The purposes of the states-general in France, the cortes in Spain and Portugal, the parliament in England, and the diets in Germany, are sufficiently well known. The elements of these different assemblies were the feudal nobility, the clergy, and the burghers, who collected together with the view of uniting themselves into one single society, into one and the same state, and under an identical law and power. This was the tendency and design of them all, under different names. I will take as the type of this attempt at organisation the states-general of France, as being the most familiarly known. I say familiarly known, and yet the name of the states-general calls up none but vague and imperfect ideas. There is no one who can state with any precision what was fixed or regular in the states-general of France, what was the number of their members, what the subjects of deliberation, or what the periods of convocation, and the duration of their sessions. We know nothing of all these things; it is impossible to draw from history any clear and general results on tins subject. When we inquire into the character of these assemblies in the history of France, they appear to have been purely accidental, a sort of political shift, on the part of the people as well as on that of the kings: a last shift to the kings when they had no money, and were at their wits' ends for expedients; and a last shift to the people, when evil became so intolerable, that the usual remedies for alleviation were exhausted in vain. {179} The nobility and the clergy each took part in the states-general, but they came there with reluctance, and distrustfully, as they were well aware that it was not in them their best means of action lay, or that they could thereby promote their real participation in the government. The burghers themselves were not more eager for the sitting; it was not a right which they exercised with alacrity, but rather a necessity to which they submitted. We find these facts exemplified in the character of the political actions of those assemblies. They were sometimes perfectly insignificant, and sometimes vastly terrible. If the king was the strongest, their humility and docility were extreme; if the situation of the crown was disastrous, if it had an absolute occasion for the assistance of the states, they fell into factious opposition, and became the instruments either of some aristocratic intrigue, or of some ambitious schemers. In a word, they were sometimes mere assemblies of notables, and sometimes veritable conventions. Thus their labours seldom or ever survived them; they promised and attempted much, but did nothing. Not one of the great measures which have really acted on society in France, not one important reform in government, legislation, or administration, has emanated from the states-general. We must not, however, too rashly conclude that they have been without utility or effect. They have served a