THE AGE OF NATION STATES.
The French Revolution, the latter part of the Middle Ages Italy had given the world an intellectual revolution; Germany began Modern History with a religious revolu tion; and France now introduced the last great division of the Modern period by a political and social revolution. Pre-eminently among political revolutions, the French Revolution de serves the name. The English Revolution of 1688 swept away temporary interference with ancient principles of English politics. The American Revolution made the Americans polit ically independent: so far as it brought any social change, it merely hastened slightly a movement, long under way, toward democ racy. The French Revolution overturned a society that had been growing up for centuries. cut loose from the past, and started France, with all the world, upon new lines of growth.
But if it destroyed the old, it also built the new. The work of destruction •was needlessly horrible and bloody; but as a whole the Revo lution was a vast and fruitful reform. The really significant thing is not the temporary mob-rule and bloodshed; the significant thing is the great national awakening which swept away an absurd society, founded on ancient violence and warped by time, to replace it with a simpler social system, based more nearly on equal rights.
The chief institutions of France were: (1) a monarchy, centralized, despotic and irrespon sible; but in weak hands, incumbered by com plex survivals of ancient local institutions, and hampered by its respect for the good opinion of the privileged classes; (2) an aristocracy, wealthy, privileged, corrupt, skeptical; and (3) an established church, wealthy and often cor rupt. Below these spread the masses, a nec essary but ugly substructure. Over the Con tinent, similar conditions held sway. In France the nobles had fewer duties, the peasantry had more completely risen out of serfdom, and more of a middle class had grown up, than in the other large countries of the Continent. Feudal society was more decayed, and industrial so ciety was more advanced. The great Euro pean revolution broke through at the weakest spot.
The fundamental cause of the Revolution was the unjust privileges of the favored classes and the crushing burdens of the masses. The evil was no greater than for centuries, but the consciousness of it was greater. The
masses had begun to demand reform; and the classes had begun to question the righteousness of their privileges. A revolution °requires not only abuses but also ideas?) The combustibles were ready, and so was the match.
Science had upset all old ideas about the world outside man. The telescope had proved that other planets like our earth revolved about the sun, and that myriads of other suns whirled through limitless space; and Newton had shown how this vast universe is bound to gether by the unvarying °law)" of unseen gravi tation. The microscope had revealed an un dreamed-of world of minute life in air and earth and water; and earth, air, water (and fire) themselves had become new,— since La voisier had just resolved them into components and proved that they were not the °elements)) the ancients had held them. Such- a revolution in the way of looking at the material world prepared men to ask questions about the world of man and society. Tradition and authority had been proved silly in the one field: perhaps they might be wrong in the other. And so the Revolution was really begun by the revolt against the authority of the past among the dazzling galaxy of French literati led by Vol taire, Montesquieu, Diderot and Rousseau.
The Revolution, however, is conveniently dated from the meeting of the States-General in 1789. The king had summoned that body, hoping to induce the privileged orders to give up their exemptions from taxation, and so relieve the bankrupt treasury. The Third Es tate, representing the middle class, and the liberal nobles and clergy had assembled with the determination to secure far-reaching re forms and to establish a °constitution.° A sharp contest, with a brief period of anarchy, left power in the hands of these liberal ele ments, where, despite some attempts at counter revolution and some danger of mob predomi nance, it remained for two years. The Consti Mien fashioned during this period provided for a weak kingship and abolished nobility and all special ,privileges before the law; but it carefully entrenched middle-class supremacy against democracy by graded property qualifi cations and a complex system of indirect elections.