a historian so
completely permeated his work; it is inconceivable that any
other man should have written a single paragraph, almost a
single sentence, of the history. To Carlyle, the story
presents itself as an upheaval of elemental forces, vast
elemental personalities storming titanically in their midst,
vividly picturesque as a primeval mountain landscape illumined
by the blaze of lightning, in a night of storms, with
momentary glimpses of moon and stars. Although it was
impossible for Carlyle to assimilate all the wealth of
material even then extant, the "History," considered as a
prose epic, has a permanent and unique value. His convictions,
whatever their worth, came, as he himself put it, "flamingly
from the heart." (Carlyle, biography: see vol. ix.)

_I.---The End of an Era_

On May 10, 1774, "with a sound absolutely like thunder," has the
horologe of time struck, and an old era passed away. Is it the healthy
peace or the ominous unhealthy, that rests on France for the next ten
years? Dubarrydom and its D'Aiguillons are gone for ever. There is a
young, still docile, well-intentioned king; a young, beautiful and
bountiful, well-intentioned queen; and with them all France, as it were,
become young. For controller-general, a virtuous, philosophic Turgot.
Philosophism sits joyful in her glittering salons; "the age of
revolutions approaches" (as Jean Jacques wrote), but then of happy,
blessed ones.

But with the working people it is not so well, whom we lump together
into a kind of dim, compendious unity, monstrous but dim, far off, as
the _canaille_. Singular how long the rotten will hold together,
provided you do not handle it roughly. Visible in France is no such
thing as a government. But beyond the Atlantic democracy is born; a
sympathetic France rejoices over the rights of man. Rochambeaus,
Lameths, Lafayettes have drawn their swords in this sacred quarrel;
return, to be the missionaries of freedom. But, what to do with the
finances, having no Fortunatus purse?

For there is the palpablest discrepancy between revenue and expenditure.
Are we breaking down, then, into the horrors of national bankruptcy?
Turgot, Necker, and others have failed. What apparition, then, could be
welcomer than that of M. de Calonne? A man of indisputable genius, even
fiscal genius, more or less; of intrinsically rich qualities! For all
straits he has present rem