holocaust towered towards Heaven as if to appeal for vengeance. And that
vengeance came! It had been long delayed; so long indeed that when the
brilliant courtiers of Versailles were told of disaffection among the
masses, and warned to conciliate ere it was too late the goodwill of
their inferiors, they listened with contemptuous carelessness to the
tardy caution, and scorned to place themselves in competition with those
untitled classes whom they had long ceased to regard as their
fellow-men. But the voice of the people is like the stroke of the hammer
upon the anvil; it not only makes itself heard, but, however great may
be the original resistance, finishes by fashioning the metal upon which
it falls after its own will.

During the reign of Louis XIII this great and fatal truth had not yet
been impressed upon the French nation, for the popular voice was stifled
beneath the ukase of despotism; and even the _tiers-état_--important as
the loyalty of that portion of a kingdom must ever be to its
rulers--were treated with disdain and contumely; but beneath all the
workings of his government (or rather the government of his minister,
for the son of Marie de Medicis was a monarch only in name), may be
traced the undercurrent of popular indignation and discontent, which,
gradually swelling and rising during the two succeeding reigns, finally
overthrew with its giant waves the last frail barrier which still
upreared itself before a time-honoured throne.

The incapacity of the King, the venality of the Princes, the arrogance
of the hierarchy, the insubordination of the nobles, the licentiousness
of the Court, the despotism of the Government; all the errors and all
the vices of their rulers, were jealously noted and bitterly registered
by an oppressed and indignant people; but it required time to shake off
a yoke which had been so long borne that it had eaten into the flesh;