less by the centralization of the monarchy. There was no breakwater left to moderate the action of the monarchy on the people, or the reaction of the people on the monarchy. This absolute power in the hands of the monarch, can never fail to produce the most disgusting corruption, sooner or later. Accordingly, in the reign of Louis XV., we find France, for nearly two generations, ruled by men who had all the vices, without any of the virtues of Louis XIV. They had not even his stage tricks, they did not give themselves the trouble to humbug the people,-they exhibited their tyranny and corruption in all its naked, disgusting deformity, without any of that strange enchantment which the grande monarque had thrown around them. We may with truth borrow the strong expression of Carlyle, and pronounce the government, during nearly the whole reign of Louis XV., a miserable strumpetocracy. Since the period of the Roman Emperors, profligacy had never been conducted in so open and undisguised a manner. Louis XV. asserted that he could prove by facts not to be doubted, that from his earliest youth, there had been no young female in France, possessed of extraordinary personal charms, that had not either directly or indirectly been offered to him; and that he had met with only one perfectly virtuous female in his whole reign. Her name was Noe. He used every effort to seduce her for four years, but all in vain, amid such universal corruption. When we seek for the characters who governed the nation, we are obliged to search the antechambers of the Duke de Choiseul, or the boudoirs of Madame Pompadour or Du Barri.* Besides this profligacy in

* Frederick the Great divided the reign of Louis XV. into three parts. The first was that of Madame de Chateauroux, the second that of Madame de Pompadour, and the third that of Madame Du Barri,-which he designated Petticoat No. 1, Petticoat No. 2, and Petticoat No. 3. Madame Du Barri tells us, that the king was once made very angry in meeting with a letter of a refugee Frenchman from the court of Berlin, stating that his Prussian Majesty, correcting a wrong date of one of his Ministers, cried out, "My dear sir, the thing was done not under the reign of Petticoat No. 1, but at the beginning of that of Petticoat No. 2." (Mem. 1, 326.) Before concluding this note, it is proper to observe, that in an absolute monarchy like that of France antecedent to the revolution, the mistresses of the king often, in some measure, supplied the place of a deliberative body, and became often the means of effecting changes in the government. The king being the fount of all power, if he falls into the hands of one party, the resource of the other party often is to rally around the mistress, and by her influence to operate on the king. Thus, after the death of Madame Pompadour, the Duc de Choiseul and his party, who wielded the power of the throne, were of course extremely anxious to perpetuate their power. Hence

the court, there was ruinous extravagance in the finances,* schism in the church, faction in the parliaments, and abroad, the French were beaten and humbled every where by land and sea, on the Elbe and on the Rhine, in Asia and America. Well might we imagine it impossible for French loyalty to survive a period like this,-it was an apt prelude to the revolution which brought his successor to the block.

6. Louis XVI.-Necker says this monarch possessed qualities suitable for a balanced government like that of Éngland, which would have relieved him from burdensome responsibility, and supported him in his well-directed wishes. In his actual situation he displayed patriotic intentions, which encouraged innovation, accompanied by a feebleness of will, which kept him in a state of constant vacillation amid the conflicting impulses that acted on him. It was this feebleness of will, and infirmity of purpose, that finally destroyed the confidence of the people in the rectitude of his intentions. His conduct often wore the appearance of treachery, when in fact it was nothing but irresolution of purpose. His character was well calculated to develope a revolutionary crisis, not to prepare one; it was favorable to

their great solicitude to give the king a mistress from among themselves. The Duchess de Grammont, the Duke's sister, was so anxious to become the acknowledged favorite, that she is said to have disgusted even Louis himself. Madame Du Barri was the lucky candidate. She was from the lower orders. She was not, like Pompadour, a politician, and yet she as effectually overthrew the Choiseul ministry, as if she had been endowed with all the genius of Richelieu. Being from the lower orders, the Choiseul party naturally hated her,—that hatred provoked her anger. The opposition party immediately rallied around her. The breach widened, and the strife between the parties soon waxed so warm, that it was necessary for the king either to give up his minister, or to give up his mistress, and hence the fall of the Choiseul ministry. The Countess Du Barri, in this instance, performed precisely the same function that would now be performed by the Chambers of France, in case there should be, for any length of time, a dead majority against the ministry. The Choiseul ministry was put in by Pompadour, and was put out by Ďu Barri.

* As one instance of most profligate extravagance, we need barely mention that Louis XV. had built, during his reign, a most costly structure, called the Parc Aux-Cerfs, a receptacle for girls of all ages, from 12 to 18, who were considered as particularly beautiful. These creatures were generally decoyed, or bought, early in youth, from their relatives, and were trained in the Parc Aux-Cerfs, to administer at the proper time to the king's pleasures. There were governors and governesses to this most abominable establishment, and thousands were annually lavished upon them. The cost of this establishment has been estimated at 4 or 5,000,000 livres per annum, and amounted to more than £6,000,000, during the thirty-four years of its existence under Louis XV.

the consummation of a revolution, not for sowing the seeds of one.

7. Causes of the Revolution.-There is great truth in the exclamation of Robespierre, that "the people will as soon revolt without oppression, as the ocean will heave in billows without the wind." Every great convulsive movement, like that of the French revolution, betokens some deeply-seated grievances, some universally operating causes, which alone can lash the public mind into a general political phrenzy. Without doubt, the manifold evils flowing from the vicious organization of the government, may be considered as the principal causes of the revolution. Changes took place in the social system, wholly at war with the political. It became necessary either to roll back the tide of civilization, or else to fit the government, by timely changes, to the constant revolutions which were taking place in the several organizations. France was out-growing the old government as a boy does his old clothes. She was no longer fitted for the institutions of feudalism, and change or revolution became absolutely necessary.

