. Untaught, uncomforted, unfed!
A dumb generation; their voice only an inarticulate cry: spokesman,
in the King's Council, in the world's forum, they have none that finds
credence. At rare intervals (as now, in 1775), they will fling down
their hoes and hammers; and, to the astonishment of thinking mankind,
(Lacretelle, France pendant le 18me Siecle, ii. 455. Biographie
Universelle, para Turgot (by Durozoir).) flock hither and thither,
dangerous, aimless; get the length even of Versailles. Turgot is
altering the Corn-trade, abrogating the absurdest Corn-laws; there is
dearth, real, or were it even 'factitious;' an indubitable scarcity of
bread. And so, on the second day of May 1775, these waste multitudes
do here, at Versailles Chateau, in wide-spread wretchedness, in sallow
faces, squalor, winged raggedness, present, as in legible hieroglyphic
writing, their Petition of Grievances. The Chateau gates have to be
shut; but the King will appear on the balcony, and speak to them. They
have seen the King's face; their Petition of Grievances has been, if not
read, looked at. For answer, two of them are hanged, 'on a new gallows
forty feet high;' and the rest driven back to their dens,--for a time.

Clearly a difficult 'point' for Government, that of dealing with these
masses;--if indeed it be not rather the sole point and problem
of Government, and all other points mere accidental crotchets,
superficialities, and beatings of the wind! For let Charter-Chests, Use
and Wont, Law common and special say what they will, the masses count to
so many millions of units; made, to all appearance, by God,--whose Earth
this is declared to be. Besides, the people are not without ferocity;
they have sinews and indignation. Do but look what holiday old Marquis
Mirabeau, the crabbed old friend of Men, looked on, in these same years,
from his lodging, at the Baths of Mont d'Or: 'The savages descending
in torrents from the mountains; our people ordered not to go out. The
Curate in surplice and stole; Justice in its peruke; Marechausee sabre
in hand, guarding the place, till the bagpipes can begin. The dance
interrupted, in a quarter of an hour, by battle; the cries, the
squealings of children, of infirm persons, and other assistants, tarring
them on, as the rabble does when dogs fight: frightful men, or rather
frightful wild animals, clad in jupes of coarse woollen, with large
girdles of leather studded with copper nails; of gigantic stature,
he