In 1797 the expenses were 42,000,000 Revenue 20,000,000 Deficit 22,000,000 ---------- In 1797 the expenses were 31,000,000 Revenue 21,000,000 Deficit 10,000,000 ---------- But when in 1799 the English and Russians invaded the country and the revenues were appropriated according to the new style provided, the expenses were 80,000,000, the revenue was 36,000,000, and the deficit was 44,000,000. And these deficits, year after year, had to be covered by extra loans, until at last a heavy loan was carried to pay the dividends upon the original loan. Even with the three billions which the republic was reported to have gathered during former centuries, there is but one possible end to such a system of finance: That end is called national bankruptcy. [Illustration: A COUNTRY PLACE] XVIII SOCIAL LIFE Whether man is merely a chemical compound driven by economic energies or something higher and more sublime is a question which from the inexperience of our youth we dare not decide. But that something in human society is apt to go wrong the moment the _homo sapiens_ leaves the straight path between the economic too much and too little is a truth which we are willing to defend against all comers. The trouble during revolutionary times is that the well-worn, old-fashioned, narrow road is no longer visible. The old beacons of proper conduct have been removed, new ones have not yet been provided, and people wander hither and thither, and tumble from one extreme into the other. In the Batavian Republic in 1795, as the Dutch expression has it, the locks were opened wide. Everybody could do what he pleased. The old rules of polite society were discarded. Batavians were no longer to be slaves neither to certain prescribed masters nor of certain well-defined manners. Of course when almost two million people, rigidly divided into innumerable classes, are suddenly transformed into so many equal citizens, a terrible social cataclysm must take place. During the joyful hysteria of the first few months this was not noticed. The people seemed to forget that all social questions are the result of historical compromises and have a historical growth--that they are not allowed to exist for the benefit of a single class of citizens. A Batavian Republic without titles and official ranks, without coats-of-arms and distinguishing uniforms, was no doubt very desirable and very noble and very highly humane. But the change was too sudden and too abrupt, and in the end it did an enormous amount of harm. [Illustration: SKATING ON THE RIVER MAAS AT ROTTERDAM]