husbands and wives. Through this same instructor, by whom they corrupt
the morals, they corrupt the taste. Taste and elegance, though they are
reckoned only among the smaller and secondary morals, yet are of no mean
importance in the regulation of life. A moral taste is not of force to
turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the
blandishments of pleasure, and it infinitely abates the evils of vice.
Rousseau, a writer of great force and vivacity, is totally destitute of
taste in any sense of the word. Your masters, who are his scholars,
conceive that all refinement has an aristocratic character. The last age
had exhausted all its powers in giving a grace and nobleness to our
natural appetites, and in raising them into a higher class and order
than seemed justly to belong to them. Through Rousseau, your masters are
resolved to destroy these aristocratic prejudices. The passion called
love has so general and powerful an influence, it makes so much of the
entertainment, and indeed so much the occupation, of that part of life
which decides the character forever, that the mode and the principles on
which it engages the sympathy and strikes the imagination become of the
utmost importance to the morals and manners of every society. Your
rulers were well aware of this; and in their system of changing your
manners to accommodate them to their politics, they found nothing so
convenient as Rousseau. Through him they teach men to love after the
fashion of philosophers: that is, they teach to men, to Frenchmen, a
love without gallantry,--a love without anything of that fine flower of
youthfulness and gentility which places it, if not among the virtues,
among the ornaments of life. Instead of this passion, naturally allied
to grace and manners, they infuse into their youth an unfashioned,
indelicate, sour, gloomy, ferocious medley of pedantry and lewdness,--of
metaphysical speculations blended with the coarsest sensuality. Such is
the general morality of the passions to be found in their famous
philosopher, in his famous work of philosophic gallantry, the _Nouvelle
Ãloise_.
When the fence from the gallantry of preceptors is broken down, and your
families are no longer protected by decent pride and salutary domestic
prejudice, there is but one step to a frightful corruption. The rulers
in the National Assembly are in good hopes that the females of the first
families in France may become an easy prey to dancing-masters, fiddlers,
pattern-drawers, friseurs, and valets-de-chambre, and other active
citizens of that description, who, having the entry into your houses,
and being half domesticated by their situation, may be blended with you
by regular and irregular relations. By a law they have made these people
their equals. By adopting the sentiments of Rousseau they have made them
your rivals. In this manner these great legislators complete their plan
of levelling, and establish their rights of men on a sure foundation.
I am certain that the writings of Rousseau lead directly to this kind of
shameful evil. I have often wondered how he comes to be so much more
admired and followed on the Continent than he is here. Perhaps a secret
charm in the language may have its share in this extraordinary
difference. We certainly perceive, and to a degree we feel, in this
writer, a style glowing, animated, enthusiastic, at the same time that
we find it lax, diffuse, and not in the best taste of composition,--all
the members of the piece being pretty equally labored and expanded,
without any due selection or subordination of parts. He is generally too
much on the stretch, and his manner has little variety. We cannot rest
upon, any of his works, though they contain observations which
occasionally discover a considerable insight into human nature. But his
doctrines, on the whole, are so inapplicable to real life and manners,
that we never dream of drawing from them any rule for laws or conduct,
or for fortifying or illustrating anything by a reference to his
opinions. They have with us the fate of older paradoxes:--
Cum ventum ad _verum_ est, _sensus moresque_ repugnant,
Atque ipsa utilitas, justi prope mater et æqui.
Perhaps bold speculations are more acceptable because more new to you
than to us, who have been, long since satiated with them. We continue,
as in the two last ages, to read, more generally than I believe is now
done on the Continent, the authors of sound antiquity. These occupy our
minds; they give us another taste and turn; and will not suffer us to be
more than transiently amused with paradoxical morality. It is not that I
consider this writer as wholly destitute of just notions. Amongst his
irregularities, it must be reckoned that he is sometimes moral, and
moral in a very sublime strain. But the _general spirit and tendency_ of
his works is mischievous,--and the more mischievous for this mixture:
for perfect depravity of sentiment is not reconcilable with eloquence;
and the mind (though corruptible, not complexionally vicious) would
reject and throw off with disgust a lesson of pure and unmixed evil.
