It follows that no part of the French nation was better prepared to join the revolt against class privilege and in the demand for universal social equality than the sailors. A memory of long suffering and of bitter wrong rankled among the crews. Ulcerated pride, and the vanity which is peculiarly sensitive in the Frenchman and is easily driven to ferocity by wounds, exasperated the non-noble officers, and made them the natural leaders of revolt. In front of these elements of rebellion were the officers of the grand corps, very good sort of gentlemen individually in most cases, but even at their best quite unable to help showing their inbred hereditary conviction that they were of a finer clay than their comrades who were not of their class. It is a belief which can be shown with the most irritating insolence by an assumption of exact politeness. In 1786 the Government had acknowledged the necessity for a change. The Marquis de Castries, then Minister of Marine, simplified the old ranks, and abolished the _Gardes de la marine_. He proposed to recruit the corps of officers in future by _élèves de la marine_, who might be of non-noble birth. But while breaking down the old exclusive rule, he still made a distinction. _Élèves_ who came from the schools of Vannes and Alais, which were confined to the nobles, could become lieutenants at once. All other _élèves_ had to pass through a rank of sub-lieutenant, and were therefore put at a disadvantage from the beginning. It was an excellent example of the kind of concession which provokes, and does not satisfy. When, in 1789, the king summoned the States General, he made a tacit confession that the absolute monarchy had brought France to financial ruin and administrative collapse, and could itself find no remedy. In fact, the monarchy abdicated, and the spontaneous anarchy of the Revolution broke out. It raged with extreme violence in the dockyards and the fleet. As early as March 1789 an outbreak, immediately provoked by the sufferings of the workmen and the sailors from the scarcity of that severe winter and bad harvest of 1788, took place at Toulon. Count d’Albert de Rions, _commandant de la marine_, was attacked, and nearly murdered. After the fall of the Bastille on the 14th July 1789, disorders broke out at Brest, and spread to Rochefort and L’Orient. The details need not be given here. The essential in all of them was that the workmen and sailors understood liberty and equality to mean that they were not to be ordered about by their old masters; that the stronger had the right to command, and that the nation was now the stronger; that the privileged corps were the natural enemies of the nation. The French Navy was well represented in the States General, or National Assembly, and many debates on it took place. In April 1790 a scheme of reorganisation was drawn up. It was in the main a sound one, and did in fact lay the foundation of the modern French Navy. But its details may be