Page:Const history of France (Lockwood, 1890).pdf/14

14 required to clean the Augean stables. There is no history which so brilliantly illustrates the social and political causes which led to democracy; none which exemplifies its force, power, and efficiency so thoroughly as the experiences of the French people in the last 100 years.

To comprehend the condition of things that immediately preceded the eventful revolution which occurred in France, it must be remembered that a combination between State and Church existed there for the purpose of enslaving the people through feudal laws, ignorance, suppression of personal rights, taxation, and every device that could be suggested by priest or courtier. If a parliament, or a semblance of one, as in 1771, showed any signs of independence, as it did at this time, it was abolished by Louis XV.

Louis XIV silenced his parliament by the creation of lits de justice; if his subjects—and citizens were then called subjects—raised their voices in remonstrance, they were imprisoned by lettres de cachet; if they were offensive, they were banished by lettres d'exil. The Edict of Nantes was revoked. The conseil du Roi assumed and exercised all administrative, legislative, and judicial power. A condition of personal power existed known only to a system of most pronounced and complete absolutism.

Whatever truth there is in the saying that Paris is France—one of the favorite aphorisms of English-speaking people—it is certainly true that at one time the votaries of monarchy did much to give that great city an undue political influence. One would think, from the usual way of discussing French affairs, that all the so-called socialists, red republicans, atheists, revolutionists, proletariats, and the offscourings of creation had come to Paris for the purpose of destroying the pure-lived priests and