8. Organization of the Government.-We have already stated that in France, during the age of feudalism, the barons were, individually, so powerful, that they never felt the necessity of combination. Each one was powerful enough to set up for independence, and was too proud and too jealous of all authority, to endeavor to form themselves in a united body, where the voice of a majority should rule. Hence, the French nobility never formed themselves into a regular deliberative body, like the House of Lords in England. We have farther seen, that it was this very circumstance that caused the overthrow of the aristocracy in France, whilst in England it never lost its position in the government. When the monarchy fully developed itself in France, the aristocracy fell, because there had been no habit of combination among its members. They were conquered in detail, and by their own disunion. Had they been formed into a compact and organized body, like the House of Lords in England, they would probably have maintained their place in the constitution. Their fall was, in truth, the result of their individual power. But, as the aristocracy fell, and the power all concentrated in the monarch, a new role devolved on the former. The monarch employed them every where as the agents of his government, they filled the offices

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around the throne, executed all the missions, and commanded the armies; and when we reflect on the power and energy of the monarchy, these privileges were of immense importance, and compensated, to the aristocracy, in some measure, for the loss of their rank as an independent order in the government; particularly when we remember, that their great private landed estates were left to them. So that, even in the time of Louis XVI., the nobles and the clergy still possessed two-thirds of the land, and the whole of it was exempted from taxation, under the miserable sophism, that the aristocracy fought, and the clergy prayed, for the nation, and it was therefore the duty of the remainder to pay the taxes. The king, of course, was now regarded as the cause and fountain of all power, and the aristocracy became, consequently, in the process of time, as remarkable for all the graces and elegances of the polished and loyal courtier, as they before had been for the rudeness and roughness of individual independence.

9. Judiciary-Parliaments.-As regards judicial power, we have already seen that the system of France was not one concatenated system, like that of England, but each province had its own separate tribunal, called a parliament, each independent of the other. Of course, the most important of all these would be the parliament of Paris,—the metropolitan parliament. Strange to say, the members of these judicial bodies bought their places of the crown in the first instance, and then the office became hereditary in the family of the grantee, which he or his heir could sell at will to another. Monstrous as this anomaly appears, in the judicial system of France, it is the true secret of the spirit and resistance of those bodies, amidst the general servility which prevailed in all the other branches of the government. A man who had purchased a seat in a parliament, felt immediately towards it as one does towards his private property. Having thus obtained a sort of indefeasible right, he became more independent of the monarch. Hence we find, during the wars of the Fronde, that the parliament of Paris was generally opposed to Mazarine and the court, and during the reign of Louis XV., and part of that of Louis XVI., the parliaments, particularly that of Paris, were very much disposed to resist. It had always been the custom of the monarchs to have their laws and edicts registered in the parliament of Paris. In process of time, this parliament claimed

the privilege of deciding whether they would register or not. A refusal became a practical veto to the law. To overcome this obstinacy, the kings were often obliged to hold a bed of justice, and force the registry, or else to punish the refractory members by lettres-de-cachet,* which banished them for a time from the city. As regards the members of this court, they were almost universally of the noble families, and consequently even the judiciary formed no exception to the general rule in France, of bestowing all the important offices and trusts of the kingdom exclusively on the nobles and clergy. Nevertheless, this was the body around which the people of France were generally disposed to rally, until the meeting of the States General, because it was the only department of the government which dared to resist the throne.

10. The People-the Tiers Etat.-So far we have been considering the government and its members. Let us turn to the people. The people in France never had attained to the political importance they did in England. Whilst in England we find them the objects of special mention and special provision in Magna Charta, in France, at a corresponding epoch, they are never mentioned. When the cities rose to importance, the people of the towns enjoyed political power for a short period, but even then the great mass of the

* These lettres-de-cachet were among the greatest grievances of the government. If an individual became obnoxious, the government had only to send a lettre-de-cachét to the police office, and have him removed from his residence to any place, or prison, designated in the letter. The courtiers and mistresses of the king employed this expedient on all occasions, to get rid of rivals, both in court intrigue and in love matters. Madame Du Barri tells us, that Madame Pompadour once discovered that the king was very much in love with a beautiful girl, who bore a surprising resemblance to her brother, one of the king's valets, and that this girl was in the habit of dressing in her brother's clothes and going into the king's bed-chamber, and had so engaged his affections, as to be on the eve of supplanting herself. As soon as Madame de Pompadour found it out, she had two lettres-de-cachét issued, one against the brother, the other against the sister, and they were both hurried off to prison. Just seventeen years and five months afterwards, Madame Du Barri being told the anecdote, felt all a woman's curiosity to find out what had become of the parties, when she found, to her astonishment, that the brother had died in prison after ten years confinement, and that the woman, having been forgotten at court, was actually in prison at that time. An order for her release was immediately issued, and Madame Du Barri, who saw her, says her appearance was shocking,-not a single trace of beauty left, her countenance pale and emaciated, with all the wrinkles of premature old age, was sad and dejected even to idiocy. When this horrible neglect was mentioned to Louis XV., he excused himself by saying that he could not, consistently with his professed regard for Madame Pompadour, interfere at the time in the execution of her vengeance, and that the thing was forgotten afterwards.