The gospel would have brought to France the solution of those political and social problems that baffled the skill of her clergy , her king , and her legislators , and finally plunged the nation into anarchy and ruin . But under the domination of Rome the people had lost the Saviour ' s blessed lessons of self-sacrifice and unselfish love . They had been led away from the practice of self-denial for the good of others . The rich had found no rebuke for their oppression of the poor , the poor no help for their servitude and degradation . The selfishness of the wealthy and powerful grew more and more apparent and oppressive . For centuries the greed and profligacy of the noble resulted in grinding extortion toward the peasant . The rich wronged the poor , and the poor hated the rich .
In many provinces the estates were held by the nobles , and the labouring classes were only tenants ; they were at the mercy of their landlords and were forced to submit to their exorbitant demands . The burden of supporting both the church and the state fell upon the middle and lower classes , who were heavily taxed by the civil authorities and by the clergy . " The pleasure of the nobles was considered the supreme law ; the farmers and the peasants might starve , for aught their oppressors cared . . . . The people were compelled at every turn to consult the exclusive interest of the landlord . The lives of the agricultural labourers were lives of incessant work and unrelieved misery ; their complaints , if they ever dared to complain , were treated with insolent contempt .
The courts of justice would always listen to a noble as against a peasant ; bribes were notoriously accepted by the judges ; and the merest caprice of the aristocracy had the force of law , by virtue of this system of universal corruption . Of the taxes wrung from the commonalty , by the secular magnates on the one hand , and the clergy on the other , not half ever found its way into the royal or episcopal treasury ; the rest was squandered in profligate self-indulgence . And the men who thus impoverished their fellow subjects were themselves exempt from taxation , and entitled by law or custom to all the appointments of the state . The privileged classes numbered a hundred and fifty thousand , and for their gratification millions were condemned to hopeless and degrading lives ."
The court was given up to luxury and profligacy . There was little confidence existing between the people and the rulers . Suspicion fastened upon all the measures of the government as designing and selfish . For more than half a century before the time of the Revolution the throne was occupied by Louis XV , who , even in those evil times , was distinguished as an indolent , frivolous , and sensual monarch . With a depraved and cruel aristocracy and an impoverished and ignorant lower class , the state financially embarrassed and the people exasperated , it needed no prophet ' s eye to foresee a terrible impending outbreak . To the warnings of his counsellors the king was accustomed to reply : " Try to make things go on as long as I am likely to live ; after my death it may be as it will ." It was in vain that the necessity of reform was urged . He saw the evils , but had neither the courage nor the power to meet them . The doom awaiting France was but too truly pictured in his indolent and selfish answer , " After me , the deluge !"
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