s feasible, it is
eminently needful: be it once well executed, great deliverance is
wrought. Silent, then, and steady; now or never!--the World shall see
one other Historical Scene; and so singular a man as Lomenie de Brienne
still the Stage-manager there.

Behold, accordingly, a Home-Secretary Breteuil 'beautifying Paris,' in
the peaceablest manner, in this hopeful spring weather of 1788; the old
hovels and hutches disappearing from our Bridges: as if for the
State too there were halcyon weather, and nothing to do but beautify.
Parlement seems to sit acknowledged victor. Brienne says nothing of
Finance; or even says, and prints, that it is all well. How is this;
such halcyon quiet; though the Successive Loan did not fill? In a
victorious Parlement, Counsellor Goeslard de Monsabert even denounces
that 'levying of the Second Twentieth on strict valuation;' and gets
decree that the valuation shall not be strict,--not on the privileged
classes. Nevertheless Brienne endures it, launches no Lettre-de-Cachet
against it. How is this?

Smiling is such vernal weather; but treacherous, sudden! For one thing,
we hear it whispered, 'the Intendants of Provinces 'have all got order
to be at their posts on a certain day.' Still more singular, what
incessant Printing is this that goes on at the King's Chateau, under
lock and key? Sentries occupy all gates and windows; the Printers come
not out; they sleep in their workrooms; their very food is handed in
to them! (Weber, i. 276.) A victorious Parlement smells new danger.
D'Espremenil has ordered horses to Versailles; prowls round that guarded
Printing-Office; prying, snuffing, if so be the sagacity and ingenuity
of man may penetrate it.

To a shower of gold most things are penetrable. D'Espremenil descends on
the lap of a Printer's Danae, in the shape of 'five hundred louis d'or:'
the Danae's Husband smuggles a ball of clay to her; which she delivers
to the golden Counsellor of Parlement. Kneaded within it, their
stick printed proof-sheets;--by Heaven! the royal Edict of that same
self-registering Plenary Court; of those Grand Bailliages that shall cut
short our Lawsuits! It is to be promulgated over all France on one and
the same day.

This, then, is what the Intendants were bid wait for at their posts:
this is what the Court sat hatching, as its accursed cockatrice-egg; and
would not stir, though provoked, till the brood were out! Hie with it,
D'Espremenil, home to Paris; convoke