parliament of Paris, in which the peers of France had seats, and which had always been most tenacious of the privileges of its members, that the suggestion was first made which set fire to the four quarters of the kingdom. In that kingdom, indeed, it could hardly fail, as it was made in the form of a pun or bon mot. They were clamouring against the minister for not exhibiting his account of the public expenses, when the Abbé Sabatier said- Vous demandez, messieurs, les états de recette et 'de depense-et ce sont les Etats-Generaux qu'il nous faut.'This was eagerly repeated in every order of society; addresses to that effect were poured in in daily heaps; and at last M. de Brienne was obliged to promise, in the King's name, that the States-General should assemble at the end of five years. This delay only inflamed the general impatience: and the Clergy having solemnly reclaimed against it, the King was at last obliged to announce that they should meet early in the following year. M. Necker at the same time was recalled to the ministry.

The States-General were demanded by the privileged orders; and, if they really expected to find them as they were in 1614, which was their last meeting, (though it is not very conceivable that they should have overlooked the difference of the times), we can understand that they might have urged this demand without any design of being very liberal to the other orders of the community. This is the edifying abstract which Mad. de S. has given of the proceedings of that venerable assembly.

Le Clergé demanda qu'il lui fût permis de lever des dîmes sur toute espèce de fruits et de grains, et qu'on défendit de lui faire payer des droits à l'entrée des villes, ou de lui imposer sa part des contributions pour les chemins; il réclama de nouvelles entraves à la liberté de la presse. La Noblesse demanda que les principaux emplois fussent tous donnés exclusivement aux gentilshommes, qu'on interdit aux roturiers les arquebuses, les pistolets, et l'usage des chiens, à moins qu'ils n'eussent les jarrets coupés. Elle demanda de plus que les roturiers payassent de nouveaux droits seigneuriaux aux gentilshommes possesseurs de fiefs; que l'on supprimât toutes les pensions accordées aux membres du tiers état; mais que les gentilshommes fussent exempts de la contrainte par corps, et de tout subside sur les denrées de leurs terres; qu'ils pussent prendre du sel dans les greniers du roi au même prix que les marchands; enfin que le tiers état fût obligé de porter un habit différent de celui des gentilshommes. p. 162.

I.

The States-General, however, were decreed;—and, that the whole blame of innovation might still lie upon the higher orders, M. de Brienne, in the name of the King, invited all and sundry to make public their notions upon the manner in which that great body should be arranged.-By the old form, the Nobles, the Clergy, and the Commons, each deliberated apart and each

had but one voice in the enactment of laws;-so that the privileged orders were always two to one against the other—and the course of legislation had always been to extend the privileges of the one, and increase the burdens of the other. Accordingly, the tiers état had long been defined, la gent corvéable et tail•lable à merci et à miséricorde ; '--and Mad. de S., in one of those passages that already begin to be valuable to the forgetful world, bears this striking testimony as to the effect on their actual condition.

Les jeunes gens et les étrangers qui n'ont pas connu la France avant la révolution, et qui voient aujourd'hui le peuple enrichi par la division des propriétés et la suppression des dimes et du régime féodal, ne peuvent avoir l'idée de la situation de ce pays, lorsque la nation portoit le poids de tous les priviléges. Les partisans de l'esclavage, dans les colonies, ont souvent dit qu'un paysan de France étoit plus malheureux qu'un nègre. C'étoit un argument pour soulager les blancs, mais non pour s'endurcir contre les noirs. La misère accroît l'ignorance, l'ignorance accroît la misère; et, quand on se demande pourquoi le peuple françois a été si cruel dans la révolution, on ne peut en trouver la cause que dans l'absence de bonheur, qui conduit à l'absence de moralité.' ́I. 79.

