Unfortunately for inventors, the times were not favorable for the construction of boats or of bridges. A taste had sprung up in France for constitution-making, one of the most difficult and expensive of public works. A translation of the American State Constitutions attracted more attention in Paris than Paine's iron-work; for these also, the French thought, were _ingénieusement imaginées_, and worthy of an attempt to execute them abroad. The American Revolution, with its brilliant termination of wisdom, liberty, and peace, seemed to promise similar good results to the efforts of reformers elsewhere. Treatises on moral science and on the nature and end of civil government were eagerly read, "_Humanité, mot nouveau_," as Cousin says, became the watch-word of the Parisians. It was the fashion among all classes, high as well as low, to talk of human rights, to exalt the virtue of the people, hitherto supposed to have none, and to execrate "bloody tyrants," "silly despots," the members of the kingly profession, which fell into such sad disfavor towards the end of the last century. Ségur, after his return from America, heard the whole court applaud these lines at the theatre:-- "Je suis fils de Brutus, et je porte en mon coeur La liberté gravée et les rois en horreur." None suspected whither the road would lead which they were pursuing with so much gayety and enlightenment. Philosophers, nobles, and parliaments all clamored for reform--in others; and for the public good, provided their own goods did not suffer. The King meant reform; he, at least, was in earnest. But how to get it? He had sought assistance from the middle classes; had tried Turgot, the political economist, and Necker, the banker, as ministers; but both broke down under the opposition of the nobility. Then Calonne volunteered, witty and reckless, and convoked the notables, or not-ables, as Lafayette called them in one of his American letters, borrowing a bad pun from Thomas Paine. Calonne could do nothing with the notables, who obstinately refused to submit to taxation. Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, took his place. This was in April, 1787, a month before Paine's arrival in France. The notables suddenly became manageable under the new minister, and voted all the necessary taxes; but now the parliaments grew restive, refused to register the edicts, declaring that they had not the legal right to consent to taxes, that the States-General alone had authority to impose new ones. Brienne, indignant at this perverseness,--for hitherto they had claimed the sole right of registering taxes,--forced them to register the stamp-tax and the land-tax, and exiled them to Troyes. This took place on the 15th of August. The same day the two brothers of the King went to register the edicts in the Cour des Comptes and the _Cour des Aides_. Monsieur was received with acclamations; but D'Artois, who belonged to the unpopular Calonne party, was hissed and jostled by the crowd. Alarmed, he ordered