lost itself amid this twofold confidence; it attempted what was far
beyond its right and power; it misjudged the moral nature of man and the
conditions of the social state. Its ideas as well as its works
contracted the blemish of its views. But, granted so much, the original
idea, dominant in the eighteenth century, the belief that man, truth, and
society are made for one another, worthy of one another, and called upon
to form a union, this correct and salutary belief rises up and overtops
all its history. That belief it was the first to proclaim and would fain
have realized. Hence its power and its popularity over the whole face of
the earth. Hence also, to descend from great things to small, and from
the destiny of man to that of the drawing-room, hence the seductiveness
of that epoch and the charm it scattered over social, life. Never before
were seen all the conditions, all the classes that form the flower of a
great people, however diverse they might have been in their history and
still were in their interests, thus forgetting their past, their
personality, in order to draw near to one another, to unite in a
communion of the sweetest manners, and solely occupied in pleasing one
another, in rejoicing and hoping together during fifty years which were
to end in the most terrible conflicts between them."

At the death of King Louis XV., in 1774, the easy-mannered joyance, the
peaceful and brilliant charm of fashionable and philosophical society
were reaching their end: the time of stern realities was approaching with
long strides.

CHAPTER LVI.----LOUIS XVI.--MINISTRY OF M. TURGOT. 1774-1776.

[Illustration: Louis XVI.----347]

Louis XV. was dead; France breathed once more; she was weary of the
weakness as well as of the irregularities of the king who had untaught
her her respect for him, and she turned with joyous hope towards his
successor, barely twenty years of age, but already loved and impatiently
awaited by his people. "He must be called Louis le Desire," was the
saying in the streets before the death-rattle of Louis XV. had summoned
his grandson to the throne. The feeling of dread which had seized the
young king was more prophetic than the nation's joy. At the news that
Louis XV. had just heaved his last sigh in the arms of his pious
daughters, Louis XVI. and Maria Antoinette both flung themselves on their
knees, exclaiming, "O God, protect us, direct us, we are too young."

The monarch's y