Stanislaus Lesczinski, having broken off the projected marriage with the Infanta of Spain and sent back the princess to the great indignation of Philip V. Louis was under the influence of his tutor, cardinal Fleury, who overthrew the duke of Bourbon and his favorite the marquise de Prie, and banished them from court.

1726-1743. Administration of Fleury.

Participation of France in the war of the Polish succession, p. 398; in the war of the Austrian succession, p. 400; in the Seven Years' War, p. 403; war with England and the peace of Paris, pp. 422, 441.

Persecution of the Jansenists. Miracles at the cemetery of St. Medard. Convulsionnaires. Closure of the cemetery, 1732.

“De par le Roi, défense à Dieu,

De faire miracles en ce lieu."

After the death of Fleury (1743), government of mistresses and of ministers whom they placed in office. Senseless expenditure and revolting arbitrary rule. Marquise de Chateauroux.

1745-1764. Marquise de Pompadour (Lenormant d'Etioles). 1745, May 5. Battle of Fontenoy; victory of Marshal Saxe over the allies (p. 402 and 438).

Struggle between the church, parliament, and crown.

The duc de Choiseul, a friend of Pompadour, minister. 1756. Hostilities with England in North America led to war (p. 438).

1757, Jan. 5. Attempted assassination of Louis XV. by Damiens, who was barbarously tortured and torn by four horses.

1768.

1769.

Death of the queen.

Annexation of Corsica.

The immorality and extravagance of the court reached its height when Louis XV., toward the close of his reign, came under the influence of the shameless prostitute Jeanne Vaubernier, by marriage with a superannuated courtier,

1769-1774. Countess DuBarry.

Contest with the parliament of Paris, which was abolished in 1771 by the chancellor, Maupeou, and superseded by a Conseil du Roi, without political privileges. The parliament was, however, restored under the next reign. Pacte de famine; a company in which the king was shareholder, which had a monopoly of the corn supply. 1774, May 10. Death of Louis XV. He was succeeded by his grand

son,

1774-1792. Louis XVI.,

whose moral purity and sincere good-will, neutralized by a total lack of energy, were unable to quiet the approaching storm of the revolution by feeble attempts at reform. Restoration of the parliament. Louis, while dauphin (1770) had married Maria Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria. The queen, at first extremely popular, soon incurred the dislike of the people, and became an object of the grossest slanders, particularly in connection with the scandalous affair of the diamond necklace (1785; given to the

queen by cardinal Rohan; countess Lamott). Her influence was an evil one, being exerted for the maintenance of the system of favoritism, and for the resistance of reforms.

1774-1781. Maurepas, the king's favorite minister.

1774-1776, May. Turgot minister of marine and finance.

1777-1781. Necker, minister of finance; abolition of six hundred superfluous offices.

1778. Alliance between France and the United States of America (p. 429).

For the participation of France in the war of American independence, see p. 429, etc.

1781. Publication of the compte rendu by Necker. On the death of Maurepas the Comte de Vergennes succeeded to the favor of the king.

1783-1787. Calonne, a favorite of the queen, minister of finance. Great extravagance of the court; contraction of an enormous debt.

1787, Feb. 22. Assembly of notables summoned at Versailles. Fall of Calonne.

De Brienne, minister of finance. Dissolution of the assembly (May 25). Opposition of the parliament of Paris, which refused to register the reform.

Edicts, alleging that such changes needed the approval of the states-general. Banishment of the parliament to Troyes. An agreement was patched up, but on the recall of the parliament, a still more aggravated quarrel broke out concerning new loans.

1788, Jan. Presentation of grievances. Arrest of the leaders of the parliament. Abolition of that body, the place of which was

to be taken by a cour plenière, nominated by the king. Revolts in the provinces.

Summons of a states-general for May 5, 1789.

1788, Aug. De Brienne resigned office. Necker recalled.

THIRD PERIOD.

FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE FIRST FRENCH REVOLUTION TO THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA (1789-1815).

