M. De Tocqueville is one of the greatest, perhaps the very greatest, of
the political philosophers of the present day. Alone of all his
contemporaries, his best works will bear a comparison with those of
Machiavelli and Bacon. Less caustic and condensed than Tacitus, less
imaginative and eloquent than Burke, he possesses the calm judgment, the
discriminating eye, and the just reflection, which have immortalised the
Florentine statesman and the English philosopher. Born and bred in the
midst of the vehement strife of parties in his own country, placed
midway, as it were, between the ruins of feudal and the reconstruction
of modern society in France, he has surveyed the contest with an
impartial gaze. He has brought to the examination of republican
institutions in the United States, the eye of calm reason and the powers
of philosophic reflection. The war-cries, the illusions, the
associations of neither party have been able to disturb his steady mind.
Though a man of rank, descended, as his name indicates, of an ancient
family, he is not bigoted in favour of the old regime; though belonging
to a profession where strenuous efforts can alone ensure success, he is
not blind to the dangers of the new order of things. The feudal ages,
with their dignified manners, glorious episodes, and heart-stirring
recollections, are not lost upon him, but they have not closed his eyes
to the numerous evils which they brought in their train. Modern times,
with their general activity, vast achievements, and boundless
anticipations, have produced their full effect on his thoughtful mind;
but they have not rendered him insensible to the perils with which they
are fraught. He is a Burke without his imagination--a Machiavelli
without his crimes.
M. De Tocqueville, it is well known, is a firm believer in the progress
of society to a general system of equality and popular government. He
thinks that, for better or for worse, this tendency is inevitable; that
all efforts to resist it are vain, and that true wisdom consists in
accommodating ourselves to the new order of things, and making the
transition with as little confusion and individual distress as may be.
America he considers as the type of what Europe is to become; though he
has grievous misgivings as to the final result of such a prostration of
the great interests of society as has there taken place, and is too
well-read a scholar not to know that it was in the institutions of the
Byzantine empire that a similar levelling resulted in ancient times. But
being thus a devout believer, if not in the doctrine of perfectibility,
at least in that of ceaseless progress towards democracy, his opinions
are of the highest value when he portrays the perils with which the new
order of things is attended. Alone of all the moderns, he has fixed the
public attention upon the real danger of purely republican institutions;
he first has discerned in their working in America, where it is that the
lasting peril is to be apprehended. Passing by the bloodshed, suffering,
and confiscations with which the transition from aristocratic ascendency
to democratic power is necessarily attended, he has examined with a
scrutinising eye the practical working of the latter system in the
United States, where it had been long established and was in pacific
undisputed sovereignty. He has demonstrated that in such circumstances,
it is not the _weakness_ but the _strength_ of the ruling power in the
state which is the great danger, and that the many-headed despot, acting
by means of a subservient press and servile juries, speedily becomes as
formidable to real freedom as ever Eastern sultaun with his despotic
power and armed guards has proved.
The works of this very eminent writer, however, are by no means of equal
merit. The last two volumes of his "Democratie en Amerique" are much
inferior to the first. In the latter, he sketched out with a master
hand, when fresh from the object of his study, the practical working of
democratic institutions, when entirely free from all the impediments
which, it was alleged, concealed or thwarted their operation in the Old
World. He delineated the results of the republican principle in a new
state, without a hereditary nobility, established church, or national
debt; unfettered by primogeniture, pauperism, or previous misgovernment;
surrounded by boundless lands of exceeding fertility, with all the
powers of European knowledge to bring them into cultivation, and all the
energy of the Anglo-Saxon race to carry out the mission of Japhet--to
replenish the earth and subdue it. The world had never seen, probably
the world will never again see, the democratic principle launched into
activity under such favourable circumstances, and when its practical
effect, for good or for evil, could with so much accuracy and certainty
be discerned. The study and delineation of such an experiment, in such
circumstances, and on such a scale, by a competent observer, must have
been an object of the highest interest at any time; but what must it be
when that observer is a man of the capacity and judgment of M. De
Tocqueville?
The latter volumes of the same work, however, have dipped into more
doubtful matters, and have brought forward more questionable opinions.
The inquisitive mind, philosophic turn, and deep reflection of the
author, indeed, are every where conspicuous; but his opinions do not
equally as in the first two volumes bear the signet mark of truth
stamped upon them. They are more speculative and fanciful; founded
rather on contemplation of future, than observation of present effects.
When De Tocqueville painted the unrestrained working of democracy on
political thought and parties, as he saw it around him in the course of
his residence in America, he drew a picture which all, in circumstances
at all similar, must at once have recognised as trustworthy, because it
was only an extension of what they had witnessed in their own vicinity.
But when he extended these effects so far as he has done in his later
volumes, to manners, opinions, habits, and the intercourse of the sexes,
the attempt seemed overstrained. The theory, beyond all question just to
a certain point, was pushed too far. M. De Tocqueville's great
reputation, accordingly, has been somewhat impaired by the publication
of his last two volumes on democracy in America; and it is to the first
two that the philosophic student most frequently recurs for light on the
practical working of the popular system.
Perhaps, too, there is another, and a still more cogent, reason why the
reputation of this philosopher has not continued so general as it at
first was. This is his _impartiality_. Both the great parties which
divide the world turned to his work on its first appearance with
avidity, in the hope of discovering something favourable to their
respective views. Neither were disappointed. Both found numerous facts
and observations of the very highest importance, and having a material
bearing on the points at issue between them. Enchanted with the
discovery, each raised an _Io Paean_; and in the midst of a chorus of
praise from liberals and conservatives, M. De Tocqueville took his place
as the first political philosopher of the age. But in process of time,
both discovered something in his opinions which they would rather had
been omitted. The popular party were displeased at seeing it proved that
the great and virtuous middle classes of society could establish a
despotism as complete, and more irresistible, than any sultaun of Asia:
the aristocratic, at finding the opinion of the author not disguised
that the tendency to democracy was irresistible, and that, for good or
for evil, it had irrevocably set in upon human affairs. But present
celebrity is seldom a test of future fame; in matters of thought and
reflection, scarcely ever so. What makes a didactic author popular at
the moment is, the coincidence of his opinions with those of his
readers, in the main, and the tracing them out to some consequences as
yet new to them. What gives him fame with futurity is, his having boldly
resisted general delusions, and violently, and to the great vexation of
his contemporaries, first demonstrated the erroneous nature of many of
their opinions, which subsequent experience has shewn to be false.
"Present and future time," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, "are rivals; he who
pays court to the one, must lay his account with being discountenanced
by the other." We augur the more favourably for M. De Tocqueville's
lasting fame, from his being no longer quoted by party writers on either
side of the questions which divide society.
