Richard Frothingham's 1872 "History of the Rise of the Republic of the United States," Page 14, contained the following footnote item on the condition of citizens of France:
"Footnote 1. M. de Champagny (Dublin Review, April, 1868) says of France, 'We were and are unable to go from Paris to Neuilly; or dine more than twenty together; or have in our portmanteau three copies of the same tract; or lend a book to a friend: or put a patch of mortar on our own house, if it stands in the street; or kill a partridge; or plant a tree near the road-side; or take coal out of our own land: or teach three or four children to read, . .. without permission from the civil government.'"
Clearly the government of France laid an oppressive regulatory and tax burden on citizens, deprived them of freedom of association, and on and on, robbing them of their Creator-endowed liberty and enjoyment thereof.
Frothingham observed that such coercive power constituted "a noble form robbed of its lifegiving spirit."
While, in America, a people who had been devoted to a "spirit of liberty" (Edmund Burke) since embarking on their journey to the new world, framed a Constitution to "bind" (Jefferson) their representatives in government by its "chains" and free individuals for the "pursuit of happiness," as long as they did not trample on the equal rights of their fellow citizens.
Wow! That footnote sounds just like America today.