INTRODUCTION. 395 



wealth became enormous; they abandoned all pretensions 

 to superior sanctity; many of them abandoned themselves 

 to the utmost licentiousness; the few ^ feeble sermons that 

 were preached, were, as it is to-day in our own country, 

 directed against the beggar on the street and the petty 

 sins common among them. The Legislature was composed 

 of infidels, who availed themselves of the abuses of the 

 church and attacked its doctrines in open debate. Every- 

 thing was demoralization, and it became a festering sore 

 upon the body politic. Beneath all was the bulk of the 

 population, of whom it might truthfully be said, possessed 

 no rights except that of paying taxes. All the burdens 

 of the State fell on the industrious and productive classes. 

 The nobility and clergy were exempt from taxation. The 

 most oppressive mode of collecting prevailed. Two-thirds 

 of all the lands in the country were in the possession of 

 the nobility and clergy, who, not content with their fiscal 

 exemption, imposed upon the cultivators feudal dues and 

 services of the most onerous and harassing description. 



It was impossible that agriculture could flourish under 

 such circumstances. Instead of being protected and 

 encouraged in his indispensable calling, the husbandman 

 was regarded as a species of drudge, appointed by nature 

 to toil for the benefit of superiors. The king, the nobility, 

 and the clergy, all considered him in this light, and con- 

 tended which should wring from him the most in the 

 various shapes of taxes, rents, dues, and tithes. Trav- 

 elers, who visited France at this period, concur in 

 representing abject poverty and wretchedness as the uni- 

 versal lot of the peasantry. 



Nor was it any better in the domain of commerce. 

 Industry was fettered by a thousand shackles. Rulers have, 

 in ever} 7 age and country, with strange perversity, marked 

 trade for their legitimate prey. The right to monopolize 

 a business was a matter of purchase; afterwards the price 



