nd inkhorn, do divide it: and even more
hatefully these latter, if more peaceably; for the wig-method is at once
irresistibler and baser. By long experience, says Besenval, it has been
found useless to sue a Parlementeer at law; no Officer of Justice will
serve a writ on one; his wig and gown are his Vulcan's-panoply, his
enchanted cloak-of-darkness.

The Parlement of Paris may count itself an unloved body; mean, not
magnanimous, on the political side. Were the King weak, always (as now)
has his Parlement barked, cur-like at his heels; with what popular cry
there might be. Were he strong, it barked before his face; hunting for
him as his alert beagle. An unjust Body; where foul influences have more
than once worked shameful perversion of judgment. Does not, in these
very days, the blood of murdered Lally cry aloud for vengeance? Baited,
circumvented, driven mad like the snared lion, Valour had to sink
extinguished under vindictive Chicane. Behold him, that hapless Lally,
his wild dark soul looking through his wild dark face; trailed on the
ignominious death-hurdle; the voice of his despair choked by a wooden
gag! The wild fire-soul that has known only peril and toil; and, for
threescore years, has buffeted against Fate's obstruction and men's
perfidy, like genius and courage amid poltroonery, dishonesty and
commonplace; faithfully enduring and endeavouring,--O Parlement of
Paris, dost thou reward it with a gibbet and a gag? (9th May, 1766:
Biographie Universelle, para Lally.) The dying Lally bequeathed his
memory to his boy; a young Lally has arisen, demanding redress in the
name of God and man. The Parlement of Paris does its utmost to defend
the indefensible, abominable; nay, what is singular, dusky-glowing
Aristogiton d'Espremenil is the man chosen to be its spokesman in that.

Such Social Anomaly is it that France now blesses. An unclean Social
Anomaly; but in duel against another worse! The exiled Parlement is felt
to have 'covered itself with glory.' There are quarrels in which even
Satan, bringing help, were not unwelcome; even Satan, fighting stiffly,
might cover himself with glory,--of a temporary sort.

But what a stir in the outer courts of the Palais, when Paris finds its
Parlement trundled off to Troyes in Champagne; and nothing left but a
few mute Keepers of records; the Demosthenic thunder become extinct, the
martyrs of liberty clean gone! Confused wail and menace rises from the
four thousand throats of