crowned at Madrid, and Louis's protégé, Philip V., was on the point of losing Spain, if Berwick had not gained for him the battle of Almanza. Eugene now traversed the Netherlands, went from north to south, and south to north, and took Lille, in conjunction with Marlborough. Louis, on this, stooped to seek a peace; but such hard conditions were imposed upon him, among which was that he should set aside the succession of his grandson, that he preferred continuing the war. After many efforts of heroic constancy, the French army, commanded by Villars, was defeated in 1710 at Malplaquet, where the loss of the enemy however was immense. The king now again humbled himself, but his offers were rejected. Vendome then retrieved his affairs in Spain; Marlborough retired in disgrace; a truce was concluded with England; and Villars, having surprised Eugene at Denain, obtained one of those splendid victories which often save empires.

A respectable historian assures us, that the allied sovereigns declared, before the battle of Denain, that they were not fighting with the nation of France, but with its head, whose ambition and despotism were incompatible with the peace of Europe. They demanded, as a condition of the peace, the periodical convocation of the states-general in France. Preparations were making at court to retire behind the Loire. We might thus think we were reading the history of our own times, as it has been observed: and can it be true, asks a modern French writer, that but for the victory of Denain, the representative government would have been established in France a century sooner?

The peace of Utrecht was the consequence of this victory. Villars, on the emperor hesitating to sign it, passed towards the Rhine, repulsed the imperialists, and signed with Eugene the peace of Rastadt. The issue of this ruinous war was less fatal than France might have expected: the most humiliating condition was the destruction of the port of Dunkirk. At its close, the death of the dauphin, and of his son the duke of Burgundy, almost at the same time, put a finishing stroke to the misfortunes of Louis. He died at the age of seventy-seven, having reigned sixty-two years; bequeathed to France 3,111,000,000 livres of debt, and been the means of the slaughter of more than 1,000,000 of men. Almost deified, while alive, he died, as might be expected, forsaken, and the people insulted his corpse.

The seventeenth century has been called the age of Louis XIV., because this prince contributed to give splendor to it by his magnificence and taste for a certain sort of greatness. But what good did he effect for France or Europe? He rendered the former powerful, but a slave; he is the cause,' say some of their best historians, of the French having lost their national spirit.' By constituting himself the dispenser of glory, as well as of fortune, he demoralised the nation; it forgot itself, to think only of him; and when he uttered that saying, I am the state,' he was believed. His vain splendor gave false ideas to the nation, which is but too much inclined to make the man of the present moment its idol and

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its palladium. Under Louis XIV. Racine, Boileau, and Moliere, it is true, corrected the public taste and produced some masterpieces; but without Louis, Corneille, Pascal, La Fontaine, Fenelon, and La Bruyère, would have rendered France illustrious; reason would have had more free instruments; genius, delivered from the contemplation of the great king, would have aspired to conceptions more noble because more useful. The spirit of independence, roused by the struggle of the Fronde, would not have been repressed; the examination of the true interests of nations would not have been retarded; and the seventeenth century would, perhaps, have been at once the age of reason and of genius. In order to oppress thought, despotism borrowed, as usual, the yoke of the faith. Bossuet was the apostle of the monarchy of Louis XIV. and preached his infallibility. The jansenists were persecuted less on account of the doctrines about which they disputed, than because they thought in their own way, and destroyed the unity of the church. All France must think like the king; from this arose that thick varnish of hypocrisy which concealed the corruption of manners. The Tartuffe, sanctioned by the court, is the triumph of genius! This Louis XIV. moreover, so absolute, who would not suffer himself to be governed by his mistresses, closed his reign by allowing a Jesuit his confessor, to share his power with him; together with an old woman, whom he had married the widow Scarron, the governess of his legit mate bastards.

