e measures were followed by the
suppression of all orders and cloisters; by the suppression of the
parliaments; by an entire change of the judicial system; by the
admission of Jews to the rights of citizens; by the abolition of all the
titles of the noblesse, coats of arms, and decorations of the order
of chivalry; by an order that the estates of Protestants who fled
from France on the iniquitous repeal of the edict of Nantz, should
be restored; by a division of France into eighty-three departments,
subdivided into two hundred and forty-nine districts, each of which was
composed of from three to five cantons; and by a change in the national
representation, which was made to harmonize with this new division. To
all these decrees the king, who had no alternative, gave his unqualified
sanction, and in return the national assembly fixed the civil list of
the king at 25,000,000 of livres, besides the possession of castles of
pleasure. Harmony seemed to be restored, and to establish it a festival
of confederation was ordained, which, on the first anniversary of the
capture of the Bastille, was held in the field of Mars, when the king
and 500,000 Frenchmen swore on the altar of the country to observe the
new constitution. But notwithstanding all this show of harmony, a secret
fermentation remained. The abolition of titles and the insignia of rank
inflamed the anger of the aristocrats, and the manifestations of their
wrath increased the hatred of the commons. A new emigration took place,
and officers, as well as nobles, fled for their lives. The emigrants
assembled in arms at Coblentz, Worms, and Ettenheim, from whence,
maintaining a close connexion with their friends or dependants at home,
they cast firebrands into the interior of the kingdom. Nor did the
priesthood quietly submit to the civil constitution which the national
assembly imposed upon them: they refused to take the oath, and stirred
up many against public authority and the new constitution. The
friends of liberty were alarmed and exasperated at the open and secret
preparations of this twofold and implacable opposition. In this state of
irritation all that was known was friend and enemy; and these relations
effected the triumph of the fanatic and the fall of the moderate. One of
the first who fell was Necker, to whose counsels the nation was indebted
for most of the concessions of the king, and consequently for its
success: Necker lost all his popularity, and fled fro