The revolution ran through three stages to the extreme of a democratic republic, three other periods brought it gradually through a reaction back to absolute monarchy, after which came a time of constitutional monarchy, then a republic, then the second empire, then a republic again.

1. States General and Constituent Assembly (Constituante); from May 5 (June 17), 1789, to Sept. 30, 1791 (2 years). A limited (constitutional) monarchy. Influence of the higher middle classes.

2. The Legislative Assembly (Législatif); from Oct. 1. 1791, to Sept. 21, 1792 (almost a year). Monarchy still further limited, then suspended. Increase of the power of the lower classes.

3. The National Convention (Convention Nationale); from Sept. 21, 1792, to Oct. 25, 1795 (more than three years); called to frame a

new constitution, it first abolished the monarchy and condemned the king to death; it supported the Reign of Terror, and then overthrew it. It led the resistance to foreign foes.

N. B. The left of the constituent was the right of the legislative, and the left of the legislative was (at first) the right of the convention.

4. The Directory (Directoire): from Oct. 26, 1795, to Nov. 9, 1799 (18 Brumaire, An. VIII.) more than four years. The middle classes recovered their influence. Party divisions. The army. General Bonaparte's coup d'état.

5. The Consulate (consulat), at first provisional then definitive, from Dec. 25, 1799, to May 20, 1804 (41⁄2 years); civil and military rule, virtually of one man ; progress of French arms.

6. The (first) Empire; from May 20, 1804 to (April, 1814) June 22, 1815 (about eleven years). Napoleon I. made France the controlling power on the continent, but was finally overthrown.1

General Causes of the Revolution.

1. The spirit of the eighteenth century - a spirit devoted to the destruction or reformation of all existing institutions. Attacks of French writers upon church and state. Montesquieu (1689–1755); Voltaire (1694-1778); Rousseau (1670–1741); the Encyclopedia (1751-1780), the work of the Encyclopedists: Holbach (1723– 1789); Helvetius (1715-1771); Diderot (1713–1784); D'Alembert (1717-1783); Condillac (1715–1789).

2. The unequal division and miserable cultivation of the land (nearly two thirds of which was in the hands of the clergy and the nobles), and the strict control exercised by the guilds, which checked the development of trade and industry.

3. The arbitrary government, the abuses in the administration, the unequal apportionment of the burdens of taxation. Since 1614, the constitutional assembly of the kingdom, the états-généraux had not been summoned (p. 325). Control of the liberty of the subject by arbitrary warrants of imprisonment (lettres de cachet, Bastille) of their property by arbitrary taxation.

In opposition to the right assumed by the parliament of Paris, to refuse the registration of edicts of taxation, the court had recourse to beds of justice (lits de justice, a despotic enforcement of registration), and the banishment of members of parliament. Commissions in the army, places in parliament, and most of the higher offices, were purchasable, but as a rule, only by the nobles. The privileged classes (nobility and clergy) were allowed many privileges in regard to the direct taxes, although by no means exempt by them.2 Continuation in the country of the oppressive feudal burdens (corvées, enforced labor on the estate of the lord and on public roads without pay), exactions of the feudal lords, who wasted their revenues in the capital and gave the peasants neither protection nor assistance in return. Taille, land and property tax; gabelle, tax on salt.

1 Assmann.

2 Von Sybel, Geschichte der Revolutionszeit.

Special Cause.

The immense public debt and the deficit. The yearly deficit owed its origin to the wars of Louis XIV., to his costly, often senseless buildings (Versailles with its basins and fountains lying in a district totally without water), and to his extravagant court; it grew under the profligate expenditure of Louis XV. and the cost of the North American war under Louis XVI. till it amounted to nearly half of the yearly income. As Turgot's (1774-1776) attempts at reforms (removal of internal duties on commerce; abolition of the corvée, abolition of many guilds), Necker's (1776-1781) economical administration, and the assembly of notables summoned upon the advice of Calonnes (1787), brought no relief, the king took the advice of Necker, who had reassumed office (1788), and resolved upon the 1789, May 5. Summons of the États-Généraux to Ver

