unfortunate. The success of this last makes a mighty difference in the
effect of the doctrine. Here is a principle of a nature to the multitude
the most seductive, always existing before their eyes _as a thing
feasible in practice_. After so many failures, such an enterprise,
previous to the French experiment, carried ruin to the contrivers, on
the face of it; and if any enthusiast was so wild as to wish to engage
in a scheme of that nature, it was not easy for him to find followers:
now there is a party almost in all countries, ready-made, animated with
success, with a sure ally in the very centre of Europe. There is no
cabal so obscure in any place, that they do not protect, cherish,
foster, and endeavor to raise it into importance at home and abroad.
From the lowest, this intrigue will creep up to the highest. Ambition,
as well as enthusiasm, may find its account in the party and in the
principle.
[Sidenote: Character of ministers.]
The ministers of other kings, like those of the king of France, (not one
of whom was perfectly free from this guilt, and some of whom were very
deep in it,) may themselves be the persons to foment such a disposition
and such a faction. Hertzberg, the king of Prussia's late minister, is
so much of what is called a philosopher, that he was of a faction with
that sort of politicians in everything, and in every place. Even when he
defends himself from the imputation of giving extravagantly into these
principles, he still considers the Revolution of France as a great
public good, by giving credit to their fraudulent declaration of their
universal benevolence and love of peace. Nor are his Prussian Majesty's
present ministers at all disinclined to the same system. Their
ostentatious preamble to certain late edicts demonstrates (if their
actions had not been sufficiently explanatory of their cast of mind)
that they are deeply infected with the same distemper of dangerous,
because plausible, though trivial and shallow, speculation.
Ministers, turning their backs on the reputation which properly belongs
to them, aspire at the glory of being speculative writers. The duties of
these two situations are in general directly opposite to each other.
Speculators ought to be neutral. A minister cannot be so. He is to
support the interest of the public as connected with that of his master.
He is his master's trustee, advocate, attorney, and steward,--and he is
not to indulge in any speculation which contradicts that character, or
even detracts from its efficacy. Necker had an extreme thirst for this
sort of glory; so had others; and this pursuit of a misplaced and
misunderstood reputation was one of the causes of the ruin of these
ministers, and of their unhappy, master. The Prussian ministers in
foreign courts have (at least not long since) talked the most democratic
language with regard to Prance, and in the most unmanaged terms.
[Sidenote: Corps diplomatique.]
The whole _corps diplomatique_, with very few exceptions, leans that
way. What cause produces in them a turn of mind which at first one would
think unnatural to their situation it is not impossible to explain. The
discussion would, however, be somewhat long and somewhat invidious. The
fact itself is indisputable, however they may disguise it to their
several courts. This disposition is gone to so very great a length in
that corps, in itself so important, and so important as _furnishing_ the
intelligence which sways all cabinets, that, if princes and states do
not very speedily attend with a vigorous control to that source of
direction and information, very serious evils are likely to befall them.
[Sidenote: Sovereigns--their dispositions.]
But, indeed, kings are to guard against the same sort of dispositions in
themselves. They are very easily alienated from all the higher orders of
their subjects, whether civil or military, laic or ecclesiastical. It is
with persons of condition that sovereigns chiefly come into contact. It
is from them that they generally experience opposition to their will. It
is with _their_ pride and impracticability that princes are most hurt.
It is with _their_ servility and baseness that they are most commonly
disgusted. It is from their humors and cabals that they find their
affairs most frequently troubled and distracted. But of the common
people, in pure monarchical governments, kings know little or nothing;
and therefore being unacquainted with their faults, (which are as many
as those of the great, and much more decisive in their effects, when
accompanied with power,) kings generally regard them with tenderness and
favor, and turn their eyes towards that description of their subjects,
particularly when hurt by opposition from the higher orders. It was thus
that the king of France (a perpetual example to all sovereigns) was
ruined. I have it from very sure information, (and it was, indeed,
obvious enough, from the measures which were taken previous to the
assembly of the States and afterwards,) that the king's counsellors had
filled him with a strong dislike to his nobility, his clergy, and the
corps of his magistracy. They represented to him, that he had tried them
all severally, in several ways, and found them all untractable: that he
had twice called an assembly (the Notables) composed of the first men of
the clergy, the nobility, and the magistrates; that he had himself named
every one member in those assemblies, and that, though so picked out, he
had not, in this their collective state, found them more disposed to a
compliance with his will than they had been separately; that there
remained for him, with the least prospect of advantage to his authority
in the States-General, which were to be composed of the same sorts of
men, but not chosen by him, only the _Tiers Ãtat_: in this alone he
could repose any hope of extricating himself from his difficulties, and
of settling him in a clear and permanent authority. They represented,
(these are the words of one of my informants,) "that the royal
authority, compressed with the weight of these aristocratic bodies, full
of ambition and of faction, when once unloaded, would rise of itself,
and occupy its natural place without disturbance or control"; that the
common people would protect, cherish, and support, instead of crushing
it. "The people" (it was said) "could entertain no objects of ambition";
they were out of the road of intrigue and cabal, and could possibly have
no other view than the support of the mild and parental authority by
which they were invested, for the first time collectively, with real
importance in the state, and protected in their peaceable and useful
employments.
