ng address, felt compelled to enter
into explanations respecting the nature and functions of a body which
perhaps not a man living remembered to have seen in session.[22] Yet,
while the desuetude into which had fallen the laudable custom of holding
the States every year, or, at least, on occasion of any important matter
for deliberation, might properly be traced to the flood of ambition and
pride which had inundated the world, and to the inordinate covetousness
of kings,[23] there were not wanting considerations to mitigate the
disappointment of the people. Chief among them, doubtless, in the view
of shrewd observers, was the fact that the assembling of the States was
the invariable prelude to an increase of taxation, and that never had
they met without benefiting the king's exchequer at the expense of the
purses of his subjects.[24]

[Sidenote: The endurance of the Tiers Etat.]

[Sidenote: Absolutism of the crown.]

Meanwhile the nation bore with exemplary patience the accumulated
burdens under which it staggered. Natives and foreigners alike were lost
in admiration of its wonderful powers of endurance. No one suspected
that a terrible retribution for this same people's wrongs might one day
overtake the successor of a long line of kings, each of whom had added
his portion to the crushing load. The Emperor Maximilian was accustomed
to divert himself at the expense of the French people. "The king of
France," said he, "_is a king of asses_; there is no weight that can be
laid upon his subjects which they will not bear without a murmur."[25]
The warrior and historian Rabutin congratulated the monarchs of France
upon God's having given them, in obedience, the best and most faithful
people in the whole world.[26] The Venetian, Matteo Dandolo, declared to
the Doge and Senate that the king might with propriety regard as his own
all the money in France, for, such was _the incomparable kindness of the
people_, that whatever he might ask for in his need was very gladly
brought to him.[27] It was not strange, perhaps, that the ruler of
subjects so exemplary in their eagerness to replenish his treasury as
soon as it gave evidence of being exhausted, came to take about the same
view of the matter. Accordingly, it is related of Francis the First
that, being asked by his guest, Charles the Fifth, when the latter was
crossing France on his way to suppress the insurrection of Ghent, what
revenue he derived from certain cities he had p