280 THE SUPREMACY OF PUBLIC OPINION. 



of writers of all classes consecrated their talents to the diffusion of 

 liberal opinions: and, however pernicious many of the doctrines 

 which they endeavoured to propagate, they had the merit of arousing 

 their countrymen to a sense of their political rights, and of implanting 

 in their minds an eager desire to become freemen, not in shew, but 

 in reality. The middle classes, throughout France, became every 

 day more enlightened, more conscious of their own strength, and 

 more enthusiastic in favour of those principles, which assigned to 

 them their just place in the political system, and exposed the folly 

 and injustice of those privileges which the higher classes had so long 

 enjoyed. In France, as well as in other countries, the cause of 

 liberty was greatly indebted to the pecuniary embarrassments of the 

 crown : the hatred entertained towards Neckar, by the aristocracy 

 and the failure of every attempt made by any other minister to re- 

 store order to the finances at length compelled the government to 

 reveal its difficulties to the people, and to solicit, as it were, their 

 advice and assistance. France was now admitted to be labouring 

 under some grievous political malady; and, amid the numerous 

 remedies prescribed by self-constituted state physicians, none was 

 more generally agreeable, and appeared more reasonable in itself, 

 than the proposal to assemble the States- General. After long hesi- 

 tation and delay, the court at last granted this great boon to the 

 people ; and every heart, full of hope and joy, anticipated, with fond 

 impatience, the blessings which were to be poured out upon France, 

 by the meeting of this long- forgotten assembly. 



The imposing attitude immediately assumed and firmly preserved 

 by the Tiers Etat the determination exhibited by the people, to 

 support their representatives and the vain efforts of the court to 

 dissolve the States- General convinced all Europe, that France was 

 upon the eve of a great internal revolution. The events of each 

 succeeding day, tended to establish the ascendancy of popular party; 

 and everywhere filled the friends of freedom with joy and triumph ; 

 especially in England, where the people, forgetting their antient 

 hostility to France, welcomed her political regeneration as the com- 

 mencement of a new and better era in the history of mankind. The 

 English government and aristocracy, however, did not share in these 

 feelings ; but, on the contrary, regarded them with fear and suspi- 

 cion, as the forerunners of a demand for domestic reform, which they 

 might find it neither easy nor prudent to resist, At the present day, 

 all parties admit that many abuses exist in the administration of go- 

 vernment : but how much more undeniable must this have been at 

 the breaking out of the French Revolution, when every department 

 of the state was a nest of jobbers, who fattened upon the public 

 revenue, for doing nothing ; and when ministers openly managed 

 parliament, by means of bribery and corruption ; and when, from the 

 meanest elector, to the proudest noble every man indifferent to the 

 interests of his country bartered his political influence for some 

 personal advantage ? If the government of England were bad, that 

 of Ireland was a thousand times worse ; and the system of adminis- 

 tration acted upon in that country, would have disgraced the old go- 

 vernment of France at any period of its existence. No wonder, 



