He returned depressed and angry.

The violence of the Assembly had increased from day to day. The
property of all the convents had been confiscated, and this measure
had been followed by the seizure of the vast estates of the church.
All the privileges of the nobility had been declared at an end,
and in August a decree had been passed abolishing all titles of
nobility. This decree had taken effect in Paris and in the great
towns, and also in some parts of the country where the passions of
the people were most aroused against the nobility; but in Burgundy
it had remained a dead letter. The Marquis de St. Caux was popular
upon his estates, and no one had ever neglected to concede to
him and to the marquise their titles. He himself had regarded the
decree with disdain. "They may take away my estates by force," he
said, "but no law can deprive me of my title, any more than of the
name which I inherited from my fathers. Such laws as these are mere
outbursts of folly."

But the Assembly continued to pass laws of the most sweeping
description, assuming the sovereign power, and using it as no
monarch of France had ever ventured to do. Moderate men were shocked
at the headlong course of events, and numbers of those who at the
commencement of the movement had thrown themselves heart and soul
into it now shrank back in dismay at the strange tyranny which was
called liberty.

"It seems to me that a general madness has seized all Paris," the
marquis said to his wife on his return, "but at present nothing can
be done to arrest it. I have seen the king and queen. His majesty is
resolved to do nothing; that is, to let events take their course,