Yet both were shaken, though rooted by centuries to the soil; and by
no vulgar earthquake. 

For years France had bowed in silence beneath two galling burdens--a
selfish and corrupt monarchy, and a multitudinous, privileged, lazy,
and oppressive aristocracy, by whom the peasant was handled like a
Russian serf.  [Said peasant is now the principal proprietor of the
soil.] 

The lower orders rose upon their oppressors, and soon showed
themselves far blacker specimens of the same breed.  Law, religion,
humanity, and common sense, hid their faces; innocent blood flowed
in a stream, and terror reigned.  To Monsieur de Beaurepaire these
republicans--murderers of women, children, and kings--seemed the
most horrible monsters nature had ever produced; he put on black,
and retired from society; he felled timber, and raised large sums of
money upon his estate.  And one day he mounted his charger, and
disappeared from the chateau. 

Three months after this, a cavalier, dusty and pale, rode into the