The great grandson of Louis XIV. also became king at the age of five years. The parliament violated the will of the late king, and named his son, the duke of Orleans, absolute regent. He was a very witty debauchee, and careless about business. The monotonous grandeur of the former reign, joined to its reverses, had, at length, wearied the French; and, delivered from the oppressive constraint which ceremony and intolerance had imposed upon manners, they abandoned themselves to the licentiousness of a foolish joy, and rushed into an opposite extreme, like children who have escaped from the eye of a severe master. During the war against Spain, stirred up by the old Italian curé Alberoni, who dreamed of some day overturning Europe, the design was conceived of paying the debts of Louis XIV., and an adventurer of the name of Law arrived from Scotland with a system of finance which was eagerly received. Every thing was paid with the money of the dupes, who received, instead of it, paper and gigantic hopes, until stock-jobbing drove the nation mad; the rich ruined themselves, and the poor became rich and noble. The abbé Dubois, the minister, was as vile as his master was corrupt: such a man was, characteristically enough, the sycophant of the Jesuits.

The regent died in 1723, just as the king entered into his majority, and the duke of Bourbon was appointed minister. He signalized himself only by some persecutions of the Protestants. The abbé de Fleury, who succeeded him, was a very moderate and prudent man, about seventy-three years old; he possessed the talent of quieting and conciliating the minds of

the people, and procured a long peace for France, which had been disturbed by the expulsion of Stanislaus, the king of Brittany, father-in-law to Louis XV. Alliances were contracted; a war was undertaken against the emperor, allied to Peter the Great, who for the first time made Russia the theme of conversation in Europe. The campaign in Italy in 1734 was decisive; peace was signed at Vienna, and France gained Lorraine, of which Stanislaus had the sovereignty only for his life.

The war of 1740, for the emperor's succession, which his daughter, the illustrious Maria Theresa wished to preserve entire, was less successful. Several French armies were destroyed without fighting: but the retreat of the marshal from Belle Isle into Germany has been much admired. Frederic, the famous king of Prussia, now began to exhibit his great talents as a politician and general; he conquered Silesia. In this war France was the ally of Prussia and the elector of Bavaria, the candidate for the empire. She had to contend against England, Holland, and Piedmont. The battle of Fontenay, in France, was gained against the two former powers by marshal Saxe; Louis XV. being present at the battle in which his family fought valiantly. Success was balanced in Italy, and Maria Theresa's courageous perseverance was crowned (A. D. 1748) by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. The war also raged at sea: some French merchants made themselves masters of Madras, and their trade was respected in the Indies. At this time Charles Edward Stuart, assisted by France, landed in Scotland, but failed after some surprising exploits.

The war soon began again, or rather the hostilities in the colonies were not interrupted; an English expedition was despatched thither without the form of a declaration of war, and the French armies were at first successful in Canada and in Europe; Richelieu took Mahon; a naval battle was gained; D'Estrées beat the English at Hastembeck, and Hanover was conquered. In this war the ancient policy of Europe was overturned; the strongest alliances were formed. France united with Austria against Prussia; Frederic was lost; Soubise marched against him with the powerful army of the coalition; when his army met with a defeat as complete as that which fifty years afterwards took place at Jena. The war continued until the treaty of Paris, which deprived France of all its American possessions except New Orleans. The alliance then contracted with Spain, under the name of the family compact, was not to the advantage of France. Chatham governed England, the power of which he raised to the highest pitch.

To finish the picture of this reign, we must mention the endless religious disputes and political intrigues excited by the bull unigenitus, which assumed the infallibility of the pope; the persecution renewed by the Jesuits and the government against the Jansenists and the parliament; and the ridiculous miracles with which the latter endeavoured to defend themselves. The dissolute conduct of the court at this time, indeed, and the scandal of the private life of the king, who gave himself up to the most abandoned

