their own houses. But in the court, and in every office and department of government, there were individuals who, from jealousy and enmity to their official superiors, or sympathy with the opponents of the court, from a love of the new ideas or a love of money, or from some other motive, were ever ready to betray all the secrets they could learn. This continued until the expiring candle of this poor monarchy was completely burnt out; and the practice will account for many things in the revolution which might otherwise appear inexplicable. When the king's officer went by night to the houses of d'Espréménil and de Monsabert to capture them withcut noise, they were not to be found there or anywhere else. It was not the intention of those two gentlemen to flee or hide themselves for any time: what they wanted was to get up a scene, to injure the court by a scandalous éclat, to imitate the grand scene which had taken place in the English House of Commons when Charles I. went with an armed force to demand the persons of the five members: for these Frenchmen were always imitating, or fancying they were imitating, the patriots of England, or Rome, or Greece; and, as thetwo things resembled each other in name, though in nothing else, they thought their parlement might stand out in the eyes of the world like an English parliament. Accordingly, on the following day, they went down to the Palais de Justice, and took their usual seats. What they expected and had counted upon for their coup d'éclat happened very soon after: the palais was surrounded by a regiment, and an officer entering their hall demanded, in the king's name, that M. d'Espréménil and M. de Monsabert should be delivered up to him. A profound silence ensued. At length the president rose and declared that he and every member present was a d'Espréménil and a de Monsabert, as they one and all coincided in the sentiments of those members. The officer, not knowing the persons of the two members, and not wishing to proceed to violence without express orders, withdrew, and either went or sent to Versailles to consult ministers or the king and queen. The

troops remained outside the building, blocking up all the avenues leading to it, and the parlement remained within, having declared themselves in "permanent session." There were one hundred and sixty-seven of them, sixteen being peers. D'Espréménil compared them to the Roman senate, sitting in their curule chairs and purple robes, awaiting Brennus, the victorious Gauls, slavery or death; and told them that they were offering a grand spectacle to the Universe! As they were allowed to send messengers out, and even to despatch a courier to Versailles, it is to be supposed that they were permitted to receive messengers within, and that the means of procuring food and wine were not denied to them. After some twenty hours the officer again entered the hall and required the members to point out to him M. d'Espréménil and M. de Monsabert under penalty of being declared guilty of treason in protecting the king's enemies. There was a beating of drums, and rattling of muskets in the court. It was evident that the officer, who was a man of iron, and who had been chosen on account of his resoluteness, would execute his order by force. The scene, besides, had lasted a long whilethe majority must have been tired of playing at Roman senators and so the two chosen victims stepped forth from their brethren and surrendered themselves. d'Espréménil was escorted to a carriage by a file of soldiers with their bayonets fixed, he put a short question to the crowd of spectators, which, a very few months later, might have caused blood to flow like water. "Have you courage?" said he. The multitude made no reply, and the regiment doing duty on the spot-the French guards-were firm and unconcerned. D'Espréménil was carried away to a little island off the coast of Provence not far from Toulon, and de Monsabert to an old fortress near the city of Lyons. A few minutes after their seizure the officer turned out all their brethren, locked up the chamber of parlement, and carried away the keys in his pocket.

As

Not many days after these high events, on the 8th of May, 1788, the king held a Lit de Justice at Ver

sailles in order to enforce or to establish the Cour Plénière. He produced certain ordinances ready signed. These were registered, the parlement meantime keeping profound silence, and the meeting broke up. But the very next day the parlementers assembled in a tavern or coffee-house, at Versailles, and drew up a strong protest. Nor were the provincial parlements much more submissive; except that of Douai, not one of them would recognise the royal edict. But the last blow which upset the whole plan was the refusal of peers, nobles, bishops, counsellors, and other men of note, upon whose co-operation the king had confidently relied, to accept places in this new Cour Plénière, or to be in any way concerned in it. Absolutism made a few shifts and a few dying struggles before it resigned itself to its inevitable doom. The military were employed at Rennes, and forced the Breton parlement to enregister. Blood was spilt in the streets of that town, and, when the Bretons sent a deputation of twelve to Versailles with a remonstrance, Loménie de Brienne, after hearing them, packed them off to the Bastille by letters de cachet. The Bretons sent a second and more numerous deputation, who were met on the road by emissaries of ministers and frightened back to Rennes. The persevering Bretons despatched a third and still more numerous deputation, and, as these deputies travelled incogniti, and by differ ent roads, they succeeded in reaching the capital and the royal residence. The minister refused to grant them an audience, but they had other work in hand besides that of representation and remonstrance. Before their coming they had struck up a close alliance with Lafayette, who, by letter, had assured them "that he associated himself in all oppositon to every present and future act of arbitrary power." Though not a born Breton, Lafayette's principal property lay in that province, and his mother was a native of it. He was, therefore, considered as good as a Breton, and he became the rallying point, not only of the deputies, but of all the men of movement that came up from their country to Paris. Under his auspices was now formed the Breton club, the first germ

