lines of demarcation between the rights and claims of the rich and the poor, the great and the small, required, whether with regard to their ftability, or to the character of the legislators, that none of them feparately, much lefs the whole, fhould have been paffed, without deep thought, calm deliberation, long difcuffion, close enquiry into facts and confequences, and a vigorous exertion of all the human forefight in looking to poffible or probable confequences.

The event was, that the nobility and clergy in the provinces, feeling no part of that enthufiafm which operated on their brethen upon the 4h of Auguft, and being, on the contrary, in the highest degree irritated by the devastation and ruin which they were enduring, were much diflatisfied with, and very generally condemned the conduct of their delegates, in thus haftily facrificing their rights and property, without their concurrence, and without obtaining the fmalleft fecurity, either prefent or future, for their perfons, or for whatever ftill remained of their poffeffions. On the other hand, the illiterate peafantry, having received only very imperfect accounts, and forming very confufed ideas of what had paffled in the affembly, yet the mixture of truth and falfehood which reached them, that the feudal fyftem was entirely overthrown, all privileges and diftinctions between men for ever abolished, that all open lands were the property of the nation (by which they understood themselves) with that addition, which was received more greedily than any other, that no rents were in future to be paid, these things they thought not only afforded a full juftification

of their past violence, but fufficient authority for its continuance; nor is it much to be wondered at, that they fhould confider thefe fudden and extraordinary benefits as either the reward or the effect of their own outrages. Under this persuasion they accordingly renewed them with greater violence than ever, being now freed from the dread which had hitherto attended the perpetration of fimilar crimes. The national affembly paffed very fevere laws to prevent thefe diforders, and to punish the offenders; but they not being fupported with vigour, and no proper force affigned for carrying them into execution, they produced little effect.

But the proprietaries at length, whofe fupineness hitherto had been a matter of general aftonishment, took up arms in their own defence, and checked the barbarous ravagesof the peafantry. To this late-difcovered vigour on their fide Rabaut attributes the falvation of France; for he obferves, that that clafs of men who had nothing to lofe, and every thing to gain in the confufion of revolutions, was thereby deterred from affembling.

As an appearance of fome tranquillity and good-temper now prevailed in the court and affembly, the king ventured upon the appointment of a new miniftry. The great feal was given to the archbishop of Bourdeaux; the nomination of benefices to the archbishop of Vienne; the war department was committed to M. de la Tour du Pin; while St. Prieft and Montmorin, who had been recalled with Neckar, were reinftated in their former offices. The three former were members of the affembly, but they ceafed from fitting or voting there after their appointment.

appointment. The affembly expreffed great fatisfaction at the choice of thefe minifters, which the king had immediately communicated to them by letter.

It happened unfortunately, that the fame evil, which had already proved fo fatal to the king and to his administrations, ftill continued to prefs upon the executive govern, inent with greater weight than it even had done before. The payment of the taxes was generally refused or evaded in moft parts of the kingdom, and there was no money to fupport government or carry on the public bufinefs. In this ftate of things the new minifters demanded an audience of the affembly; and the archbishop of Bourdeaux, as keeper of the feal, having expatiated largely on the difordered and melancholy ftate of public affairs, M. Neckar, as minifter of finance, demanded that the affembly fhould give its fanction to a loan of thirty millions of livres, as a measure indifpenfably neceffary. The neceffity was too evident to admit of a difcuffion; but fome objections were made on account of the inftructions which the delegates had received from their conftituents, not to grant any fubfidies until they had completed the conftitution. These objections, however, gave way to the inftant and extreme diftrefs of the ftate for want of money; but this occafion afforded the first inftance of the total change which had taken place in the countenance of the afTembly with respect to Neckar, Inftead of adopting the fcheme formed by the financial minifter, whofe abilities and integrity they had fo often extolled in a degree which approached to the hyperbole, they now declared their total want

of confidence in him, by altering his plan, and narrowing the terms which he propofed as an inducement to the lenders for fubfcribing to the loan. The confequence was natural; the monied men would not part with their cash, and no body fubfcribed; and by this very illjudged management the weakness or failure of public credit, which might otherwife have been kept in the dark, was expofed to all Europe. This conduct, however, drew a degree of unpopularity, and even of odium,upon the national affembly, which it did not eafily get quit of; for as Neckar did not fcruple publicly to vindicate himself, the whole blame fell upon that body, to whom in reality it properly belonged.

Upon this failure, the neceffity for money every hour increafing, Neckar was permitted to prescribe fuch terms as he thought would anfwer the purpose, for raising a loan of eighty millions of livres, at five per cent. on the credit of a vote paffed by the affembly. But the fortunate moment was paft, and could not be regained; although the propofals were fufficiently alluring, the fubfcription hung too heavily on hand to produce the defired effect, and, in fine, was not half filled.

In the mean time a scheme of promoting and receiving patriotic conrributions was adopted; and, like other novelties in that country, raged for its time as an epidemic. Silver buckles and gold rings were the most common contributions to the affembly; fo that in a few days not a filver buckle was to be feen, nor probably many wedding rings to be found, any where in or near Paris. The national affembly themselves, in a

fudden

ftrike every mind with apprehenfion; the taxes being almoft entirely unproductive, and no means appearing for fupplying their place with an adequate, fubftitute. It was in this state of hard and trying difficulty, when the greatness of the neceffity feemed almoft to afford a fanction to any meafure that might be purfued for obtaining relief, that Neckar ventured to lay before the affembly the fcheme for a fupply, which the boldest minifter that ever lived, and in the moft defpotic government, would perhaps have he fitated at adopting. This was the extraordinary contribution of the fourth part of each man's yearly revenue, to be paid at different affigned periods during the course of three years. The estimate of each man's income, and confequently the amount of the fum which he was to contribute to the ftate, being left to his own honour.

It was furely a fingular cafe, that a tax almoft without example in the most arbitrary governments, should have been paffed by a body of men, not only highly republican, but who were the avowed affertors of liberty. The peculiar fituation of the affembly will, however, explain this circumftance. They were already labouring under great and general odium on account of the failure of Neckar's firft fcheme for raifing money by a loan, which was entirely and justly charged to their injudicious and wanton interference in the bufinefs. At the fame time, instant bankruptcy, with all its fatal confequences, were ftaring them full in the face; and if they rejected the prefent plan, they would have made themselves thereby anfwerable for all the evils that might follow. Mirabeau's eloquence was,

however, neceffary to make the decree pas glibly through the affembly; although he took care to infinuate, in a manner which could not be misunderstood, that Neckar poffeffed neither his confidence nor efteem. It was too late now for the affembly to reflect, that much of the public diftrefs proceeded from their own extraordinary, and as it proved unfortunate declaration, which taught the people to confider all the prefent taxes as illegal, from their not being laid on by their reprefentatives.

Nothing was, however, left undone by the affembly, which could tend to render this fcheme of fupply palatable; and to prevent its affuming the odious denomination of a tax, it was reprefented entirely as a patriotic contribution, or donation. An address to the nation was likewife paffed, ftating the necefity of her making great facrifices in cafes of great emergency. But neither thefe meafures, nor a knowledge that the scheme of this tax originated with Neckar, could prevent a great number of those who were expofed to its effect from confidering this decree, as the refult of a combina tion, formed by men without property, to ftrip thofe who still retained any, of the laft farthing they poffeffed. For the example being once fet, of thus partially taxing a part of the community, and condemning them to bear all the bur thens of the ftate, who could pretend to define the extent to which the injury and oppreffion might not. be carried under the fanction of fuch a precedent; efpecially as all power was lodged, and liable to continue, in the hands of thofe very men who had committed the original wrong?