There is no doubt that in 1791 there were many signs of a pause and a reaction. The Revolution was clearly victorious. The worst features of the old system--its despotism, its privilege, its inequality, its corrupt Court, its antiquated law-courts, its favoured aristocracy and Church--had been swept away. The widest freedom in politics, in industry, in discussion, had been established, though it was not always observed on the popular side. The blight of feudalism and the intolerable burdens of taxation had disappeared. The majority of Frenchmen felt that their wishes were satisfied and their aims attained. Accordingly, the fever and enthusiasm of the earlier days naturally abated. Men began to long for a period of quiet, after the stormy triumphs and excitement of the past two years, and to fall back out of the turmoil of politics into the routine of daily life. Such a movement was both natural and inevitable, and in 1791 it involved no serious danger to the cause of progress. The consequence was that the great mass of citizens gradually withdrew from politics. The numbers at the polls steadily fell. In 1790 and in 1791, all over the country, the elections showed an increasing number of absentees. In many places only a third or a fourth of the electorate voted. In others only a tenth or a twelfth appeared. In Paris less than one-tenth of the number of voters continued to take part in the elections, and even that proportion steadily tended to decline. The duties of voting imposed by the new Constitution were so cumbrous that they demanded a great sacrifice of time. Politics had become both laborious and disorderly; and most men would only consent to the sacrifice and discomfort which they involved, under the influence of strong excitement. Thus, when the excitement began to lessen, the part which busy people played in politics declined, and the control of the elections, and the power which it carried, fell to those who had no pressing occupations and whose enthusiasm had not waned.