, less
moderate than the government of Louis XV., expelled with violence all the
members of the Society of Jesus from his territory, thus exciting the
Parliament of Paris to fresh severities against the French Jesuits, and,
on the 20th of July, 1773, the court of Rome itself, yielding at last to
pressure from nearly all the sovereigns of Europe, solemnly pronounced
the dissolution of the Order. "Recognizing that the members of this
Society have not a little troubled the Christian commonwealth, and that
for the welfare of Christendom it were better that the Order should
disappear." The last houses still offering shelter to the Jesuits were
closed; the general, Ricci, was imprisoned at the castle of St. Angelo,
and the Society of Jesus, which had been so powerful for nearly three
centuries, took refuge in certain distant lands, seeking in oblivion and
silence fresh strength for the struggle which it was one day to renew.

The Parliaments were triumphant, but their authority, which seemed never
to have risen so high or penetrated so far in the government of the
state, was already tottering to its base. Once more the strife was about
to begin between the kingly power and the magistracy, whose last victory
was destined to scarcely precede its downfall. The financial
embarrassments of the state were growing more serious every day; to the
debts left by the Seven Years' War were added the new wants developed by
the necessities of commerce and by the progress of civilization. The
Board of Works, a useful institution founded by Louis XV., was everywhere
seeing to the construction of new roads, at the same time repairing the
old ones; the forced labor for these operations fell almost exclusively
on the peasantry. The Parliament of Normandy was one of the first to
protest against "the impositions of forced labor, and the levies of money
which took place in the district on pretext of repairs and maintenance of
roads, without legal authority." "France is a land which devours its
inhabitants," cried the Parliament of Paris. The Parliament of Pau
refused to enregister the edicts; the Parliament of Brittany joined the
Estates in protesting against the Duke of Aiguillon, the then governor,
"the which hath made upon the liberties of the province one of those
assaults which are not possible save when the crown believes itself to be
secure of impunity." The noblesse having yielded in the states, the
Parliament of Rennes gave in thei