her on May 5th, 1789. The king was in a
bad humour. The Clergy and the Nobility let it be known that they were
unwilling to give up a single one of their privileges. The king ordered
the three groups of representatives to meet in different rooms and
discuss their grievances separately. The Third Estate refused to obey
the royal command. They took a solemn oath to that effect in a squash
court (hastily put in order for the purpose of this illegal meeting) on
the 20th of June, 1789. They insisted that all three Estates, Nobility,
Clergy and Third Estate, should meet together and so informed His
Majesty. The king gave in.

As the "National Assembly," the Estates General began to discuss
the state of the French kingdom. The King got angry. Then again he
hesitated. He said that he would never surrender his absolute power.
Then he went hunting, forgot all about the cares of the state and when
he returned from the chase he gave in. For it was the royal habit to
do the right thing at the wrong time in the wrong way. When the people
clamoured for A, the king scolded them and gave them nothing. Then, when
the Palace was surrounded by a howling multitude of poor people, the
king surrendered and gave his subjects what they had asked for. By this
time, however, the people wanted A plus B. The comedy was repeated. When
the king signed his name to the Royal Decree which granted his beloved
subjects A and B they were threatening to kill the entire royal family
unless they received A plus B plus C. And so on, through the whole
alphabet and up to the scaffold.

Unfortunately the king was always just one letter behind. He never
understood this. Even when he laid his head under the guillotine, he
felt that he was a much-abused man who had received a most unwarrantable
treatment at the hands of people whom he had loved to the best of his
limited ability.

Historical "ifs," as I have often warned you, are never of any value. It
is very easy for us to say that the monarchy might have been saved "if"
Louis had been a man of greater energy and less kindness of heart. But
the king was not alone. Even "if" he had possessed the ruthless strength
of Napoleon, his career during these difficult days might have been
easily ruined by his wife who was the daughter of Maria Theresa of
Austria and who possessed all the characteristic virtues and vices of a
young girl who had been brought up at the most autocratic and mediaeval
court of that age.

She