excited by the
proceedings of the Notables to cool off, new claims to be advanced, and
a pressure to arise for a fixed constitution, not subject to changes
at the will of the King. Nor should we wonder at this pressure, when
we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which this people were
ground to powder; when we pass in review the weight of their taxes, and
the inequality of their distribution; the oppressions of the tythes,
the failles, the corvees, the gabelles, the farms and the barriers;
the shackles on commerce by monopolies; on industry by guilds and
corporations; on the freedom of conscience, of thought, and of speech;
on the freedom of the press by the censure; and of the person by lettres
de cachet; the cruelty of the criminal code generally; the atrocities
of the rack; the venality of Judges, and their partialities to the rich;
the monopoly of military honors by the noblesse; the enormous expenses
of the Queen, the Princes, and the Court; the prodigalities of pensions;
and the riches, luxury, indolence, and immorality of the Clergy. Surely
under such a mass of misrule and oppression, a people might justly
press for thorough reformation, and might even dismount their roughshod
riders, and leave them to walk, on their own legs. The edicts, relative
to the corvees and free circulation of grain, were first presented to
the Parliament and registered; but those for the impot territorial,
and stamp tax, offered some time after, were refused by the Parliament,
which proposed a call of the States General, as alone competent to their
authorization. Their refusal produced a bed of justice, and their exile
to Troyes. The Advocates, however, refusing to attend them, a suspension
in the administration of justice took place. The Parliament held out for
awhile, but the ennui of their exile and absence from Paris, began at
length to be felt, and some dispositions for compromise to appear. On
their consent, therefore, to prolong some of the former taxes, they were
recalled from exile. The King met them in session, November 19, '87,
promised to call the States General in the year '92, and a majority
expressed their assent to register an edict for successive and annual
loans from 1788 to '92; but a protest being entered by the Duke of
Orleans, and this encouraging others in a disposition to retract,
the King ordered peremptorily the registry of the edict, and left the
assembly abruptly. The Parliament immediately protested