than they had been before; the misgovernment
and oppression were less, and a successful war with England had
largely wiped out the humiliations inflicted by Chatham.

But the confluence of French theory with American example caused the
Revolution to break out, not in an excess of irritation and despair,
but in a moment of better feeling between the nation and the king. The
French were not mere reckless innovators; they were confiding
followers, and many of the ideas with which they made their venture
were those in which Burke agreed with Hamilton, and with his own
illustrious countrymen, Adam Smith and Sir William Jones. When he said
that, compared to England, the government of France was slavery, and
that nothing but a revolution could restore European liberty,
Frenchmen, saying the same thing, and acting upon it, were unconscious
of extravagance, and might well believe that they were obeying
precepts stored in the past by high and venerable authority. Beyond
that common ground, they fell back on native opinion in which there
was wide divergence, and an irrepressible conflict arose. We have to
deal with no unlikely motives, with no unheard of theories, and, on
the whole, with convinced and average men.

The States-General were convoked because there was no other way of
obtaining money for the public need. The deficit was a record of bad
government, and the first practical object was the readjustment of
taxes. From the king's accession, the revival of the old and neglected
institution had been kept before the country as a remedy, not for
financial straits only, but for all the ills of France.

The imposing corporation of the judiciary had constantly opposed the
Crown, and claimed to subject its acts to the judgment of the law. The
higher clergy had raised objections to Turgot, to Necker, to the
emancipation of Protestants; and the nobles became the most active of
all the parties of reform. But the great body of the people had borne
their trouble in patience. They possessed no recognised means of
expressing sentiments. There was no right of public meeting, no
liberty for the periodical press; and the privileged newspapers were
so tightly swaddled in their official character that they had nothing
to say even of an event like the oath in the Tennis Court. The
feelings that stirred the multitude did not appear, unless they
appeared in the shape of disorder. Without it France remained an
unknown quantity. The king felt t