to the Boulevards, or to the Palais-Royal, and leave the narrow and
dirty streets principally to the few who keep their own carriages, or
to the many who hire public conveyances. These are of various kinds;
and such was the growing importance of the middle classes, that
_fiacres_ (so called after the sign of St Fiacre, at the house where
they were first established) were in use a century and a half ago.

The remainder of the Part is occupied with a sketch of the Revolution
of 1789.

* * * * *


REFORM OF EARLY PARLIAMENTS.


Though no language can adequately condemn the base subserviency of
Henry's parliament, it may be reasonably doubted whether his reign
was, in its ultimate consequences, injurious to public liberty. The
immense revolutions of his time in property, in religion, and in the
inheritance of the crown, never could have been effected without the
concurrence of parliament. Their acquiescence and co-operation in the
spoliation of property, and the condemnation of the innocent, tempted
him to carry all his purposes into execution, through their means.
Those who saw the attainders of queens, the alteration of an
established religion, and the frequent disturbance of the regal
succession, accomplished by acts of parliament, considered nothing as
beyond the jurisdiction of so potent an assembly.[4] If the supremacy
was a tremendous power, it accustomed the people to set no bounds to
the authority of those who bestowed it on the king. The omnipotence of