Desmoulins, printed for Owen, p. 2.
APPENDIX.
[The Address of M. Brissot to his Constituents being now almost
forgotten, it has been thought right to add, as an Appendix,
that part of it to which Mr. Burke points our particular
attention and upon which he so forcibly comments in his
Preface.]
Three sorts of anarchy have ruined our affairs in Belgium.
The anarchy of the administration of Pache, which has completely
disorganized the supply of our armies; which by that disorganization
reduced the army of Dumouriez to stop in the middle of its conquests;
which struck it motionless through the months of November and December;
which hindered it from joining Beurnonville and Custine, and from
forcing the Prussians and Austrians to repass the Rhine, and afterwards
from putting themselves in a condition to invade Holland sooner than
they did.
To this state of ministerial anarchy it is necessary to join that other
anarchy which disorganized the troops, and occasioned their habits of
pillage; and lastly, that anarchy which created the revolutionary power,
and forced the union to France of the countries we had invaded, before
things were ripe for such a measure.
Who could, however, doubt the frightful evils that were occasioned in
our armies by that doctrine of anarchy which, under the shadow of
equality of _right_, would establish equality of fact? This is universal
equality, the scourge of society, as the other is the support of
society: an anarchical doctrine which would level all things, talents
and ignorance, virtues and vices, places, usages, and services; a
doctrine which begot that fatal project of organizing the army,
presented by Dubois de Crancé, to which it will be indebted for a
complete disorganization.
Mark the date of the presentation of the system of this equality of
fact, entire equality. It had been projected and decreed even at the
very opening of the Dutch campaign. If any project could encourage the
want of discipline in the soldiers, any scheme could disgust and banish
good officers, and throw all things into confusion at the moment when
order alone could give victory, it is this project, in truth, so
stubbornly defended by the anarchists, and transplanted into their
ordinary tactic.
How could they expect that there should exist any discipline, any
subordination, when even in the camp they permit motions, censures, and
denunciations of officers and of generals? Does not such a disorder
destroy all the respect that is due to superiors, and all the mutual
confidence without which success cannot be hoped for? For the spirit of
distrust makes the soldier suspicious, and intimidates the general. The
first discerns treason in every danger; the second, always placed
between the necessity of conquest and the image of the scaffold, dares
not raise himself to bold conception, and those heights of courage which
electrify an army and insure victory. Turenne, in our time, would have
carried his head to the scaffold; for he was sometimes beat: but the
reason why he more frequently conquered was, that his discipline was
severe; it was, that his soldiers, confiding in his talents, never
muttered discontent instead of fighting. Without reciprocal confidence
between the soldier and the general, there can be no army, no victory,
especially in a free government.
Is it not to the same system of anarchy, of equalization, and want of
subordination, which has been recommended in some clubs and defended
even in the Convention, that we owe the pillages, the murders, the
enormities of all kinds, which it was difficult for the officers to put
a stop to, from the general spirit of insubordination,--excesses which
have rendered the French name odious to the Belgians? Again, is it not
to this system of anarchy, and of robbery, that we are indebted for the
_revolutionary power_, which has so justly aggravated the hatred of the
Belgians against France?
What did enlightened republicans think before the 10th of August, men
who wished for liberty, _not only for their own country, but for all
Europe? They believed that they could generally establish it by exciting
the governed against the governors, in letting the people see the
facility and the advantages of such insurrections_.
But how can the people be led to that point? By the example of good
government established among us; by the example of order; by the care of
spreading nothing but moral ideas among them: to respect their
properties and their rights; to respect their prejudices, even when we
combat them: by disinterestedness in defending the people; by a zeal to
extend the spirit of liberty amongst them.
