that reign, men of the most powerful and extensive genius in every branch of learning, useful and ornamental, as well as in every department of civil and military administration, flourished.

The profligate regency of the Duke of Orleans aggravated the evils of the state; and when Louis XV. mounted the throne, the court exhibited an arena, on which prostitutes and valets de chambre contended for the mastery over the feeble and enervated mind of the royal rake. The first employments of the state were frequently bestowed upon the most unworthy and incapable individuals to gratify a Pompadour or a Barré. To form a correct notion of this court, the reader must conceive the women generally to have been devoid not only of virtue, but its apology and substitute, shame; and the men emasculated of every generous, decent, and patriotic feeling. Finally, the finances became disordered, and a new spirit arose among the parliament, which communicated with electrical rapidity to the people, and menaced the kingdom with civil The disputes respecting the bull unigenitus roused the representatives to a system of vigorous opposition to the measures of government, which it could not, in the event, control, and which, supported by the indignant aid of the people, may be considered as the earliest dawn of the revolution.

During this reign a new power had arisen in France, the consequences of which were not at that time generally fore

Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Grimm, and a host of other writers, assailed by argument and ridicule not only the Romish superstition, but the errors and corruptions of the government. It has been the curse and calamity of the French nation, that the speculations of these writers overshot their mark: that in undermining Papacy, they sapped at the same time the foundations of all revealed religion; and in their manner of exposing the abuses of arbitrary power they indisposed their proselytes to submit to those necessary restrictions, without which liberty is only a cloak for licentiousness, and wild experiments to attain impracticable perfection, convert reformation into revolution, render the possession of property in

secure, demoralize the people, and terminate in that anarchy from which military usurpation is hailed as a deliverance.

On the accession of Louis XVI., a prince honourably distinguished from his predecessors by the purity of his morals, and the natural benevolence of his disposition, the government appeared to repose in tranquillity on its ancient foundations. But France, humbled in the dust by the reverses which signalized the latter years of the war, terminated by the peace of Versailles in 1763, cherished the hope and unextinguishable desire of vengeance. The unhappy disputes between Great Britain and her North American colonies afforded the opportunity. The treacherous De Choiseul, who then presided over the councils of France, directed her fleets and armies to co-operate with the Americans. The result, no Englishman who merits that title, would wish, if he could avoid it, to remember. He did not live to behold the consequence of his system of policy; but it was ordained that his sovereign should drain to its last dregs the bitter cup of retribution. The detachment of the French army which triumphed with Washington and Rochambeau, imbibed the spirit which animated the cause for which they had contended. Their opinions were communicated to their brethren, and were gradually adopted by an infinite majority of the people. Still, the march of the revolution might have been retarded, had not the government proclaimed its insolvency by dishonouring certain bills drawn from Martinique. Various expedients were successively devised by the minister Turgot, Necker, and Calonne, to restore, or at least, to improve, the finances of the country. Retrenchments were made in the disbursements of the royal household; loans were raised by Necker upon the credit of the revenue, and new taxes were attempted to be levied. The king's edicts were refused to be registered by the Parliament of Paris. The members remonstrated, and were exiled. The other executive assemblies of France were equally refractory. The king, at length, nominated a Convention of 140 persons of the highest rank. They were equally

averse to the new taxes, which were intended to apply to the nobility and clergy as well as the people. The Parliament of Paris being recalled, another experiment was tried upon their submission. The king held a Bed of Justice, with the view of causing the edicts for the new taxes to be registered. A long discussion took place in his presence; at the close of which His Majesty commanded the edicts to be registered. The Duke of Orleans boldly remonstrated against this despotic measure: he was exiled, and the most distinguished members of the Parliament arrested. The king, however, soon recalled the Duke, and released the imprisoned members. The mutual hostility between the King and Parliament still subsisting, a scheme was tried for constituting a new court, which was to supersede the Parliament in its most important functions. This proposition was fiercely opposed, and finally abandoned.

The government, hated and despised, with the exception of M. Necker, by the people; crippled in its finances, and destitute of any fixed principle of action, alternately coercing and conceding, at length resolved on the decisive measure of assembling the States-General. It was determined that the number of deputies should be 1200, of which 600 were chosen by, and to represent, the people.

