It is the year of grace 1795, and the eighth of the glorious French Revolution. For almost a century there has been friction between the different parts of the population. A new generation has grown up in an atmosphere of endless political debate--finally of mere political scandal. But now the days of idle discussions are over. More than forty years before, manifestly in the year 1745, the intelligent middle classes began their agitation for a share in the government, a government which during the days of great commercial prosperity has fallen entirely into the hands of the capitalistic classes. In this struggle, reasonable enough in itself, they have looked for guidance to the House of Orange. Alas! those princes who so often have led the people, who have made this nation what it is, whose name has come to stand for the very land of which they are the hired executives--these princes now no longer are in direct touch with the basic part of the nation. This time they have failed to see their manifest duty. Left to their own devices, the reformers, the Patriots as they are commonly called, have fallen into bad hands. They have mistaken mere rhetoric for action. They have allowed themselves to be advised by hot-headed young men, raw boys, filled with undigested philosophies borrowed from their better-instructed neighbours. As their allies they have taken experienced politicians who were willing to use this party of enthusiasts for their own selfish purposes. More through the mistakes of their enemies than through the virtue of their own partisans, the Patriots have gained a victory in the Chambers of the old Estates, where the clumsy machinery of the republican government, outworn and ill-fitted for modern demands, rolls on like some forgotten water-wheel in an ancient forest.