This system was at first followed.[7] Excellent pamphlets from the pen
of Condorcet prepared the people for liberty; the 10th of August, the
republican decrees, the battle of Valmy, the retreat of the Prussians,
the victory of Jemappes, all spoke in favor of France: all was rapidly
destroyed by _the revolutionary power_. Without doubt, good intentions
made the majority of the Assembly adopt it; they would plant the tree of
liberty in a foreign soil, under the shade of a people already free. To
the eyes of the people of Belgium it seemed but the mask of a new
foreign tyranny. This opinion was erroneous; I will suppose it so for a
moment; but still this opinion of Belgium deserved to be considered. In
general, we have always considered our own opinions and our own
intentions rather than the people whose cause we defend. We have given
those people a will: that is to say, we have more than ever alienated
them from liberty.
How could the Belgic people believe themselves free, since we exercise
for them, and over them, the rights of sovereignty,--when, without
consulting them, we suppress, all in a mass, their ancient usages, their
abuses, their prejudices, those classes of society which without doubt
are contrary to the spirit of liberty, but the utility of whose
destruction was not as yet proved to them? How could they believe
themselves free and sovereign, when we made them take such an oath as we
thought fit, as a test to give them the right of voting? How could they
believe themselves free, when openly despising their religious worship,
which religious worship that superstitious people valued beyond their
liberty, beyond even their life; when we proscribed their priests; when
we banished them from their assemblies, where they were in the practice
of seeing them govern; when we seized their revenues, their domains, and
riches, to the profit of the nation; when we carried to the very censer
those hands which they regarded as profane? Doubtless these operations
were founded on principles; but those principles ought to have had the
consent of the Belgians, before they were carried into practice;
otherwise they necessarily became our most cruel enemies.
Arrived ourselves at the last bounds of liberty and equality, trampling
under our feet all human superstitions, (after, however, a four years'
war with them,) we attempt all at once to raise to the same eminence
men, strangers even to the first elementary principles of liberty, and
plunged for fifteen hundred years in ignorance and superstition; we
wished to force men to see, when a thick cataract covered their eyes,
even before we had removed that cataract; we would force men to see,
whose dulness of character had raised a mist before their eyes, and
before that character was altered.[8]
Do you believe that the doctrine which now prevails in France would have
found many partisans among us in 1789? No: a revolution in ideas and in
prejudices is not made with that rapidity; it moves gradually; it does
not escalade.
Philosophy does not inspire by violence, nor by seduction; nor is it the
sword that begets love of liberty.
Joseph the Second also borrowed the language of philosophy, when he
wished to suppress the monks in Belgium, and to seize upon their
revenues. There was seen on him a mask only of philosophy, covering the
hideous countenance of a greedy despot; and the people ran to arms.
Nothing better than another kind of despotism has been seen in the
_revolutionary power_.
We have seen in the commissioners of the National Convention nothing but
proconsuls working the mine of Belgium for the profit of the French
nation, seeking to conquer it for the sovereign of Paris,--either to
aggrandize his empire, or to share the burdens of the debts, and furnish
a rich prize to the robbers who domineered in France.
Do you believe the Belgians have ever been the dupes of those
well-rounded periods which they vended in the pulpit in order to
familiarize them to the idea of an union with France? Do you believe
they were ever imposed upon by those votes and resolutions, made by what
is called acclamation, for their union, of which corruption paid one
part,[9] and fear forced the remainder? Who, at this time of day, is
unacquainted with the springs and wires of their miserable puppet-show?
_Who does not know the farces of primary assemblies, composed of a
president, of a secretary, and of some assistants, whose day's work was
paid for?_ No: it is not by means which belong only to thieves and
despots that the foundations of liberty can be laid in an enslaved
country. It is not by those means, that a new-born republic, a people
who know not yet the elements of republican governments, can be united
to us. Even slaves do not suffer themselves to be seduced by such
artifices; and if they have not the strength to resist, they have at
least the sense to know how to appreciate the value of such an attempt.
