utality as relentless and destructive as the cyclone.

The social sewer or cellar of Paris at this time presented as
interesting and suggestive a study as the toiling world above. Here
were thousands of human beings dwelling in the atmosphere of crime and
brutality, hungry, cold, and well-nigh hopelessly vicious by virtue of
want, association, and environment, and ready for, if not eagerly
anticipating any social upheaval which would afford them an
opportunity to plunder and pillage. This world presented then, as it
ever must, the saddest and most hopeless spectacle in the kaleidoscope
of life. There were scores of thousands in this social sewer and new
recruits coming daily. The avarice and extravagance of the Court
pressed upon the great stratum of middle life, which in time bore down
upon the lower sphere with crushing weight, while many of its numbers,
weary of the eternal struggle, relaxed their hold on respectability
and fell into the pit of crime and moral death. The inhabitants of
this realm presented a picture of ferocity and despair, which must
necessarily prove a frightful element in a revolution. The social
cellar was only waiting for the signal when its hideous throat would
belch forth death as surely as cannon or mortar ever hurled the
life-destroying bomb. Such was life in France in the world of the
wealthy and the world of want; while Louis drank Dubarry's health;
while Marie Antoinette longed for her childhood home, and the Dauphin
busied himself with geography, lock-making, and clock-repairing.

When Louis XV. died the scum had so thoroughly poisoned the great
current of life in France that it is probable that even had there been
far wiser heads at the helm of State than Louis XVI. and his
councillor they would have found it difficult, if not impossible, to
prevent a bloody reckoning, for the love of peace and reverence for
justice, the cool judgment and mature wisdom which swayed the popular
mind at an early day was well-nigh drowned in the rising tide of angry
discontent and intense hate. A settled conviction pervaded the soul of
the masses that the hour had come when might should make right the
age-long wrongs of the people; and when an idea of this character
possesses the rank and file of a nation it is almost impossible even
by a liberal policy to avert a bloody issue.

I have dwelt upon this striking passage of history because it bristles
with suggestive lessons and warning notes to the great R