III. How the Parliaments of France, following precedent, overthrew the Monarchy 205 IV. The Parliaments discover that they have lost all Authority, just when they thought themselves masters of the Kingdom 224 V. Absolute Power being subdued, the true spirit of the Revolution forthwith became manifest 229 VI. The preparation of the instructions to the Members of the States-General drove the conception of a Radical Revolution home to the mind of the People 240 VII. How, on the Eve of the Convocation of the National Assembly, the mind of the Nation was more enlarged, and its spirit raised 243 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 247 TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. An interval of about seventeen years has elapsed since the first publication of this book in France, and of the translation of it, which appeared simultaneously, in England. The English version has not been republished, and has long been out of print. But the work itself has retained a lasting place in the political literature of Europe. The historical events which have occurred since the date of its first publication have again riveted the attention of every thinking man on the astonishing phenomena of the French Revolution, which has resumed in these later days its mysterious and destructive course; and a deeper interest than ever seems to attach itself to the first causes of this long series of political and social convulsions, which appear to be as far as ever from their termination. Nor is this interest confined to the state of France alone; for at each succeeding period of our contemporary annals the operation and effects of the same causes may be traced in other countries, and the principles which the author of this book discerned with unerring sagacity derive fresh illustrations every day from the course of events both abroad and at home. For this reason, mainly, this translation is republished at the present time, in the hope that it may be read by men of the younger generation, who were not in being when it first appeared, and that some of those who read it before may be led by the light of passing events to read it again. For I venture to say that in no other work on the French Revolution has the art of scientific analysis been applied with equal skill to the genesis of these great changes: no other writer has so skilfully traced the continuous operation of the causes, long anterior to the Revolution itself, which have gradually reduced one of the greatest monarchies of Europe to its present condition.