pters will throw some light: in them we shall see that the
great popular upheaval let loose mighty forces that bore Buonaparte on
to fortune.

Here we may notice that the Revolution was not a simple and therefore
solid movement. It was complex and contained the seeds of discord
which lurk in many-sided and militant creeds. The theories of its
intellectual champions were as diverse as the motives which spurred on
their followers to the attack on the outworn abuses of the age.

Discontent and faith were the ultimate motive powers of the
Revolution. Faith prepared the Revolution and discontent accomplished
it. Idealists who, in varied planes of thought, preached the doctrine
of human perfectibility, succeeded in slowly permeating the dull
toiling masses of France with hope. Omitting here any notice of
philosophic speculation as such, we may briefly notice the teachings
of three writers whose influence on revolutionary politics was to be
definite and practical. These were Montesquieu, Voltaire, and
Rousseau. The first was by no means a revolutionist, for he decided in
favour of a mixed form of government, like that of England, which
guaranteed the State against the dangers of autocracy, oligarchy, and
mob-rule. Only by a ricochet did he assail the French monarchy. But he
re-awakened critical inquiry; and any inquiry was certain to sap the
base of the _ancien regime_ in France. Montesquieu's teaching inspired
the group of moderate reformers who in 1789 desired to re-fashion the
institutions of France on the model of those of England. But popular
sentiment speedily swept past these Anglophils towards the more
attractive aims set forth by Voltaire.

This keen thinker subjected the privileged classes, especially the
titled clergy, to a searching fire of philosophic bombs and barbed
witticisms. Never was there a more dazzling succession of literary
triumphs over a tottering system. The satirized classes winced and
laughed, and the intellect of France was conquered, for the
Revolution. Thenceforth it was impossible that peasants who were
nominally free should toil to satisfy the exacting needs of the
State, and to support the brilliant bevy of nobles who flitted gaily
round the monarch at Versailles. The young King Louis XVI., it is
true, carried through several reforms, but he had not enough strength
of will to abolish the absurd immunities from taxation which freed the
nobles and titled clergy from the burdens of the State.