xtinguisher, which is true of every species of dress,
and of the gown in particular. "When I entered society, in 1785," writes
a parliamentarian, "I found myself introduced in a certain way, alike to
the wives and the mistresses of the friends of my family, passing Monday
evening with one, and Tuesday evening with the other. And I was only
eighteen, and I belonged to a family of magistrates."[2263] At Basville,
at the residence of M. de Lamoignon, during the autumnal vacation and
the Whitsuntide holidays, there are thirty persons at the table
daily; there are three or four hunts a week, and the most prominent
magistrates, M. de Lamoignon, M. Pasquier, M. de Rosambo, M. and Mme.
d'Aguesseau, perform the "Barber of Seville" in the chateau theater.

As for the cassock, it enjoys the same freedom as the robe. At Saverne,
at Clairvaux, at Le Mans and at other places, the prelates wear it as
freely as a court dress. The revolutionary upheaval was necessary
to make it a fixture on their bodies, and, afterwards, the hostile
supervision of an organized party and the fear of constant danger. Up to
1789 the sky is too serene and the atmosphere too balmy to lead them to
button it up to the neck. "Freedom, facilities, Monsieur l'Abbe," said
the Cardinal de Rohan to his secretary, "without these this life would
be a desert."[2264] This is what the good cardinal took care to avoid;
on the contrary he had made Saverne an enchanting world according to
Watteau, almost "a landing-place for Cythera." Six hundred peasants and
keepers, ranged in a line a league long, form in the morning and beat
up the surrounding country, while hunters, men and women, are posted at
their stations. "For fear that the ladies might be frightened if left
alone by themselves, the man whom they hated least was always left with
them to make them feel at ease," and as nobody was allowed to leave his
post before the signal "it was impossible to be surprised."--About one
p.m. "the company gathered under a beautiful tent, on the bank of a
stream or in some delightful place, where an exquisite dinner was served
up, and, as everybody had to be made happy, each peasant received a
pound of meat, two of bread and half a bottle of wine, they, as well as
the ladies, only asking to begin it all over again." The accommodating
prelate might certainly have replied to scrupulous people along with
Voltaire, that "nothing wrong can happen in good society." In fact, so
he did and in