and times more excited upon all
sorts of matters, and your ministry is almost as divided and as feeble as
that of your predecessor. Consider, Sir, that, in the course of nature,
you have fifty years to reign, and reflect what progress may be made by a
disorder which, in twenty years, has reached the pitch at which we see
it."

Turgot and Malesherbes had fallen; they had vainly attempted to make the
soundest as well as the most moderate principles of pure philosophy
triumphant in the government; at home a new attempt, bolder and at the
same time more practical, was soon about to resuscitate for a while the
hopes of liberal minds; abroad and in a new world there was already a
commencement of events which were about to bring to France a revival of
glory and to shed on the reign of Louis XVI. a moment's legitimate and
brilliant lustre.

CHAPTER LVII.----LOUIS XVI.--FRANCE ABROAD.--UNITED STATES' WAR OF
INDEPENDENCE. 1775-1783.

"Two things, great and difficult as they may be, are a man's duty and may
establish his fame. To support misfortune and be sturdily resigned to
it; to believe in the good and trust in it perseveringly. [M. Guizot,
_Washington_].

"There is a sight as fine and not less salutary than that of a virtuous
man at grips with adversity; it is the sight of a virtuous man at the
head of a good cause and securing its triumph.

"If ever cause were just and had a right to success, it was that of the
English colonies which rose in insurrection to become the United States
of America. Opposition, in their case, preceded insurrection.

"Their opposition was founded on historic right and on facts, on rational
right and on ideas.

"It is to the honor of England that she had deposited in the cradle of
her colonies the germ of their liberty; almost all, at their foundation,
received charters which conferred upon the colonists the franchises of
the mother-country.

"At the same time with legal rights, the colonists had creeds. It was
not only as Englishmen, but as Christians, that they wanted to be free,
and they had their faith even more at heart than their charters. Their
rights would not have disappeared, even had they lacked their charters.
By the mere impulse of their souls, with the assistance of divine grace,
they would have derived them from a sublimer source and one inaccessible
to human power, for they cherished feelings that soared beyond even the
institutions of which they showed themsel