affirmed the rights of man before their valets, hairdressers,
purveyors, and all those that are in attendance upon them. Men of
letters, lawyers, and attorneys have repeated, in the bitterest
tone, the same diatribes and the same theories in the coffee-houses
and in the restaurants, on the promenades and in all public places.
They have spoken out before the lower class as if it were not
present, and, from all this eloquence poured out without precaution,
some bubbles besprinkle the brain of the artisan, the publican, the
messenger, the shopkeeper, and the soldier.

Hence it is that a year suffices to convert mute discontent into
political passion. From the 5th of July 1787, on the invitation of
the King, who convokes the States-General and demands advice from
everybody, both speech and the press alter in tone.[7] Instead of
general conversation of a speculative turn there is preaching, with
a view to practical effect, sudden, radical, and close at hand,
preaching as shrill and thrilling as the blast of a trumpet.
Revolutionary pamphlets appear in quick succession: "Qu'est-ce que
le Tiers?" by Sieyès; "Mémoire pour le Peuple Français," by Cerutti;
"Considerations sur les Intérêts des Tiers-Etat," by Rabtau Saint-
Etienne; "Ma Pétition," by Target; "Les Droits des Etats-généraux,"
by M. d'Entraigues, and, a little later, "La France libre," par
Camille Desmoulins, and others by hundreds and thousands.[8] All of
which are repeated and amplified in the electoral assemblies, where
new-made citizens come to declaim and increase their own
excitement.[9] The unanimous, universal and daily shout rolls along
from echo to echo, into barracks and into faubourgs, into markets,
workshops, and garrets. In the month of February, 1789, Necker
avows "that obedience is not to be found anywhere, and that even the
troops are not to be relied on." In the month of May, the