Before we proceed to the narration of the ever-memorable effects of this measure, it is due to the memory of the amiable, but unfortunate, Louis to state, that he had spontaneously effected many important ameliorations in the administration. The Protestants, so long the victims of the most cruel and impolitic persecution, were permitted the free exercise of their religious rites. The torture was abolished in judicial proceedings; and, as far as the royal example and precepts could counteract the unfeeling rapacity and eastern luxury of the court, the finances were economically and wisely administered. Still, however, the main grievance of the empire, the power of causing arbitrary arrests; the exemption of the nobility (estimated at 100,000 individuals,) and the clergy (reckoned at 80,000,) from all share of the public burthens; and the

subjection of the peasantry to the despotic jurisdiction of the seigneurs, remained unredressed.

All France looked forward with the greatest anxiety to the session of the States-General, 'which took place on 4th May, 1789; but, upon the representatives of the people, the regards of the nation were fixed with the fervour of hope, and the intensity of attachment. Hardly had this august assembly met, when a question of the first magnitude in its results was agitated. This was no other than, whether the delegates of the different orders should carry on their deliberations in separate chambers, or in one body. The representatives of the people strenuously contended for the latter expedient. They reasoned, and most justly, that it was useless to equalize their numbers with that of the representatives of the nobility and clergy. If these two orders, having personal interests, not only separate from, but even hostile to, the general interests of the nation, were to have distinct voices, it was clear that in all contests, (and many such were anticipated between the popular part of the national representation and the nobility and clergy,) every proposition emanating from the former, and entrenching upon the privileges of the latter, would be opposed and rejected in the Upper Houses. Nothing can convey a more perspicuous notion of the want of common foresight, and even of common sense, on the part of the government, than the fact of its having been entirely unprepared for a dilemma it had itself created. All business was suspended whilst the vital question was discussed between the privileged order and the popular representatives. By degrees, different members of the nobility and the clergy united themselves to the Commons, who, thus fortified, passed the Rubicon, and assumed the title of National Assembly; thereby reducing those who composed the privileged order to the rank of private individuals. It was then that the King interfered, and, annulling the arrêts of the assembly, decided for the deliberation, by separate chambers, on matters which related to the privileges of the different orders. At an extraordinary convocation of the States-General, at Ver

sailles, in the presence of the king, he attempted to carry this measure into execution. At his departure, an usher summoned the representatives of the Commons to leave the hall; when Mirabeau made this daring and determined reply: "Tell your master, that we will not disperse but at the point of the bayonet!"

During this struggle, the royal cabinet was rent by internal factions; the queen and the princes of the blood, with their interested adherents, advised the most despotic measures against the assembly. Necker, whose influence was upon the wane, recommended conciliatory expedients. The King, weak and irresolute in his conduct, but pure and benevolent in his designs, had not capacity to discern, nor vigour to pursue a manly and consistent course. Thus, after opposing the union of the orders in one assembly, he sent a mandate to such of the nobility and clergy as had already joined the commons, to unite themselves to them. Having conceded this most important point, it behoved the king to capitulate to a power, which, supported as it then was by the people, was in fact the depository and organ of the sovereign will. By an act as it would almost appear of judicial blindness, the monarch having unchained and unmuzzled the lion, attempted to replace his fetters by a rope of straw. Troops were ordered to march to Paris from the frontiers. M. Necker was dismissed, and commanded to leave the kingdom without delay. The sword was drawn and suspended by a single hair over the Assembly. Ere this crisis had arrived, tumults had broken out in Paris, in which some soldiers of the guards had joined the people. The dismission of Necker exasperated, but did not intimidate the multitude. On July 14th, 1789, a body of upwards of 40,000 men, headed by detachments of the very army which was to overawe and crush them, attacked the Bastille. The fortress was stormed, and the governor assassinated.

It was now that Louis trembled on the verge of that awful precipice, to which he had been unconsciously led by weak and irresolute counsellors. He repaired unattended to the assembly, whose members were now the undisputed masters of France.