M. de Tocqueville calls the history he has recently published, and which
forms the subject of this article,--"A _Philosophic_ History of the
Reign of Louis XV."[2] We regret the title: we have an instinctive
aversion to _soi-disant_ philosophic histories. Those that really are
so, invariably shun the name. Robertson, in his first volume of Charles
V.; Guizot in his "Civilisation Europeenne;" Sismondi, in his "Essais
sur les Sciences Sociales," and the last volume of his "Republiques
Italiennes," have carried the philosophy of history to the highest
perfection; but none of them thought of calling their immortal works
"Philosophic Histories." Schlegel has written an admirable book not
improperly styled "the _Philosophy_ of History;" but it avowedly is not
a history, but a review of the general conclusions which seemed
deducible from it. Bossuet entitled his celebrated work, "Histoire
Universelle," without a word of philosophy. In truth, philosophy, though
a corollary from history, is not its primary object. That is, and ever
must be, the narrative of human events. Not but what the noblest and
most important lessons of philosophy may and should be deduced from
history; but they should be _deduced_, not made the main object of the
work. The reason is obvious: history is addressed to the great body of
mankind; to most of whom, narrative of event, if told in an agreeable
manner, may be made an object of interest; but to not one in twenty of
whom general or philosophic conclusions ever can be a matter of the
smallest concern. History, in truth, is much more nearly allied to
poetry, oratory, and painting. The drama is but the expansion of its
touching scenes,--painting, the representation of its fleeting events.
Even to the few who are gifted by nature with the power of abstract
thought, it is often hazardous to push matters to a conclusion too
openly. Lingard evinced the profound knowledge of the human heart by
which the Church of Rome has ever been distinguished, when, in his
skilful narrative, he concealed the Roman Catholic save in the facts
which he brought forward. It is well to enlist self-love on the side of
truth. No conclusions are so readily embraced, as those which the reader
flatters himself he himself has had a large share in drawing. Like the
famous images which were withheld from the funeral of Junia, they are
only the more present to the mind that they are withdrawn from the
sight.
Perhaps M. de Tocqueville meant, by prefixing this title to his work, to
prepare his readers for what they were to expect. He does not aim at
making a very interesting narrative. Though possessed, as the extracts
we shall give will abundantly testify, of considerable power of
description, and rising at times into strains of touching eloquence, it
is not his object to render his work attractive in either of these ways.
Had it been so, he would have chosen a different subject; he would have
selected the glories of Louis XIV. which preceded the disasters of the
Revolution; the glories of the empire, which followed it. His turn of
mind is not dramatic; he is neither poetic in his imagination, nor
pictorial in his description. Considering the close connexion between
these arts and history, these are very great deficiencies, and must ever
prevent his work from taking its place beside the masterpieces in this
department of literature. It will not bear a comparison with the
dramatic story of Livy, the caustic nerve of Sallust, the profound
observation of Tacitus, or the pictorial page of Gibbon. But, regarded
as a picture of the moral causes working in society, anterior to a great
and memorable convulsion, it is entitled to the highest praise, and will
ever be viewed as a most valuable _preliminary volume_ to the most
important period of European history.
M. de Tocqueville possesses one most important quality, in addition to
his calm judgment and discriminating sagacity. His moral and religious
principles are not only unexceptionable, but they are founded on the
soundest and most enlightened basis. Humane without being
sentimental--moral but not uncharitable--religious but not fanatical--he
surveys society, its actors and its crimes, with the eve of enlightened
philanthropy, experienced reason, and Christian charity. He is neither a
fierce, imperious Romish bigot like Bossuet, nor a relentless
Calvinistic theologian like D'Aubigne, nor a scoffing infidel like
Voltaire. Deeply impressed with the vital importance of religion to the
temporal and eternal welfare of mankind, he is yet enlightened enough to
see that all systems of religious belief have much to recommend them,
and rejects the monstrous doctrine that salvation can be obtained only
by the members of any particular sect. He sees much good in all
religions; much evil in many of their supporters. He is a Roman
Catholic; but he is the first to condemn the frightful injustice of the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes; he does not doom the whole members of
the Church of England to damnation, as so many of our zealous sectarians
do the adherents of the Church of Rome.
It is a remarkable and most consolatory circumstance, that these just
and enlightened views on the subject of religion, and its beneficial
influence on society, are now entertained by all the deepest thinkers
and most brilliant writers in France. There is not an intellect which
rises to a certain level now in that country--not a name which will be
known a hundred years hence, which is not thoroughly _Christian_ in its
principles. _That_, at least, is one blessing which has resulted from
the Revolution. Chateaubriand, Guizot, Lamartine, Vilmain, De
Tocqueville, Michelet, Sismondi, Amadee Thierry, Beranger, Barante,
belong to this bright band. When such men, differing so widely in every
other respect, are leagued together in defence of Christianity, we may
regard as a passing evil whatever profligacy the works of Victor Hugo,
Eugene Sue, and Sand, pour forth upon the Parisian world and middle
classes throughout France. They, no doubt, indicate clearly enough the
state of general opinion _at this time_. But what then? Their great
compeers, the giants of thought, foreshadow what it will be. The
profligate novels, licentious drama, and irreligious opinions of the
middle class now in France, are the result of the infidelity and
wickedness which produced the Revolution. The opinions of the great men
who have succeeded the school of the Encyclopedie, who have been taught
by the suffering it produced, will form the character of a future
generation. Public opinion, of which we hear so much, is never any thing
else than the re-echo of the thoughts of a few great men _half a century
before_. It takes that time for ideas to flow down from the elevated to
the inferior level. The great never adopt, they only originate. Their
chief efforts are always made _in opposition_ to the prevailing
opinions by which they are surrounded. Thence it is that a powerful mind
is always uneasy when it is not in the minority on any subject which
excites general attention.
