"The Constitution of 1791, with all its faults, forever deserves the gratitude of the French people, because it has destroyed, never to return, every trace of feudalism, imposts the most fatal to agriculture, the privileges of particular persons, the usurpations of the priesthood over the civil power, and the proud pretensions of ancient corporations; because it has realized what philosophy for ages has in vain wished, and what monarchs the most absolute have never dared to undertake; and because it has established that uniformity which no one could have ever hoped for in an empire formed by gradual accretions from time to time, and with which, under a good government, there is no prosperity which France may not realize." But whatever may be the estimate which political partisans may place upon the labors of the Assembly, no intelligent man will now deny that the great majority of that body were true patriots, sincerely desiring the welfare of their country. It will be admitted by all that they abolished judicial torture, placed all men upon the basis of equality in the eye of the law, annulled obnoxious privileges, introduced vast reform into commercial jurisprudence, established liberty of worship and of conscience, suppressed monastic vows, abolished the execrable system of _lettres de cachet_, rendered personal liberty sacred, introduced equality of taxation, and swept away those provincial jealousies and that interior line of custom-houses which had for ages seriously embarrassed the internal trade of the kingdom. All feudal rights were abrogated, industry encouraged, and the citizens of the kingdom were enrolled into a National Guard, for the preservation of domestic peace and to resist aggression. This most noble reform combined Europe assailed with all its marshaled bayonets. The crime deluged the Continent in woe. After nearly a quarter of a century of conflagration and carnage, French liberty was trampled into the bloody mire of Waterloo, and the Old Régime was reinstated. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 287: "Je connais vos moyens de defense; ils sont nul. Et votre châtiment servira d'exemple aux autres peuples. Voilà ce que voit vous dire un homme qui n'a pour vous et votre peuple qu'indignation et horreur. Je connais les chemins; je guiderais les armées étrangères qui vous attaqueront. Si l'on ôte un seul cheven de la tête de mon roi, il ne restera pas pièrre sur pièrre à Paris. Adieu, messieurs."--_Histoire de la Revolution Française, par Villaumé_, p. 160.]