"After us, the Deluge."—The long-gathering tempest is now ready to break over France. Louis XV. died in 1774. In the early part of his reign his subjects had affectionately called him the "Well-beloved," but long before he laid down the sceptre, all their early love and admiration had been turned into hatred and contempt. Besides being overbearing and despotic, the king was indolent, rapacious, and scandalously profligate. During twenty years of his reign the king was wholly under the influence of the notorious Madame de Pompadour.
The inevitable issue of this orgie of crime and folly seems to have been clearly enough perceived by the chief actors in it, as is shown by that reckless phrase so often on the lips of the king and his favorite—"After us, the Deluge." And after them, the Deluge indeed did come. The near thunders of the approaching tempest could already be heard when Louis XV. lay down to die.
Calling of the States-General (1789).—Louis XV. left the tottering throne to his grandson, Louis XVI., then only twenty years of age. He had recently been married to the fair and brilliant Marie Antoinette, archduchess of Austria.
The king called to his side successively the most eminent financiers and statesmen (Maurepas, Turgot, Necker, and Calonne) as his ministers and advisers; but their policies and remedies availed little or nothing. The disease which had fastened itself upon the nation was too deep-seated. The traditions of the court, the rigidity of long-established customs, and the heartless selfishness of the privileged classes, rendered reform and efficient retrenchment impossible.
In 1787 the king summoned the Notables, a body composed chiefly of great lords and prelates, who had not been called to advise with the king since the reign of Henry IV. But miserable counsellors were they all. Refusing to give up any of their feudal privileges, or to tax the property of their own orders that the enormous public burdens which were crushing the commons might be lightened, their coming together resulted in nothing.
As a last resort it was resolved to summon the united wisdom of
