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The Story of Mankind-Part22_Hendrik van Loon(1882-1944)_Academic Readings-第3页

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the Legislative and the Judicial powers should be in

separate hands and should work independently of each other.



When Lebreton, the Parisian book-seller, announced that

Messieurs Diderot, d'Alembert, Turgot and a score of other



distinguishedwriters were going to publish an Encyclopaedia

which was to contain ``all the new ideas and the new science



and the new knowledge,'' the response from the side of the

public was most satisfactory, and when after twenty-two years



the last of the twenty-eight volumes had been finished, the

somewhat belatedinterference of the police could not repress



the enthusiasm with which French society received this most

important but very dangerous contribution to the discussions



of the day.

Here, let me give you a little warning. When you read a



novel about the French revolution or see a play or a movie,

you will easily get the impression that the Revolution was the



work of the rabble from the Paris slums. It was nothing

of the kind. The mob appears often upon the ``evolutionary



stage, but invariably at the instigation and under the

leadership of those middle-classprofessional men who used the



hungry multitude as an efficient ally in their warfare upon

the king and his court. But the fundamental ideas which



caused the revolution were invented by a few brilliant minds,

and they were at first introduced into the charming drawing-rooms



of the ``Ancien Regime'' to provide amiable diversion

for the much-bored ladies and gentlemen of his Majesty's court.



These pleasant but careless people played with the dangerous

fireworks of social criticism until the sparks fell through



the cracks of the floor, which was old and rotten just

like the rest of the building. Those sparks unfortunately



landed in the basement where age-old rubbish lay in great

confusion. Then there was a cry of fire. But the owner of



the house who was interested in everything except the management

of his property, did not know how to put the small blaze



out. The flame spread rapidly and the entire edifice was consumed

by the conflagration, which we call the Great French Revolution.



For the sake of convenience, we can divide the French

Revolution into two parts. From 1789 to 1791 there was a



more or less orderly attempt to introduce a constitutional

monarchy. This failed, partly through lack of good faith and



stupidity on the part of the monarch himself, partly through

circumstances over which nobody had any control.



From 1792 to 1799 there was a Republic and a first effort

to establish a democratic form of government. But the actual



outbreak of violence had been preceded by many years of

unrest and many sincere but ineffectual attempts at reform.



When France had a debt of 4000 million francs and the

treasury was always empty and there was not a single thing



upon which new taxes could be levied, even good King Louis

(who was an expert locksmith and a great hunter but a very



poor statesman) felt vaguely that something ought to be done.

Therefore he called for Turgot, to be his Minister of Finance.



Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de l'Aulne, a man in the

early sixties, a splendid representative of the fast disappearing



class of landed gentry, had been a successful governor of a

province and was an amateur political economist of great ability.



He did his best. Unfortunately, he could not perform




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