Procureurs, Basoche-Clerks, Nondescripts, and
Anglomaniac Noblesse; ever new idlers crowd to see and hear; Rascality,
with increasing numbers and vigour, hunts mouchards. Loud whirlpool
rolls through these spaces; the rest of the City, fixed to its work,
cannot yet go rolling. Audacious placards are legible, in and about
the Palais, the speeches are as good as seditious. Surely the temper
of Paris is much changed. On the third day of this business (18th of
August), Monsieur and Monseigneur d'Artois, coming in state-carriages,
according to use and wont, to have these late obnoxious Arretes and
protests 'expunged' from the Records, are received in the most marked
manner. Monsieur, who is thought to be in opposition, is met with vivats
and strewed flowers; Monseigneur, on the other hand, with silence; with
murmurs, which rise to hisses and groans; nay, an irreverent Rascality
presses towards him in floods, with such hissing vehemence, that
the Captain of the Guards has to give order, "Haut les armes (Handle
arms)!"--at which thunder-word, indeed, and the flash of the clear
iron, the Rascal-flood recoils, through all avenues, fast enough.
(Montgaillard, i. 369. Besenval, &c.) New features these. Indeed, as
good M. de Malesherbes pertinently remarks, "it is a quite new kind
of contest this with the Parlement:" no transitory sputter, as from
collision of hard bodies; but more like "the first sparks of what, if
not quenched, may become a great conflagration." (Montgaillard, i. 373.)

This good Malesherbes sees himself now again in the King's Council,
after an absence of ten years: Lomenie would profit if not by the
faculties of the man, yet by the name he has. As for the man's opinion,
it is not listened to;--wherefore he will soon withdraw, a second time;
back to his books and his trees. In such King's Council what can a good
man profit? Turgot tries it not a second time: Turgot has quitted France
and this Earth, some years ago; and now cares for none of these things.
Singular enough: Turgot, this same Lomenie, and the Abbe Morellet were
once a trio of young friends; fellow-scholars in the Sorbonne. Forty new
years have carried them severally thus far.

Meanwhile the Parlement sits daily at Troyes, calling cases; and daily
adjourns, no Procureur making his appearance to plead. Troyes is as
hospitable as could be looked for: nevertheless one has comparatively
a dull life. No crowds now to carry you, shoulder-high, to the immo