aster, or are we governed by a
limited and regulated power?. . . The exiled parliaments are studying
public rights at their sources and conferring together on these as in
the academies. Through their researches, the opinion is gaining ground
in the public mind that the nation is above the king, as the universal
church is above the pope."--The change is striking and almost immediate.
"Fifty years ago," says d'Argenson, again, "the public showed no
curiosity concerning matters of the State. Today everybody reads his
Gazette de Paris, even in the provinces. People reason at random
on political subjects, but nevertheless they occupy themselves with
them."--Conversation having once provided itself with this diet holds
fast to it, the drawing-rooms, accordingly, opening their doors to
political philosophy, and, consequently, to the Social Contract, to the
Encyclopedia, to the preachings of Rousseau, Mably, d'Holbach, Raynal,
and Diderot. In 1759, d'Argenson, who becomes excited, already
thinks the last hour has come. "We feel the breath of a philosophical
anti-monarchical, free government wind; the idea is current, and
possibly this form of government, already in some minds, is to be
carried out the first favorable opportunity. Perhaps the revolution
might take place with less opposition than one supposes, occurring by
acclamation.[4236]

The time is not yet come, but the seed is coming up. Bachaumont, in
1762, notices a deluge of pamphlets, tracts and political discussions,
"a rage for arguing on financial and government matters." In 1765,
Walpole states that the atheists, who then monopolize conversation,
inveigh against kings as well as against priests. A formidable word,
that of citizen, imported by Rousseau, has entered into common speech,
and the matter is settled on the women adopting it as they would a
cockade. "As a friend and a citoyenne could any news be more agreeable
to me than that of peace and the health of my dear little one?"[4237]
Another word, not less significant, that of energy, formerly ridiculous,
becomes fashionable, and is used on every occasion[4238]. Along with
language there is a change of sentiment, ladies of high rank passing
over to the opposition. In 1771, says the scoffer Bezenval, after the
exile of the Parliament "social meetings for pleasure or other purposes
had become petty States-Generals in which the women, transformed into
legislators, established the premises and confidently propounde