adies from Versailles; hence
they always show some familiarity with superior manners and some
knowledge of the changes of fashion and dress." The most barbarous will
descend, with his hat in his hand, to the foot of his steps to escort
his guests, thanking them for the honor they have done him. The greatest
rustic, when in a woman's presence, dives down into the depths of his
memory for some fragment of chivalric gallantry. The poorest and most
secluded furbishes up his coat of royal blue and his cross of St.
Louis that he may, when the occasion offers, tender his respects to his
neighbor, the grand seignior, or to the prince who is passing by.

Thus is the feudal staff wholly transformed, from the lowest to the
highest grades. Taking in at one glance its 30 or 40,000 palaces,
mansions, manors and abbeys, what a brilliant and engaging scene France
presents! She is one vast drawing-room, and I detect only drawing room
company. Everywhere the rude chieftains once possessing authority have
become the masters of households administering favors. Their society is
that in which, before fully admiring a great general, the question is
asked, "is he amiable?" Undoubtedly they still wear swords, and are
brave through pride and tradition, and they know how to die, especially
in duels and according to form. But worldly traits have hidden the
ancient military groundwork; at the end of the eighteenth century their
genius is to be wellbred and their employment consists in entertaining
or in being entertained.

*****

NOTES:

[Footnote 2101: "Memoires de Laporte" (1632). "M. d'Epernon came to
Bordeaux, where he found His Eminence very ill. He visited him regularly
every morning, having two hundred guards to accompany him to the door
of his chamber."--"Memoires de Retz." "We came to the audience, M. de
Beaufort and myself; with a corps of nobles which might number three
hundred gentlemen; MM. the princes had with them nearly a thousand
gentlemen."--All the memoirs of the time show on every page that these
escorts were necessary to make or repel sudden attacks.]

[Footnote 2102: Mercier, "Tableau de Paris." IX. 3.]

[Footnote 2103: Leroi, "Histoire de Versailles," Il. 21. (70,000 fixed
population and 10,000 floating population according to the registers of
the mayoralty.)]

[Footnote 2104: Warroquier, "Etat de la France" (1789). The list of persons
presented at court between 1779 and 1789, contains 463 men and 414
women. Vol.