Description

THE close of the Seven Years' War brought only a lull in the great conflicts of the eighteenth century, and yet for a time men seemed less influenced by dynastic quarrels, and their attention was centered upon questions of social and political reconstruction. The policies of rulers were affected by these newer interests. They tried to make an end of crying abuses, or at least to simplify their administrative systems and to remove troublesome obstacles to the exercise of their authority. In the last years of the century the timid plans of monarchical reform in France were thrust aside by a popular revolution which aimed to reorganize society according to the principle of equality. The same principle of reorganization was carried beyond the ancient frontiers of France when war broke out and victorious French armies sought to enlarge the borders of the nation or to impose the national institutions upon dependent peoples. Before the period closed with the downfall of Napoleon and the settlement of 1815, these two forces of monarchical reform and revolutionary action had worked many changes in the structure of European society...