Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/352

 340 THE BOURBON AGE subjects vigorously opposed to them. In short there was a kind of intellectual ferment such as was in progress in the early years of the sixteenth century ; but at' that time it had tended to centre on religion, whereas now it was centred on the principles of government. The American revolt excited much enthusiasm among the theoretical advocates of the Rights of Man, and the exceedingly homely envoys from America were received with enthusiasm in the glittering salons of Paris ; but in France itself the Rights of Man were to receive a new and terrible interpretation. The French king, Louis xvi., like the Austrian emperor Joseph, was a person with excellent intentions. Joseph was also State of a man full of great ideas, which he strove ener- France. getically to carry out in the face of an opposition which was too powerful for him. Louis had no ideas, and shifted from one incompetent adviser to another with a vague hope that some good might result. But the government of the country had for long been conducted for the benefit of one section of the community at the expense of the rest. The nobles were practically free from taxation, of which the burden fell on the middle classes, and with crushing severity on the peasantry. There was an appalling waste in the expenditure ; but even with the most rigid economy, a readjustment of burdens, taxing the rich as well as the poor, was absolutely necessary to relieve the poor from the intolerable strain. The whole system was thoroughly rotten, and the privileged classes were strong enough to prevent any reforms which touched their own immunities. At length the clamour for some reconstruction became so formidable that a proposal was adopted for summoning the States General or assembly of the three estates of the realm — the Nobility, the Clergy, and the Commons — which had never been called together during the last hundred and seventy years.