DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

were impaired to gratify the insatiable greed of those individuals ; a reign during which France lost her colonies to England, and became the laughing- stock of Europe; then the malignity of the ape found a favourable vantage ground, and the ferocity of the tiger gathered the impulse for its spring. A new, or a latent, trait of the French character became prominent in the eighteenth century. You may remember the declaration of war by France against Germany in 1870, and M. Ollivier’s speech — ‘We begin the war with a light heart.’ The same lightheartedness which led to the disasters of that campaign was already a marked characteristic of the French a century before. Carried away by sentiment, beguiled by theatrical rhodomontade, or drunk with passion, the French rushed into the revo- lution of ’89, never thinking of what was to be put in the place of that which they pulled down, and heedless of the responsibilities which they incurred. It has suited the French to fasten the responsi- bility for the Revolution chiefly on their kings ; but it appears to me that the weight of responsibility on the nation at large is equally heavy. In England, as early as 1215, the great feudatory chieftains obtained from King John a Charter containing the germs of our present constitution. From that day all classes combined to ensure for each other an extension of their rights at the expense of