[Sidenote: King of France.]
This unfortunate king (not without a large share of blame to himself)
was deluded to his ruin by a desire to humble and reduce his nobility,
clergy, and big corporate magistracy: not that I suppose he meant wholly
to eradicate these bodies, in the manner since effected by the
democratic power; I rather believe that even Necker's designs did not go
to that extent. With his own hand, however, Louis the Sixteenth pulled
down the pillars which upheld his throne; and this he did, because he
could not bear the inconveniences which are attached to everything
human,--because he found himself cooped up, and in durance, by those
limits which Nature prescribes to desire and imagination, and was taught
to consider as low and degrading that mutual dependence which Providence
has ordained that all men should have on one another. He is not at this
minute, perhaps, cured of the dread of the power and credit like to be
acquired by those who would save and rescue him. He leaves those who
suffer in his cause to their fate,--and hopes, by various mean, delusive
intrigues, in which I am afraid he is encouraged from abroad, to regain,
among traitors and regicides, the power he has joined to take from his
own family, whom he quietly sees proscribed before his eyes, and called
to answer to the lowest of his rebels, as the vilest of all criminals.
[Sidenote: Emperor.]
It is to be hoped that the Emperor may be taught better things by this
fatal example. But it is sure that he has advisers who endeavor to fill
him with the ideas which have brought his brother-in-law to his present
situation. Joseph the Second was far gone in this philosophy, and some,
if not most, who serve the Emperor, would kindly initiate him into all
the mysteries of this freemasonry. They would persuade him to look on
the National Assembly, not with the hatred of an enemy, but the jealousy
of a rival. They would make him desirous of doing, in his own dominions,
by a royal despotism, what has been done in France by a democratic.
Rather than abandon such enterprises, they would persuade him to a
strange alliance between those extremes. Their grand object being now,
as in his brother's time, at any rate to destroy the higher orders, they
think he cannot compass this end, as certainly he cannot, without
elevating the lower. By depressing the one and by raising the other they
hope in the first place to increase his treasures and his army; and with
these common instruments of royal power they flatter him that the
democracy, which they help in his name to create, will give him but
little trouble. In defiance of the freshest experience, which might show
him that old impossibilities are become modern probabilities, and that
the extent to which evil principles may go, when left to their own
operation, is beyond the power of calculation, they will endeavor to
persuade him that such a democracy is a thing which cannot subsist by
itself; that in whose ever hands the military command is placed, he must
be, in the necessary course of affairs, sooner or later the master; and
that, being the master of various unconnected countries, he may keep
them all in order by employing a military force which to each of them is
foreign. This maxim, too, however formerly plausible, will not now hold
water. This scheme is full of intricacy, and may cause him everywhere to
lose the hearts of his people. These counsellors forget that a corrupted
army was the very cause of the ruin of his brother-in-law, and that he
is himself far from secure from a similar corruption.
[Sidenote: Brabant.]
Instead of reconciling himself heartily and _bonâ fide_, according to
the most obvious rules of policy, to the States of Brabant, _as they are
constituted_, and who in _the present state of things_ stand on the same
foundation with the monarchy itself, and who might have been gained with
the greatest facility, they have advised him to the most unkingly
proceeding which, either in a good or in a bad light, has ever been
attempted. Under a pretext taken from the spirit of the lowest chicane,
they have counselled him wholly to break the public faith, to annul the
amnesty, as well as the other conditions through which he obtained an
entrance into the Provinces of the Netherlands under the guaranty of
Great Britain and Prussia. He is made to declare his adherence to the
indemnity in a criminal sense, but he is to keep alive in his own name,
and to encourage in others, a _civil_ process in the nature of an
action of damages for what has been suffered during the troubles.
Whilst he keeps up this hopeful lawsuit in view of the damages he may
recover against individuals, he loses the hearts of a whole people, and
the vast subsidies which his ancestors had been used to receive from
them.
[Sidenote: Emperor's conduct with regard to France.]
