that moment, had seemed the ark and sanctuary of absolute government.  All over England these events produced their immediate and natural effect.  Enemies of religious establishments took courage from the downfall of ecclesiastical institutions.  Enemies of monarchy rejoiced in the formal and public degradation of a monarch.  Those who had long been conscientiously working for Parliamentary reform saw with glee their principles expressed in the most uncompromising terms in the French Declaration of Rights, and practically applied in the constitution of the Sovereign Body of France.

These convinced and constitutional reformers found new and strange allies.  Serious advocates of Republican institutions, mere lovers of change and excitement, secret sympathizers with lawlessness and violence, sedentary theorists, reckless adventurers, and local busybodies associated themselves in the endeavour to popularize the French Revolution in England and to imbue the English mind with congenial sentiments.  The movement had leaders of greater mark.  The Duke of Norfolk and the Duke of Richmond, Lord Lansdowne and Lord Stanhope, held language about the Sovereignty of the People such as filled the reverent and orderly mind of Burke with indignant astonishment.  In Dr. Priestley the revolutionary party had an eminent man of science and a polemical writer of rare power.  Dr. Price was a rhetorician whom any cause would have gladly enlisted as its champion.  The Revolution Society, founded to commemorate the capture of the Bastille, corresponded with the leaders of the Revolution, and promised its alliance in a revolutionary compact.  And, to add a touch of comedy to these more serious demonstrations, the young Duke of Bedford and other leaders of fashion discarded hair-powder, and wore their hair cut short in what was understood to be the Republican mode of Paris.

Amidst all this hurly-burly Pitt maintained a stately and cautious reserve.  Probably he foresaw his opportunity in the inevitable disruption of his opponents; and if so, his foresight was soon realized by events.  On the capture of the Bastille, Fox exclaimed:  “How much the greatest event it is that ever happened in the world! and how much the best!” At the same time Burke was writing to an intimate friend:  “The old Parisian ferocity has broken out in a shocking manner.  It is true that this may be no more than a sudden explosion.  If so, no indication can be taken from it; but if it should be character rather than accident, then that people are not fit for liberty, and must have a strong hand like that of their former masters to coerce them.”  This contrast between the judgments of the 10 great Whigs was continuously and rapidly heightened.  Fox threw himself into the revolutionary cause with all the ardour which he had displayed on behalf of American independence.  Burke opposed with characteristic vehemence the French attempt to build up a theoretical Constitution on the ruins of religion, history, and