"But the people should be contented," M. du Tillet said; "they have
had all the privileges they ever possessed given back to them."

"Yes," the marquis assented, "and there lies the danger. It is one
thing or the other. If as soon as the temper of the third estate
had been seen the king's guards had entered and cleared the place
and closed the door, as Cromwell did when the parliament was
troublesome to him in England, that would have been one way. Paris
would have been troublesome, we might have had again the days of
the Fronde, but in the end the king's party would have won.

"However, that was not the way tried. They began by concessions,
they go on with concessions, and each concession is made the ground
for more. It is like sliding down a hill; when you have once begun
you cannot stop yourself, and you go on until there is a crash;
then it may be you pick yourself up sorely wounded and bruised,
and begin to reclimb the hill slowly and painfully; it may be that
you are dashed to pieces. I am not a politician. I do not care much
for the life of Paris, and am well content to live quietly here on
our estates; but even I can see that a storm is gathering; and as
for my brother Auguste, he goes about shaking his head and wringing
his hands, his anticipations are of the darkest. What can one
expect when fellows like Voltaire and Rousseau were permitted by
their poisonous preaching to corrupt and inflame the imagination
of the people? Both those men's heads should have been cut off the
instant they began to write.

"The scribblers are at the root of all the trouble with their
pestilent doctrines; but it is too late now, the mischief is done.