hapter 1.2.VIII.

Printed Paper.

In such a practical France, let the theory of Perfectibility say what
it will, discontents cannot be wanting: your promised Reformation is
so indispensable; yet it comes not; who will begin it--with himself?
Discontent with what is around us, still more with what is above us,
goes on increasing; seeking ever new vents.

Of Street Ballads, of Epigrams that from of old tempered Despotism, we
need not speak. Nor of Manuscript Newspapers (Nouvelles a la main) do
we speak. Bachaumont and his journeymen and followers may close those
'thirty volumes of scurrilous eaves-dropping,' and quit that trade; for
at length if not liberty of the Press, there is license. Pamphlets can
be surreptititiously vended and read in Paris, did they even bear to
be 'Printed at Pekin.' We have a Courrier de l'Europe in those years,
regularly published at London; by a De Morande, whom the guillotine has
not yet devoured. There too an unruly Linguet, still unguillotined, when
his own country has become too hot for him, and his brother Advocates
have cast him out, can emit his hoarse wailings, and Bastille Devoilee
(Bastille unveiled). Loquacious Abbe Raynal, at length, has his wish;
sees the Histoire Philosophique, with its 'lubricity,' unveracity, loose
loud eleutheromaniac rant (contributed, they say, by Philosophedom at
large, though in the Abbe's name, and to his glory), burnt by the common
hangman;--and sets out on his travels as a martyr. It was the edition of
1781; perhaps the last notable book that had such fire-beatitude,--the
hangman discovering now that it did not serve.

Again, in Courts of Law, with their money-quarrels, divorce-cases,
wheresoever a glimpse into the household existence can be had, what
indications! The Parlements of Besancon and Aix ring, audible to all
France, with the amours and destinies of a young Mirabeau. He, under
the nurture of a 'Friend of Men,' has, in State Prisons, in marching
Regiments, Dutch Authors' garrets, and quite other scenes, 'been for
twenty years learning to resist 'despotism:' despotism of men, and
alas also of gods. How, beneath this rose-coloured veil of Universal
Benevolence and Astraea Redux, is the sanctuary of Home so often a
dreary void, or a dark contentious Hell-on-Earth! The old Friend of Men
has his own divorce case too; and at times, 'his whole family but one'
under lock and key: he writes much about reforming and enfranchising
the world; and for h