These attempts at reaction in the midst of the onward rush of the age found an echo in the religious coteries; and the greater nobility, generally speaking, upbraided those of its members who had allowed themselves to be fascinated by the seductions of the new philosophy. In the conservative salons, the king and queen were overwhelmed with maledictions and sarcasm when they seemed inclined to abandon the theory of the royal good pleasure. The aristocrats clung to that theory, they believed that everything was safe when they added a stone to the powerless dam erected to stem the revolutionary spirit, and yet no one suspected the swift motion of the flood nor the imminence of the inundation. Everything was translated into bitter satire, ballads and caricatures. They pretended to despise the