The reign of Louis XV. is peculiarly favourable for a writer possessed
of the philosophic mind, calm judgment, and contemplative turn of M. de
Tocqueville. It was then that the many causes which concurred to produce
the Revolution were brought to maturity. We say _brought to maturity_:
for, great as were the corruptions, enormous the profligacy of that
reign, and of the regency which preceded it, it would be absurd to
suppose that it was during them alone that the causes which produced the
terrible convulsion began to operate. They were only brought to
maturity--but the catastrophe undoubtedly was accelerated by the vices
that succeeded the reign of Louis XIV., not so much by the evils they
inflicted on the people, as by the corruption which they spread among
the defenders of the throne. They paralysed the nobility by the fatal
gangrene of individual selfishness; they prostrated thought by diverting
it almost entirely to wicked and licentious purposes. Intellect, instead
of being the guardian of order, the protector of religion, the supporter
of morality, became their most fatal enemy; for its powers--and they
were gigantic in that age--were all devoted to the spread of infidelity,
the ridicule of virtue, the fomenting of passion. It is in this
_debauchery of the public mind_ by the example of royal and noble
profligacy, and the power of vigorous and perverted talent, that the
real causes of the Revolution are to be found. The working classes of
themselves can never overturn a state--if they could, England would have
been revolutionised in 1832. They may make a _Jacquerie_, but they
cannot make a revolution. They may rear up a Jack Cade, a Wat Tyler, or
a Jacques Bonhomme, but they will never produce a Robespierre or a
Cromwell. It is the _coincidence_ of general evils that make all the
people feel sore, with corrupted manners, and licentious or selfish
writers who make their leaders _think wrong_, which can alone overturn
society. The first furnishes the private soldier, the last the officers
to the army of revolution; or, what is the same thing, they withdraw
them from that of religion and order.
The latter years of Louis XV. were so completely sunk in shameless
debaucheries, the glory of France had been so long tarnished by the
wretched choice which his mistresses had made of ministers to rule the
state and generals to lead the armies, that the world has not
unnaturally come to entertain an opinion in many respects exaggerated or
erroneous, of his character. He had many good points; at first he was an
unexceptionable sovereign. Though bred up in the licentious school of
the Regent Orleans, he led in the outset a comparatively blameless life.
The universal grief which seized the nation when he lay at the point of
death at Metz, in 1744, proves to what extent he had then won the hearts
of his subjects. His person was fine and well-proportioned; his manners
were grace personified; he possessed considerable penetration when his
native indolence would permit him to attend to public affairs; and he
was not destitute, like his predecessor Charles VI., when roused by
necessity, or the entreaties of a high-minded and generous mistress, of
noble and heroic qualities. His conduct at Foutenoy, and during the few
occasions when he made war in person, in company with Marshal Saxe,
sufficiently proved this. Nay, what is still more extraordinary, he was
at first a model of conjugal fidelity. Though married at nineteen to his
Queen, Marie Leczinska, daughter of the king of Poland, who was six
years older than himself, and possessed of no remarkable personal
attractions, he resisted for long all the arts of the ladies of the
court, who were vieing with each other for his homage, saying constantly
to those who urged the beauty of any one upon him, "the Queen is
handsomer." The Queen had already borne him nine children, before a
suspicion even of his infidelities came to be entertained; and he was
led into them at first, rather by the efforts of those around him than
his own inclination. So timid was his disposition in these respects in
early years--so strong the religious scruples to which throughout life
he continued subject, that, on the first occasion on which he obtained
an interview with his future mistress, Madame de Chateauroux, the visit
passed over without the desired result, and on the second his valet had,
literally speaking, to throw him into her arms. "C'est le premier pas
qui coute." He became less scrupulous in subsequent years.
Of the Regent Orleans, who succeeded Louis XIV. in the government, and
preceded Louis XV. in its abuse, M. de Tocqueville gives the following
masterly character:--
"Nature had bestowed on the Duke of Orleans all those gifts which
usually captivate mankind. His physiognomy was agreeable and
prepossessing: to a natural eloquence he joined uncommon sweetness of
manner. Brave, full of liveliness, his penetration was never at fault,
and his abilities would have procured for him distinction at the head of
councils or armies. Those Who were about his person became attached to
him, because they found him amiable and indulgent. They lamented his
faults, without ceasing to love him, carried away by the graces of his
character and amiability of his manners, which recalled, they said,
those of his grandfather, Henry IV. He had the good fortune, rare in
princes, to preserve his friends to the hour of his death. He readily
forgave offences and pardoned injuries. But the mind endowed with so
many amiable qualities was destitute of that which can alone develop or
turn them to good account--he had no force of character. Without the
energy which prompts crime, he was equally without that which leads to
virtue. After having lost his first preceptor, his ill fortune placed
him in the hands of Dubois, the most corrupt of men. This Dubois, the
son of an apothecary of Brives-la-Gaillarde, founded his hopes of
fortune on the entire demoralisation of the prince committed to his
care. Inspired by the genius of vice, he divined and encouraged the
vices of others, and above all of his master. He taught him to believe
that virtue is but a mask worn by hypocrisy, a chimera on which no one
can rely in the business of life; that religion is a political
invention, of use only to the lower people; that all men are cheats and
deceivers, and pretended rectitude a mere cover for intended villany.
Madame, the mother of the Regent, early discovered the character of this
detestable man. 'My son,' said she, 'I desire nothing but the good of
the state and your glory: I ask but one thing for your safety, and I
demand your word of honour for it--it is never to employ that scoundrel
the Abbe Dubois--the greatest miscreant on the earth: who would at any
time sacrifice the state and you to the slightest interest of his own.'
The Duke of Orleans gave his word accordingly, but he was not long of
breaking it. Shortly after, he made Dubois a councillor of state. The
debaucheries into which that man impelled him soon became all
indispensable distraction for that soft and enervated mind, to which the
_ennui_ of a court was insupportable. He loved its scandal and
rumours--even the report of incest was not displeasing to him. Every
evening, he assembled his _roues_, his mistresses, some _danseuses_ from
the Opera, often his daughter the Duchess de Berri,[3] and some persons
of obscure birth, but brilliant for their talent or renowned for their
vices. At these suppers the choicest viands, the finest wines,
exhilarated the guests, all the disorders and scandal of court and the
city were passed in review. They drank, they became intoxicated; the
conversation became licentious; impieties of every sort issued from
every mouth. At last, fatigued with satiety, the party was broken up:
those who could walk retired to rest; the others were carried to
bed;--and the next evening a similar scene was renewed."--(Vol. i. pp.
22-24.)
It may be conceived what an effect manners such as these pervading the
head of a court, already sufficiently inclined to excitement and
gratification, must have had upon the general tone of morals among the
higher ranks. M. de Tocqueville portrays it in strong colours, but not
stronger we believe than the truth:--
"The disorders of its head spread to all the branches of the royal
family. There was not a princess who had not her lover--not a prince who
had not his mistresses. This system soon descended from the palace to
the hotels of the nobles. Conjugal fidelity was considered as a
prejudice, fit only to be the subject of ridicule. Adultery became the
fashion, intemperance a path to distinction--the seduction of women was
deemed the great object of life, and conquests in that line were sought
as the highest glory; minds absorbed in the frivolous pursuits of a man
_a bonnes fortunes_, became incapable of attention to serious affairs.