If we would attach the Belgians to us, we must at least enlighten their
minds by _good writings_; we must send to them _missionaries_, and not
despotic commissioners.[10] We ought to give them time to see,--to
perceive by themselves the advantages of liberty, the unhappy effects of
superstition, the fatal spirit of priesthood. And whilst we waited for
this moral revolution, we should have accepted the offers which they
incessantly repeated to join to the French army an army of fifty
thousand men, to entertain them at their own expense, and to advance to
France the specie of which she stood in need.
But have we ever seen those fifty thousand soldiers who were to join our
army as soon as the standard of liberty should be displayed in Belgium?
Have we ever seen those treasures which they were to count into our
hands? Can we either accuse the sterility of their country, or the
penury of their treasure, or the coldness of their love for liberty? No!
despotism and anarchy, these are the benefits which we have transplanted
into their soil. We have acted, we have spoken, like masters; and from
that time we have found the Flemings nothing but jugglers, who made the
grimace of liberty for money, or slaves, who in their hearts cursed
their new tyrants. Our commissioners address them in this sort: "You
have nobles and priests among you: drive them out without delay, or we
will neither be your brethren nor your patrons." They answered: "Give us
but time; only leave to us the care of reforming these institutions."
Our answer to them was: "No! it must be at the moment, it must be on the
spot; or we will treat you as enemies, we will abandon you to the
resentment of the Austrians."
What could the disarmed Belgians object to all this, surrounded as they
were by seventy thousand men? They had only to hold their tongues, and
to bow down their heads before their masters. They did hold their
tongues, and their silence is received as a sincere and free assent.
Have not the strangest artifices been adopted to prevent that people
from retreating, and to constrain them to an union? It was foreseen,
that, as long as they were unable to effect an union, the States would
preserve the supreme authority amongst themselves. Under pretence,
therefore, of relieving the people, and of exercising the sovereignty in
their right, at one stroke they abolished all the duties and taxes, they
shut up all the treasuries. From that time no more receipts, no more
public money, no more means of paying the salaries of any man in office
appointed by the States. Thus was anarchy organized amongst the people,
that they might be compelled to throw themselves into our arms. It
became necessary for those who administered their affairs, under the
penalty of being exposed to sedition, and in order to avoid their
throats being cut, to have recourse to the treasury of France. What did
they find in this treasury? ASSIGNATS.--These assignats were advanced at
par to Belgium. By this means, on the one hand, they naturalized this
currency in that country, and on the other, they expected to make a good
pecuniary transaction. Thus it is that covetousness cut its throat with
its own hands. _The Belgians have seen in this forced introduction of
assignats nothing but a double robbery_; and they have only the more
violently hated the union with France.
Recollect the solicitude of the Belgians on that subject. With what
earnestness did they conjure you to take off a retroactive effect from
these assignats, and to prevent them from being applied to the payment
of debts that were contracted anterior to the union!
Did not this language energetically enough signify that they looked
upon the assignats as a leprosy, and the union as a deadly contagion?
And yet what regard was paid to so just a demand? It was buried in the
Committee of Finance. That committee wanted to make anarchy the means of
an union. They only busied themselves in making the Belgic Provinces
subservient to their finances.
Cambon said loftily before the Belgians themselves: The Belgian war
costs us hundreds of millions. Their ordinary revenues, and even some
extraordinary taxes, will not answer to our reimbursements; and yet we
have occasion for them. The mortgage of our assignats draws near its
end. What must be done? Sell the Church property of Brabant. There is a
mortgage of two thousand millions (eighty millions sterling). How shall
we get possession of them? By an immediate union. Instantly they decreed
this union. Men's minds were not disposed to it. What does it signify?
Let us make them vote by means of money. Without delay, therefore, they
secretly order the Minister of Foreign Affairs to dispose of four or
five hundred thousand livres (20,000_l._ sterling) _to make the
vagabonds of Brussels drunk, and to buy proselytes to the union in all
the States_. But even these means, it was said, will obtain but a weak
minority in our favor. What does that signify? _Revolutions_, said they,
_are made only by minorities. It is the minority which has made the
Revolution of France; it is a minority which, has made the people
triumph_.