These writers make even virtue a pander to vice.
However, I less consider the author than the system of the Assembly in
perverting morality through his means. This I confess makes me nearly
despair of any attempt upon the minds of their followers, through
reason, honor, or conscience. The great object of your tyrants is to
destroy the gentlemen of France; and for that purpose they destroy, to
the best of their power, all the effect of those relations which may
render considerable men powerful or even safe. To destroy that order,
they vitiate the whole community. That no means may exist of
confederating against their tyranny, by the false sympathies of this
_Nouvelle Ãloise_ they endeavor to subvert those principles of domestic
trust and fidelity which form the discipline of social life. They
propagate principles by which every servant may think it, if not his
duty, at least his privilege, to betray his master. By these principles,
every considerable father of a family loses the sanctuary of his house.
_Debet sua cuique domus esse perfugium tutissimum_, says the law, which
your legislators have taken so much pains first to decry, then to
repeal. They destroy all the tranquillity and security of domestic life:
turning the asylum of the house into a gloomy prison, where the father
of the family must drag out a miserable existence, endangered in
proportion to the apparent means of his safety,--where he is worse than
solitary in a crowd of domestics, and more apprehensive from his
servants and inmates than from the hired, bloodthirsty mob without
doors who are ready to pull him to the _lanterne_.
It is thus, and for the same end, that they endeavor to destroy that
tribunal of conscience which exists independently of edicts and decrees.
Your despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears
nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their
Voltaire, their Helvétius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only
sort of fear which generates true courage. Their object is, that their
fellow-citizens may be under the dominion of no awe but that of their
Committee of Research and of their _lanterne_.
Having found the advantage of assassination in the formation of their
tyranny, it is the grand resource in which they trust for the support of
it. Whoever opposes any of their proceedings, or is suspected of a
design to oppose them, is to answer it with his life, or the lives of
his wife and children. This infamous, cruel, and cowardly practice of
assassination they have the impudence to call _merciful_. They boast
that they operated their usurpation rather by terror than by force, and
that a few seasonable murders have prevented the bloodshed of many
battles. There is no doubt they will extend these acts of mercy whenever
they see an occasion. Dreadful, however, will be the consequences of
their attempt to avoid the evils of war by the merciful policy of
murder. If, by effectual punishment of the guilty, they do not wholly
disavow that practice, and the threat of it too, as any part of their
policy, if ever a foreign prince enters into France, he must enter it as
into a country of assassins. The mode of civilized war will not be
practised: nor are the French who act on the present system entitled to
expect it. They whose known policy it is to assassinate every citizen
whom they suspect to be discontented by their tyranny, and to corrupt
the soldiery of every open enemy, must look for no modified hostility.
All war, which is not battle, will be military execution. This will
beget acts of retaliation from you; and every retaliation will beget a
new revenge. The hell-hounds of war, on all sides, will be uncoupled and
unmuzzled. The new school of murder and barbarism set up in Paris,
having destroyed (so far as in it lies) all the other manners and
principles which have hitherto civilized Europe, will destroy also the
mode of civilized war, which, more than anything else, has distinguished
the Christian world. Such is the approaching golden age which the
Virgil[5] of your Assembly has sung to his Pollios!
In such a situation of your political, your civil, and your social
morals and manners, how can you be hurt by the freedom of any
discussion? Caution is for those who have something to lose. What I have
said, to justify myself in not apprehending any ill consequence from a
free discussion of the absurd consequences which flow from the relation
of the lawful king to the usurped Constitution, will apply to my
vindication with regard to the exposure I have made of the state of the
army under the same sophistic usurpation. The present tyrants want no
arguments to prove, what they must daily feel, that no good army can
exist on their principles. They are in no want of a monitor to suggest
to them the policy of getting rid of the army, as well as of the king,
whenever they are in a condition to effect that measure. What hopes may
be entertained of your army for the restoration of your liberties I know
not. At present, yielding obedience to the pretended orders of a king
who, they are perfectly apprised, has no will, and who never can issue a
mandate which is not intended, in the first operation, or in its certain
consequences, for his own destruction, your army seems to make one of
the principal links in the chain of that servitude of anarchy by which a
cruel usurpation holds an undone people at once in bondage and
confusion.