sailles, with a double representation of the middle classes, the third estate (tiers état), nobles 300, clergy 300, commons 600. Dispute about the manner of debating and of voting (whether votes should be cast by the orders as such, or by each member individually) which broke out during the verification of the powers of the members. The nobles and the clergy demanded a separate verification, the commons wished that it should take place in common. The true question was whether the legislative body should consist of a lower house of commons, and an upper house of nobles and clergy which would check the lower, or of one house in which the commons equaled in number the nobles and clergy together. Upon the motion of the abbé Sieyes (author of the remarkable pamphlet asking, What is the third estate?) the representatives of the third estate assumed the title of the 1789, June 17-1791. National Assembly (constituante) and invited the other orders to join them.

1789. Suspension of the meetings for three days; the hall June 20. closed to the members, who at last resorted to a neighboring tennis court (jeu de paume) and took an oath not to separate until they had given the realm a constitution. President Bailly. Many of the clergy and some nobles joined the assembly.

June 23. Fruitless royal sitting; the king ordered the assembly to meet in three houses.

Principal orator of the assembly: Mirabeau (Riquette, count of Mirabeau, born 1749, of remarkable talent, but dissolute, in debt, at variance with his family, elected in Provence as representative of the third estate). The representatives of the clergy and the nobility join the third estate by request of the king. Concentration of troops near Paris. Rumors of a purpose to dissolve the national assembly, and the dismissal of Necker (July 11) caused the

1789.

July 14.

Storm and destruction of the Bastille in Paris (murder of De Launay), Camille Desmoulins. Paris in the

hands of the mob scarcely controlled by the electors who had chosen the deputies from Paris for the assembly and now sat at the Hôtel de Ville as a provisional government. Necker recalled. Lafayette commander of the newly established National Guard. Bailly mayor of Paris. Adoption of the tricolor: blue, red (colors of Paris), white (color of France). Beginning of the emigration of the nobles, headed by the count of Artois, second brother of the king, prince Condé, Polignac.

Rising of the peasants against the feudal lords in Dauphiné, Provence, and Burgundy. Riots, provisional governments, guards in the provincial cities.

Aug. 4. Voluntary surrender by the representatives of the nobles (vicomte de Noailles) of all feudal rights and privileges; abolition of the titles, prohibition of the sale of offices, dissolution of the guilds, etc.

Aug. 27. Declaration of the rights of man.

power.

Discussion of the veto

Oct. 5, 6. Outbreak of the mob of Paris, caused by hunger, the bribes of the duke of Orléans, and rumors of an intended reaction. March of a band, consisting principally of women, to Versailles. The royal family, rescued by Lafayette, were obliged to go to Paris, whither the national assembly followed them. 200 members resigned.

Democratic_monarchical constitution: one chamber with legislative power and the sole right of initiation. The royal veto was suspensive only, delaying the adoption of a measure for two legislative terms. The king could not declare war and conclude peace without the consent of the chamber, ratification by which was necessary for the validity of all foreign treaties.

In order to relieve the financial distress the ecclesiastical estates were declared public property. Assignats, notes of the government, having for security the public lands, the value of which was not to be exceeded by the issue of notes (a check which was inoperative). The state assumed the support of the clergy.

1790, July 14. National federation in Paris; the Constitution accepted by the king.

Abolition of the old provinces and governments; France divided into eighty-three departments, named after rivers and mountains; these departments being subdivided into 374 districts and cantons. The communes were left unchanged (44,000); tax qualification for the exercise of active suffrage in the primary assemblies, which chose electors (électeurs) who then elected the representatives (745) for a legislature with a term of two years. The administrative officers of the departments and districts were selected from the electors; the municipal officers and the judges were taken from the great body of voters, the active citizens. Each department and each district had a local assembly. Abolition of the parliaments and the old judicial constitution. Juries. Abolition of hereditary nobility, titles, and coats-of-arms. Dissolution of all ecclesiastical orders, excepting those having education and the care of the sick for their objects. Civil organization of