The Belgic Provinces were not sufficient to satisfy the voracious
cravings of this financial system. Cambon wanted to unite everything,
that he might sell everything. Thus he forced the union of Savoy. In
the war with Holland, he saw nothing but gold to seize on, and
assignats to sell at par.[11] "Do not let us dissemble," said he one day
to the Committee of General Defence, in presence even of the patriot
deputies of Holland, "you have no ecclesiastical goods to offer us for
our indemnity. IT IS A REVOLUTION IN THEIR COUNTERS AND IRON CHESTS[12]
that must be made amongst the DUTCH." The word was said, and the bankers
Abema and Van Staphorst understood it.
Do you think that that word has not been worth an army to the
Stadtholder? that it has not cooled the ardor of the Dutch patriots?
that it has not commanded the vigorous defence of Williamstadt?
Do you believe that the patriots of Amsterdam, when they read the
preparatory decree which gave France an execution on their goods,--do
you believe that those patriots would not have liked better to have
remained under the government of the Stadtholder, who took from them no
more than a fixed portion of their property, than to pass under that of
a revolutionary power, which would make a complete revolution in their
bureaus and strong-boxes, and reduce them to wretchedness and rags?[13]
Robbery and anarchy, instead of encouraging, will always stifle
revolutions.
"But why," they object to me, "have not you and your friends chosen to
expose these measures in the rostrum of the National Convention? Why
have you not opposed yourself to all these fatal projects of union?"
There are two answers to make here,--one general, one particular.
You complain of the silence of honest men! You quite forget, then,
honest men are the objects of your suspicion. Suspicion, if it does not
stain the soul of a courageous man, at least arrests his thoughts in
their passage to his lips. The suspicions of a good citizen freeze those
men whom the calumny of the wicked could not stop in their progress.
You complain of their silence! You forget, then, that you have often
established an insulting equality between them and men covered with
crimes and made up of ignominy.
You forget, then, that you have twenty times left them covered with
opprobrium by your galleries.
You forget, then, that you have not thought yourself sufficiently
powerful to impose silence upon these galleries.
What ought a wise man to do in the midst of these circumstances? He is
silent. He waits the moment when the passions give way; he waits till
reason shall preside, and till the multitude shall listen to her voice.
What has been the tactic displayed during all these unions? Cambon,
incapable of political calculation, boasting his ignorance in the
diplomatic, flattering the ignorant multitude, lending his name and
popularity to the anarchists, seconded by their vociferations, denounced
incessantly, as counter-revolutionists, those intelligent persons who
were desirous at least of having things discussed. To oppose the acts of
union appeared to Cambon an overt act of treason. The wish so much as to
reflect and to deliberate was in his eyes a great crime. He calumniated
our intentions. The voice of every deputy, especially my voice, would
infallibly have been stifled. There were spies on the very monosyllables
that escaped our lips.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] The most seditious libels upon all governments, in order to excite
insurrection in Spain, Holland, and other countries,--TRANSLATOR.
[8] It may not be amiss, once for all, to remark on the style of all the
philosophical politicians of France. Without any distinction in their
several sects and parties, they agree in treating all nations who will
not conform their government, laws, manners, and religion to the new
French fashion, as _an herd of slaves_. They consider the content with
which men live under those governments as stupidity, and all attachment
to religion as the effect of the grossest ignorance.