This design once admitted unriddles the mystery of the whole conduct of
the Emperor's ministers with regard to France. As soon as they saw the
life of the king and queen of France no longer, as they thought, in
danger, they entirely changed their plan with regard to the French
nation. I believe that the chiefs of the Revolution (those who led the
constituting Assembly) have contrived, as far as they can do it, to give
the Emperor satisfaction on this head. He keeps a continual tone and
posture of menace to secure this his only point. But it must be
observed, that he all along grounds his departure from the engagement at
Pilnitz to the princes on the will and actions of _the king_ and the
majority of the people, without any regard to the natural and
constitutional orders of the state, or to the opinions of the whole
House of Bourbon. Though it is manifestly under the constraint of
imprisonment and the fear of death that this unhappy man has been guilty
of all those humilities which have astonished mankind, the advisers of
the Emperor will consider nothing but the _physical_ person of Louis,
which, even in his present degraded and infamous state, they regard as
of sufficient authority to give a complete sanction to the persecution
and utter ruin of all his family, and of every person who has shown any
degree of attachment or fidelity to him or to his cause, as well as
competent to destroy the whole ancient constitution and frame of the
French monarchy.
The present policy, therefore, of the Austrian politicians is, to
recover despotism through democracy,--or, at least, at any expense,
everywhere to ruin the description of men who are everywhere the objects
of their settled and systematic aversion, but more especially in the
Netherlands. Compare this with the Emperor's refusing at first all
intercourse with the present powers in France, with his endeavoring to
excite all Europe against them, and then, his not only withdrawing all
assistance and all countenance from the fugitives who had been drawn by
his declarations from their houses, situations, and military
commissions, many even from the means of their very existence, but
treating them with every species of insult and outrage.
Combining this unexampled conduct in the Emperor's advisers with the
timidity (operating as perfidy) of the king of France, a fatal example
is held out to all subjects, tending to show what little support, or
even countenance, they are to expect from those for whom their principle
of fidelity may induce them to risk life and fortune. The Emperor's
advisers would not for the world rescind one of the acts of this or of
the late French Assembly; nor do they wish anything better at present
for their master's brother of France than that he should really be, as
he is nominally, at the head of the system of persecution of religion
and good order, and of all descriptions of dignity, natural and
instituted: they only wish all this done with a little more respect to
the king's person, and with more appearance of consideration for his new
subordinate office,--in hopes, that, yielding himself for the present
to the persons who have effected these changes, he may be able to game
for the rest hereafter. On no other principles than these can the
conduct of the court of Vienna be accounted for. The subordinate court
of Brussels talks the language of a club of Feuillants and Jacobins.
[Sidenote: Moderate party.]
In this state of general rottenness among subjects, and of delusion and
false politics in princes, comes a new experiment. The king of France is
in the hands of the chiefs of the regicide faction,--the Barnaves,
Lameths, Fayettes, Périgords, Duports, Robespierres, Camuses, &c., &c.,
&c. They who had imprisoned, suspended, and conditionally deposed him
are his confidential counsellors. The next desperate of the desperate
rebels call themselves the _moderate_ party. They are the chiefs of the
first Assembly, who are confederated to support their power during their
suspension from the present, and to govern the existent body with as
sovereign a sway as they had done the last. They have, for the greater
part, succeeded; and they have many advantages towards procuring their
success in future. Just before the close of their regular power, they
bestowed some appearance of prerogatives on the king, which in their
first plans they had refused to him,--particularly the mischievous, and,
in his situation, dreadful prerogative of a _veto_. This prerogative,
(which they hold as their bit in the mouth of the National Assembly for
the time being,) without the direct assistance of their club, it was
impossible for the king to show even the desire of exerting with the
smallest effect, or even with safety to his person. However, by playing,
through this _veto_, the Assembly against the king, and the king
against the Assembly, they have made themselves masters of both. In this
situation, having destroyed the old government by their sedition, they
would preserve as much of order as is necessary for the support of their
own usurpation.
[Sidenote: French ambassador.]
It is believed that this, by far the worst party of the miscreants of
France, has received direct encouragement from the counsellors who
betray the Emperor. Thus strengthened by the possession of the captive
king, (now captive in his mind as well as in body,) and by a good hope
of the Emperor, they intend to send their ministers to every court in
Europe,--having sent before them such a denunciation of terror and
superiority to every nation without exception as has no example in the
diplomatic world. Hitherto the ministers to foreign courts had been of
the appointment of the sovereign of France _previous to the Revolution_;
and, either from inclination, duty, or decorum, most of them were
contented with a merely passive obedience to the new power. At present,
the king, being entirely in the hands of his jailors, and his mind
broken to his situation, can send none but the enthusiasts of the
system,--men framed by the secret committee of the Feuillants, who meet
in the house of Madame de Staël, M. Necker's daughter. Such is every man
whom they have talked of sending hither. These ministers will be so many
spies and incendiaries, so many active emissaries of democracy. Their
houses will become places of rendezvous here, as everywhere else, and
centres of cabal for whatever is mischievous and malignant in this
country, particularly among those of rank and fashion. As the minister
of the National Assembly will be admitted at this court, at least with
his usual rank, and as entertainments will be naturally given and
received by the king's own ministers, any attempt to discountenance the
resort of other people to that minister would be ineffectual, and indeed
absurd, and full of contradiction. The women who come with these
ambassadors will assist in fomenting factions amongst ours, which cannot
fail of extending the evil. Some of them I hear are already arrived.
