(1875); and _Correspondance secrete avec l'empereur Joseph II et
le prince de Kaunitz_, 2 vols. (1889-1891), editions of original
letters and other information which Mercy-Argenteau transmitted to
Vienna from 1766 to 1790, very valuable for the contemporary pictures
of court-life at Versailles (selections have been translated and
published in English). Also see books listed under FRENCH SOCIETY ON
THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION, p. 427, above.
CHAPTER XV
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION INTRODUCTORY
The governments and other political institutions which flourished in
the first half of the eighteenth century owed their origins to much
earlier times. They had undergone only such alterations as were
absolutely necessary to adapt them to various places and changing
circumstances. Likewise, the same social classes existed as had always
characterized western Europe; and these classes--the court, the nobles,
the clergy, the bourgeoisie, the artisans, the peasants--continued to
bear relations to each other which a hoary antiquity had sanctioned.
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