ned monarchical, but manners and customs became
republican. A word of praise from d'Alembert or Diderot was more
esteemed than the most marked favor from a prince. . . It was impossible
to pass an evening with d'Alembert, or at the Hotel de Larochefoucauld
among the friends of Turgot, to attend a breakfast at the Abbe Raynal's,
to be admitted into the society and family of M. de Malesherbes, and
lastly, to approach a most amiable queen and a most upright king,
without believing ourselves about to enter upon a kind of golden era of
which preceding centuries afforded no idea. . . . We were bewildered
by the prismatic hues of fresh ideas and doctrines, radiant with hopes,
ardently aglow for every sort of reputation, enthusiastic for all
talents and beguiled by every seductive dream of a philosophy that was
about to secure the happiness of the human species. Far from foreseeing
misfortune, excess, crime, the overthrow of thrones and of principles,
the future disclosed to us only the benefits which humanity was
to derive from the sovereignty of Reason. Freedom of the press and
circulation was given to every reformative writing, to every project
of innovation, to the most liberal ideas and to the boldest of systems.
Everybody thought himself on the road to perfection without being under
any embarrassment or fearing any kind of obstacle. We were proud of
being Frenchmen and, yet again, Frenchmen of the eighteenth century
. . . . Never was a more terrible awakening preceded by a sweeter
slumber or by more seductive dreams."

They do not content themselves with dreams, with pure desires, with
passive aspirations. They are active, and truly generous; a worthy
cause suffices to secure their devotion. On the news of the American
rebellion, the Marquis de Lafayette, leaving his young wife pregnant,
escapes, braves the orders of the court, purchases a frigate, crosses
the ocean and fights by the side of Washington. "The moment the quarrel
was made known to me," he says, "my heart was enlisted in it, and my
only thought was to rejoin my regiment." Numbers of gentlemen follow in
his footsteps. They undoubtedly love danger; "the chance of being
shot is too precious to be neglected."[4251] But the main thing is to
emancipate the oppressed; "we showed ourselves philosophers by becoming
paladins,"[4252] the chivalric sentiment enlisting in the service
of liberty. Other services besides these, more sedentary and less
brilliant, find no fewe