gion of ignominious and indifcriminate fervility. It seemed as if the "representative

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majesty" of the genius and intellect of man were proftrated before the fhrine of a fanguinary and diffolute tyrant, who practifed the corruption of Courts without their mildness, and incurred the guilt of wars without their glory. His highest praise is to have supported the stage trick of Royalty with effect; and it is furely difficult to conceive any character more odious and despicable, than that of a puny libertine, who, under the frown of a ftrumpet, or a monk, iffues the mandate that is to murder virtuous citizens, to defolate happy and peaceful hamlets, to wring agonizing tears from widows and orphans. Heroifm has a splendor that almost atones for its exceffes; but what fhall we think of him, who, from the luxurious and daftardly fecurity in which he wallows at Verfailles,. issues with calm and cruel apathy his orders to butcher the Proteftants of Languedoc, or

to

to lay in ashes the villages of the Palatinate? On the recollection of such scenes, as a scholar, I blush for the prostitution of letters; as a man, I blush for the patience of humanity.

But the defpotism of this reign was pregnant with the great events which have fignalized our age. It fostered that literature which was one day destined to destroy it. Its profligate conquefts have eventually proved the acquifitions of humanity; and the ufurpations of Louis XIV. have ferved only to add a larger portion to the great body of freemen. The spirit of its policy was inherited by the fucceeding reign. The rage of conqueft, repreffed for a while by the torpid defpotism of Fleury, burst forth with renovated violence in the latter part of the reign of Louis XV. France, exhausted alike by the misfortunes of one war and the victories of another, groaned under a weight of impoft and debt, which it was equally difficult to remedy or to endure.

The profligate expedients were exhausted by which fucceffive Ministers had attempted to avert the great crifis, in which the credit and power of the government must perish.

The wife and benevolent administration of M. Turgot, though long enough for his glory, was too fhort, and perhaps too early for thofe falutary and grand reforms which his genius. had conceived, and his virtue would have effected. The aspect of purity and talent spread

a natural alarm among the minions of a Court,

and they easily fucceeded in the expulfion of fuch rare and obnoxious intruders.

The magnificent ambition of M. de Vergennes, the brilliant, profufe and rapacious career of M. de Calonne, the feeble and irrefolute violence of M. Brienne, all contributed their fhare to fwell this financial embarraffment. The deficit, or inferiority of the revenue to the expenditure, at length rofe to

the

the enormous fum of 115 millions of livres, or about 4,750,000l. annually*. This was a disproportion between income and expence with which no government, and no individual, could long continue to exist.

In this exigency there was no expedient left, but to guarantee the ruined credit of bankrupt defpotifm by the fanction of the national voice. The States General were a dangerous mode of collecting it. Recourse was therefore had to the Affembly of the Notables, a mode well known in the history of France, in which the King fummoned a number of individuals, felected, at his difcre

* For this we have the authority of M. de Calonne himfelf. See his late publication, page 56. This was the account prefented to the Notables in April, 1787. He, indeed, makes fome deductions on account of part of this deficit being expirable. But this is of no confequence to our purpose, which is to view the influence of the prefent urgency, the political, not the financial state of the question.

tion, from the mafs, to advife him in great emergencies. They were little better than a popular Privy Council. They were neither recognized nor protected by law. Their precarious and fubordinate existence hung on the nod of defpotifm,

They were called together by M. Calonne, who has now the inconfiftent arrogance to boast of the fchemes which he laid before them, as the model of the Affembly whom he traduces. He propofed, it is true, the equalization of impoft, and the abolition of the pecuniary exemptions of the Nobility and Clergy; and the difference between his system and that of the Affembly, is only in what makes the fole diftinction in human actionsits end. He would have deftroyed the privileged Orders, as obftacles to defpotifm. They have deftroyed them, as derogations from freedom. The object of his plans was to facilitate Fifcal oppreffion. The motive of theirs