The political security and religious liberty which Henry IV. had secured to the subjects were annulled by the repeal of the Edict of Nantes, and Catholic intolerance again domineered over the lives and fortunes of Protestants. Kings had been taught by their teachers and spiritual guides that "to dissemble was to reign," and that "to become a great man it was necessary to become a great villain." The consequence was national weakness and demoralization. Mock treaties were made to conceal real ones, and kings, to disguise their intentions, acted differently from what they thought. A succession of weak, bigoted, tyrannical, and criminal rulers had oppressed the industry of the country, and drove thousands of subjects to seek a livelihood under less oppressive government. Despotic ministers, rapacious favorites, intriguing prostitutes, foolish enterprises absurd laws, professed rakes in the garb of priests and cardinals, prodigality, corruption and tyranny withering the vitality of the nation, and accumulating on the heads of the people an insupportable load of taxation and misery, were the deplorable results of the operation of the pope and his political engine. But while such were the calamities which Catholicism was maturing, the eloquent writings of Voltaire, of Rousseau, and other liberal authors were awakening a spirit of inquiry in the public mind, and preparing the way for political regeneration. The smouldering fires of freedom which burned in the breast of the nation, rendered the conflict between monarchy and republicanism inevitable. It finally took place; the majesty of the people was vindicated; and, a national assembly convened consisting of three hundred and seventeen clergy men, three hundred and seventeen nobles, and six hundred and seventeen deputies of the people; all of whom took an oath never to separate until they had given France a free constitution, From the ruins of the monarchy a republic arose in majesty and power. The feudal estates were abolished without indemnification. The invidious game laws, the feudal tribunals, the church tithes, the ecclesiastical revenues, the hereditary descent of officers, the exemption of church dignities from military taxation, the laws excluding Protestants from offices of trust or profit, and denying them the right of inheriting, acquiring or bequeathing property, and all that the toil of the papal machinery had accumulated on the heads of the people, were swept away by the spirit of liberal government. To obtain this freedom the nation had poured out its blood. But the nation had been educated in Catholic bigotry and intolerance; and now it visited on the heads of its tutors the lessons which they had taught. The people swept away the despotism of the throne, but left it remaining in the national councils; and, while they made a wreck of oppression, they preserved its elements to be reconstructed in another form. It is not, then, surprising, that hard as their freedom was won, it was so easily betrayed by the genius of Napoleon Bonaparte, once its advocate, but always its foe; who hated republicanism as much as he hated papacy, for they both were in conflict with his designs; and who loved nothing but himself and supreme dominion. But the boon he sought his ambition defeated. While he stood at the height of his fortune, with the conquest of Europe in his grasp, the mask fell from his brow. The confidence of freemen forsook him; and his glory, which else might have outrivalled the splendor of the greatest, flickered, grew dim, and soon vanished away; leaving the world as much astonished at the obscurity it left as it had been at the effulgence it had emitted.