griff of a Democracy;
which, spurning the firm earth, nay lashing at the very stars, no yet
known Astolpho could have ridden!

In the Commons Deputies there are Merchants, Artists, Men of Letters;
three hundred and seventy-four Lawyers; (Bouille, Memoires sur la
Revolution Francaise (London, 1797), i. 68.) and at least one Clergyman:
the Abbe Sieyes. Him also Paris sends, among its twenty. Behold him,
the light thin man; cold, but elastic, wiry; instinct with the pride of
Logic; passionless, or with but one passion, that of self-conceit.
If indeed that can be called a passion, which, in its independent
concentrated greatness, seems to have soared into transcendentalism;
and to sit there with a kind of godlike indifference, and look down
on passion! He is the man, and wisdom shall die with him. This is the
Sieyes who shall be System-builder, Constitution-builder General;
and build Constitutions (as many as wanted) skyhigh,--which shall all
unfortunately fall before he get the scaffolding away. "La Politique,"
said he to Dumont, "Polity is a science I think I have completed
(achevee)." (Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. 64.) What things, O
Sieyes, with thy clear assiduous eyes, art thou to see! But were it
not curious to know how Sieyes, now in these days (for he is said to be
still alive) (A.D. 1834.) looks out on all that Constitution masonry,
through the rheumy soberness of extreme age? Might we hope, still with
the old irrefragable transcendentalism? The victorious cause pleased the
gods, the vanquished one pleased Sieyes (victa Catoni).

Thus, however, amid skyrending vivats, and blessings from every heart,
has the Procession of the Commons Deputies rolled by.

Next follow the Noblesse, and next the Clergy; concerning both of whom
it might be asked, What they specially have come for? Specially, little
as they dream of it, to answer this question, put in a voice of thunder:
What are you doing in God's fair Earth and Task-garden; where whosoever
is not working is begging or stealing? Wo, wo to themselves and to all,
if they can only answer: Collecting tithes, Preserving game!--Remark,
meanwhile, how D'Orleans affects to step before his own Order, and
mingle with the Commons. For him are vivats: few for the rest, though
all wave in plumed 'hats of a feudal cut,' and have sword on
thigh; though among them is D'Antraigues, the young Languedocian
gentleman,--and indeed many a Peer more or less noteworthy.

There are L