protecting doves and pigeons. The abolition of seigneurial courts, of the
purchase and sale of posts in the magistracy, of pecuniary immunities, of
favouritism in taxation, of surplice money, first-fruits, pluralities, and
unmerited pensions, were successively proposed and carried. After
sacrifices made by individuals, came those of bodies, of towns and
provinces. Companies and civic freedoms were abolished. The marquis des
Blacons, a deputy of Dauphine, in the name of his province, pronounced a
solemn renunciation of its privileges. The other provinces followed the
example of Dauphine, and the towns that of the provinces. A medal was
struck to commemorate the day; and the assembly decreed to Louis XVI. the
title of _Restorer of French Liberty_.

That night, which an enemy of the revolution designated at the time, the
Saint Bartholomew of property, was only the Saint Bartholomew of abuses.
It swept away the rubbish of feudalism; it delivered persons from the
remains of servitude, properties from seigneurial liabilities; from the
ravages of game, and the exaction of tithes. By destroying the seigneurial
courts, that remnant of private power, it led to the principle of public
power; in putting an end to the purchasing posts in the magistracy, it
threw open the prospect of unbought justice. It was the transition from an
order of things in which everything belonged to individuals, to another in
which everything was to belong to the nation. That night changed the face
of the kingdom; it made all Frenchmen equal; all might now obtain public
employments; aspire to the idea of property of their own, of exercising
industry for their own benefit. That night was a revolution as important
as the insurrection of the 14th of July, of which it was the consequence.
It made the people masters of society, as the other had made them masters
of the government, and it enabled them to prepare the new, while
destroying the old constitution.