When a young woman appeared in the world, no inquiries were made as to
the union which prevailed in her establishment, the sole point was what
lover they were to give her. The men with pretensions in that line, the
corrupted women, entered into a league to plunge her into crime; and in
that abominable lottery, they fixed beforehand on the person to whom she
was to fall. The example of the Duchess de Berri obtained many
imitators. Sometimes devotion was mingled with debauchery, as if a
feeble struggle was still kept up between the recollections of the past
and the seductions of the present. Women of gallantry, ambitious
debauchees, passed from their orgies to the cloister; and the abstinence
of penitence furnished some respite to the pleasure of the world and the
agitations of politics. Such was the society of the great world, under
the regency. The impulse given to vice during that period, continued
through that which followed it. Neither the good example given by Louis
XV., during the first years of his youth, nor the grave habits of
Cardinal de Fleury, could avail as a barrier to the inundation. It only
abated something of its audacity; more veiled, it excited less public
scandal."--(Vol. i. p. 31.)
It is impossible that in any country, but most of all in a monarchical
and in aristocratic one, such manners can exist in the higher ranks,
without inducing a total depravity of general thought, and perversion of
the power of mind. Talent, often the most venal of venal things, follows
in the wake of corruption. Covetous of gain, thirsting for patronage, it
fans, instead of lowering, the passions by which all hope to profit.
Whenever prevailing vices have set in upon a nation, be they such as
spring from a monarchical, an aristocratic, or a democratic regime, the
great majority of its abilities will do nothing but encourage its
excesses, because it is there alone they can gain profit. A few great
and generous minds will probably set themselves to resist the torrent,
and they may produce a great effect upon a future age; but in their own,
they are almost sure to meet with nothing but ridicule, abuse, and
neglect. We see this deplorable subservience of talent, even of a very
high cast, to the taste of the majority holding preferment in their
hands, around us in Great Britain at this time; and the same evil was
experienced in an equal degree in France during the whole course of the
reign of Louis XV. and his virtuous but ill-fated successor.
"The reign," says Tocqueville, "of Louis XIV. finished: that of Louis
XV. commenced. During its course we shall see every thing change: of old
forms there will remain only the shadow. Never was alteration more
complete among mankind."
"In lieu of lofty thoughts, and their serious expression, will appear a
sterile futility. An incurable frivolity will get possession of the high
society, and come entirely to direct thought. Licentiousness of language
will accompany wicked manners, and lend a seduction the more to vice.
Libertinism becomes the fashion. Impiety _a la mode_, miserable
vanities, will supplant a noble pride to achieve a reputation in
letters: it will become necessary to raise a doubt, wherever truth has
been admitted. Amidst the din of feasts and the music of the ball-room,
they will sap the foundations of religion, morality, and society. They
will call themselves philanthropic, they will declaim on humanity--at
the very moment that they are taking from the people the consolations
which render supportable the miseries of life, and the religious curb
which suspends wrath and restrains vengeance. It is thus, also, that
they will obtain the envied title of philosophy, and merit the
protection of the great; for they, too, will desire the reputation of
_Esprits forts_. All will give way together. In war, no more great
generals. The pulpit will no longer resound with the illustrious
orators, whose words seemed to descend from divine inspiration.
Statesmen will be without elevation: instead of able men, mere
intriguers: the influence of talent will be replaced by the influence of
coteries. Business will be treated of in boudoirs, and decided according
to the caprice of abandoned women. They will dispose of administrations,
lower politics to the level of their own minds, and even ecclesiastical
dignities will depend on their patronage. As a consequence of that
general debasement, an unmeasured disdain will arise in the inferior
classes of all that is great in the state. Doubt will be applauded, and
it will extend to the power of the king, the noblesse, and the clergy.
The spirit of investigation and analysis will replace the flights of the
imagination. Men will sound the depths of that power which they have
ceased to regard with respect. The authorities of the earth will not be
sufficiently respected to make them look up to them--they must bring
them down to their own level, and look below them. A terrible reaction
will arise--the result of old rancours to which general feeling will no
longer oppose any barrier. On all sides will spring up the ideas of
liberty and independence. Meanwhile the redoubtable progress of a
revolution, which is advancing, will escape the observation of those
whom it is to swallow up; for the frivolity of their lives, and the
vacancy of their thoughts, will have deprived them of all
foresight."--(Vol. i. p. 22.)
The courage with which the French church frequently denounced the vices
and corruptions in high places with which it was surrounded, has always
been one of the most honourable features of its glorious annals.
Massillon, in the corrupted days of the regency, was not behind
Bourdalone and Bossuet and Fenelon, in the time of Louis XIV., in the
discharge of this noble duty:--
"When Massillon ascended the pulpit to instruct the young king, he
threatened with the wrath of God the great on the earth who violated his
commandments, and the Regent manifested no displeasure: conscience had
palsied his mind. Never had religion been more sublime,--never did she
appear clothed in more magnificent language. To the profound corruption
of the court, the preacher opposed the example of the little and the
weak; to their pride, the virtue of the poor, and its omnipotence in the
sight of God. 'If Providence permits,' said he, 'the elevation of some
unworthy characters, it is that they may be rendered useful to others.
All power comes from God, and is established only for the use of man.
The great would be useless on the earth if they were not surrounded by
the poor and the indigent; they owe their elevation to the public
necessities; and, so far are the people from being made for them, it is
they who are made for the people. It is the people who give the great
the right which they have to approach the throne; and it is for the
people that the throne itself has been raised. In a word, the great and
the princes are but, as it were, the men of the people: thence it is
that the prosperity of the great and their ministers, and of the
sovereigns who have been the oppressors of the people, has never brought
any thing but shame, ignominy, and maledictions to their descendants. We
have seen issue from that stem of iniquity the shameless shoots which
have been the disgrace of their name and of their age. The Lord has
breathed upon the heaps of their ill-gotten riches; he has dispersed
them as the dust: if he yet leaves on the earth the remnants of their
race, it is that they may remain an eternal monument of his vengeance.
"'The glory of a conqueror will be always stained with blood:--He passes
like a torrent over the earth, only to devastate it, and not as a
majestic river which brings joy and abundance. The remembrance of his
reign will recall only the recollection of the evils he has inflicted on
humanity. The people suffer always from the vices of their sovereign.
Whatever exaggerates authority, vilifies or degrades it; princes, ruled
by their passions, are always pernicious and bizarre masters. Government
has no longer a ruler when its head has none.
"'The Lord has ever blown on the haughty races and withered their roots.
The prosperity of the impious has never passed to their descendants.
Thrones themselves, and royal succession have failed, to effeminate and
worthless princes; and the history of the crimes and excess of the great
is, at the same time, the history of their misfortunes and of their
fall.
