“While the principles of the American Devolution were fermenting in France, La Fayette, the hero and favorite of the hour, was an honored guest at royal tables and royal camps. The proud Spaniard and the Great Frederick of Germany alike welcomed him, and everywhere he announced his faith in government founded on the American idea. The financial crisis in the affairs of King Louis on the one hand, and the rising tide of the popular passion on the other, compelled the summons of the Assembly of Notables at Versailles. All the great officers of state, the aristocracy, the titled clergy, the royal princes, were there, but no representative of the people. La Fayette spoke for them, and, fearless of the efforts of the brother of the king to put him down, he demanded religious toleration, equal taxes, just and equal administration of the laws, and the reduction of royal expenditures to fixed and reasonable limits. This overturned the whole feudal fabric which had been in course of construction for a thousand years. To make effectual and permanent this tremendous stride toward the American experiment, he paralyzed the court and cabinet by the call for a national assembly—an assembly of the people. Through that assembly he carried a declaration of rights, founded upon the natural liberties of man, a concession of popular privilege never before secured in the modern history of Europe; and, going as far as he believed the times would admit toward his idea of an American republic, he builded upon the ruins of absolutism a constitutional monarchy.