There is no doubt they will do as much mischief as they can.
[Sidenote: Connection of clubs.]
Whilst the public ministers are received under the general law of the
communication between nations, the correspondences between the factious
clubs in France and ours will be, as they now are, kept up; but this
pretended embassy will be a closer, more steady, and more effectual link
between the partisans of the new system on both sides of the water. I do
not mean that these Anglo-Gallic clubs in London, Manchester, &c., are
not dangerous in a high degree. The appointment of festive anniversaries
has ever in the sense of mankind been held the best method of keeping
alive the spirit of any institution. We have one settled in London; and
at the last of them, that of the 14th of July, the strong discountenance
of government, the unfavorable time of the year, and the then
uncertainty of the disposition of foreign powers, did not hinder the
meeting of at least nine hundred people, with good coats on their backs,
who could afford to pay half a guinea a head to show their zeal for the
new principles. They were with great difficulty, and all possible
address, hindered from inviting the French ambassador. His real
indisposition, besides the fear of offending any party, sent him out of
town. But when our court shall have recognized a government in France
founded on the principles announced in Montmorin's letter, how can the
French ambassador be frowned upon for an attendance on those meetings
wherein the establishment of the government he represents is celebrated?
An event happened a few days ago, which in many particulars was very
ridiculous; yet, even from the ridicule and absurdity of the
proceedings, it marks the more strongly the spirit of the French
Assembly: I mean the reception they have given to the Frith Street
Alliance. This, though the delirium of a low, drunken alehouse club,
they have publicly announced as a formal alliance with the people of
England, as such ordered it to be presented to their king, and to be
published in every province in France. This leads, more directly and
with much greater force than any proceeding with a regular and rational
appearance, to two very material considerations. First, it shows that
they are of opinion that the current opinions of the English have the
greatest influence on the minds of the people in France, and indeed of
all the people in Europe, since they catch with such astonishing
eagerness at every the most trifling show of such opinions in their
favor. Next, and what appears to me to be full as important, it shows
that they are willing publicly to countenance, and even to adopt, every
factious conspiracy that can be formed in this nation, however low and
base in itself, in order to excite in the most miserable wretches here
an idea of their own sovereign importance, and to encourage them to look
up to France, whenever they may be matured into something of more force,
for assistance in the subversion of their domestic government. This
address of the alehouse club was actually proposed and accepted by the
Assembly as an _alliance_. The procedure was in my opinion a high
misdemeanor in those who acted thus in England, if they were not so very
low and so very base that no acts of theirs can be called high, even as
a description of criminality; and the Assembly, in accepting,
proclaiming, and publishing this forged alliance, has been guilty of a
plain aggression, which would justify our court in demanding a direct
disavowal, if our policy should not lead us to wink at it.
Whilst I look over this paper to have it copied, I see a manifesto of
the Assembly, as a preliminary to a declaration of war against the
German princes on the Rhine. This manifesto contains the whole substance
of the French politics with regard to foreign states. They have ordered
it to be circulated amongst the people in every country of Europe,--even
previously to its acceptance by the king, and his new privy council, the
club of the Feuillants. Therefore, as a summary of their policy avowed
by themselves, let us consider some of the circumstances attending that
piece, as well as the spirit and temper of the piece itself.
[Sidenote: Declaration against the Emperor.]
It was preceded by a speech from Brissot, full of unexampled insolence
towards all the sovereign states of Germany, if not of Europe. The
Assembly, to express their satisfaction in the sentiments which it
contained, ordered it to be printed. This Brissot had been in the lowest
and basest employ under the deposed monarchy,--a sort of thief-taker, or
spy of police,--in which character he acted after the manner of persons
in that description. He had been employed by his master, the
_Lieutenant de Police_, for a considerable time in London, in the same
or some such honorable occupation. The Revolution, which has brought
forward all merit of that kind, raised him, with others of a similar
class and disposition, to fame and eminence. On the Revolution he became
a publisher of an infamous newspaper, which he still continues. He is
charged, and I believe justly, as the first mover of the troubles in
Hispaniola. There is no wickedness, if I am rightly informed, in which
he is not versed, and of which he is not perfectly capable. His quality
of news-writer, now an employment of the first dignity in France, and
his practices and principles, procured his election into the Assembly,
where he is one of the leading members. M. Condorcet produced on the
same day a draught of a declaration to the king, which the Assembly
published before it was presented.