A year before, the French Revolution had come suddenly, and boldly it had struck its brutal bayonet into the industrious ants' nest of the Dutch Republic. There had been great hurrying to save life and property. After a while order had been reëstablished. And then to its intense surprise, at first with unbelieving astonishment, later with ill-concealed vexation, the political entymologists of the French Revolution had discovered that in this little country they had hit upon an entirely new variety of national fabric. Against all the rules of well-conducted republics, every little ant and every small combination of ants worked only for its own little selfish ends, disregarded its neighbours, fought most desperately for every small advantage to its own, bit at those who came near, stole the eggs of those who were not looking--in a word, while outwardly the little heap of earth seemed to cover a well-conducted colony of formicidæ, inwardly it appeared to be an ill-conducted, quarrelsome congregation of very selfish little individuals. And with profound common sense, the French, after their first surprise was over, said: "Brethren, this will never do. Really you must change all this. We will give you a chance to build a new nest, a very superior one. You can upholster it just as you please. You can put in all the extra outside and inside ornaments which you may care to have around you. But you must stop this insane quarrelling among yourselves, this biting at each other, this spoiling of each other's pleasure. In one word, you have got to turn this chaotic establishment of yours into a well-regulated, centralized commonwealth such as is now being constructed by all modern nations." Very well. But who was to perform the miracle? William the Silent had failed. Oldenbarneveldt two hundred years before had told his fellow citizens almost identically the same thing. John de Witt had tried to bring about a union by making the whole country subservient to Holland, but he had not been successful. William III had accomplished everything he had set out to do, but he could not establish a centralized government in the republic. The entire eighteenth century had been one prolonged struggle to establish the beginning of a more unified system, and in this struggle much of the strength and energy of the country had been wasted in vain. And now the untrained national assembly (Representative Assembly of the People of the Netherlands was too long a word) was asked to perform a task which was to make it odious to more than half of its own members and to the vast majority of the people of the republic. Revolution, sansculottes, assignats, carmagnole, unpowdered hair--the Batavians were willing to stand for almost anything, but not one iota of provincial sovereignty must be sacrificed.