THE WORLD'S DEBT TO FRANCE 



were thrown into prison and permitted 

 to languish and die without even knowing 

 the nature of the offenses with which 

 they were charged. Words, indeed, are 

 inadequate to portray the pitiable condi- 

 tions of the poorer classes through the 

 century preceding the Revolution. They 

 were forbidden to fence their fields for 

 the protection of their crops, lest the 

 fences should interfere with the lord's 

 progress during the hunt. They were 

 even prohibited from cultivating their 

 fields at certain seasons, in order that the 

 game for the lord's bag might not be dis- 

 turbed. One who saw it all wrote that 

 France had "degenerated into a hospital 

 full of woe and empty of food." 



As the French populace looked across 

 the Atlantic to America, whose freedom 

 their country had helped achieve, they saw 

 the Arcadia of their philosophers' dreams 

 realized The people they had helped set 

 free in the Xew World were an inspira- 

 tion, an object-lesson, and an appeal to 

 them. It may well be doubted whether 

 America could have achieved her free- 

 dom but for the help of the French and 

 the bell of human liberty she set to ring- 

 ing. And yet who can say that America 

 did not more than repay the debt by the 

 inspiration and the encouragement she 

 gave to France? 



Be that as it may, however, France 

 rose boldly and resolutely to the grim 

 task she had before her of deposing the 

 central doctrine of continental Europe, 

 as it existed in those days, the doctrine 

 of "the divine right of kings." 



THE DISTANT THUNDERS OE REVOLT 



Even while our Henrys and our Han- 

 cocks were thundering at the iniquities of 

 colonial rule in America and crying to 

 heaven for freedom for their country, the 

 distant thunder of the approaching storm 

 in France could be heard. How often 

 had Louis XV sensed its coming in his 

 exclamation, "After us the deluge!"; for 

 he was statesman enough to realize that 

 the sins of extravagance were finding out 

 their authors, and that corruption in high 

 places was becoming such that the body 

 politic could stand it no more. 



It was a tottering throne that Louis 

 XV left to his grandson, Louis XVI, and 

 a not - too - strong king inherited it, al- 



though he did all he could to stay the 

 storm. He called to his aid the most 

 eminent men of France and consulted 

 with the nobles and the clergy ; but every 

 class was ready to surrender the privi- 

 leges and special favors of all the other 

 classes but their own; so nothing of mo- 

 ment resulted. 



Then, for the first time in 175 years, 

 was convened the States-General, an al- 

 most forgotten assembly composed of the 

 nobility, the clergy, and the commons. 



When the king convened this body, he 

 expected all votes in its deliberations to 

 be taken by classes. In this way the 

 clergy and the nobles could outvote the 

 commons. But when the deliberations 

 began the representatives of the commons 

 determined that voting should be done 

 by individuals. For five weeks the war 

 raged, and the commons, emboldened by 

 public opinion without, took a decisively 

 revolutionary step by declaring them- 

 selves the Xational Assembly and inviting 

 the other two orders to join them, which 

 they later did. 



the bastile's eale 



Then followed the storming of the 

 Bastile, of whose fall the great English 

 statesman, Fox, declared: "How much is 

 this the greatest event that ever happened 

 in the world, and how much the best !" 



The subsequent story of the French 

 Revolution is a long and painful one. 



All Europe was watching with the ut- 

 most anxiety the course of events in 

 France, for the people everywhere knew 

 that the cause of the French republicans 

 was their own, while the kings under- 

 stood that the cause of Louis XVI was 

 theirs. These kings reasoned that if the 

 French people should be allowed to over- 

 turn the throne of their hereditary sov- 

 ereign, who, after that, would respect the 

 ''divine right of kings"? They, therefore, 

 decided to line up with the royalists of 

 France and put down by the power of 

 royal armies the infamous doctrine of the 

 sovereignty of the people and the rights 

 of man. 



THE REIGN OE TERROR 



On the 21 st of September, 1792, the 

 national convention abolished the mon- 

 arch}' and proclaimed the republic. All 



