Man's hand, in this blind pain, is set against man: not only the low against the higher, but the higher against each other; Provincial Noblesse is bitter against Court Noblesse; Robe against Sword; Rochet against Pen.

But against the King's Government who is not bitter?
Not even Besenval, in these days.

To it all men and bodies of men are become as enemies; it is the centre whereon infinite contentions unite and clash.

What new universal vertiginous movement is this; of Institution, social Arrangements, individual Minds, which once worked cooperative; now rolling and grinding in distracted collision?
Inevitable: it is the breaking-up of a World-Solecism, worn out at last, down even to bankruptcy of money! And so this poor Versailles Court, as the chief or central Solecism, finds all the other Solecisms arrayed against it.

Most natural! For your human Solecism, be it Person or Combination of Persons, is ever, by law of Nature, uneasy; if verging towards bankruptcy, it is even miserable:--and when would the meanest Solecism consent to blame or amend itself, while there remained another to amend?
These threatening signs do not terrify Lomenie, much less teach him.
Lomenie, though of light nature, is not without courage, of a sort.