Assemblies with early difficulties.

It is just through this breach that hope steals like a beam of
light, and gradually finds its way down to the depths below. For
the last fifty years it has been rising, and its rays, which first
illuminated the upper class in their splendid apartments in the
first story, and next the middle class in their entresol and on the
ground floor. They have now for two years penetrated to the cellars
where the people toil, and even to the deep sinks and obscure
corners where rogues and vagabonds and malefactors, a foul and
swarming herd, crowd and hide themselves from the persecution of the
law. -- To the first two provincial assemblies instituted by Necker
in 1778 and 1779, Loménie de Brienne has in 1787 just added nineteen
others; under each of these are assemblies of the arrondissement,
under each assembly of the arrondissement are parish assemblies[8].
Thus the whole machinery of administration has been changed. It is
the new assemblies which assess the taxes and superintend their
collection; which determine upon and direct all public works; and
which form the court of final appeal in regard to matters in
dispute. The intendant, the sub-delegate, the elected
representative[9], thus lose three-quarters of their authority.
Conflicts arise, consequently, between rival powers whose frontiers
are not clearly defined; command shifts about, and obedience is
diminished. The subject no longer feels on his shoulders the
commanding weight of the one hand which, without possibility of
interference or resistance, held him in, urged him forward, and made
him move on. Meanwhile, in each assembly of the parish
arrondissement, and even of the province, plebeians, "husband-
men,"[10] and often common farmers, sit by the side of lords and
prelates. They listen to and remember the vast figure of the taxes