olution to call in the outer people, to compel a compromise with
the class that filled his court, that constituted society, that ruled
opinion, it was the act of a man destitute of energy, and gifted with
an uncertain and indistinct enlightenment. And Necker said, "You may
lend a man your ideas, you cannot lend him your strength of will."

The enterprise was far beyond the power and quality of his mind, but
the lesson of his time was not lost upon him, and he had learnt
something since the days when he spoke the unchanging language of
absolutism. He showed another spirit when he emancipated the serfs of
the Crown, when he introduced provincial and village councils, when he
pronounced that to confine local government to landowners was to
offend a still larger class, when he invited assistance in reforming
the criminal code in order that the result might be the work, not of
experts only, but of the public. All this was genuine conviction. He
was determined that the upper class should lose its fiscal privileges
with as little further detriment as possible. And, to accomplish this
necessary and deliberate purpose, he offered terms to the Commons of
France such as no monarch ever proposed to his subjects. He declared
in later days, and had a right to declare, that it was he who had
taken the first step to concert with the French people a permanent
constitution, the abolition of arbitrary power, of pecuniary
privilege, of promotion apart from merit, of taxation without consent.
When he heard that the Notables had given only one vote in favour of
increased representation of the Third Estate, he said, "You can add
mine." Malouet, the most high-minded and sagacious statesman of the
Revolution, testifies to his sincerity, and declares that the king
fully shared his opinions.

The tributary elements of a free constitution which were granted by
Lewis XVI., not in consultation with deputies, not even always with
public support, included religious toleration, Habeas Corpus, equal
incidence of taxes, abolition of torture, decentralisation and local
self-government, freedom of the press, universal suffrage, election
without official candidates or influence, periodical convocation of
parliament, right of voting supplies, of initiating legislation, of
revising the constitution, responsibility of ministers, double
representation of the Commons at the States-General. All these
concessions were acts of the Crown, yielding to dictates of po