Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 04.djvu/260

FRENCH INDO-CHINA 216 FRENCH REVOLUTION at nearly ten million francs and their exports at over thirty-seven million francs. It was not until 1920, however, that their trade began to recover from the serious interruption of the years 1914-1918. FRENCH INDO-CHINA, French pos- sessions in extreme southeast Asia, in- cluding the colonies of Cochin-China. Tongking, Laos, Annam, Cambodia, and Battambang. They are all grouped near the little kingdom of Siam whose terri- tories have been steadily encroached upon by the French. Their estimated area in 1920 was 256,200 square miles and their population about 17,500,000. Although missionaries from France were in the country as early as Louis VIV.'s time and occasional interference by French soldiers occurred in and just after Napoleon I.'s rule, it was not until the Second Empire that the real con- quest of these possessions was begun and completed. From the institution of the Third Republic the accessions to French power in this region have been steadily growing until France is now suspected of desiring to include Siam in its "sphere of influence." The number of French in Indo-China is very small, practically all of them being connected with the administra- tion. The capital is Saigon, where the governor-general resides, who has oversight over the four provincial gov- ernors. The exports consist largely of rice and rice products and about half the trade is done with France and the other French colonies. The French have built nearly 1,200 miles of railways in the country and have also trained and equipped a small native army under French oifficers, part of which took part in the European battlefields of 1914- 1918. FRENCH REVOLUTION. Although there have been not a few revolutions in France the name is always given to that extraordinary series of events which occurred between the summoning of the Estates-General in 1788 and the assumption of power by Napoleon in 1799. The Estates-General which met at Versailles on May 5, 1789, was com- posed of three orders: the clergy or first estate, the nobility or second estate, and the third estate, comprising- represen- tatives of all those in the nation who were not clergymen or nobles. In the previous centuries the three orders had assembled separately and voted sepa- rately and it was the intention of the king and the court party that the cus- tom should be continued. But the depu- ties of the third estate were in no mood to have themselves outvoted in this man- ner and, under the leadership of Mira- beau, one of their number, they called upon the other two orders to join them in a single body. The king had already granted them 600 deputies, while the other two orders had about 300 apiece. As there were many of the clergy who were in sympathy with the aims of the third estate, these, with the aid of the few liberal nobles, would place the dep- uties of the third estate in control of the situation, provided they all sat and voted as one body, and not as three separate orders. After continued refus- als on the part of the other two orders to join tbem, the deputies of the third estate on June 17, 1789, declared them- selves a "National Assembly" and in- vited members of the clergy and nobility to associate themselves with them. Three days later, finding themselves ex- cluded from their meeting places, they took the famous "Tennis Court" oath binding them to assemble together until the "constitution of the kingdom shall be established." After a weak attempt on the part of the king to force the estates to vote separately, he finally agreed to order the clergy and nobility to assemble with the deputies of the third estate in the National Assembly. _ The dismissal of Necker and the ac- tions of the court party in collecting troops in and about Paris led to a rising of the Parisians on the 14th of July and their capture of the Bastille. The necessity of preserving order and yet avoiding placing power in the king^s hand led to the formation of the "Na- tional Guard," a volunteer citizen army of which Lafayette assumed command. These events stimulated the deputies at Versailles to action and on Aug. 4, 1789, they passed series of decrees abolishing feudalism, doing away with the titles of the Church, abolishing all exemptions from taxation, and declaring that "all the peculiar privileges, pecuniary or otherwise, of the provinces . . . are once for all abolished and are absorbed into the law common to all Frenchmen." Thus, at one blow, the most serious of the abuses of the old regime were reme- died. France was divided into 81 de- partments in which all laws and taxes were to be uniform. The Assembly fol- lowed this action by passing on Aug. 26 the "Declaration of the Rights of Man," in which were stated the privi- leges which belong to man as man everywhere and under all conditions. Rumors began to circulate about the beginning of October that the king, un- der the influence of the court, was pre- paring to use force to dismiss the As-