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NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
EDITED BY JOHN NEVILLE FIGGIS, C.R., Litt.D.
HONORARY FELLOW OF ST. CATHARINE'S COLLEGE
FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1910
The following Lectures were delivered by Lord Acton as Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge in the academical years 1895-96, 1896-97, 1897-98, 1898-99. The French Revolution, 1789-95, was in those years one of the special subjects set for the Historical Tripos, and this determined the scope of the course. In addition some discussion of the literature of the Revolution generally took place either in a conversation class or as an additional lecture. Such connected fragments of these as remain have been printed as an appendix. For the titles of the Lectures the editors are responsible.
III. The Summons of the States-General 39
XI. Sieyès and the Constitution Civile 159
Appendix: The Literature of the Revolution 345
The revenue of France was near twenty millions when Lewis XVI., finding it inadequate, called upon the nation for supply. In a single lifetime it rose to far more than one hundred millions, while the national income grew still more rapidly; and this increase was wrought by a class to whom the ancient monarchy denied its best rewards, and whom it deprived of power in the country they enriched. As their industry effected change in the distribution of property, and wealth ceased to be the prerogative of a few, the excluded majority perceived that their disabilities rested on no foundation of right and justice, and were unsupported by reasons of State. They proposed that the prizes in the Government, the Army, and the Church should be given to merit among the active and necessary portion of the people, and that no privilege injurious to them should be reserved for the unprofitable minority. Being nearly an hundred to one, they deemed that they were virtually the substance of the nation, and they claimed to govern themselves with a power proportioned to their numbers. They demanded that the State should be reformed, that the ruler should be their agent, not their master.