galleys, and even to death. Under such a system, under which an
intendant must have felt it his interest to pretend at all risks, that
all was going right, and to regard any disturbance as a dangerous
exposure of himself and his chiefs--one can understand easily enough that
scene which Mr. Carlyle has dramatised from Lacretelle, concerning the
canaille, the masses, as we used to call them a generation since:

"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 mankind, 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
broad. And so, on the 2nd day of May, 1775, these waste multitudes do
here, at Versailles chateau, in widespread wretchedness, in sallow faces,
squalor, winged raggedness, present as in legible hieroglyphic writing
their petition of grievances. The chateau-gates must 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. In answer, two of them are hanged, on a new gallows forty feet high,
and the rest driven back to their dens for a time."

Of course. What more exasperating and inexpiable insult to the ruling
powers was possible than this? To persist in being needy and wretched,
when a whole bureaucracy is toiling day and night to make them prosperous
and happy? An insult only to be avenged in blood. Remark meanwhile,
that this centralised bureaucracy was a failure; that after all the
trouble taken to govern these masses, they were not governed, in the
sense of being made better, and not worse. The truth is, that no