You ask me what I think of the conduct of General Monk. How this affects
your case I cannot tell. I doubt whether you possess in France any
persons of a capacity to serve the French monarchy in the same manner in
which Monk served the monarchy of England. The army which Monk commanded
had been formed by Cromwell to a perfection of discipline which perhaps
has never been exceeded. That army was besides of an excellent
composition. The soldiers were men of extraordinary piety after their
mode; of the greatest regularity, and even severity of manners; brave in
the field, but modest, quiet, and orderly in their quarters; men who
abhorred the idea of assassinating their officers or any other persons,
and who (they at least who served in this island) were firmly attached
to those generals by whom they were well treated and ably commanded.
Such an army, once gained, might be depended on. I doubt much, if you
could now find a Monk, whether a Monk could find in France such an army.
I certainly agree with you, that in all probability we owe our whole
Constitution to the restoration of the English monarchy. The state of
things from which Monk relieved England was, however, by no means, at
that time, so deplorable, in any sense, as yours is now, and under the
present sway is likely to continue. Cromwell had delivered England from
anarchy. His government, though military and despotic, had been regular
and orderly. Under the iron, and under the yoke, the soil yielded its
produce. After his death the evils of anarchy were rather dreaded than
felt. Every man was yet safe in his house and in his property. But it
must be admitted that Monk freed this nation from great and just
apprehensions both of future anarchy and of probable tyranny in some
form or other. The king whom he gave us was, indeed, the very reverse of
your benignant sovereign, who, in reward for his attempt to bestow
liberty on his subjects, languishes himself in prison. The person given
to us by Monk was a man without any sense of his duty as a prince,
without any regard to the dignity of his crown, without any love to his
people,--dissolute, false, venal, and destitute of any positive good
quality whatsoever, except a pleasant temper, and the manners of a
gentleman. Yet the restoration of our monarchy, even in the person of
such a prince, was everything to us; for without monarchy in England,
most certainly we never can enjoy either peace or liberty. It was under
this conviction that the very first regular step which we took, on the
Revolution of 1688, was to fill the throne with a real king; and even
before it could be done in due form, the chiefs of the nation did not
attempt themselves to exercise authority so much as by _interim_. They
instantly requested the Prince of Orange to take the government on
himself. The throne was not effectively vacant for an hour.
Your fundamental laws, as well as ours, suppose a monarchy. Your zeal,
Sir, in standing so firmly for it as you have done, shows not only a
sacred respect for your honor and fidelity, but a well-informed
attachment to the real welfare and true liberties of your country. I
have expressed myself ill, if I have given you cause to imagine that I
prefer the conduct of those who have retired from this warfare to your
behavior, who, with a courage and constancy almost supernatural, have
struggled against tyranny, and kept the field to the last. You see I
have corrected the exceptionable part in the edition which I now send
you. Indeed, in such terrible extremities as yours, it is not easy to
say, in a political view, what line of conduct is the most advisable. In
that state of things, I cannot bring myself severely to condemn persons
who are wholly unable to bear so much as the sight of those men in the
throne of legislation who are only fit to be the objects of criminal
justice. If fatigue, if disgust, if unsurmountable nausea drive them
away from such spectacles, _ubi miseriarum pars non minima erat videre
et aspici_, I cannot blame them. He must have an heart of adamant who
could hear a set of traitors puffed up with unexpected and undeserved
power, obtained by an ignoble, unmanly, and perfidious rebellion,
treating their honest fellow-citizens as _rebels_, because they refused
to bind them selves through their conscience, against the dictates of
conscience itself, and had declined to swear an active compliance with
their own ruin. How could a man of common flesh and blood endure that
those who but the other day had skulked unobserved in their
antechambers, scornfully insulting men illustrious in their rank, sacred
in their function, and venerable in their character, now in decline of
