mily were
but little mentioned, or mentioned only with a certain kind of sacred
respect. Their misfortunes prohibited the slightest severity of
language. Yet still it was not difficult to see, that those
straightforward and honest lords of the soil, who were yet to prove
themselves the true chevaliers of France, could feel as acutely, and
express as strongly, the injuries inflicted by the absurdities and
vices of the successive administrations of their reign, as if they had
figured in the clubs of the capital. But the profligacies of the
preceding monarch, and the tribe of fools and knaves whom those
profligacies as naturally gathered round him as the plague propagates
its own contagion, met with no mercy. And, though they were spoken of
with the gravity which became the character and rank of the speakers,
they were denounced with a sternness which seemed beyond the morals or
the mind of their country. Louis XV., Du Barri, and the whole long
succession of corrupting and corrupted cabinets, which had at length
rendered the monarchy odious, were denounced in terms worthy of
gallant men; who, though resolved to sink or swim with the throne,
experienced all the bitterness of generous indignation at the crimes
which had raised the storm.

We had our songs too, and some of them were as contemptuous as ever
came from the pen of Parisian satire. Among my recollections of the
night was one of those songs, of which the _refrain_ was--

"Le Bien-Aime--_de l'Almanac_."

A burlesque on the title--Le Bien-Aime, &c., which the court calendar,
and the court calendar _alone_, had annually given to the late king. I
can offer only a paraphrase.

"Louis Quinze, our burning shame,
Hear our song, 'old well-beloved,'
What if courts and camps are tame,
Pension'd beggars laced and gloved,
France's love grows rather slack,
Idol of--the Almanac.

"Let your flatterers hang or drown,
We are of another school,
Truth no more shall be put down,
We can call a fool a fool,
Fearless of Bastile or rack,
Titus of--the Almanac.

"Louis, trample on your serfs,
We'll be trampled on no more,
Revel in your _parc aux cerfs_,[27]
Eat and drink--'twill soon be o'er.
France will steer another tack,
Solon of--the Almanac!

"Hear your praises from your pages,
Hear them from your liveried lords,
Let your valets earn their wages,
Liars, livi