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426 General History of Europe They would also take pains to have their protest printed and sold on the streets at .a penny or two a copy, so that people should get the idea that the parlements were defending the nation against the oppressive measures of the king's ministers. Struggles between the parlements and the king's ministers were very frequent in the eighteenth century. They prepared the way for the Revolution by bringing important questions to the attention of the people ; for there were no newspapers, and no parliamentary or congressional debates, to enable the public to understand the policy of the government. In this way the parlements helped the growing discontent with a government which was carried on in secret and which left the nation at the mercy of the men who might get the king under their influence. 741. Attempts to encourage Discussion of Public Questions. Although there were no daily newspapers to discuss public ques- tions, large numbers of pamphlets were written and circulated by individuals whenever there was an important crisis, and they answered much the same purpose as the editorials in a modern newspaper. We have already seen how French philosophers and reformers, like Voltaire and Diderot, had been encouraged by the freedom of speech which prevailed in England, and how indus- triously they had sown the seeds of discontent in their own country. We have seen how in popular works, in poems and stories and plays, and above all in the Encyclopedia, they ex- plained the new scientific discoveries, attacked the old beliefs and misapprehensions, and encouraged progress. II. HOW LOUIS XVI TRIED TO PLAY THE BENEVOLENT DESPOT 742. Accession of Louis XVI (1774). In 1774 Louis XV 1 died, after a disgraceful reign of which it has not seemed neces- sary to say much. His unsuccessful wars, which had ended with the loss of all his American possessions and the victory of his 1 He came to the throne in 1715 as a boy of five, on the death of Louis XIV, his great-grandfather.