extravagance--such was the man in whom
was vested the authority rendered so absolute by Richelieu; such the
man who opened up a pathway for the storm.

As for the nobility, their degradation may be imagined when it is said
there was as bitter rivalry between titled and illustrious fathers to
secure for their daughters the coveted position held by Madame de
Pompadour, as for the highest offices of State.

Could the upper ranks fall lower than this? Had not the kingdom
reached its lowest depths, where its foreign policy was determined by
the amount of consideration shown to Madame de Pompadour? But this
woman, whose friendship was artfully sought by the great Empress Maria
Theresa, was superseded, and the fresher charms of Madame du Barry
enslaved the king. The deposed favorite could not survive her fall,
and died of a broken heart. It is said that as Louis, looking from an
upper window of his palace, saw the coffin borne out in a drenching
rain, he smiled, and said, "Ah, the marquise has a bad day for her
journey." It may be imagined that the man who could be so pitiless to
the woman he had loved would feel little pity for the people whom he
had not loved, but whom he knew only as a remote, obscure something,
which held up the weight of his glory.

But this "obscure something" was undergoing strange transformation.
The greater light at the surface had sent some glimmering rays down
into the mass below, which began to awaken and to think. Misery,
hopeless and abject, was changing into rage and thirst for vengeance.

A new class had come into existence which was not noble, but with
highly trained intelligence it looked with contempt and loathing upon
the frivolous, half-educated nobles, Scorn was added to the ferment of
human passions beneath the surface, and when Voltaire had spoken, and
the restraints of religion were loosened, no living hand, not that of a
Richelieu nor a Louis XIV., could have averted the coming doom. But no
one seems to have suspected what was approaching.

A wonderful literature had come into existence, not stately and classic
as in the age preceding, but instinct with a new sort of life. The
profoundest themes which can occupy the mind of man were handled with
marvellous lightness of touch and clothed with prismatic brilliancy of
speech; but all was negation. None tried to build; all to demolish.
The black-winged angel of Destruction was hovering over the land.

Then Rousseau tossed