"'Prince's and sovereigns cannot be great but in rendering themselves
useful to the people--in bringing them, like Jesus Christ, abundance and
peace. The liberty which princes owe to their people, is the liberty of
the laws. You know only God above you, it is true; but the laws should
have an authority even superior to yourselves.
"'A great man--a prince--is not born for himself alone. He owes himself
to his subjects. The people, in elevating him, have entrusted him with
power and authority, and have reserved to themselves, in exchange, his
care, his time, his vigilance. He is a superintendant whom they have
placed at their head to protect and defend them. It is the people who,
by the order of God, have made them what they are.--Yes, Sire! _It is
the choice of the nation which has put the sceptre in the hand of your
ancestors._ It is it which proclaimed them sovereigns. The kingdom came
in time to be considered as the inheritance of their successors; but
they owed it at first to the free consent of their subjects, and it was
the public suffrages which, in the beginning, attached that right and
that prerogative to their birth. In a word, as their prerogative first
flowed from ourselves, so kings should make no use of their power but
for us.'"--(Vol. i. p. 67.)
Such was the eloquent and intrepid language in which Massillon addressed
the Regent Orleans and Louis XV., in the plenitude of their power, in
the chapel-royal at Versailles. It was a minister of the _established_
church, be it recollected, who thundered in those unmeasured terms to
the prince who held in his hands the whole patronage of the church of
France. We should like to see a preacher of the Free and popular
dissenting establishments of Great Britain or America, thunder in
equally intrepid strains on the sins which most easily beset the
democratic congregations upon whom their elevation and fortune depend.
"There is nothing new," says the Wise Man, "under the sun." We have seen
enough, of late years, of railway manias, and the almost incredible
anxiety of all classes to realise something in the numerous El Dorados
which infatuation or cupidity set afloat in periods of excitement. But,
from the following account of De Tocqueville, it appears that a hundred
and thirty years ago the same passions were developed on a still greater
scale in France; and even our ladies of rank and fashion may take a
lesson in these particulars from the marchionesses and countesses of the
court of the Regent Orleans.
"In the month of August 1719, the anxiety to procure shares (in the
Mississippi scheme) began to assemble an immense crowd in the street
Quincampoix, where, for many years, the public funds had been bought and
sold. From six in the morning, crowds of people, men and women, rich and
poor, gentlemen and burghers, filled the street and never left it till
eight at night. There were spread all sorts of rumours, true or false;
and all the devices of stock-jobbing were put in practice, in order to
effect a rise or fall in the prices. The price of some shares rose to
_six-and-thirty times_ their original value. Their price often varied,
during the course of a single day, several thousand francs. From this
perilous gambling arose alternately incredible fortunes and total ruins.
"The numerous instances which occurred of person who had risen from
nothing and suddenly become possessed of immense wealth, raised the
public avidity to a perfect frenzy. At that epoch of scandal and
opprobrium, there was no folly or vice in which the high society did not
take the lead. The degradation of men's minds was equal to the
corruption of their manners. The courtiers, even the princes of the
blood, besieged the Regent to obtain shares. He flung them among them
with open hands; and soon they were seen mingling in the crowds of
speculators, and covetous like them of discreditable gains. 'My son,'
said the Regent's mother, 'has given me, for my family, two millions in
shares. The King has taken some millions for his house. The whole royal
family have received some; all the children of France, all their
grandsons and princes of the blood.'--(28th Nov. 1719.)
"Women of the highest rank did not scruple to pay the most assiduous
court to Law to obtain shares. They passed whole days in his
ante-chamber waiting for an audience, which he very seldom gave them.
One caused her carriage to be overturned before his door to attract his
attention, and had the good fortune, in consequence, to get a few words
from him. Another stopped before his hotel and made her servants call
out 'Fire,' to force him to come out, and thus obtain an interview. They
were to be seen seated on the front part of the carriage of Madame Law,
striving to obtain from her a profitable friendship. That woman who had
the effrontery to take the name of Law, though she was only his
mistress, treated them with hauteur.
"The same passion was not less vehement in the other classes of society.
The latest _arrets_ of the council had ordained that all shares should
be paid in paper: and instantly a crowd assembled round the bank, to
exchange their gold and silver for bank-notes. The women sold their
diamonds and pearls, the men their plate. Ere long the provinces became
envious of the profits made in the capital, and desirous to share in
them: proprietors sold their lands for whatever they would bring, and
hastened to Paris to acquire the much coveted shares. Ecclesiastics,
bishops even, did not scruple to mingle in these transactions. In a
short time, the population of the capital was increased by three hundred
thousand souls. Foreigners also arrived in crowds; but, less intoxicated
by the prevailing madness than the French, they foresaw the fatal
denouement, and, for the most part, extricated themselves in time from
its effects."--(Vol. i. pp. 129, 130.)
The ultimate issue of this, as of all other general manias, was
disastrous in the extreme.
"The rise of shares having at length experienced a check, they continued
for some time to oscillate up and down without any material variation,
according to the devices employed by skilful speculators. These
variations occasioned enormous changes in the fortune of the gamblers.
Those newly enriched, displayed an unheard-of luxury; hastening to enjoy
wealth which had come to them like a dream, and which the wakening from
it might dissipate. Never had the equipages been so magnificent, never
so numerous. Laquais rolled about in their chariots, and, from the force
of habit, were seen sometimes _to get upon the back of their own
carriages_. 'Put the most showy arms on my coach,' said one to his
coach-maker. 'I will have that livery,' said another, when a
particularly stylish one drove past. Their furniture was sumptuous,
their repasts exquisite, and the _noblesse_ did not disdain to honour
their tables, making such condescension the first step to alliances
which might hereafter convey to them some of the profits of their
speculations.
"Meanwhile a frightful tumult disturbed every existence. Speculation
became universal, unbounded, at length brutal. Persons were crushed to
death in the approaches to the Rue Quincampoix: the men with large
portfolios were in hourly danger of their lives. Assassinations were
committed: a Count de Horn was condemned to be broken on the wheel by
the Parliament, and the sentence carried into execution, for having
robbed and murdered a courtier. Alarmed at the crowds, the Regent
interdicted the speculators from making use of the Rue Quincampoix: they
took refuge in the Place Vendome. In a single day that square was
covered with tents, where the most sumptuous stuffs were displayed; and,
without disquieting themselves with the wild joy of some, or the abject
despair of others, the ladies of the court seated themselves at gambling
tables, where the choicest refreshments were handed to them. Bands of
musicians and courtezans served to amuse that insensate crowd. Soon its
excesses led to its being expelled from the Place Vendome; it then fixed
itself in the Hotel de Soissons."--(Vol. i. pp. 133-134.)
