ty and Confusion.
The faces of men are darkened with suspicion; with suspecting, or being
suspect. The streets lie unswept; the ways unmended. Law has shut her
Books; speaks little, save impromptu, through the throat of Tinville.
Crimes go unpunished: not crimes against the Revolution. (Mercier, v.
25; Deux Amis, xii. 142-199.) 'The number of foundling children,' as
some compute, 'is doubled.'

How silent now sits Royalism; sits all Aristocratism; Respectability
that kept its Gig! The honour now, and the safety, is to Poverty, not to
Wealth. Your Citizen, who would be fashionable, walks abroad, with
his Wife on his arm, in red wool nightcap, black shag spencer, and
carmagnole complete. Aristocratism crouches low, in what shelter is
still left; submitting to all requisitions, vexations; too happy
to escape with life. Ghastly chateaus stare on you by the wayside;
disroofed, diswindowed; which the National House-broker is peeling for
the lead and ashlar. The old tenants hover disconsolate, over the Rhine
with Conde; a spectacle to men. Ci-devant Seigneur, exquisite in palate,
will become an exquisite Restaurateur Cook in Hamburg; Ci-devant Madame,
exquisite in dress, a successful Marchande des Modes in London. In
Newgate-Street, you meet M. le Marquis, with a rough deal on his
shoulder, adze and jack-plane under arm; he has taken to the joiner
trade; it being necessary to live (faut vivre). (See Deux Amis, xv.
189-192; Memoires de Genlis; Founders of the French Republic,
&c. &c.)--Higher than all Frenchmen the domestic Stock-jobber
flourishes,--in a day of Paper-money. The Farmer also flourishes:
'Farmers' houses,' says Mercier, 'have become like Pawn-brokers' shops;'
all manner of furniture, apparel, vessels of gold and silver accumulate
themselves there: bread is precious. The Farmer's rent is Paper-money,
and he alone of men has bread: Farmer is better than Landlord, and will
himself become Landlord.

And daily, we say, like a black Spectre, silently through that
Life-tumult, passes the Revolution Cart; writing on the walls its MENE,
MENE, Thou art weighed, and found wanting! A Spectre with which one has
grown familiar. Men have adjusted themselves: complaint issues not from
that Death-tumbril. Weak women and ci-devants, their plumage and finery
all tarnished, sit there; with a silent gaze, as if looking into the
Infinite Black. The once light lip wears a curl of irony, uttering no
word; and the Tumbril fares along. T