Note 881 — Chapter XXIV · THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

It is too large a topic to discuss here why the Revolution did not break out in those lands; but I may hazard these suggestions: (1) Feudalism was there still a reality. The lords mostly lived on their estates, spent their money there, and performed the duties which the French nobles delegated to bailiffs, while they themselves squandered the proceeds at Paris or Versailles. Hence (2) a perilous concentration of wealth at those centres, which attracted thither the miserable, especially in times of distress like the severe winter of 1787–8. (3) In the other lands named above, the barriers of princely and feudal rule kept the people isolated in small States or domains and prevented common action. (4) Political and social speculations were brought home to the French as to no other people by the return of the French troops serving in the United States. (5) The mistakes of Louis XVI and Necker in May–June 1789, and the precipitation of the reformers at Versailles caused a rupture which was by no means inevitable, and which few if any had expected.