women, and spent the greater part of his time in the orgies of the Parc-au-cerfs, while the French were in want of bread, is still in lively recollection throughout France; as well as the mean despotism of the lettres de cachet, and their attendant oppressions. But why should we be delayed by this base spectacle of the decrepitude of arbitrary power? It is enough that, by a reaction, it has produced the greatest benefits. The reign of Louis XV., therefore, has been said to be that to which France owes the most; it made the people think; it fully opened their eyes to the evils of absolute power; and then hastened the epoch of national manhood and deliverance. Degraded despotism is as instructive to nations, as despotism, surrounded with its glory, is fatal to them. We need only therefore speak of the ministry of Choiseul, who rendered France glorious in her external relations, and conquered Corsica, and of the expulsion of the Jesuits, who had just been assassinating a king of Portugal, and were suspected of directing the poniard of Damien against Louis XV. This is a curious event in a reign in which fanaticism sacrificed the old Calas and the young Labarre; and in which Avignon was restored to the philosophical pope, Clement XIV., as a recompense for abolishing the Jesuits. The patriot Chalotais was imprisoned in this reign for making use of the parliament of Brittany to denounce the tyranny of an extortionate governor.

In reviewing the march of the eighteenth century, the subject, on the one hand, of the malediction of the partisans of ignorance, fanaticism, and passive obedience, and extolled on the other by the disciples of anarchy, and of a false philosophy, we shall allow our French authorities, as we have frequently done in this paper, to speak freely on French topics. Whatever blame may be attributed to the corruption of the regency, it is to this period that the French are indebted for the emancipation of their minds. The most popular of their historians say, 'The literary paradoxes of Lamotte attested at least some independence of mind, and the desire of opening up new paths to knowledge. Fortenelle rendered science popular. Montesquieu took a bold view of the manners, faith, and laws of nations. Voltaire carried a philosophic spirit into literature; while Massillon, by introducing it into the pulpit, rendered in a moment Christian eloquence the interpreter of close reasoning. The protestant refugees also, Bayle especially, contributed more or less to the emancipation of thought;' but see our article BAYLE. Frederic of Prussia, who was not a philosopher, but merely a man of a strong mind,' says M. Bonet, 'for philosophy is the science of doing good to mankind,' sent for Voltaire, and protected nim openly. He formed in France an association of well-informed if not very sober philosophers, who undertook the Encyclopædia, that is to say, the grand thought of Bacon submitted to alphabetical arrangement. Another society, less boasted of, rendered perhaps greater services to humanity, we mean the economists, who have not been sufficiently valued, because they had recourse to ridicule. Notwithstanding their dogmatic tone, the soaring character of their style, and their too ex

clusive inductions from principles at this day disputed, we owe them some gratitude for having directed the curious enquiry of all towards the examination of questions of public interest. Strange systems have multiplied, but the attention has been generally turned to the useful; the causes of the misery of the people have been enquired into, and the public mind has been formed. Adam Smith, and the Scotch, have applied to this study that rectitude of mind which they have manifested in philosophical history. The Italians distinguished themselves by their sagacity and investigation, but the French economists must still be regarded, say the French writers, as the forerunners of the enlightened philanthropists, at this day spread over both hemispheres. Voltaire, D'Alembert, Diderot, Duclos, Mably, Condillac, Marmontel, and Helvetius, certainly sapped the foundation of many baleful prejudices, which obstructed the march of the human mind; Raynal displayed to the new world an immense futurity of prosperity; and Rousseau, in his unnatural way, developed something of the philosophy of the heart and of

nature.

SECTION VII.-THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

It is difficult to know how to commence the history of the Revolution; its true preamble has certainly been already given in the history of the entire monarchy. The existence of a nation (observe our lively neighbours) may be compared to the life of man he is born, he grows, he prospers or meets with adversity; he has his ailments, and their cures and relapses; and he dies after having given life to a new man. The nation of the old regime exists no longer, a new nation has taken its place; it is of importance to know how it has arisen, and for that purpose to take as copious a view of its original and progressive courses as possible.

Strange social combinations, established by chance, by force, or by error, must in time, it has been well said, be subverted by law, that is, written reason: we shall not decide whether this reason is absolute or relative; we only consider it as the expression of the ideas and wants of the greatest number. The general interest, the sharing, as much as possible among men, of the advantages of the social state, is the proper object of law. Men dispute about a crowd of differing theories, which, however, agree in this point; and while they contend respecting the seat of sovereignty, its exercise, and its attributes, all political doctrines and systems must bow be fore the general interest, manifested by the opinion of the greatest number.

