their slight bows but again on account of their over-politeness.  Champfort acrimoniously relates that d’Alembert, at the height of his reputation, being in Madame du Deffant’s drawing room with President Hénault and M. de Pont-de-Veyle, a physician enters named Fournier, and he, addressing Madame du Deffant, says, “Madame, I have the honor of presenting you with my very humble respects;’’ turning to President Hénault, “I have the honor to be your obedient servant,” and then to M. de Pont-de-Veyle, “Sir, your most obedient,” and to d’Alembert, “Good day, sir."[42] To a rebellious heart everything is an object of resentment.  The Third-Estate, following Rousseau’s example, cherishes ill-feeling against the nobles for what they do, and yet again, for what they are, for their luxury, their elegance, their insincerity, their refined and brilliant behavior.  Champfort is embittered against them on account of the polite attentions with which they overwhelm him.  Sieyès bears them a grudge on account of a promised abbey which he did not obtain.  Each individual, besides the general grievances, has his personal grievance.  Their coolness, like their familiarity, attentions and inattentions, is an offense, and, under these millions of needle-thrusts, real or imaginary, the mind gets to be full of gall.  In 1789, it is full to overflowing.

“The most honorable title of the French nobility,” writes Champfort, “is a direct descent from some 30,000 armed, helmeted, armletted and armored men who, on heavy horses sheathed in armor, trod under foot 8 or 10 millions of naked men, the ancestors of the actual nation.  Behold these well-established claims to the respect and affection of their descendants!  And, to complete the respectability of this nobility, it is recruited and regenerated by the adoption of those who have acquired fortune by plundering the cabins of the poor who are unable to pay its impositions."[43] —­

“Why should not the Third-Estate send back,” says Sieyès, “into the forests of Franconia every family that maintains its absurd pretension of having sprung from the loins of a race of conquerors, and of having succeeded to the rights of conquest? [44] I can well imagine, were there no police, every Cartouche[45] firmly establishing himself on the high-road —­ would that give him a right to levy toll?  Suppose him to sell a monopoly of this kind, once common enough, to an honest successor, would the right become any more respectable in the hands of the purchaser? . . .  Every privilege, in its nature, is unjust, odious, and against the social compact.  The blood boils at the thought of its ever having been possible to legally consecrate down to the eighteenth century the abominable fruits of an abominable feudal system. . . .  The caste of nobles is really a population apart, a fraudulent population, however, which, for lack of serviceable faculties, and unable to exist alone, fastens itself upon a living nation, like the vegetable tumors that