religious freedom. In 1598, Henry IV. had conceded toleration to Protestants by the famed Edict of Nantes; but this wise and generous decree was revoked by Louis XIV. in 1685, by which the exercise of Protestant worship was proscribed, and many thousands of respectable families driven into exile. Freedom of discussion was unknown. Personal liberty had no guarantee in law. By an arbitrary act of authority, any one could be seized and kept in prison for any length of time without trial. Torture and breaking on the wheel formed part of the judicial system. In the towns there were trade corporations; but being accessible only to those who could purchase their immunities, they were, like all monopolies, injurious to the community at large. All the burdens of the state fell on the industrious and productive classes. The nobility, a very numerous body, were exempt from taxation, and the clergy had the privilege of contributing only a small fraction. The most oppressive mode of collecting the taxes prevailed, as they were farmed by contractors, who were most rigorous in their exactions. These were called farmersgeneral, and were naturally objects of public detestation. Twothirds of the whole land of the country were in possession of the nobility and clergy, who, not content with their fiscal exemption, imposed upon the cultivators feudal duties and services alike oppressive and scandalous. The right of killing game was reserved for the landlords; and tenants were forbidden, by special edicts, to till their ground, reap their crops, or cut their grass, if the preservation of the young broods might be thereby endangered. Manorial courts were scattered through the land, to take summary vengeance on delinquents in any of these particulars. In fact, the people in the rural districts were, to a certain extent, in a state of serfdomcontinually exposed to galling and degrading oppression. One of the greatest vexations to which the peasantry were exposed was the corvée, a hateful obligation to labour on the roads for a certain time every year without payment. Wrongs such as this sank deeply into the minds of the sufferers.

While dissent from the state-religion was proscribed, there was, strangely enough, a perfect license in bringing religion itself into ridicule. The writings of several men of genius, particularly of Voltaire and Rousseau, tended to loosen all moral and religious restraints, and to prepare the minds of the people for overthrowing not only the whole ecclesiastical fabric, but to uproot the very foundations of Christianity. Besides these causes, there were others which fostered a spirit of revolution. The court of Louis XV. had been so disgracefully licentious and frivolous as to undermine any respect for royalty. The chief accomplishment of Louis XV., as we learn from contemporary memoirs, consisted in the petty art of dexterously cutting off the top of an egg. Breakfasting in public, crowds went to see his wonderful performances. When, by a quick evolution of his knife, the top of an egg was suddenly struck off, shouts of Vive le

Roi rewarded the singular adroitness. Following on the costly scandals of the court of Louis XV. came the war of American independence, into which Louis XVI. was rashly impelled, causing a heavy national outlay. In this war the youth of France imbibed the principles of republicanism, and an insatiable thirst for liberty. Several, including the Marquis de Lafayette, who had assisted the American colonists in the war against Great Britain, introduced anti-monarchical notions into France, without considering that what might suit the habits and feelings of an intelligent transatlantic community of Anglo-Saxon origin, was wholly at variance with a people unaccustomed to constitutional theories and usages, and among whom the barest elements of civil and religious liberty were wanting. Bad as things were, they might have drifted on for some time longer, but for a growing annual deficiency in the public revenue. In 1789, the expenditure amounted to about twenty-five million pounds sterling, while the revenue was only eighteen millions, leaving a deficiency of seven millions. Loans were resorted to, but these made matters worse. As the expenditure could bear no great reduction, the proper course was to increase the taxation. The whole deficiency could have been made up by subjecting the nobility and clergy to the ordinary taxation. To proposals of this kind these bodies offered the most determined opposition, and the king was powerless in bringing them to a sense of their obligations. Under a constitutional system, parliament overcomes all such difficulties; but in France, there was at this time no parliament of the nature of a general legislative body to appeal to. The provinces had what were called parliaments, which consisted of magistrates, most of whom being nobles had purchased the right of membership While the king could ordain taxes, it was the rule that they could not be imposed unless previously registered and sanctioned by these provincial bodies. By a stretch of authority, if the king appeared in person, and insisted on the registration of his edicts, it could not be withheld. No step of this extreme nature, however, could be carried out on a systematic plan; and practically, as it happened in 1789, the parliaments, taking the part of the nobility and clergy, successfully set the king and his ministers at defiance. National affairs had come to a dead lock. The drama now opens.

