were given to missionaries and further negotiations ensued, in the course of which the French received almost a monopoly of foreign trade and the right to maintain garrisons.  But the death of Narai was followed by a reaction.  Phaulcon died in prison and the French garrisons were expelled.  Buddhism probably flourished at this period for the Mahavamsa tells us that the king of Ceylon sent to Ayuthia for monks in 1750 because religion there was pure and undefiled.

Ayuthia continued to be the capital until 1767 when it was laid in ruins by the Burmese who, though Buddhists, did not scruple to destroy or deface the temples and statues with which it was ornamented.  But the collapse of the Siamese was only local and temporary.  A leader of Chinese origin named Phaya Tak Sin rallied their forces, cleared the Burmese out of the country and made Bangkok, officially described as the Capital of the Angels, the seat of Government.  But he was deposed in 1782 and one of the reasons for his fall seems to have been a too zealous reformation of Buddhism.  In the troublous times following the collapse of Ayuthia the Church had become disorganized and corrupt, but even those who desired improvement would not assent to the powers which the king claimed over monks.  A new dynasty (of which the sixth monarch is now on the throne) was founded in 1782 by Chao Phaya Chakkri.  One of his first acts was to convoke a council for the revision of the Tipitaka and to build a special hall in which the text thus agreed on was preserved.  His successor Phra:  Buddha Lot La is considered the best poet that Siam has produced and it is probably the only country in the world where this distinction has fallen to the lot of a sovereign.  The poet king had two sons, Phra:  Nang:  Klao, who ascended the throne after his death, and Mongkut, who during his brother’s reign remained in a monastery strictly observing the duties of a monk.  He then became king and during his reign (1851-1868) Siam “may be said to have passed from the middle ages to modern times."[210] It is a tribute to the excellence of Buddhist discipline that a prince who spent twenty-six years as a monk should have emerged as neither a bigot nor an impractical mystic but as an active, enlightened and progressive monarch.  The equality and simplicity of monastic life disposed him to come into direct touch with his subjects and to adopt straightforward measures which might not have occurred to one who had always been surrounded by a wall of ministers.  While still a monk he founded a stricter sect which aimed at reviving the practice of the Buddha, but at the same time he studied foreign creeds and took pleasure in conversing with missionaries.  He wrote several historical pamphlets and an English Grammar, and was so good a mathematician that he could calculate the occurrence of an eclipse.  When he became king he regulated the international position of Siam by concluding treaties of friendship and commerce with the principal European