zens. In the autumn of 1791, Louis XVI
was forced to accept a new constitution for France vesting the
legislative power in a popular assembly. Little disorder accompanied
these startling changes. To all appearances a peaceful revolution had
stripped the French king of his royal prerogatives and based the
government of his country on the consent of the governed.

=American Influence in France.=--In undertaking their great political
revolt the French had been encouraged by the outcome of the American
Revolution. Officers and soldiers, who had served in the American war,
reported to their French countrymen marvelous tales. At the frugal table
of General Washington, in council with the unpretentious Franklin, or at
conferences over the strategy of war, French noblemen of ancient lineage
learned to respect both the talents and the simple character of the
leaders in the great republican commonwealth beyond the seas. Travelers,
who had gone to see the experiment in republicanism with their own eyes,
carried home to the king and ruling class stories of an astounding
system of popular government.

On the other hand the dalliance with American democracy was regarded by
French conservatives as playing with fire. "When we think of the false
ideas of government and philanthropy," wrote one of Lafayette's aides,
"which these youths acquired in America and propagated in France with so
much enthusiasm and such deplorable success--for this mania of imitation
powerfully aided the Revolution, though it was not the sole cause of
it--we are bound to confess that it would have been better, both for
themselves and for us, if these young philosophers in red-heeled shoes
had stayed at home in attendance on the court."

=Early American Opinion of the French Revolution.=--So close were the
ties between the two nations that it is not surprising to find every
step in the first stages of the French Revolution greeted with applause
in the United States. "Liberty will have another feather in her cap,"
exultantly wrote a Boston editor. "In no part of the globe," soberly
wrote John Marshall, "was this revolution hailed with more joy than in
America.... But one sentiment existed." The main key to the Bastille,
sent to Washington as a memento, was accepted as "a token of the
victory gained by liberty." Thomas Paine saw in the great event "the
first ripe fruits of American principles transplanted into Europe."
Federalists and Anti-Federalists regarded th