Literature, concealed from without these meetings as the madness of the first Brutus concealed his vengeance.

The duke was not, perhaps, a conspirator, but henceforth there was an Orleans party.
Sieyes, the mystic oracle of the Revolution, who seemed to carry it on his pensive front, and brood over it in silence; the Duc de Lauzun, passing from the confidence of Trianon to the consultations of the Palais Royal; Laclos, a young officer of artillery, author of an obscene romance, capable at need of elevating romantic intrigue to a political conspiracy; Sillery, soured against his order, at enmity with the court, an ambitious malcontent, awaiting nothing but what the future might bring forth; and others more obscure, but not less active, and serving as unknown guides for descending from the _salons_ of a prince into the depths of the people: some the head, others the arms, of the duke's ambition, attended these meetings.

Perhaps they might be ignorant of the aim, but they placed themselves on the declivity, and allowed Fortune to do as she pleased.

Fortune was a revolution.

The wonderful, that marvel of the masses, which is to the imagination what calculation is to reason, was not wanting to the Orleans party.