This exceeds even the joint-stock mania of 1824, or the railway mania of
1845, in this country, of which, in the conclusion of his first volume
of "Tancred," Mr D'Israeli has given a graphic picture. Lady Bertie and
Bellair, whose billet regarding the "_broad gauge_" occasioned her to
swoon, and dispelled the romantic attachment of Lord Montacute, was but
a repetition of the French countesses, who thronged the antechambers of
Law a century before. More vehement in their desires, more mercurial in
their temperament than the English, the French, when seized with any
general mania, push it even into greater excesses, and induce upon
themselves and their country more wide-spread calamities.
M. De Tocqueville frequently says that he is not a military historian;
and although he has considerable powers of description, and, like all
his countrymen, understands something of the art of war, yet it is very
apparent that his inclination does not lie in that direction. We gladly
give a place, however, to his admirable account of the battle of
Fontenoy, and the exploits of the famous "English column," which, though
in the end unsuccessful, displayed a valour on the banks of the Scheldt
which foreshadowed the heroism of Albuera and Waterloo:--
"The King of France passed the Scheldt, and, in spite of the
representations of Marshal Saxe, placed himself on an eminence
commanding a view of the field of battle, and where the balls rolled to
his horse's feet. Many persons were wounded behind him. The English and
the Dutch commenced the attack at the same time at different points. The
former advanced as if nothing could disconcert their audacity. As the
ground contracted, their battalions became more close together, but
still keeping the finest order; and there was formed, partly by design,
partly by accident, that redoubtable column of which the Duke of
Cumberland soon felt the full value. Nothing could withstand that
terrible mass. Steadily it moved on, launching forth death incessantly
from every front. The French regiments in vain strove to impede its
progress; they perished in the attempt. The first corps which the
English approached was the regiment of Gardes Francaises. Before the
fire commenced, an English officer stepped forth from the rank, and
taking off his hat, said, 'Gentlemen of the French guard, fire.' A
French officer advanced and replied, 'The French do not fire first: we
will reply.' The English then levelled their pieces, and sent in a
discharge with such precision, that the whole front rank of the Guard
fell. That ill-timed piece of courtesy cost the lives of eighteen
officers. No sooner was this over than the column renewed its march,
slowly but with immovable firmness. Soon it had passed by six hundred
toises (1800 feet) the front of the French army. The battle seemed lost,
and the persons who surrounded the King already began to counsel him to
leave the field. 'Who is the scoundrel who dares to give that advice to
your Majesty?' exclaimed the Marshal, who had been all day in the
hottest of the fire. 'Before the action began it was my time to give it:
now it is too late.' In truth, all was lost if the monarch had left his
post. His remaining there seemed to make heroes spring out of the earth:
his departure would have spread discouragement through the ranks. The
advice of the Marshal coincided with the feelings of the King, and he
remained firm. The blood of Henry IV. then beat at his heart. By his
advice a new effort better combined was resolved on. The King, whose
_sang froid_ had never for an instant been disturbed, in person rallied
the fugitives. Four guns, kept in reserve for his personal safety, were
brought forward, and placed in battery at the distance of forty paces
from the head of the English column. They fired with grape with
extraordinary rapidity, and soon huge chasms appeared in the enemy's
ranks. The cavalry of the French Guard charged impetuously in at the
openings,--the Dauphin, sword in hand, leading them on. The swords of
the horsemen, aided by the fire of the guns and the foot-soldiers, soon
completed the work of destruction. And ere long that terrible column
which had so recently made the bravest tremble, is nothing but a vast
ruin. The English had nine thousand killed and wounded, the French were
weakened by five thousand men."--(Vol. i. pp. 425-426.)
Such is the account of the conduct of the English troops at
Fontenoy--the only great battle on the continent of Europe in which they
ever sustained a defeat from the French--as given by the historians of
France itself. The crisis produced by the irruption of this terrible
column into the centre of the French army, exactly resembles a similar
attack at Aspern and Wagram, and the last onset of the Imperial Guards
at Waterloo. The account of the progress of the English column, and the
means by which its advance was at length arrested, might pass for a
narrative of the penetrating of the Austrian centre by the French column
under Lannes, on the second day of Aspern, or the famous advance of the
Old and Middle Guard against the British right centre, on the evening of
the 18th June 1815. Both these formidable attacks were defeated, and by
means precisely similar to those by which Marshal Saxe stopped the
English column at Fontenoy. At Wagram, also, the heavy mass of infantry
led by Macdonald was arrested by the dreadful cross-fire of the Austrian
batteries; and if the Archduke Charles had evinced the same tenacity and
resolution as Marshal Saxe, the result would probably have been the
same, and Wagram had been Waterloo!
Of the effects of the irreligious fanaticism, the natural result of the
tyranny and oppressive conduct of the Church of Rome, which pervaded
France for half a century before the Revolution, our author gives the
following interesting account:--
"Another powerful cause of dissolution existed in French society at this
period. The vast conspiracy against Christianity, of which Voltaire was
the chief, daily developed itself in a more alarming manner. A body of
men styling themselves philosophers--that is, lovers of wisdom--set up
for reformers of the human race. They professed to be the enemies of
prejudice; they had for ever in their mouths the words 'humanity,' and
'philanthropy;' their object was declared to be to restore the dignity
of man, and with that view they proposed to substitute certain
conventional virtues for the precepts of Christianity. They pleaded
tolerance, and soon they became themselves intolerant. Misfortune
excited their pity; they ever undertook its defence, when there was a
noise to be made, celebrity to be acquired by doing so. By these means,
they acquired a great renown; to philosophise was continually in their
mouths and their writings. It is no wonder it was so; for to
philosophise, in their estimation, was to attack all the received
opinions, and annihilate them under the weight of public contempt; to
persecute fanaticism without perceiving that the irreligious passion
soon acquired the character of the worst species of fanaticism.
"Voltaire, endowed by nature with immense talent, had, from his earliest
years, the steady will and unshaken determination which were necessary
to make him a leader of thought. He laboured at it all his life, and his
mental qualifications enabled him to keep pace with the public desires
in all their branches. The age was frivolous, and he excelled in
fugitive pieces; it was libertine, and he had obscene verses at command;
the _esprits forts_ had a leaning to incredulity, and he put himself at
the head of the movement, and made use of it to turn into ridicule all
that men had been most accustomed to revere. Gifted with extraordinary
powers of raillery and sarcasm, he faithfully reflected in his writings
the graces and the vices of the brilliant and profligate society in
which he lived. He kept some measure in his publications as long as he
had any hope of obtaining in France a political station; but from the
very beginning, the acerbity of his disposition displayed itself in his
ceaseless attacks on the mysteries of religion, in the elegant society
which sought him, and of which he was the delight. 'He had the art,'
says Vilmain, 'of throwing discredit on a dogma by a happy couplet; by a
philosophic sentence he refuted a syllogistic argument.'"--(Vol. ii. pp.
