The nobles, in like manner, have nearly ceased either to guide or misguide; and are now, as their master is, little more than ornamental figures.  It is long since they have done with butchering one another or their king:  the Workers, protected, encouraged by Majesty, have ages ago built walled towns, and there ply their crafts; will permit no Robber Baron to ‘live by the saddle,’ but maintain a gallows to prevent it.  Ever since that period of the Fronde, the Noble has changed his fighting sword into a court rapier, and now loyally attends his king as ministering satellite; divides the spoil, not now by violence and murder, but by soliciting and finesse.  These men call themselves supports of the throne, singular gilt-pasteboard caryatides in that singular edifice!  For the rest, their privileges every way are now much curtailed.  That law authorizing a Seigneur, as he returned from hunting, to kill not more than two Serfs, and refresh his feet in their warm blood and bowels, has fallen into perfect desuetude,—­and even into incredibility; for if Deputy Lapoule can believe in it, and call for the abrogation of it, so cannot we. (Histoire de la Revolution Francaise, par Deux Amis de la Liberte (Paris, 1793), ii. 212.) No Charolois, for these last fifty years, though never so fond of shooting, has been in use to bring down slaters and plumbers, and see them roll from their roofs; (Lacretelle, Histoire de France pendant le 18me Siecle (Paris, 1819) i. 271.) but contents himself with partridges and grouse.  Close-viewed, their industry and function is that of dressing gracefully and eating sumptuously.  As for their debauchery and depravity, it is perhaps unexampled since the era of Tiberius and Commodus.  Nevertheless, one has still partly a feeling with the lady Marechale:  “Depend upon it, Sir, God thinks twice before damning a man of that quality.” (Dulaure, vii. 261.) These people, of old, surely had virtues, uses; or they could not have been there.  Nay, one virtue they are still required to have (for mortal man cannot live without a conscience):  the virtue of perfect readiness to fight duels.

Such are the shepherds of the people:  and now how fares it with the flock?  With the flock, as is inevitable, it fares ill, and ever worse.  They are not tended, they are only regularly shorn.  They are sent for, to do statute-labour, to pay statute-taxes; to fatten battle-fields (named ‘Bed of honour’) with their bodies, in quarrels which are not theirs; their hand and toil is in every possession of man; but for themselves they have little or no possession.  Untaught, uncomforted, unfed; to pine dully in thick obscuration, in squalid destitution and obstruction:  this is the lot of the millions; peuple taillable et corveable a merci et misericorde.  In Brittany they once rose in revolt at the first introduction of Pendulum Clocks; thinking it had something to do with the Gabelle.  Paris requires to be cleared out periodically by the Police; and the horde of hunger-stricken