Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/678

642 entrance to the harbours. If de Rohan designed in this way to perpetuate his name he failed, since the work has been called Tigné, after the grand-prior of Champagne, who contributed largely towards its cost. It has been alleged with justice that there was as much of display as of precaution in most of these later additions to the fortress, and the duke of Rovigo expressed himself truly when he observed that “all the Grand-Masters since the establishment of the Order in Malta seem to have craved no other title of glory than that of having added some new defence either to the harbours or town. Being the sole care of the government, it had ended in becoming a pure matter of ostentation.”

Such was the position of affairs at Malta when the first mutterings of the storm, which was destined before long to sweep the fraternity from its home, made themselves heard in France. The history of the French revolution does not enter within the compass of this work; it will only be necessary to touch upon such points of it as bear directly on the fortunes of the Order. The property held by it in France was, at this time, as indeed it always had been, managed with a prudence and liberality which rendered its estates models to the surrounding proprietors. The fact was recognized and admitted that nowhere throughout the kingdom was land so carefully cultivated and .niade to yield so large a return as that under the management of the knights; it was natural, therefore, that at a time when general spoliation had become an accepted maxim with the revolutionary party, these tempting estates should attract its cupidity. The institution of the Hospital was far too aristocratic in constitution to escape the antagonism of the sans cullottes, whose cry of “à bas les aristocrats!” was ringing through France. Everything, therefore, marked the Order as one of the most fitting victims to revolutionary fury and popular clamour.

Nor had the conduct of the knights during the few years which immediately preceded the subversion of the monarchy been such as was in any way likely to conciliate the animosity of the dominant faction. When Necker, the finance minister of Louis XVI., demanded a voluntary contribution of one-third of the revenue of every landed proprietor, the