divide the present--to some of those many rapidly succeeding changes, out of which a new people, different, but not separate from the old people, have grown up?-for this I am anxious to do, holding it impossible to speculate with any security on the future of a nation of which we have not studied the past.

END OF BOOK I.

BOOK II.

HISTORICAL CHANGES.

"Men will never see far into posterity who do not sometimes look backward to their ancestors."

BURKE.

"Je veux parler de la condition matérielle de la société, des changemens matériels introduits dans la manière d'être et de vivre des hommes, par un fait nouveau, par une révolution, par un nouvel état social."

Guizot.

213

OLD REGIME.

It is at Versailles that you can best understand the old régime-The monarchy overturned by the first revolution, the monarchy of Louis XIV.-Faults that he committed-Character of his successors-The alchemist and the cook-Necessity of maintaining the court nobility in public opinion by war-Impossibility of doing so-Many circumstances hastened what Louis XV. foresaw-Colbert, Law, Voltaire. -Review of the revolution and the old régime -Definition of the old régime'-What Louis XVI. might have done-The court formed by the old nobility-The monarch impoverished, and obliged to satisfy the former adherents of that nobility— The destruction of the great aristocracy burthened the monarch with the vices of the gentry-The wrath of the people delivered the nation into the hands of the mob-The good which came out of evil.

RELIEVE yon palace from the century with which its royal dome is overcharged-light up those vast apartments, gorgeous in paintings and gold-open wide those stately and solemn doors,-crowd with a gay throng of courtiers

that wide flight of marble steps, down which a daughter of the house of Hapsburg, a queen of France, half naked, was once seen to flyGive for a moment, give its ancient splendour to the palace where you are still haunted by the memory of Louis XIV. !-It is at Versailles, as you gaze on those stiff and stately gardens, on that large and spacious court, on those immense buildings, still decorated with their title inscribed in letters of gold, "Les écuries du Roi." It is at Versailles, as you stand between the five roads which quit the royal gates for Spain, Italy, Paris, Germany and England-it is at Versailles -that you understand the genius of the ancient 'régime,' such as it existed in the head of its founder.

un

I call Louis XIV. its founder: for the monarchy which the Revolution of 1789 overthrew was the monarchy of Louis XIV., who made of a great fief a great kingdom, and destroyed the feudal government of eight centuries, which Richelieu had already dermined. The ancient monarchy was of a mixed nature, and the sovereign might be said to share his power with the nobility, the magistracy, and the clergy of the realm. Louis XIV. simplified the system, and said, "I am the state." He said it with impunity,