The
French people seem sunk in apathy and to wish for peace at any rate;
nothing but the most extreme provocation will induce them to take up arms;
but then, if they once do so, woe to the _Chambre Introuvable_, as the
present Chamber of Deputies is called; certainly such a set of venal,
merciless and ignorant bigots and blockheads never were collected in any
assembly. There have occurred several scandalous scenes at Nimes and other
places. The Protestants are openly insulted and threatened, and the
government is either too weak to prevent it, or, as is supposed, secretly
encourages those excesses. In fact in Paris there are two polices; the one,
that of the Government, the other, and by far the most troublesome, that of
_Monsieur_[65] and the violent Ultra party, or as they are collectively
called the _Pavilion Marsan_.[66] The priests are at work everywhere
trumping up old legends, forging communications from the Holy Ghost,
receiving letters dropped from heaven by Jesus Christ, and all this is done
with the idea of working on fanatical minds, to induce them to commit acts
of outrage and violence on those whom the priests designate as enemies to
the faith, and on weak ones, with the idea of frightening them into
restoring the lands and property which they have purchased or inherited and
which formerly belonged to emigrants or to the Church.
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