Yes, people complain, grow angry, suffer, but they are not bored. How
many incidents, episodes, emotions, there are in this strange
tragi-comedy! Everywhere there is something to be seen; in the
Assembly, the clubs, the public places, the promenades, streets, cafes,
and theatres. Brawls and discussions are heard on every side. If by
chance a salon is still open, disputes go on there as they would at a
club. What quarrels take place in the cafes! Men stand on chairs and
tables to spout. And what dissensions in the theatres! The actors
meddle with politics as well as the spectators. In the greenroom of
the _Comedie-Francaise_ there is a right side, whose chief is the
royalist Naudet, and a left side led by the republican Talma. Neither
actor goes out except well armed. There are pistols {11} underneath
their togas. The kings of tragedy, threatened by their political
adversaries, have real poniards wherewith to defend themselves. _Les
Horaces, Brutus, La Mort de Cesar, Barnevelt, Guillaume Tell, Charles
IX._, are plays containing in each tirade allusions which inflame the
boxes and the pit. The theatre is a tilting-ground. If the royalists
are there in force, they cause the orchestra to play their favorite
airs: _Charmante Gabrielle, Vive Henri Quatre! O! Richard, O! mon
roi!_ The revolutionists protest, and sing their own chosen melody,
the _Ca ira_. Sometimes they come to blows, swords are drawn, and, the
play over, elegant women are dragged through the gutters. There is a
general outbreak of insults and violence. The journals play the chief
part in this universal madness. Sometimes the press is eloquent, but
it is oftener ribald or atrocious. To borrow an expression from
Montaigne, "it lowers itself even to the worthless esteem of extreme
inferiority." The beautiful French tongue, once so correct and pure,
is no longer recognizable. Vulgar words fall thick as hail. To the
language of the Academy has succeeded the jargon of the markets.

What a swarm! what a swirl! How noisy, how restless, is this
revolutionary Paris! What excited crowds fill the clubs, the Assembly,
the Palais Royal, the gambling-houses, and the tumultuous faubourgs!
Riotous gatherings, popular deputations, detachments of cavalry,
companies of {12} foot-soldiers; gentlemen in French coats, powdered
hair, swords at their sides, hats under their arms, silk stockings and
low shoes; democrats close-cropped and unpowdered, with