61, 62.)
The correspondence of Voltaire with the King of Prussia, the bond of
union in which was their common antipathy to Christianity, forms not the
least curious part of the lives of both these eminent men. Nearly all
the sovereigns of the Continent, at this period, were led away by this
mania, destined to produce such fatal effects to themselves and their
children. Catherine of Russia was peculiarly active in the infidel
league. De Tocqueville gives the following interesting account of the
almost incredible extent to which this mania prevailed in the age which
preceded the French Revolution:--
"Voltaire and the King of Prussia resembled two lovers who were
continually quarreling and making up their differences. The royal hero
could never dispense with the renown which the praises of the Patriarch
of Incredulity gave to him. Catherine II. of Russia kept up a close
correspondence with him; his expressions to her were confiding, even
tender. She required that trumpet to celebrate her exploits, and
palliate the crimes committed in the pursuit of her ambition. 'My
_Catau_ (his name for the Empress) loves the philosophers, her husband
will suffer for it with posterity.' At the same time, she respected him
more than Frederick, and her letters were never disgraced by any
impurity. She offered D'Alembert to intrust him with the education of
her only son, and to settle on him a pension of 50,000 francs (L2000).
She flattered Diderot, and sent him a present of 66,000 francs (L2400).
If the Encyclopedia is proscribed at Paris, it was reprinted at St
Petersburg; the Empress went so far as herself to translate the
Belisarius of Marmontel into the Russian tongue. Eighteen other princes,
among whom were the King of Poland, the King of Sweden, and the King of
Denmark, corresponded with Voltaire, and hastened to deposit in his
hands their adhesion to his protest against the prejudices of the age.
The princes and great men who were travelling in Europe, endeavoured to
stop at Ferney, happy if they could enjoy for a few minutes the
conversation of the great writer. 'I have been,' said he to Madame de
Deffand, 'for fourteen years the hotel-keeper of Europe.' In his old
age, intoxicated with joy, he wrote to Helvetius, on the 26th June 1765:
'Do you not see that the whole North is for us, and that it is
inevitable that sooner or later those miserable fanatics of the South
must be confounded? The Empress of Russia, the King of Prussia, the
conqueror of the superstitious Austrian, besides many other princes,
have already erected the standard of philosophy.' Again he wrote to
D'Alembert, on the 4th June 1767: 'Men begin to open their eyes from one
end of Europe to the other. Fanaticism, which feels its weakness and
implores the arm of authority, despite itself, acknowledges its defeat.
The works of Bolingbroke, of Trent, and of Boulanger, universally
diffused, are so many triumphs of Reason. Let us bless that revolution
which for the last fifteen or twenty years has taken place in general
opinion. It has exceeded my most sanguine hopes. _With respect to the
common people, I take no charge of them--they will always remain the
rabble._ I cultivate my own garden; it is unavoidable that there should
be frogs in it, but they do not prevent my nightingales from
singing.'"--Vol. ii. pp. 357-8.
Such were the opinions of the wise men of Europe in the age which
preceded the French Revolution! It is not surprising they brought on
that convulsion.
One of the most powerful means by which Voltaire and his party succeeded
in rousing so strong a feeling among the ablest men of Europe in their
favour, was by the constant appeals which they made to the feelings of
humanity, and the resolution with which they denounced the cruelties,
equally impolitic and inhuman, which the Romish Church, whenever it had
the power, still exercised on the unhappy victims who occasionally fell
under the barbarous laws of former times. This atrocious adherence to
antiquated severity, in the vain idea of coercing the freedom of modern
thought, in an age of increasing philanthropy, was, perhaps, the
greatest cause of the spread of modern infidelity, and of the general
horror with which the Roman Catholic Church was generally regarded by
enlightened men throughout Europe. In this respect their labours are
worthy of the highest approbation; and in so far as they mainly
contributed to destroy the dreadful fabric of ecclesiastical tyranny
which the Romish Church had established wherever their faith was still
prevalent, they deserve, and will ever obtain, the warmest thanks of all
friends of humanity. But, like most other reformers, in the ardour of
their zeal for the removal of real grievances, they destroyed, also,
beneficent institutions. It appears, too, from his confidential
correspondence, that Voltaire's zeal in the cause of humanity was more a
war-cry assumed to rouse a party, than a feeling of benevolence towards
mankind; for no one rejoiced more sincerely than he did when the
acerbity of the fanatics was directed against each other.
"It must ever be regretted," says M. De Tocqueville, "that Voltaire, in
undertaking the defence of outraged humanity, appeared to have had no
other object but to employ his sensibility to render the Roman Catholic
religion odious." The same man who had expressed such touching regrets
on the fate of the unhappy Calas, a Protestant, who had been broken on
the wheel without sufficient evidence, on a charge of murder by a
sentence of the parliament of Toulouse, permitted the most cruel irony
to flow from his pen when tortures were inflicted on the Jesuits. 'I
hear,' said he, 'that they have at last _burned three Jesuits_ at
Lisbon. This is truly _consoling intelligence_; but unhappily it rests
on the authority of a Jansenist.' (Voltaire to M. Vernet, 1760.) 'It is
said that they have broken Father Malagrida on the wheel: _God be
praised for it! I should die content if I could see the Jansenists and
Molenists crushed to death by each other._' (Letter to the Countess of
Lutzelbourg, vol. ii. p. 363.)
