America inaugurated the change. The Declaration of Independence, in 1776, set up the first modern democracy--the Swiss Cantons were essentially aristocratic until the nineteenth century--and prepared the way for the suffrage controversy. From the very first moment the women of America denounced the injustice of a male electorate. Mercy Otis Warren had fostered the rebellion in her drawing-room, where the leaders often met, and Abigail Smith Adams (wife of the first President) was no less active. They and others demanded the admission of women to the new constitution. While it was being prepared, Mrs. Adams wrote to her husband that "if the position of women was not thoroughly considered they would rebel, and not consider themselves bound by laws that gave them no voice or representation of their interests." The first assault failed, only two States being willing to grant the justice of the plea. We will return presently to the resumed agitation in America, but must revert to Europe for the second exception, that was to stir the lethargy of women by putting a specific sex-disability on them. The appeal of Montaigne's daughter had raised no echo in the France of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The women of the nobility had ample power of the familiar, irregular kind, and the women of the people were no poorer than their husbands in political rights. Then Rousseau set up the ideal of the Rights of Man, and France moved towards the great Revolution. The influence of the philosophers in preparing the Revolution has been exaggerated, and in point of fact most of them were decidedly anti-feminist. Voltaire and Montesquieu slighted their demands and capacities. Rousseau contrived to reconcile a doctrine of the equality of human beings with the old-fashioned ideal of woman's place. But they, at least, stimulated thought and encouraged education in women, and women learned to correct their logic. Then came the news of the struggle in America, and the feeling against England made it extraordinarily popular. Ladies wore "American Independence hats," and discussed deep constitutional questions during the recently imported function of tea. Nobles volunteered for service, and brought back stirring stories of democracy. The American episode had nearly lost interest when the Revolution broke out. There can be no doubt that it was not without permanent influence, but the more demonstrative zeal had been manifested by the upper class, and the form that democracy now took in their own country very quickly extinguished it. Of the first French Revolution in itself I need say little. The later and less picturesque Revolutions were more permanently effective. Freeman has observed, however, that the face of Europe was changed for ever by the first Revolution, and it is well taken as the pyrotechnic inauguration of the modern era.