the queen. They had at first
manifested some reluctance to accepting these royal hospitalities; the
last time they had been to Versailles on a similar mission, some
evilly-disposed person had inserted in the tarts and pates some
indigestible substances "and dishonest things." The lieutenant of
police, however, assured them that this time nothing of the kind would
occur, and they were, in fact, treated sumptuously.

But, "the _emeute_ had established itself permanently in Paris, and its
effects were disastrous. This condition of intermittent political fever
which threatened to become continuous, paralyzed business, ruined
commerce, and filled all minds with keen anxiety." "The people became
accustomed to substituting sudden overturnings for the regular action of
institutions," says another historian, "...a habit which has cost us
twenty revolutions in eighty years. England has proceeded differently.
Since 1688, she has had, instead of bloody revolutions, only changes in
the ministry;--everyone, high as well as low, has, with her, manifested
respect for the law, and everything has been left to free
discussion,--force is never used." And a later student of the _Mouvement
Social_, M. Jules Roche, quoted in the issue of _La Reforme Sociale_ for
May 16, 1898: "Every country well governed develops from an economical,
industrial, commercial, financial, and political point of view. All
those projects necessary to the grandeur and the prosperity of the
nation are conceived, decided upon, carried out. At this time, France,
so munificently endowed, enriched by all the favors of nature, inhabited
by the race the most intelligent, the richest in resources of the mind
and the imagination, is delivered over to hazards the most unforeseen
and the most dangerous. No one knows in the evening what will happen the
next morning, nor in the morning how the day will finish. There is no
doctrine, no method whatever, in the direction of public affairs. A
Chamber possessed by the electoral epilepsy; charlatans without shame
abandoning themselves before the electors to every contortion, to the
grossest declamations, to the most shameful manoeuvres, in order to
lead public opinion still further astray, instead of enlightening
it,--this is the spectacle she presents to the universe. And there is no
one to speak out aloud, frankly, and clearly! Silence, envy, cowardice,
imbecility, where there should be courage, living reason, and action!"
It might b