of the Jacobin club. After these proceedings it was not extraordinary that the queen should conceive sentiments of suspicion and aversion against Lafayette, or that he should be deprived of his command of a military division of the kingdom. To those who represented the relegation of the Duke of Orleans to Villars-Cotterets as too severe a punishment for a prince of the blood, Louis replied, that he knew that of him which would justify him in taking off his head; yet he soon yielded to entreaties, and recalled the duke to the pleasures and excitements of Paris. It was observed, or fancied, that, from the moment Orleans returned, there was an increase of activity in the press and in the mob, and rumours began to be spread of great sums of money distributed in the Faubourgs, and of plots for dethroning the king and setting up Orleans as captain-general and provisionary regent. Many of these reports were premature, or altogether fabulous; but some countenance appears to have been given to them by the duke's crowded dinner-parties and assemblies in the Palais Royal, where, without distinction and without etiquette of any kind, parlementers, philosophes, economists, journalists, peers, nobles, liberal churchmen (who neither believed in the doctrines of the church nor in any one point of the Christian faith), and all the men in Paris that were the most wedded to the new opinions, congregated day after day.

But the mischief and the woe were aggravated by the arrival of a far more terrible agent than the Duke of Orleans, whose influence on the revolution has been vastly overrated. In the month of July of this year (1788), a terrific hail-storm fell upon Paris and the country for one hundred and fifty miles round about, destroying the harvest, as it was all but ready for the sickle, spoiling all the fruit upon the trees, and doing incalculable damage in other ways. As this storm had been preceded, in most parts of France, by a long drought, there was a certain prospect of scarcity, and of the rage of hunger being superadded to the other miseries and madnesses of the people. Surrounded by difficulties of every kind, without money, or the hopes of getting any-for the

people were refusing to pay taxes, whether registered or unregistered, and the capitalists would not look at the successive loans, or lend a sous to a bankrupt government which was evidently falling to pieces-the king agreed that the states-general should be convoked in the following month of May.

The poverty of the court, and the emptiness of the national exchequer, precipitated events. The king had but 2000 louis-d'ors left in his strong box at Versailles, and the state-treasury at Paris did not contain wherewith to meet its obligations. At last, Count d'Artois waited on the queen to assure her that Loménie must be dismissed, or the monarchy ruined; and, after tears shed both by her majesty and the minister, it was agreed that the archbishop should travel for the benefit of his health, and that Necker, who had returned to Paris some time before, should be invited or implored to accept the task of righting the finances and the monarchy.

Loménie de Brienne took the road to Nice and Italy; and the Genevan banker, on the very same day, the 24th of August (1788), was reinstalled finance-minister, with wonderful acclamations on the part of the people, who once more believed, for a little moment, that he was destined to be the saviour of France. His appointment gave so much satisfaction that Paris, which had long left the name of royalty out of her vivats, shouted all day and all night, Vive le Roi! Vive Necker!

The promise to assemble the states-general in May, and even a royal decree to that effect, had been given under the wretched ministry of Loménie. Necker only confirmed the king in this resolution. It would have been beyond the power of Necker, and all the financeministers and statesmen of Europe, to have put off the meeting; but a wiser man might assuredly have made some better preparations for it. Some sort of revolution was as necessary as it was inevitable-perhaps the worst was better than lingering on in the present state;—yet, by previously defining and properly limiting the respective powers of the three orders of the state, and by providing beforehand some barriers against the sudden in