life, and swimming on the wrecks of their fortunes,--that those
miscreants should tell such men scornfully and outrageously, after they
had robbed them of all their property, that it is more than enough, if
they are allowed what will keep them from absolute famine, and that, for
the rest, they must let their gray hairs fall over the plough, to make
out a scanty subsistence with the labor of their hands? Last, and,
worst, who could endure to hear this unnatural, insolent, and savage
despotism called liberty? If, at this distance, sitting quietly by my
fire, I cannot read their decrees and speeches without indignation,
shall I condemn those who have fled from the actual sight and hearing of
all these horrors? No, no! mankind has no title to demand that we should
be slaves to their guilt and insolence, or that we should serve them in
spite of themselves. Minds sore with the poignant sense of insulted
virtue, filled with high disdain against the pride of triumphant
baseness, often have it not in their choice to stand their ground. Their
complexion (which might defy the rack) cannot go through such a trial.
Something very high must fortify men to that proof. But when I am driven
to comparison, surely I cannot hesitate for a moment to prefer to such
men as are common those heroes who in the midst of despair perform all
the tasks of hope,--who subdue their feelings to their duties,--who, in
the cause of humanity, liberty, and honor, abandon all the satisfactions
of life, and every day incur a fresh risk of life itself. Do me the
justice to believe that I never can prefer any fastidious virtue (virtue
still) to the unconquered perseverance, to the affectionate patience, of
those who watch day and night by the bedside of their delirious
country,--who, for their love to that dear and venerable name, bear all
the disgusts and all the buffets they receive from their frantic mother.
Sir, I do look on you as true martyrs; I regard you as soldiers who act
far more in the spirit of our Commander-in-Chief and the Captain of our
Salvation than those who have left you: though I must first bolt myself
very thoroughly, and know that I could do better, before I can censure
them. I assure you, Sir, that, when I consider your unconquerable
fidelity to your sovereign and to your country,--the courage, fortitude,
magnanimity, and long-suffering of yourself, and the Abbé Maury, and of
M. Cazalès, and of many worthy persons of all orders in your
Assembly,--I forget, in the lustre of these great qualities, that on
your side has been displayed an eloquence so rational, manly, and
convincing, that no time or country, perhaps, has ever excelled. But
your talents disappear in my admiration of your virtues.
As to M. Mounier and M. Lally, I have always wished to do justice to
their parts, and their eloquence, and the general purity of their
motives. Indeed, I saw very well, from the beginning, the mischiefs
which, with all these talents and good intentions, they would do their
country, through their confidence in systems. But their distemper was an
epidemic malady. They were young and inexperienced; and when will young
and inexperienced men learn caution and distrust of themselves? And when
will men, young or old, if suddenly raised to far higher power than that
which absolute kings and emperors commonly enjoy, learn anything like
moderation? Monarchs, in general, respect some settled order of things,
which they find it difficult to move from its basis, and to which they
are obliged to conform, even when there are no positive limitations to
their power. These gentlemen conceived that they were chosen to
new-model the state, and even the whole order of civil society itself.
No wonder that _they_ entertained dangerous visions, when the king's
ministers, trustees for the sacred deposit of the monarchy, were so
infected with the contagion of project and system (I can hardly think it
black premeditated treachery) that they publicly advertised for plans
and schemes of government, as if they were to provide for the rebuilding
of an hospital that had been burned down. What was this, but to unchain
the fury of rash speculation amongst a people of itself but too apt to
be guided by a heated imagination and a wild spirit of adventure?
The fault of M. Mounier and M. Lally was very great; but it was very
general. If those gentlemen stopped, when they came to the brink of the
gulf of guilt and public misery that yawned before them in the abyss of
these dark and bottomless speculations, I forgive their first error: in
that they were involved with many. Their repentance was their own.
