ion of customs and a consolidation of ordinances in
a collection placed within reach of all. Lastly they made a claim, which
they were as qualified to make as they were intelligent in making, for
the removal of the commercial barriers which divided the provinces and
prevented the free transport of merchandise. They pointed out the
repairing of the roads and the placing of them in good condition as the
first means of increasing the general prosperity. Not a single branch of
the administration of the kingdom escaped their conscientious scrutiny:
law, finance, and commerce by turns engaged their attention; and in all
these different matters they sought to ameliorate institutions, but never
to usurp power. They did not come forward like the shrievalty of the
University of Paris in 1413, with a new system of administration; the
reign of Louis XI. had left nothing that was important or possible, in
that way, to conceive; there was nothing more to be done than to glean
after him, to relax those appliances of government which he had stretched
at all points, and to demand the accomplishment of such of his projects
as were left in arrear and the cure of the evils he had caused by the
frenzy and the aberrations of his absolute will."

We do not care to question the merits of the states-general of 1484; we
have but lately striven to bring them to light, and we doubt not but that
the enduring influence of their example and their sufferings counted for
much in the progress of good government during the reign of Louis XII.
It is an honor to France to have always resumed and pursued from crisis
to crisis, through a course of many sufferings, mistakes, and tedious
gaps, the work of her political enfranchisement and the foundation of a
regimen of freedom and legality in the midst of the sole monarchy which
so powerfully contributed to her strength and her greatness. The
states-general of 1484, in spite of their rebuffs and long years after
their separation, held an honorable place in the history of this
difficult and tardy work; but Louis XII.'s personal share in the good
home-government of France during his reign was also great and
meritorious. His chief merit, a rare one amongst the powerful of the
earth, especially when there is a question of reforms and of liberty, was
that he understood and entertained the requirements and wishes of his
day; he was a mere young prince of the blood when the states of 1484 were
sitting at Tours;