FIRST ACT.--THE REVOLUTION OF 1789.

In his unhappy perplexities, caused by the short-sighted obstinacy of the nobility and clergy, Louis XVI. had one resource left. It was to call together the States-General, or parliament for the whole kingdom; but it had been so long in abeyance, that nobody could exactly say how it should be constituted. Its last assembly had been in 1614. Necker, the minister of Finance, who had adopted the whimsical notions of human perfectibility put forth by the

philosophers, strongly recommended the assemblage of the StatesGeneral. After some hesitation, the king rendered himself popular by summoning this body to meet, which it did with great ceremony at Versailles, May 5, 1789—a date which marks the beginning of the revolution. The members were of three orders-nobles, clergy, and tiers état (third estate) or commoners. An unhappy thing occurred at the very outset. There was no prescribed method of conducting business. The nobles and clergy wished to sit separately, while the tiers état, who were the most numerous, insisted on the whole sitting together and giving a cumulative vote. Unable to overcome opposition, the tiers état, in a paroxysm of indignation, illegally declared themselves as constituting a National Assembly, and took an oath, June 22, that nothing should prevent their meetings until they had settled a new constitution for the country. This event having taken place in a large tennis-court, is ordinarily referred to as the oath of the Feu de paume. On the 27th June, the nobles and clergy, at the earnest solicitation of the king, united with the tiers état, a triumph which added fervour to the revolutionary mania. One cannot peruse the history of this extraordinary convulsion without feeling that, in its earlier stages, it could have been averted, or at least modified, by firm and vigorous measures on the part of the sovereign. Louis XVI. was amiable to a fault. He would have adorned a private station, but he had not the qualities requisite for a sovereign at a time when gentleness and timidity only provoked to renewed outrages. He was often told, if he would put himself at the head of his troops, all might yet be saved. His only answer was, that no blood should ever be shed by his orders. The mob consequently, from first to last, had its own way. In point of fact, as a supreme magistrate and guardian of public order, Louis XVI. is chargeable with having shrunk from doing his duty. There are, nevertheless, excuses to be offered in his behalf. The courtiers who surrounded him, as well as the army, were not altogether to be depended on. His ministers were either irresolute or affected with revolutionary principles. For every act of concession to popular demands he was applauded, and he was not without hope that, by temporising, all would yet come right. Nor should we omit the treachery of his relative, Philip, Duke of Orleans (great-grandson of the Regent), who secretly aimed at his dethronement, and at being appointed lieutenant-general of the kingdom; for which object he fomented intrigues and lavished immense sums on all who were disposed to further his criminal designs.

Terrified by the threats of insurrection, the king, by an unusual act of courage, drew around him at Versailles a tolerably strong military force by way of precaution. Necker, protesting violently against this measure, was dismissed. Forthwith, the inhabitants of Paris, moved by the municipality, prepared for resisting authority, and formed themselves into a national guard. So encouraged, an armed and ferocious

mob, after pillaging the Hôtel des Invalides, attacked and destroyed the Bastille, July 14;* its defenders being massacred, and the heads of its principal officers barbarously carried about on pikes. As the troops at Paris declined to act, these excesses met with no interruption. To appease the populace, the king made various concessions. Necker was recalled. All in vain. The atrocities committed in Paris were imitated all throughout France. Châteaux were sacked and burned, persons in different grades were murdered, and cruelties perpetrated of unexampled atrocity. Where were those who, from their position if not for their own sakes, should have now rallied round the throne? They either gave their adhesion to the revolution, and participated in its follies, or, with despicable cowardice, fled to England and Germany, and for long afterwards emigrant noblesse might have been seen depending on charity, or labouring at humble employments in London for their daily bread. The practice of running away on the occurrence of political commotions, which was now initiated, has continued till the present time to be a fatal and humiliating feature in the different French revolutions. On the breaking out of the civil war in England, the royalists rallied round Charles I., and fought the quarrel fairly out. In France, Louis XVI. was abandoned to his fate by nearly all who were bound in honour to stand by him; there being perhaps a shade of extenuation for them in the fact that Louis had not the fortitude of Charles, and that from this and other causes there was less likelihood of success in an armed resistance. The civil war in La Vendée, however, shewed what might have been done to retrieve the misfortunes of the monarchy, had anything like a general resistance been presented.†

