i62 inSTORY OF FRANCE. [chap. of May, 1774, he died of small-pox, having shown to the very utmost the miserable effects of centering all power in one man, effects equally miserable both to himself and to his country. CHAPTER IX. THE GREAT REVOLUTION. I. Earlier Years of Lewis XVI., 1774. — Every one felt that change must come with the new reign, for the whole country was in a state of ruin and bankruptcy, the nobles corrupt, and the people wretched. No one felt it mo7e deeply than the new king, Lexvis XVI., but he was not the man who could save his countr)^ The vice and selfishness of the Bourbons had not descended to him, but he had none of the fire and genius, nor even of the readiness of speech and wit, which had distinguished many of the line. Though no coward, all his courage was passive. He was industrious, honest, tender-hearted, and religious, but there never lived a man less capable of taking the lead in troublous times. His wife, iMarie Antoinette, had all the charms and all the fire and spirit which he needed, but her gifts did but add to the evil. The long wars between F"rance and the House of Austria had made the marriage unpopular, and Marie Antoinette, as a lively girl, bred m a court where easy, simple manners pre- vailed, shocked thenoblity by her mirthful scorn of the cumbersome etiquette of the court of Lewis XIV. She had too a young queen's natural love of dress and gaiety, and, in the frightful state of the court, no wish of hers could be indulged without monstrous expenditure. Pea- sants were living in windowlcss, chimneyless hovels, feed- ing on buck-wheat bread, clad in rags, and paying away all the produce they reared. They were told that it was for the king and queen. The old loyalty died out, and the queen was hated with ever-increasing virulence for everything she did or did not do. And reforms were the harder, since to take away offices, however useless, was absolut'*
