contrary, she felt the strongest love and commiseration for them. The reasons on which he bases this assertion are, her speaking rather contemptuously of shop-keepers and her aversion to taking a husband from that class in marriage. The reasons which she herself gives for her dislike show that it arose from a strong democratic feeling, as will be seen in a subsequent chapter. Certain it is that henceforth she begins to be more and more preoccupied with the social condition of men, for, in one of her letters to Sophie, she says that, in her eyes, the first and most beautiful of all the virtues is the care for the common weal, the love of the unfortunate, and the desire to help them.
And already there were many signs and portents of the coming events. Like that little cloud which, no bigger than a man's hand, in a seemingly windless sky, is seen weirdly flying across the heavens, and known by mariners to forebode the gathering of the hurricane, there were sudden outbreaks and bread-riots, from which those who can read signs augured the brewing tempest.
In 1775 Marie alludes to a popular agitation which breaks out, now in one spot and now in another, owing to the scarcity of provisions. In the May of that year, she wrote that, in spite of certain edicts of the Ministry with regard to importation of grain from abroad, high prices have ruled in the markets, and that the people, spurred on by want, have raised loud outcries, in some instances forcing the shop-keepers to sell their provisions at a lower price, or else plundering their premises. Crowd after crowd assembled before the bakers' shops, and the wisest closed their shutters and threw the loaves out of window. She draws a most moving