Among the nobles who remained at their post in the Assembly were the Count de Noailles and the Duke d'Aguillon, who, though possessing extensive estates, proposed, August 14, the removal of fiscal exemptions from their order, along with the remission of sundry feudal claims. This example of liberality met with an extraordinary response. Carried away by a fit of enthusiasm, all the members of the aristocracy present, in frenzied eagerness, vied with each other to renounce their rights, and strip themselves of every privilege or distinction. As a sequel to this remarkable movement, an act was passed stripping the clergy entirely of their revenues. A solemn Te Deum was decreed, in acknowledgment of this wonderful concession to popular feeling. These rash proceedings served only to aggravate public disorder caused by a bad harvest and dearth of provisions. Trade languished; the humbler classes were suffering from a want of employment; Necker's schemes of financial regeneration completely failed; taxes could not be levied, and nobody would lend money to carry on the business of the state. National

* See History of the Bastille, No. 132 in present series.

+ See Larochejaquelin and the War in La Vendée, No. 12 in present series.

bankruptcy was imminent.

As usual in all cases of national misfortune in France, the blame was conveniently laid on the sovereign. The court was accused of extravagance, even while the king had given up his plate to help the public expenditure. At length, a debate which arose as to the king's right of veto led to a commotion as outrageous as any which had yet occurred. This was the marching of an infuriated mob from Paris to Versailles, October 6, and an attack on the royal family. Lafayette, who had the command of the troops, failed in protecting the palace from outrage. On the morning of the 8th, the mob burst in the doors, and seeking out the apartments of the queen, several murders were committed. Fortunately, by the interference of the gardes du corps, who appeased the insurgents, no personal violence was perpetrated on the royal family; but the cry 'To Paris!' arose, and the king and queen, with their children, were obliged to obey the command. With shouts and revolutionary songs, the mob escorted the royal family along the road to Paris, the savagery of the whole scene being aggravated by a party of ruffians carrying on pikes two heads of soldiers in the body-guard, killed at the assault on the palace. By a refinement of ferocity, the monsters stopped at Sèvres to cause a hairdresser to curl and powder the disordered locks of the two heads, which were borne aloft in front of the royal carriage.

Shortly after the court had been established at the Tuileries, the Assembly removed to Paris-a fatal move for the members, for they were now liable to be overawed by popular intimidation. The municipal commune, elected by the populace, and supported by the National Guards, assumed a dictatorial authority. It exerted a powerful influence over the Jacobin Club, and this unruly body, demented with illusory notions about the abstract rights of man, possessed a like control over the Assembly. Practically, the government was regulated by the fluctuating will of the multitude, headed by desperadoes, many of whom were criminals liberated from the prisons and galleys. In the winter of 1789-90, a prodigious number of changes were effected by legislation, some of them beneficial, but, on the whole, of a very sweeping nature. All the old territorial divisions were abolished, and the country divided into departments. reforming the penal code, a suggestion of Dr Guillotin was adopted as to public executions. An instrument called by his name was introduced for cutting off heads by the sudden descent of a knife. In June 1790, nobility of all grades was formally abolished; and at the confederation' or assemblage in the Champ de Mars, July 14, France was declared a limited monarchy. The clergy, whose revenues were already confiscated, and now depended on very slender stipends, were decreed to take an oath to the revolutionary constitution, November 27, and their refusal to do so resulted in cruel and widespread persecution. In March 1791, the Assembly abolished the law of primogeniture, and established the rule of

In