Hence it arose that the fundholders, the traders, the manufacturers, and other persons engaged in business or in monetary affairs, who generally form the class most hostile to political innovation, the most friendly to existing governments, whatever they may be, and the most submissive to the laws even when they despise and detest them, were on this occasion the class most eager and resolute for reform. They loudly demanded a complete revolution in the whole system of finance, without reflecting that to touch this part of the Government was to cause every other part to fall. How could such a catastrophe be averted? On the one hand, a nation in which the desire of making fortunes extended every day--on the other, a Government which incessantly excited this passion, which agitated, inflamed, and beggared the nation, driving by either path on its own destruction. FOOTNOTES: [72] [Count Mollien was educated in the fiscal service of the old monarchy, and after having escaped the perils of the Revolution he became Minister of the Treasury to the Emperor Napoleon, and under the Restoration a Peer of France. He left Memoirs of his Administration, which have been printed for private circulation by his widow, the estimable Countess Mollien, in four volumes octavo, but not yet published. These Memoirs are a model of personal integrity and financial judgment, the more remarkable as it was the fate of M. Mollien to live in times when these qualities were equally rare. The work was reviewed in the ‘Quarterly Review,’ 1849-1850, and this article was republished in 1872, in Mr. Reeve’s ‘Royal and Republican France.’] [73] See Note LXVI., Progress of France. [74] See Note LXVII., Judicial Institutions of England. [75] See Note LXVIII., Privileges of the District of Paris. [76] See Note LXIX. CHAPTER XVII. SHOWING THAT THE FRENCH PEOPLE WERE EXCITED TO REVOLT BY THE MEANS TAKEN TO RELIEVE THEM. As the common people of France had not appeared for one single moment on the theatre of public affairs for upwards of one hundred and forty years, no one any longer imagined that they could ever again resume their position. They appeared unconscious, and were therefore believed to be deaf; accordingly, those who began to take an interest in their condition talked about them in their presence just as if they had not been there. It seemed as if these remarks could only be heard by those who were placed above the common people, and that the only danger to be apprehended was that they might not be fully understood by the upper classes.