arena, but on its own account. The past cannot be recalled; and it was not
more possible for the nobles to rise from their defeat than it would now
be for absolute monarchy to regain its position. The court was to have
another antagonist, for it must always have one, power never being without
a candidate. The third estate, which increased daily in strength, wealth,
intelligence, and union, was destined to combat and to displace it. The
parliament did not constitute a class, but a body; and in this new
contest, while able to aid in the displacement of authority, it could not
secure it for itself.

The court had favoured the progress of the third estate, and had
contributed to the development of one of its chief means of advancement,
its intelligence. The most absolute of monarchs aided the movement of
mind, and, without intending it, created public opinion. By encouraging
praise, he prepared the way for blame; for we cannot invite an examination
in our favour, without undergoing one afterwards to our prejudice. When
the songs of triumph, and gratulation, and adulation were exhausted,
accusation began, and the philosophers of the eighteenth century succeeded
to the litterateurs of the seventeenth. Everything became the object of
their researches and reflections; governments, religion, abuses, laws.
They proclaimed rights, laid bare men's wants, denounced injustice. A
strong and enlightened public opinion was formed, whose attacks the
government underwent without venturing to attempt its suppression. It even
converted those whom it attacked; courtiers submitted to its decisions
from fashion's sake, power from necessity, and the age of reform was
ushered in by the age of philosophy, as the latter had been by the age of
the fine arts.

Such was the condition of France, when Louis XVI. ascended the throne on
the 11th of May, 1774. Finances, whose deficiencies neither the