What was the cause of the French Revolution? The French monarchy was organised upon a basis of force, represented by taxes; and those who ran the machine had no idea but that a machine so organised could go on forever. But in the long process of time, there developed a tendency on the part of those to whom the taxes came, to grow richer and richer, while those by whom the taxes were paid grew poorer and poorer. Little by little, all the property and all the land of France came into the hands of the nobility; until at last they had everything, and the populace had nothing. Then suddenly the machinery of a society organised upon a basis of force and taxes began to refuse to work; the French peasantry had stood everything, but they could not stand being required to pay taxes when they had nothing to pay with. So the States-General had to be sent for, and the Revolution came. And note this—that the trouble was not at all that the country was poor. Everyone is familiar with the picture of the horrible condition of the peasantry of that time, how they were little better than wild animals, hiding in holes, naked, and with blackened skins. Yet all the while France was full of wealth—all the trouble was that it was stagnant in the hands of a single class; the fields of France were ready to produce, but the people were too poor to till them. And notice the curious fact, that no sooner was the Revolution accomplished than the difficulty vanished in a flash. The machinery started up again—the peasant had land and tilled it, and the artisans of the cities found work. It seems strange to read that under the “Terror,” when the heads of the “aristocrats” were falling by the dozens every day and all the world was convulsed with horror, the _people_ of France were more prosperous and happy than ever they had been before in history. And when war broke out, the nation that had been on the verge of bankruptcy for a generation, withstood the armies of the combined kingdoms of Europe for more than twenty years! Here in America, we all started even. Wages were high, and there was work for every man; there was no need to strike—a workingman had only to leave and go elsewhere if he were not pleased. We found employment for the stream of immigrants as fast as they came—we had an enormous country to build up, and an inexhaustible supply of new lands for the settler. We manufactured only for our own use, and we could not manufacture half of what we needed.