But what made the injustice of this strange system of laying the heaviest pecuniary burdens on the poorest, a thousand times more oppressive, and ten thousand times more provoking, was, that the invidious right of exemption came at last to be claimed, not by the true ancient noblesse of France, which, Mad. de S. says, did not consist of 200 families, but by hundreds of thousands of persons of all descriptions, who had bought patents of nobility for the very purpose of obtaining this exemption. There was nothing in the structure of French society that was more revolting, or called more loudly for reformation, than the multitude and the pretensions of this anomalous race. They were most jealously distinguished from the true original noblesse; which guarded its purity indeed with such extreme rigour, that no person was allowed to enter any of the royal carriages whose patent of nobility was not certified by the Court heralds to bear date prior to the year 1400; and yet they not only assumed the name and title of nobles, but were admitted into a full participation of all their most offensive privileges. It is with justice, therefore, that Mad. de S. reckons as one great cause of the Revolution,

'cette foule de gentilshommes du second ordre anoblis de la veille, soit par les lettres de noblesse que les rois donnoient comme faisant suite à l'affranchissement des Gaulois, soit par les charges vénales de secrétaire du roi, etc., qui associoient de nouveaux individus aux droits et aux priviléges des anciens gentilshommes. La nation se seroit soumise volontiers à la prééminence des familles historiques, et

je n'exagère pas en affirmant qu'il n'y en a pas plus de deux cents en France. Mais les cent mille nobles et les cent mille prêtres qui vouloient avoir des priviléges, à l'égal de ceux de MM. de Montmorenci, de Grammont, de Crillon, etc., révoltoient généralement; car des négocians, des hommes de lettres, des propriétaires, des capitalistes, ne pouvoient comprendre la supériorité qu'on vouloit accorder à cette noblesse acquise à prix de révérences ou d'argent, et à laquelle vingt-cinq ans de date suffisoient pour siéger dans la chambre des nobles, et pour jouir des priviléges dont les plus honorables membres du tiers état se voyoient privés.

La chambre des pairs en Angleterre est une magistrature patricienne, fondée sans doute sur les anciens souvenirs de la chevalerie, mais tout-à-fait associée à des institutions d'une nature très différente. Un mérite distingué dans le commerce, et surtout dans la jurisprudence, en ouvre journellement l'entrée, et les droits représentatifs que les pairs exercent dans l'état, attestent à la nation que c'est pour le bien public que leurs rangs sont institués. Mais quel avantage les François pouvoient-ils trouver dans ces vicomtes de la Garonne, ou dans ces marquis de la Loire, qui ne payoient pas seulement leur part des impôts de l'état, et que le roi lui-même ne recevoit pas à sa cour, puisqu'il falloit faire des preuves de plus de quatre siècles pour y être admis, et qu'ils étoient à peine anoblis depuis cinquante ans? La vanité des gens de cette classe ne pouvoit s'exercer que sur leurs inférieurs, et ces inférieurs, c'étoient vingt-quatre millions d'hommes." I. 166-168.

Strange as it may appear, there was no law or usage fixing the number of the deputies who might be returned; and though, by the usage of 1614, and some former assemblies, the three orders were allowed each but one voice in the legislature, there were earlier examples of the whole meeting and voting as individuals in the same assembly. M. de Brienne, as we have seen, took the sapient course of calling all the pamphleteers of the kingdom into council upon this emergency. It was fixed at last, though not without difficulty, that the deputies of the people should be equal in number to those of the other two classes together; and it is a trait worth mentioning, that the only committee of Nobles who voted for this concession, was that over which the present king of France presided. If it meant any thing, however, this concession implied that the whole body was to deliberate in common, and to vote individually; and yet, incredible as it now appears, the fact is, that the King and his ministers allowed the deputies to be elected, and actually to assemble, without having settled that great question, or even made any approach to its settlement ! Of all the particular blunders that ensured or accelerated what was probably inevitable, this has always appeared to us to be one of the most inconceivable. The point, however, though

