THE CAUSES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. CHAPTER I. THE COURT. THE word "Revolution," which was associated, in the days of our ancestors, with events so fortunate, and has inspired so much terror in our own, is applied to changes totally dissimilar in character. When Brutus expelled the Tarquins from Rome, a family was banished, and the office of king was abolished; but the senate retained its authority and the breach in the constitution was filled by the election of two consuls, who held, for a year, the greater part of the authority which had before been exercised for life by a royal head. In modern times, when the Dutch rose against their Spanish masters, kingly supremacy was done away; but the chief persons of the country were B |