George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10

[41] the cry rose for reform or revolution. The French

Chap. I.}

king was absolute; yet the teachings of Montesquieu and the example of England raised in men of generous natures an uncontrollable desire for free institutions; while speculative fault-finders, knowing nothing of the self-restraint which is taught by responsibility in the exercise of office, indulged in ideal anticipations, which were colored by an exasperating remembrance of griefs and wrongs. France was the eldest daughter of the Roman church, with a king who was a sincere though not a bigoted Roman Catholic: and the philosophers carried their impassioned war against the church to the utmost verge of skepticism and unbelief; while a suspicion that forms of religion were used as a mere instrument of government began to find its way into the minds of the discontented laboring classes in the cities. But, apart from all inferior influences, the power of generalization, in which the French nation excels all others, imparts from time to time an idealistic character to its policy. The Parisians felt the reverses of the Americans as if they had been their own; and in November, 1776, an approaching rupture with England was the subject of all conversations.¹

The American struggle was avowedly a war in defence of the common rights of mankind. The Prince de Montbarey, who owed his place as minister of war to the favor of Maurepas and female influence, and who cherished the prejudices of his order without being aware of his own mediocrity, professed to despise the people of the United States as formed from emigrants for the most part without character