its chivalry, and when some of the greatest names that have ever figured
in its annals gave grace and glory to its history.

The times were, moreover, as remarkable as the men by whom they were
illustrated; for despite the civil and foreign wars by which they were
so unhappily distinguished, the arts flourished, and the spread of
political liberty became apparent; although it is equally certain that
they were at the same time fatal alike to the aristocracy and to the
magistrature; and that they rapidly paved the way to the absolutism of
Louis XIV, to the shameless saturnalia of the Regency, and to the
dishonouring and degrading excesses of Louis XV, who may justly be said
to have prepared by his licentiousness the scaffold of his successor.

During several centuries the French monarchs had indulged in a blind
egotism, which rendered them unable to appreciate the effects of their
own errors upon their subjects. L'ETAT C'EST MOI had unfortunately been
practically their ruling principle long ere Louis XIV ventured to put it
into words. To them the Court was the universe, the aristocracy the
nation, and the Church the corner-stone of the proud altar upon which
they had enthroned themselves, and beyond which they cared not either to
look or listen. A fatal mistake fatally expiated! Yet, as we have
already remarked, the system, dangerous and hollow as it was, endured
for centuries--endured until crime was heaped on crime, and the fearful
holocaust towered towards Heaven as if to appeal for vengeance. And that
vengeance came! It had been long delayed; so long indeed that when the
brilliant courtiers of Versailles were told of disaffection among the
masses, and warned to conciliate ere it was too late the goodwill of
their inferiors, they listened with contemptuous carelessness to the
tardy caution, and scorned to place themselves in competition with those
untitled classes whom they had long ceased to regard as their
fellow-men. But the voice of the people is like the stroke of the hammer
upon the anvil; it not only makes itself heard, but, however great may
be the original resistance, finishes by fashioning the metal upon which
it falls after its own will.

During the reign of Louis XIII this great and fatal truth had not yet
been impressed upon the French nation, for the popular voice was stifled
beneath the ukase of despotism; and even the _tiers-etat_--important as
the loyalty of that portion of a kingdom must ever be to i