sensibly render each other happier as they grow wiser."

After a brief analysis of the laws of progress in general, Mary proceeds
to their special application in the case of France. The illumination of
the French people she believes was hastened by the efforts of such men,
on the one hand, as Rousseau and Voltaire, who warred against
superstition, and on the other, as Quesnay and Turgot, who opposed unjust
taxation. It was through them that the nation awoke to a consciousness of
its wrongs, and saw for the first time, in the clear light of truth, the
inveterate pride of the nobles, the rapacity of the clergy, and the
prodigality of the court. The farmer then realized to the full the
injustice of a government which could calmly allow taxes and feudal
claims to swallow all but the twentieth part of the profit of his labor.
Citizens discovered the iniquity of laws which gave so little security to
their lives and property, that these could be sported with impunity by
the aristocracy. In a word, the people found that without a pretext of
justice, they were forced to be hewers of wood and drawers of water for a
chosen few. Once enlightened they rebelled against the nobles who treated
them as beasts of burden and trod them under foot with the mud; and they
boldly demanded their rights as human beings and as citizens.

Having thus given the _raison d'etre_ of the great French crisis, she
describes with striking energy the events which ensued. She makes
manifest the folly and blindness of the court, the shortcomings and vile
intrigues of ministers, the duplicity and despotism of the parliaments,
which prevented the petitions and demands of the people from receiving
the attention and consideration which alone could have satisfied them.
That there were evils in the French government, not even its friends
could deny. The recognition of them necessitated their being done away
with. There were but two methods by which this could be accomplished:
they must either be reformed or destroyed. The government refused to
accept the first course; the people resolved to adopt the second. Mary's
treatment of this question is interesting. The following passage contains
her chief arguments upon the subject, and the conclusion she drew from
them, so very different from the result of Burke's reasoning on the same
point in the "Reflections." This passage is an excellent specimen of the
style in which the book is written. The hasty measures of the Fre