Great Britain was at that period as much shaken by the effects of her
irreligious party as France; in fact, it was from the writings of
Bolingbroke, Tindal, Toland, and their contemporaries, that Voltaire
drew almost all the arguments with which his writings abound against the
doctrines of Christianity. Gibbon afterwards lent the same cause the aid
of his brilliant genius and vast industry. Scotland, too, had its own
share of the prevailing epidemic. Hume was the great apostle of
scepticism, caressed by all Europe. But neither England nor Scotland
were overturned by their efforts: on the contrary, Christianity, tried
but not injured, came forth unscathed from the furnace. The
learning--the talent--the zeal which arose in defence of religion, were
at least equal to what was employed in the attack; and so completely did
they baffle the efforts of the infidel party, that Christianity grew and
strengthened with every assault made upon it; and when this great
conflict began between the antagonist principles in 1793, England was
found at its proper post in the vanguard of religion and order. This
fact is very remarkable, and deserves more serious consideration than
has yet been bestowed upon it. It clearly points to some essential
difference between the political and religious institutions of France
and England at that period, on the capacity which they bestowed upon a
nation to withstand the assaults of infidelity and corruption. It is not
difficult to see what that difference was. In England, a free
constitution was established, freedom of discussion was permitted, and
the church was not allowed to exercise any tyrannical sway over either
the minds or bodies of men. The consequence was, genius in the hour of
need came to her side, and brought her triumphant through all the
dangers by which she was assailed. Intellect was divided; it was not as
in France wholly ranged on the side of infidelity. The cause of truth,
though it may be subjected to grievous temporary trials, has nothing in
the end to fear except from the excesses of tyranny exerted in its
defence. Unsheltered by power, talent will speedily come to its aid. The
wounds inflicted by mind can be cured only by mind: but they will never
fail of being so if mind is left to itself.
One of the well-known abuses which preceded the Revolution, was the
improper use which, in the reign of Louis XV. was made of _lettres de
cachet_, obtained too often by private solicitation or the interest of
some of the mistresses of the King or his ministers. Their abuse rose to
the highest pitch, under the administration of the Duke de la Villiere.
The Marchioness Langeac, his mistress, openly made a traffic of them,
and never was one refused to a man of influence, who had a vengeance to
satiate, a passion to gratify. The Comte de Segur gives the following
characteristic anecdote, illustrating the use made of these instruments
of tyranny, even upon the inferior classes of society.
"I have heard related the sad mishap which occurred to a young
shop-mistress, named Jeanneton, who was remarkable for her beauty. One
day the Chevalier de Coigny met her radiant with smiles, and in the
highest spirits. He inquired the cause of her extreme satisfaction. 'I
am truly happy,' she replied,--'My husband is a scold, a brute; he gave
me no rest--I have been with M. le Comte de Saint Florentin; Madame
----, who enjoys his good graces, has received me in the kindest manner,
and for a present of ten _Louis_ I have just obtained a _lettre de
cachet_ which will deliver me from the persecution of that most jealous
tyrant.'
"Two years afterwards, M. de Coigny met the same Jeanneton, but now sad,
pale, with downcast look, and a care-worn countenance. 'Ah! my poor
Jeanneton!' said he, 'what has become of you? I never meet you any
where. What has cast you down, since we last met?' 'Alas! sir,' replied
she, 'I was very foolish to be then in such spirits; my villanous
husband had that very day taken up the same idea as I; he went to the
minister, and the same day, by the intervention of his mistress, _he
brought an order to shut me up_; so that it cost our poor _menage_
twenty _louis_ to throw us at the same time reciprocally into
prison.'"--(Vol. ii. p. 489.)
M. De Tocqueville sums up in these eloquent words which close his work,
the tendency and final result of the government of the Regent Orleans
and Louis XV.:--
"The high society was more liberal than the bourgeois: the bourgeois
than the people. The Revolution commenced in the head of the social
system; from that it gained the heart, and spread to the extremities. It
became a point of honour to be in opposition. It was a mode of shining
and acquiring popularity; a fashion which the young seized with avidity.
The words Liberty and Representative Government were continually in the
mouths of those who were, ere long, to ascribe to them all their
misfortunes.
"The partition of Poland revealed to the French the political
degradation of their country. The great and beautiful kingdom of France
resembled a planet under eclipse: its light seemed extinguished. The
French honour felt itself profoundly mortified. In the midst of that
degradation, and from its very effects, political combinations entered
more and more into every thought. The activity of mind, which no longer
could find employment in the glory of the country, took a direction
towards industry and the sciences. The middle class, rich and
instructed, obtained an influence which formerly had been monopolised by
the _noblesse_, and aspired to the destruction of privileges which it
did not enjoy. Beneath both, the working classes, steeped in misery,
crushed under the weight of taxes, reserved to the innovators the most
formidable support.
"Thus the movement, arising from many different causes, extended more
and more. The philosophers, by incessantly depreciating the nation in
their writings, had succeeded in rendering the nation ashamed of itself.
All parties in the nation seemed to unite in deeming it necessary to
destroy the ancient social order. It was manifest that important changes
would take place at no distant period, though the exact time of their
approach could not be fixed with certainty. It was at the approach of
that tempest which was destined to shake the state to its foundations,
that the pride of philosophy sought to exalt itself by attacking heaven.
By it the curb of conscience was broken, and the great name of God,
which might have imposed a restraint on the violence of the passions
which the Revolution called forth, was effaced. By this means, to the
legitimate conquest of liberty will ere long succeed a mortal strife of
vanities, in which those of the majority, having proved victorious, will
stain themselves without mercy with the blood of the vanquished. Other
people will, in future times, undergo changes similar to ours; but they
will eschew the same violence, because the influence of religion will
not be extinct among them. Posterity, that equitable judge of the past,
imputes to philosophy that it perverted the minds of the people while it
pretended to enlighten them, and turned aside from its proper end a
revolution commenced with the design of ameliorating the lot of the
human race.
"Louis XV. left royalty tarnished in France. At his death the people
rejoiced,--the enlightened classes congratulated themselves. The vices
of the sovereign had opened in every heart an incurable wound. Neither
the virtues of Louis XVI., nor the glory acquired during the American
war; nor the sight of France restored to its rank among the nations; nor
the love of the King for his subjects; nor the liberal institutions
which he bestowed on them, could heal that fatal wound. The stains of
the crown could be washed out only by the blood of the just ascending to
Heaven by the steps of the scaffold."[4]--(Vol. ii. pp. 531, 533.)
After these quotations, it is needless to say what the merits of M. De
Tocqueville's work are. He possesses the abstract thought, the
philosophic temperament, the reflecting mind, which enable him to
follow, with a correct and discerning eye, the _general_ course of
events. He does not attach himself to individual men,--he is no
hero-worshipper. His narrative has not the interest of biography, or of
histories framed on its model. It has not the dramatic air of Thierry,
the genius of Chateaubriand, or the pictorial powers of Michelet. It is,
on that account, not likely to be so generally popular as the works of
any of these eminent writers. It resembles more nearly the admirable
"Sketches of the Progress of Society," to be found in the works of
Guizot and Sismondi. As such, it possesses very high merit, and will
doubtless take its place among the standard works of French history.
Perhaps his work is more worthy of study, and more likely to be esteemed
by thinking men in other countries than his own: for France has gone
through the convulsions consequent on the social and moral evils which
he has so well portrayed; but other nations are only in their
commencement. What to the one is history, to the other, if not averted,
may be prophecy.