not taken up by any authority, was plentifully discussed among the talkers of Paris; and Mad. de S. assures us, that the side of the tiers état was at that time the most fashionable in good company, as well as the most popular with the bulk of the nation. Tous ceux et toutes celles qui, dans la haute compagnie de France, influoient sur l'opinion, parloient vivement en faveur de la cause de la nation. La mode étoit dans ce sens ; c'étoit le résultat de tout le dix-huitième siècle; et les vieux préjugés, qui combattoient encore pour les anciennes institutions, avoi⚫ent beaucoup moins de force alors, qu'ils n'en ont eu à aucune 'époque pendant les vingt-cinq années suivantes. Enfin l'ascendant de l'esprit public étoit tel, qu'il entraîna le parlement lui-même.' (I. p. 172-3.) The clamour that was made against them, was not at that time by the advocates of the royal prerogative, but by interested individuals of the privileged classes. On the contrary, Mad. de S. asserts positively, that the popular party was then disposed, as of old, to unite with the Sovereign against the pretensions of these bodies, and that the Sovereign was understood to participate in their sentiments. The statement certainly seems to derive no slight confirmation from the memorable words which were uttered at the time, in a public address by the reigning King of France, then the first of the Princes of the blood. Une grande révolution étoit prêt, dit • Monsieur (aujourd'hui Louis XVIII.) à la municipalité de Paris, en 1789; le roi, par ses intentions, ses vertus, et son • rang suprême, devoit en être le chef!' We perfectly agree with Mad. de S.- que toute la sagesse de la circonstance étoit dans ces paroles.'

Nothing, says Mad. de S., can be imagined more striking than the first sight of the 1200 deputies of France, as they passed in solemn procession to hear mass at Notre Dame, the day before the meeting of the States-General.

La Noblesse se trouvant déchue de sa splendeur par l'esprit de courtisan, par l'alliage des anoblis, et par une longue paix; le Clergé ne possédant plus l'ascendant des lumières qu'il avoit eu dans les temps barbares; l'importance des députés du Tiers état en étoit augmentée. Leurs habits et leurs manteaux noirs, leurs regards assurés, leur nombre imposant, attiroient l'attention sur eux : des hommes de lettres, des négocians, un grand nombre d'avocats compesoient ce troisième ordre. Quelques nobles s'étoient fait nommer députés du tiers, et parmi ces nobles on remarquoit surtout le comte de Mirabeau l'opinion qu'on avoit de son esprit étoit singulièrement augmentée par la peur que faisoit son immoralité; et cependant c'est cette immoralité même qui a diminué l'influence que ses étonnantes facultés devoient lui valoir. Il étoit difficile de ne pas le regarder VOL. XXX. No. 60. E

long-tenips, quand on l'avoit une fois aperçu: son immense chevelure le distinguoit entre tous: on e dit que sa force en dépendoit comme celle de Samson; sen visage empruntoit de l'expression de sa laideur même, et toute sa personne donnoit l'idée d'une puissance irrégulière, mais enfin d'une puissance telle qu'on se la représenteroit dans un tribun de peuple.

Aucun nom propre, excepté le sien, n'étoit encore célèbre dans les six cents députés du tiers; mais il y avoit beaucoup d'hommes honorables, et beaucoup d'hommes à craindre. I. 185, 186.

The first day of their meeting, the deputies of course insisted that the whole three orders should sit and vote together; and the majority of the nobles and clergy of course resisted:-And this went on for nearly two months, in the face of the mob of Paris and the people of France-before the King and his Council could make up their own minds on the matter. The inner cabinet, in which the Queen and the Princes had the chief sway, had now taken the alarm, and was for resisting the pretensions of the Third Estate; while M. Necker, and the ostensible ministers, were for compromising with them, while their power was not yet disclosed by experience, nor their pretensions raised by victory. The Ultras relied on the army, and were for dismissing the Legislature as soon as they had granted a few taxes. M. Necker plainly told the King, that he did not think that the army could be relied on; and that he ought to make up his mind to reign hereafter under a constitution like that of England. There were fierce disputes, and endless consultations; and at length, within three weeks after the States were opened, and before the Commons had gained any decided advantage, M. Necker obtained the full assent both of the King and Queen to a Declaration, in which it was to be announced to the States, that they should sit and vote as one body in all questions of taxation, and in two chambers only in all other questions. This arrangement, Mad. de S. assures us, would have satisfied the Commons at the time, and invested the throne with the great strength of popularity. But, after a full and deliberate consent had been given by both their Majesties, the party about the Queen found means to put off from day to day the publication of the important instrument; and a whole month was unpardonably wasted in idle discussions; during which, nearly one half of the Nobles and Clergy had joined the deputies of the Commons, and taken the name of the National Assembly. Their popularity and confidence had been dangerously increased, in the mean time, by their orators and pamphleteers; and the Court had become the object of suspicion and discontent, both by the rumour of the approach of its armies to the capital, and by what