When one remembers that the king had abandoned Paris but a hundred years; that he had left in the capital by far the greater part of the central machinery, especially the lawyers; that even from what he had taken many relics remained, and that professional men of all classes had the family tradition of the court in the capital—then we can understand what Paris was, is, and must be to a France where no class is permitted to govern. Add to this the increasing specialisation of function as the organism develops—the concentration of the brain—and Paris of the eighteenth century, abandoned as it is, hurt in its dignity, and a little uncertain of its action, still fulfils the geography-books, and is the capital of France. She herself hardly knew how certainly power would fall into her hands, yet from the first mention of the States General it was fated. This, then, is the position as the States General meet. A nation in absolute material need of reform, that must have new institutions, especially new financial institutions, or die; classes separate from each other, mutually ignorant of each other, yet all in some degree feeling the position into which France had fallen: in the case of the bulk of the people, misgovernment appearing in the form of starvation; in the case of the upper classes and of the government itself, a conviction that the existing system was contrary to all reason and opposed to every sound interest. In this society, at least in that part of it that will be called upon to govern, is a conviction—a religion, if you will—whose basis was the faith of Rousseau. Conditions will moderate this for a time; the necessary compromise with what exists, the desire for peace that was uppermost in the first two years, will make men slow to uproot and destroy what may touch the interests of friends and of large classes. They will always attempt a legal though a rapid reform. But, in spite of them, on account of that passionate conviction which underlay their most moderate actions, the Revolution will move up towards the region of unattainable things. The reformer will give way to the Republican idealist when once the serious opposition of the court is felt; he in his turn will give way to the man of passion and of action when the country is in danger; and even the man of passion and of action—the man of realities—will give way to the mere visionary before reaction can come to sweep the floor clean in 1794. Such will be the phases through which the form of the Revolution will pass. As for the soul of it, France will be steadily transformed, and, in spite of visionaries, reactions, and every political accident, a new and a strong society will be created. So the salt water comes in through old dykes; on its surface you will note the phases of a flood, innumerable little streams, a torrent, a spreading lake, and ultimately calm, but only one thing all the while is happening—where there has been land there will be the sea.