Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/175

Rh made them resemble the dog who dropped the meat for the shadow.

Some of them were credulous enough to imagine that if a Revolution did come, it could be stopped at exactly the right point to suit their personal interests.

The Due d'Orléans and his friends thought that the Revolution would turn out to their advantage by causing a change in the dynasty, but they could not foresee that, if the King came to the scaffold, they also would go there, either before him, with him, or after him.

The Parliaments thought themselves sure of the good opinion of the people because they had refused to support the stamp act and the land tax, and because they had demanded " States General."

The moneyed classes of Paris were in favour of the Revolution ever since M. Vernier had told them that the Nation would take the public debt under its special care;—they were painfully undeceived when the same man said two years later that he would make two-thirds of them bankrupt.

The only persons who were not under