wastes, landes, deserts, ling: go to
his residence, you will find it in the middle of a forest, peopled
with deer, wild boars and wolves. The fields are scenes of pitiable
management, as the houses are of misery. To see so many millions of
hands, that would be industrious, all idle and starving: Oh, if I were
legislator of France, for one day, I would make these great lords skip
again!' (Arthur Young, i. 12, 48, 84, &c.) O Arthur, thou now actually
beholdest them skip:--wilt thou grow to grumble at that too?

For long years and generations it lasted, but the time came.
Featherbrain, whom no reasoning and no pleading could touch, the glare
of the firebrand had to illuminate: there remained but that method.
Consider it, look at it! The widow is gathering nettles for her
children's dinner; a perfumed Seigneur, delicately lounging in the
Oeil-de-Boeuf, has an alchemy whereby he will extract from her the third
nettle, and name it Rent and Law: such an arrangement must end. Ought
it? But, O most fearful is such an ending! Let those, to whom God, in
His great mercy, has granted time and space, prepare another and milder
one.

To women it is a matter of wonder that the Seigneurs did not do