A plan so vast, however ably conceived, was sure to go to pieces in the hands of a man who did not enjoy public esteem and confidence; but the triumph of the notables in their own cause was a fresh warning to the people that they would have to defend theirs with more vigor." [_Memoires de Malouet,_ t.i.

p.

253].

We have seen how monarchy, in concert with the nation, fought feudality, to reign thenceforth as sovereign mistress over the great lords and over the nation; we have seen how it slowly fell in public respect and veneration, and how it attempted unsuccessfully to respond to the confused wishes of a people that did not yet know its own desires or its own strength; we shall henceforth see it, panting and without sure guidance, painfully striving to govern and then to live.

"I saw," says M.Malouet in his _Memoires,_ "under the ministry of the archbishop (of Toulouse, and afterwards of Sens), all the _avant-couriers_ of a revolution in the government.