Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/632

 1788. The cry for States- Genera]. Court and Par liament of Paris. The Jacobin Club. 596 the queen s patty. Their temper was becoming dangerous ; the king s action was considered arbitrary ; the people of Paris still deemed the parliament their friend. Before being exiled, the parliament had uttered the word which was destined to bring things to a head. In declaring their forced registration illegal and void, they had stated, in their anxiety to escape the new imposition of the equalized &quot; taille,&quot; that the States-General alone could legally impose taxes, a doctrine unfortunately unknown in France for many centuries. The whole nation heard the word, and learnt with emotion that the ancient monarchy had long been an usurper. Throughout the kingdom now rose up a cry for the convocation of the States-General. No one clearly knew what they were or how they would work ; the last meeting of those august bodies, 173 years back (1G14), had broken up in confusion ; of the organization, procedure, and powers of the Estates no one could speak with certainty. Neverthe less, at the moment they seemed to offer hopes of a solution of pressing difficulties; and at last the king, with much reluctance, promised that they should be called together within five years. The parliament was then recalled to Paris ; and the king held a &quot; royal sitting,&quot; a different thing from the offensive lit de justice, and expounded to the lawyers his views as to the position of affairs. Ominous were his words, for they proved that he had no insight into the great questions ssething, and that he clung in a dull and obstinate way to the traditions of the ancient monarchy. He showed France that he meant to deal in a narrow and hostile spirit with the States-General, and that he reserved to himself in all matters the ultimate decision. Lastly, he offered for their registration two edicts, framed, one might think, specially to affront his hearers, the first (in opposition to the previous declaration of the parliament) authorizing loans to the frightful amount of 420,000,000 livres (16,800,000) ; the other ordering the restoration of Protestants to their civil rights. Then the duke of Orleans, great-grandson of the regent Philip, protested, and the parliament, en couraged by his example, declared that the edicts had been registered by force. Orleans was exiled ; and the ferment in Paris and through France became extreme. The struggle between court and parliament grew bitter ; the parliament declared lettres de cachet to be illegal, and affirmed that the queen s influence was the cause of the present evils. The court-party in rejoinder proposed to establish a plenary court for the registration of edict The parliament protested, and posed itself as defender of the liberties of France. They were forthwith shorn of much of their power, and their function of registration taken away. The -local parliaments throughout France were treated in like manner, and it is from this circumstance that one of the most tremendous organizations of the Revolution took its rise. Remonstrants travelled up to Paris from different centres, among others from the Breton parliament of Rennes, to protest against the high-handed action of the court. The Bretons formed themselves into a club, which, having headquarters in the old Jacobin convent in the St Honore street, soon changed its name from the Breton Club to the Jacobin Club, and became the home of the most advanced republicanism. Things now went even worse. The old pacte de famine, which the humanity of the king had kept down, again began its baleful operations ; the disorders of finance went on ; there was no money with which to carry on the government. Brienne, at last driven to despair, induced the king, in spite of the queen s strong opposition, to convoke the States- General for the 5th May 1789. Soon after this, unable to face the difficulties of finance, and having tried in vain a kind of concealed bankruptcy, he gave way and sent in his resignation. Necker was recalled. The winter of 1788- [IIISTORY. 1789 was terrible especially in Paris ; and all France was 178 excited by distress and hope. The capital swarmed with Dist incomers from the country districts round ; ever since the in P great hailstorm of July 1788, when the crops ripe for the sickle had been destroyed in all the best corn-growing dis trict of France, the district round Paris, crowds of desper ate country folk had been pressing in. &quot; All this mass floats about Paris,&quot; says M. Taine, &quot; is engulfed therein, as in a great sewer, the honest poor and the criminal alike ; some seek work, some beg, all prowl about, a prey to hunger and the rumours of the streets. The officials note that a large number of sinister-looking men pass the barriers inwards.&quot;. ., &quot;The general aspect of the mob changes; it contains now a quantity of strangers from all parts of the country, mostly in rags, armed with great sticks, whose very look is menacing.&quot; &quot; Vagabonds, ragged fellows, many almost naked, with appalling faces beings one does not remember to have seen by daylight, a frightful physiognomy, a hideous attire.&quot; Such is the impression left by the crowd of refugees and others who swarmed in the lower districts of Paris ; this is the rough material out of which the Parisian and decisive element in the Revolution will be made. The Government thought little of this for the time ; the States-General were to meet not in Paris but at Versailles, under the shadow of the monarchy ; Paris, long neglected and disliked by the kings of France, was left out of their calculations at this moment. IV. THE REVOLUTION. We are come to the verge of the French Revolution, Tl which surpasses all other revolutions the world has seen in F h its completeness, the largeness of its theatre, the long pre-r; paration for it, the enunciation by it of new points of view in politics, its swift degradation into imperialism, its influ ence on the modern history of Europe. It has been truly said that France had for centuries been preparing for it, for centuries she would feel the effects of it. The imperial ism, which has traversed and marred its due development, has perhaps already passed away its destructive work is over; the republic under which France now lives may be : the turning point of European history. For all revolutions there are needed first a favourable ( ni concurrence of external circumstances, such as, in France, &quot; the character of Louis XVI. succeeding after his grandfather, * .. the anti-national temper of his court, the outbreak of the American War of Liberation, the ferment of modern ideas in all the countries of Europe. Next, there must be a &quot;semen martyrum,&quot; a faith of internal conviction which will strengthen men to face death for their cause, because their minds are lifted above common life and its trivial ft affairs ; this, too, existed in France, and cannot be under rated as a motive power. Sometimes partial and narrow, ; yet always generous and warm, was the enthusiasm of i younger France for the &quot; principles of 89 &quot; : the equality | : of all men before the law and for the burdens of citizenship, the excellence of virtue, the sovereignty of the people, obed- I .; ieuce to the law, the blessings of freedom of person, press, 1 3 and belief, these and the like, afterwards embodied in the I- Declaration des droits de Vhomme, were great engines which set the Revolution moving, and directed its general coursa Joined with these ideas, which cannot reach down to all, there must be a general feeling of misery, oppression, wrong. This the scandals of finance administration, tho despair of frequent famines, the grievous incidence of tho corvee and other ancient services, the inability to get away from the soil or to rise, largely supplied. Moreover, tho divergence of classes, which in France had long been increasing, was such as to endanger in itself the stability of society. The older creeds, too, were dying down intc