n distance,
cursorily; not dwelt on with minute near scrutiny. In a word, that no
service the Notables could now do were so obliging as, in some handsome
manner, to--take themselves away! Their 'Six Propositions' about
Provisional Assemblies, suppression of Corvees and suchlike, can be
accepted without criticism. The Subvention on Land-tax, and much
else, one must glide hastily over; safe nowhere but in flourishes of
conciliatory eloquence. Till at length, on this 25th of May, year
1787, in solemn final session, there bursts forth what we can call an
explosion of eloquence; King, Lomenie, Lamoignon and retinue taking up
the successive strain; in harrangues to the number of ten, besides his
Majesty's, which last the livelong day;--whereby, as in a kind of choral
anthem, or bravura peal, of thanks, praises, promises, the Notables are,
so to speak, organed out, and dismissed to their respective places of
abode. They had sat, and talked, some nine weeks: they were the first
Notables since Richelieu's, in the year 1626.

By some Historians, sitting much at their ease, in the safe distance,
Lomenie has been blamed for this dismissal of his Notables: nevertheless
it was clearly time. There are things, as we said, which should not be
dwelt on with minute close scrutiny: over hot coals you cannot glide too
fast. In these Seven Bureaus, where no work could be done, unless talk
were work, the questionablest matters were coming up. Lafayette, for
example, in Monseigneur d'Artois' Bureau, took upon him to set forth
more than one deprecatory oration about Lettres-de-Cachet, Liberty
of the Subject, Agio, and suchlike; which Monseigneur endeavouring to
repress, was answered that a Notable being summoned to speak his opinion
must speak it. (Montgaillard, i. 360.)

Thus too his Grace the Archbishop of Aix perorating once, with a
plaintive pulpit tone, in these words? "Tithe, that free-will offering
of the piety of Christians"--"Tithe," interrupted Duke la Rochefoucault,
with the cold business-manner he has learned from the English, "that
free-will offering of the piety of Christians; on which there are now
forty-thousand lawsuits in this realm." (Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau,
p. 21.) Nay, Lafayette, bound to speak his opinion, went the length,
one day, of proposing to convoke a 'National Assembly.' "You
demand States-General?" asked Monseigneur with an air of minatory
surprise.--"Yes, Monseigneur; and even better than that."--"Write i