The people of the Netherlands, by their Constitution, are as much
entitled to be called free as any nation upon earth. The Austrian
government (until some wild attempts the Emperor Joseph made on the
French principle, but which have been since abandoned by the court of
Vienna) has been remarkably mild. No people were more at their ease than
the Flemish subjects, particularly the lower classes. It is curious to
hear this great oculist talk of couching the _cataract_ by which the
Netherlands were _blinded_, and hindered from seeing in its proper
colors the beautiful vision of the French republic, which he has himself
painted with so masterly an hand. That people must needs be dull, blind,
and brutalized by fifteen hundred years of superstition, (the time
elapsed since the introduction of Christianity amongst them,) who could
prefer their former state to the _present state of France_! The reader
will remark, that the only difference between Brissot and his
adversaries is in the _mode_ of bringing other nations into the pale of
the French republic. _They_ would abolish the order and classes of
society, and all religion, at a stroke: Brissot would have just the same
thing done, but with more address and management.--TRANSLATOR.
[9] See the correspondence of Dumouriez, especially the letter of the
12th of March.
[10] They have not as yet proceeded farther with regard to the English
dominions. Here we only see as yet _the good writings_ of Paine, and of
his learned associates, and the labors of the _missionary clubs_, and
other zealous instructors.--TRANSLATOR.
[11] The same thing will happen in Savoy. The persecution of the clergy
has soured people's minds. The commissaries represent them to us as good
Frenchmen. I put them to the proof. Where are the legions? How! thirty
thousand Savoyards,--are they not armed to defend, in concert with us,
their liberty?--BRISSOT.
[12] _Portefeuille_ is the word in the original. It signifies all
movable property which may be represented in bonds, notes, bills,
stocks, or any sort of public or private securities. I do not know of a
single word in English that answers it: I have therefore substituted
that of _Iron Chests_, as coming nearest to the idea.--TRANSLATOR.
[13] In the original _les reduire à la sansculotterie_.
A
LETTER
TO
WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ.,
OCCASIONED BY
THE ACCOUNT GIVEN IN A NEWSPAPER OF THE SPEECH MADE IN THE HOUSE OF
LORDS BY THE **** OF *******
IN THE DEBATE
CONCERNING LORD FITZWILLIAM.
1795.
LETTER.
BEACONSFIELD, May 28,1795.
My dear sir,--I have been told of the voluntary which, for the
entertainment of the House of Lords, has been lately played by his Grace
the **** of *******, a great deal at my expense, and a little at his
own. I confess I should have liked the composition rather better, if it
had been quite new. But every man has his taste, and his Grace is an
admirer of ancient music.
There may be sometimes too much even of a good thing. A toast is good,
and a bumper is not bad: but the best toasts may be so often repeated as
to disgust the palate, and ceaseless rounds of bumpers may nauseate and
overload the stomach. The ears of the most steady-voting politicians may
at last be stunned with "three times three." I am sure I have been very
grateful for the flattering remembrance made of me in the toasts of the
Revolution Society, and of other clubs formed on the same laudable plan.
After giving the brimming honors to Citizen Thomas Paine and to Citizen
Dr. Priestley, the gentlemen of these clubs seldom failed to bring me
forth in my turn, and to drink, "Mr. Burke, and thanks to him for the
discussion he has provoked."
I found myself elevated with this honor; for, even by the collision of
resistance, to be the means of striking out sparkles of truth, if not
merit, is at least felicity.
Here I might have rested. But when I found that the great advocate, Mr.
Erskine, condescended to resort to these bumper toasts, as the pure and
exuberant fountains of politics and of rhetoric, (as I hear he did, in
three or four speeches made in defence of certain worthy citizens,) I
was rather let down a little. Though still somewhat proud of myself, I
was not quite so proud of my voucher. Though he is no idolater of fame,
in some way or other Mr. Erskine will always do himself honor. Methinks,
however, in following the precedents of these toasts, he seemed to do
more credit to his diligence as a special pleader than to his invention
as an orator. To those who did not know the abundance of his resources,
both of genius and erudition, there was something in it that indicated
the want of a good assortment, with regard to richness and variety, in
the magazine of topics and commonplaces which I suppose he keeps by him,
in imitation of Cicero and other renowned declaimers of antiquity.