They who consider Mounier and Lally as deserters must regard themselves
as murderers and as traitors: for from what else than murder and treason
did they desert? For my part, I honor them for not having carried
mistake into crime. If, indeed, I thought that they were not cured by
experience, that they were not made sensible that those who would reform
a state ought to assume some actual constitution of government which is
to be reformed,--if they are not at length satisfied that it is become a
necessary preliminary to liberty in France, to commence by the
reëstablishment of order and property of _every_ kind, and, through the
reëstablishment of their monarchy, of every one of the old habitual
distinctions and classes of the state,--if they do not see that these
classes are not to be confounded in order to be afterwards revived and
separated,--if they are not convinced that the scheme of parochial and
club governments takes up the state at the wrong end, and is a low and
senseless contrivance, (as making the sole constitution of a supreme
power,)--I should then allow that their early rashness ought to be
remembered to the last moment of their lives.
You gently reprehend me, because, in holding out the picture of your
disastrous situation, I suggest no plan for a remedy. Alas! Sir, the
proposition of plans, without an attention to circumstances, is the very
cause of all your misfortunes; and never shall you find me aggravating,
by the infusion of any speculations of mine, the evils which have arisen
from the speculations of others. Your malady, in this respect, is a
disorder of repletion. You seem to think that my keeping back my poor
ideas may arise from an indifference to the welfare of a foreign and
sometimes an hostile nation. No, Sir, I faithfully assure you, my
reserve is owing to no such causes. Is this letter, swelled to a second
book, a mark of national antipathy, or even of national indifference? I
should act altogether in the spirit of the same caution, in a similar
state of our own domestic affairs. If I were to venture any advice, in
any case, it would be my best. The sacred duty of an adviser (one of the
most inviolable that exists) would lead me, towards a real enemy, to act
as if my best friend were the party concerned. But I dare not risk a
speculation with no better view of your affairs than at present I can
command; my caution is not from disregard, but from solicitude for your
welfare. It is suggested solely from my dread of becoming the author of
inconsiderate counsel.
It is not, that, as this strange series of actions has passed before my
eyes, I have not indulged my mind in a great variety of political
speculations concerning them; but, compelled by no such positive duty as
does not permit me to evade an opinion, called upon by no ruling power,
without authority as I am, and without confidence, I should ill answer
my own ideas of what would become myself, or what would be serviceable
to others, if I were, as a volunteer, to obtrude any project of mine
upon a nation to whose circumstances I could not be sure it might be
applicable.
Permit me to say, that, if I were as confident as I ought to be
diffident in my own loose, general ideas, I never should venture to
broach them, if but at twenty leagues' distance from the centre of your
affairs. I must see with my own eyes, I must, in a manner, touch with my
own hands, not only the fixed, but the momentary circumstances, before I
could venture to suggest any political project whatsoever. I must know
the power and disposition to accept, to execute, to persevere. I must
see all the aids and all the obstacles. I must see the means of
correcting the plan, where correctives would be wanted. I must see the
things; I must see the men. Without a concurrence and adaptation of
these to the design, the very best speculative projects might become not
only useless, but mischievous. Plans must be made for men. We cannot
think of making men, and binding Nature to our designs. People at a
distance must judge ill of men. They do not always answer to their
reputation, when you approach them. Nay, the perspective varies, and
shows them quite otherwise than you thought them. At a distance, if we
judge uncertainly of men, we must judge worse of _opportunities_, which
continually vary their shapes and colors, and pass away like clouds. The
Eastern politicians never do anything without the opinion of the
astrologers on _the fortunate moment_. They are in the right, if they
can do no better; for the opinion of fortune is something towards
commanding it. Statesmen of a more judicious prescience look for the
fortunate moment too; but they seek it, not in the conjunctions and
oppositions of planets, but in the conjunctions and oppositions of men
and things. These form their almanac.