The house of Bourbon had become as effete as the house of Valois in the
sixteenth century; as effete as the Merovingians and Carlovingians had
become in a previous age; but the strong chain of hereditary right bound up
the fortunes of a great empire with the feeble brain and bestial instincts
of a Louis XV. This was the result of concentrating all the active force of
the state in one predestined irremovable human being. This was the logical
and necessary outcome of the labors of Philip Augustus, Philip the Fair, of
Louis XI, of Henry IV, and Richelieu. They had reared the monarchy like
a solitary obelisk in the midst of a desert; but it had to stand or fall
alone; no one was there to help it, as no one was there to pull it down.
This consideration enables us to pass into a higher and more reposing order
of reflection, to leave the sterile impeachment of individual incapacity,
and rise to the broader question, and ask why and how that incapacity was
endowed with such fatal potency for evil. As it has been well remarked, the
loss of a battle may lead to the loss of a state; but then, what are the
deeper reasons which explain why the loss of a battle should lead to the
loss of a state? It is not enough to say that Louis XIV was an improvident
and passionate ruler, that Louis XV was a dreary and revolting voluptuary.
The problem is rather this: Why were improvidence, passion, and debauchery
in two men able to bring down in utter ruin one of the greatest monarchies
the world has ever seen? In other words, what was the cause of the
consummate failure, the unexampled collapse, of the French monarchy?

No personal insufficiency of individual rulers will explain it; and,
besides, the French monarchy repeatedly disposed of the services of
admirable rulers. History has recorded few more able kings than Louis le
Gros, Philip Augustus, Philip le Bel, Louis XI, and Henry IV; few abler
ministers than Sully, Richelieu, Colbert, and Turgot. Yet the efforts of
all these distinguished men resulted in leading the nation straight into