The French revolution, according to the respectable writers of that country, is the application of this idea; it was nothing else but the solemn manifestation of the general interest, situations and antecedent circumstances giving place to the reign of opinion and law. We shall see this change effected, they observe, in the midst of terrible outrages, and, notwithstanding obstinate resistance, we shall see it consolidated in dangers, and plots, in passions, and errors, and crimes. The interests and ambition of a few will for a long time be injurious to the interests and wants

of almost the whole community. We shall be hold the revolution, hurried and irritated, passing far beyond the bounds it had at first intended, and returning to them as all revolutions do. We shall be astonished at the recital of deplorable excesses, which critical situations, resentments, and mistrust, do not sufficiently palliate, and which are not compensated by a few sublime actions. We shall find moments of delirium, and even of madness; schisms, and purifications in parties, when they possessed power; alliances with the most opposite parties, when they were not in power; opinions bending to circumstances; weakness rendered hardy by fear; egotism, bold when it is poor; timid or apostate, when rich; in fine, we shall see disinterestedness and good faith often the dupes of avarice and hypocrisy. The new nation conceived during the time of a declining despotism, has however spent its childhood amidst these frightful sorrows; but it is strong, and full of hopes. It is the most substantial result of the revolution, and this result will last.' May the prediction be verified, we add most cordially!

The revolution had already taken place in the public mind, when Louis XVI. (1774) ascended the throne. Nothing was wanted but to reduce it into a palpable form. The king could accomplish this end in two ways; either by assembling the nation, and leaving it to digest the particular forms of a constitution, or execute it himself, by granting the nation what it demanded. He began to take this last course, but afterwards abandoned it, because, though he had a real love for that which is good, he wanted the perseverance indispensable for doing it. He called to the ministry Turgot and Malesherbes, inen who united great talents to great virtues. The former, who professed the principles of the economists, and who had rendered himself famous by the wisdom and popularity of his administration in a province, came with the desire of producing those reforms which public opinion claimed, and of which the king acknowledged the necessity. He wished to abolish the services, to destroy the vestiges of feudalism, to suppress the monks, recall the Protestants, give liberty of conscience, fix the civil interest on the foundation of law, &c.; in fine, he wished to apply the theories which the economists had developed. A reformer of this sort must necessarily draw upon himself disgrace from the court, and all the privileged orders. Abuses are naturally inimical to reformers. An old courtier called Maurepas rallied them, and leagued them with the parliament, recently renewed. A storm gathered against the patriot ministers, and the young king sacrificed them to the clamors of a corrupted court, which turned his good intentions and kind manners into ridicule, and which especially feared economy. Their dismissal, the momentary triumph of the court, disgusted and distressed the people. The scandals of prodigality increased more than ever. Maurepas, however, placed at the head of the finances (the chief place in the ministry, since here the disease chiefly lay) Necker, a Genevese, and a Calvinist, which was at least a concession to the spirit of the age.

At this time the memorable war broke out m

the English colonies of America. They followed perhaps the course of nature, in separating from their mother country, and the desire of independence was the real cause, though a miserable tax on tea became the ostensible one. When a revolution is to take place, it is very often a financial question that determines it: we shall see another example of this in France. The cause of the American insurgents naturally at any rate excited great enthusiasm in France, such as the eighteenth century had made it. To help in resisting oppression, to found a republic,' were invitations sufficiently dazzling to the French youth; and even among the nobility philosophical and liberal principles were imbibed. The young marquis de la Fayette setting off the first, at his own expense, gave the signal to the whole nation. He was the first volunteer for the new liberty. Franklin, who was the patriarch of it, hurried away the cabinet of Versailles with the thought of humbling England; and this was certainly the result of the war. The French fleet appeared with honor on all the seas; the army worthily seconded general Washington: by the treaty of Paris (1783) the independence of the United States was acknowledged in Europe, and the French, who returned from them, gave those flattering accounts of the new republic, which induced the people to think they had seen a nation at once free and wise.

