text:  To one born like myself in the most aristocratic system of society on earth yet excluded from its advantages by the mere chance of birth it was new and undoubtedly not displeasing to see the pride of nobility tamed by the new rush of talent and ambition which had started up from obscurity in France; village attorneys and physicians clerks in offices journalists men from the plough and the pen supplying the places of the noblesse of Clovis and Capet possessing themselves of the highest power while their predecessors were flying through Europe; conducting negotiations commanding armies ruling assemblies holding the helm of government in the storm which had scattered the great names of France upon the waters