regret on account of its policies, but no trace of animosity; and, on the contrary, the belief that, in spite of what some people of note were alleging, the absolutely certain loss of her American colonies would not result in a diminution of her power. "This revolution will prove, maybe, as profitable to you as to America."[7]

Not less characteristic of the times and of the same thinker's turn of mind is a brief memorial written by him for the King shortly after, when Captain Cook was making his third voyage of discovery, the one from which he never returned. "Captain Cook," Turgot said, "is probably on his way back to Europe. His expedition having no other object than the progress of human knowledge, and interesting, therefore, all nations, it would be worthy of the King's magnanimity not to allow that the result be jeopardized by the chances of war." Orders should be given to all French naval officers "to abstain from any hostile act against him or his ship, and allow him to freely continue his navigation, and to treat him in every respect as the custom is to treat the officers and ships of neutral and friendly countries."[8] The King assented, and had our cruisers notified of the sort of sacred character which they would have to recognize in that ship of the enemy: a small fact in itself, but showing the difference between the wars in those days and in ours, when we have had to witness the wanton destruction of the Louvain library, the shelling of the Reims cathedral, and the Arras town hall.

An immense aspiration was growing in France for more equality, fewer privileges, simpler lives among the great, less hard ones among the lowly, more accessible knowledge, the free discussion by all of the common interests of all. A fact of deepest import struck the least attentive: French masses were becoming more and more thinking masses. One should not forget that between the end of the American Revolution and the beginning of the French one only six years elapsed, between the American and the French Constitutions but four years. At the very time of the Yorktown campaign Necker was issuing his celebrated Compte Rendu, which he addressed, "pro forma" to the King, and in reality to the nation.[9] This famous account of the condition of France, the piece of printed matter which was most widely read in those days, began, "Sire," but ended: "In writing this I have proudly counted on that public opinion which evil-minded persons may try to crush or to distort, but which, in spite of their efforts, Truth and Justice carry along in their wake."

To which may be added as another token of the same state of mind that the then famous Count de Guibert had some time before printed his Essay on Tactics, so full of advanced ideas, notably on the necessary limitation of the power of kings, that it had been suppressed by the authorities; and he had dedicated it not to a prince nor to any man, but to his mother country: "A ma Patrie."[10]

Six years after the end of the American war, on January 24, 1789, the King of France ordered the drawing up of the famous Cahiers, desiring, he said, that "from the extremities of his kingdom and the most unknown habitations every one should be assured of a means of conveying to him his wishes and complaints." And the Cahiers, requesting liberties very similar to those of the Americans, came indeed from the remotest parts of France, the work of everybody, of quasi-peasants sometimes, who would offer excuses for their wild orthography and grammar. The notes and letters of the volunteers of our Revolution, sons of peasants or artisans, surprise us by the mass of general ideas and views which abound in them. It was not, therefore, a statement of small import that Franklin had conveyed to Congress when he wrote from France: "The united bent of the nation is manifestly in our favor." And he deplored elsewhere that some could think that an appeal to France's own interest was good policy: "Telling them their commerce will be advantaged by our success and that it is in their interest to help us, seems as much as to say: 'Help us and we shall not be obliged to you.' Such indiscreet and improper language has been sometimes held here by some of our people and produced no good effect." The truth is, he said also, that "this nation is fond of glory, particularly that of protecting the oppressed."[11]

The treaty of commerce, accompanying the treaty of alliance of 1778,[12] had been in itself a justification of this judgment. Help from abroad was so pressingly needed in America that almost any advantages requested by France as a condition would have been granted; but that strange sight was seen: advantages being offered, unasked, by one party, and declined by the other. France decided at once not to accept anything as a recompense, not even Canada, if that were wrested from the English, in spite of Canada's having been French from the first, and having but recently ceased to be such. The fight was not for recompense but for liberty, and Franklin could write to Congress that the treaty of commerce was one to which all the rest of the world, in accordance with France's own wishes, was free to accede, when it chose, on the same footing as herself, England included.[13]

This was so peculiar that many had doubts; John Adams never lost his; Washington himself had some, and when plans were submitted to him for an action in Canada he wondered, as he wrote, whether there was not in them "more than the disinterested zeal of allies."[14] What would take place at the peace, if the allies were victorious? Would not France require, in one form or another, some advantages for herself? But she did not; her peace was to be like her war, pro-American rather than anti-English.

Another striking trait in the numerous French accounts which have come down to us of this campaign against the English is the small space that the English, as a nation, occupy in them. The note that predominates is enthusiasm for the Americans, not hatred for their enemies. "In France," wrote Ségur in his memoirs, "in spite of the habit of a long obedience to arbitrary power, the cause of the American insurgents fixed the attention and excited the interest of all. From every side public opinion was pressing the royal government to