nt Europe opened its mind to two new
ideas--that Revolution with very little provocation may be just; and
that democracy in very large dimensions may be safe.

Whilst America was making itself independent, the spirit of reform had
been abroad in Europe. Intelligent ministers, like Campomanes and
Struensee, and well-meaning monarchs, of whom the most liberal was
Leopold of Tuscany, were trying what could be done to make men happy by
command. Centuries of absolute and intolerant rule had bequeathed abuses
which nothing but the most vigorous use of power could remove. The age
preferred the reign of intellect to the reign of liberty. Turgot, the
ablest and most far-seeing reformer then living, attempted to do for
France what less gifted men were doing with success in Lombardy, and
Tuscany, and Parma. He attempted to employ the royal power for the good
of the people, at the expense of the higher classes. The higher classes
proved too strong for the crown alone; and Louis XVI. abandoned internal
reforms in despair, and turned for compensation to a war with England
for the deliverance of her American Colonies. When the increasing debt
obliged him to seek heroic remedies, and he was again repulsed by the
privileged orders, he appealed at last to the nation. When the
States-General met, the power had already passed to the middle class,
for it was by them alone that the country could be saved. They were
strong enough to triumph by waiting. Neither the Court, nor the nobles,
nor the army, could do anything against them. During the six months from
January 1789 to the fall of the Bastille in July, France travelled as
far as England in the six hundred years between the Earl of Leicester
and Lord Beaconsfield. Ten years after the American alliance, the Rights
of Man, which had been proclaimed at Philadelphia, were repeated at
Versailles. The alliance had borne fruit on both sides of the Atlantic,
and for France, the fruit was the triumph of American ideas over
English. They were more popular, more simple, more effective against
privilege, and, strange to say, more acceptable to the King. The new
French constitution allowed no privileged orders, no parliamentary
ministry, no power of dissolution, and only a suspensive veto. But the
characteristic safeguards of the American Government were rejected:
Federalism, separation of Church and State, the Second Chamber, the
political arbitration of the supreme judicial body. That which weakened