Still it was necessary to borrow, in order to support this war; and the embarrassment of the finances increased. Necker unfolded the cause of this in a book that he published, as well as the means of obviating the evil, by an equalisation of the rates; en the nobility and clergy attacked this plan d displaced the minister, Calonne came forward promising confidently to set all things right. He spoke of economy while he smiled on the prodigality of the court; he had resources against every event, systems to suit every circumstance. But the nation soon perceived that he was a mere blunderer, who relied on loans, as a convenient tax imposed upon futurity, to relieve the present. The affair of the necklace, and the disgrace of the prince de Rohan (see our article ANTOINETTE), then followed, and still farther diminished the respect of the people for the crown. Calonne wanted to give to his projects the support and assistance of an appearance, at least, of public opinion. He had an assembly of the notables convened, that is of the principal persons of the court and the magistracy, before whom he laid the existing deficiency of 140,000,000, and requested money. He addressed himself to the wrong sort of men; they were the privileged; they exclaimed against it, and separated after having overthrown Cahonne; the assembly of notables, over which Monsieur, afterwards Louis XVIII., presided, contributed much to his fall. Still the French owe to this assembly the demanding of the king the edicts, which abolished the feudal services and created provincial assemblies, such as Turgot suggested.

Archbishop Brienne, a man of the court, brought into the ministry a complete incapacity for business. A territorial tax and one upon timber were rejected by the parliament, notwith

standing the efforts of the seat of justice, which it was thought would carry them with a high hand. The better to intimidate the court, the parliament called for the states-general, and thus made itself popular; but it did not dream that it was signing its own abdication. Banished from Troyes, where it had become wearisome, it returned to Paris with the intention of granting the ministry a loan of 420,000,000, and then suddenly refused it to the king, who had too sharply pressed the registration. In these circumstances it was, that the duke of Orleans began to show that opposition in consequence of which he was banished.

In order to humble the parliament, the ministry formed the plan of the division into bailiwics, and the creation of a plenary court, composed of the great functionaries, civil, military, and ecclesiastic, which was appointed to accomplish the registrations. The counsellor d'Epremesnil unveiled the secret of this absurd plan, and denounced it to his colleagues, when the parliament protested immediately against every system founded on the good pleasure of the sovereign: and the people applauded and protected the magistrates against the armed force, which had violated their precincts. The financial distress, however, increasing, the king recalled Necker, who was the popular minister, and at the same time fixed the meeting of the states-general for 1789. The dismissal of Brienne was celebrated at Paris by the burning of a little man in a mitre before the statue of Henry IV. Blood was shed several times on this occasion. The fermentation was not less in the provinces. The parliament of Brittany appeared to wish to begin the revolution; while the states of Dauphiny exhibited the three orders united by the same patriotism and leagued against arbitrary power.

Necker commenced by repairing the faults and outrages of Brienne. The parliaments were renewed; but that of Paris was already retiring before the states-general. According to his custom of allowing legislative consultations, he declared that the deliberations and votes of the orders would take place, as in 1614. But the old antecedents were no longer seasonable, and the patriots demanded that the third state should at least be equally represented with the two other orders. A multitude of writers attempted to discuss this question, and in Sieyes's book entitled, What is the third order? it was answered plainly-the nation. From that time two parties were very clearly distinguished. The aristocrats were those who wished to preserve the exclusive privileges, and resist the reformers; they were weak, and had only the court, the dignified clergy, and the majority of the nobles for their partisans. The patriots consisted of the peasantry, the industrious laborers, the citizens, the inferior clergy, and a small part of the nobility. Monsieur, and a multitude of young officers who had returned from America, showed themselves patriots at court. Duport was at the head of those in parliament. Necker appealed from the decision of this assembly to a second meeting of the notables, which confirmed it; Monsieur's board alone supported the opinion of the king in favor of the double representation. In oppo