The Age of the Democratic Revolution 21
gian, and Swiss patricians put down the democrats in their respective countries.
Whether an American upper class blocked the growth of democracy in the new
United States federal constitution of 1787 is also considered. The privileged classes
of the Hapsburg empire obstructed the equalizing reforms of the Hapsburg rulers.
The Polish revolution failed. For a time it even seemed that the French Revolution
might reinforce the privileged classes. But in the events of 1789, as explained in
Chapter XV, the French revolutionaries laid down the principles of a more demo-
cratic form of state. The book closes with further comments on the relationship of
the French and American revolutions. The story is brought, for all countries, to
about the year 1791, to the eve of the great war in which all these national and
social developments were to be gathered together into one tremendous struggle.