CHAPTER I.

LIFE OF NAPOLEON

POCKET EDITION

VOL. I.

[Illustration: NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

1802]

LIFE OF

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.

VOL. I.

[Illustration: Napoleons Logement Qua Cont]

EDINBURGH; A. & C. BLACK.

1876

ADVERTISEMENT

The extent and purpose of this Work, have, in the course of its

progress, gradually but essentially changed from what the Author

originally proposed. It was at first intended merely as a brief and

popular abstract of the life of the most wonderful man, and the most

extraordinary events, of the last thirty years; in short, to emulate the

concise yet most interesting history of the great British Admiral, by

the Poet-Laureate of Britain.[1] The Author was partly induced to

undertake the task, by having formerly drawn up for a periodical

work--"The Edinburgh Annual Register"--the history of the two great

campaigns of 1814 and 1815; and three volumes were the compass assigned

to the proposed work. An introductory volume, giving a general account

of the Rise and Progress of the French Revolution, was thought

necessary; and the single volume, on a theme of such extent, soon

swelled into two.

As the Author composed under an anonymous title, he could neither seek

nor expect information from those who had been actively engaged in the

changeful scenes which he was attempting to record; nor was his object

more ambitious than that of compressing and arranging such information

as the ordinary authorities afforded. Circumstances, however,

unconnected with the undertaking, induced him to lay aside an

_incognito_, any farther attempt to preserve which must have been

considered as affectation; and since his having done so, he has been

favoured with access to some valuable materials, most of which have now,

for the first time, seen the light. For these he refers to the Appendix

at the close of the Work, where the reader will find several articles of

novelty and interest. Though not at liberty, in every case, to mention

the quarter from which his information has been derived, the Author has

been careful not to rely upon any which did not come from sufficient

authority. He has neither grubbed for anecdotes in the libels and

private scandal of the time, nor has he solicited information from

individuals who could not be impartial witnesses in the facts to which

they gave evidence. Yet the various public documents and private

information which he has received, have much enlarged his stock of

materials, and increased the whole work to more than twice the size

originally intended.

On the execution of his task, it becomes the Author to be silent. He is

aware it must exhibit many faults; but he claims credit for having

brought to the undertaking a mind disposed to do his subject as

impartial justice as his judgment could supply. He will be found no

enemy to the person of Napoleon. The term of hostility is ended when the

battle has been won, and the foe exists no longer. His splendid personal

qualities--his great military actions and political services to

France--will not, it is hoped, be found depreciated in the narrative.

Unhappily, the Author's task involved a duty of another kind, the

discharge of which is due to France, to Britain, to Europe, and to the

world. If the general system of Napoleon has rested upon force or fraud,

it is neither the greatness of his talents, nor the success of his

undertakings, that ought to stifle the voice or dazzle the eyes of him

who adventures to be his historian. The reasons, however, are carefully

summed up where the Author has presumed to express a favourable or

unfavourable opinion of the distinguished person of whom these volumes

treat; so that each reader may judge of their validity for himself.

The name, by an original error of the press, which proceeded too far

before it was discovered, has been printed with a _u_,--Buonaparte

instead of Bonaparte. Both spellings were indifferently adopted in the

family; but Napoleon always used the last,[2] and had an unquestionable

right to choose the orthography which he preferred.

EDINBURGH, _7th June, 1827._

ADVERTISEMENT TO EDITION 1834.

Sir Walter Scott left two interleaved copies of his LIFE OF NAPOLEON, in

both of which his executors have found various corrections of the text,

and additional notes. They were directed by his testament to take care,

that, in case a new edition of the work were called for, the annotations

of it might be completed in the fashion here adopted, dates and other

marginal elucidations regularly introduced, and the text itself,

wherever there appeared any redundancy of statement, abridged. With

these instructions, except the last, the Editor has now endeavoured to

comply.[3]

"Walter Scott," says Goëthe, "passed his childhood among the stirring

scenes of the American War, and was a youth of seventeen or eighteen

when the French Revolution broke out. Now well advanced in the fifties,

having all along been favourably placed for observation, he proposes to

lay before us his views and recollections of the important events

through which he has lived. The richest, the easiest, the most

celebrated narrator of the century, undertakes to write the history of

his own time.

"What expectations the announcement of such a work must have excited in

me, will be understood by any one who remembers that I, twenty years

older than Scott, conversed with Paoli in the twentieth year of my age,

and with Napoleon himself in the sixtieth.

"Through that long series of years, coming more or less into contact

with the great doings of the world, I failed not to think seriously on

what was passing around me, and, after my own fashion, to connect so

many extraordinary mutations into something like arrangement and

interdependence.

"What could now be more delightful to me than leisurely and calmly to

sit down and listen to the discourse of such a man, while clearly,

truly, and with all the skill of a great artist, he recalls to me the

incidents on which through life I have meditated, and the influence of

which is still daily in operation?"--Goëthe's _Posthumous Works_, vol.

vi., p. 253.

Sed non in Cæsare tantum

Nomen erat, nec fama ducis; sed nescia virtus

Stare loco: solusque pudor non vincere bello.

Acer et indomitus; quo spes quoque ira vocasset,

Ferre manum, et nunquam temerando parcere ferro:

Successus urgere suos: instare favori

Numinis: impellens quicquid sibi summa petenti

Obstaret: gaudensque viam fecisse ruina.

LUCANI, _Pharsalia_, Lib. I.[4]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Southey's _Life of Nelson_, 2 vols. fcap. 8vo. 1813.

[2] Barras, in his official account of the affair of the 13th

Vendémiaire, (Oct. 5, 1795,) calls him General _Buonaparte_; and in the

contract of marriage between Napoleon and Josephine, still existing in

the registry of the second arrondissement of Paris, dated March 9, 1796,

his signature is so written. No document has ever been produced, in

which the word appears as _Bonaparte_, prior to Napoleon's appointment

to the command of the Army of Italy.

[3] [Sir Walter Scott's Notes have the letter S affixed to them, all of

the others having been collected by the Editor of the 1843 Edition.]

[4]

"But Cæsar's greatness, and his strength, was more

Than past renown and antiquated power;

'Twas not the fame of what he once had been,

Or tales in old records and annals seen;

But 'twas a valour restless, unconfined,

Which no success could sate, nor limits bind;

'Twas shame, a soldier's shame, untaught to yield,

That blush'd for nothing but an ill-fought field;

Fierce in his hopes he was, nor knew to stay

Where vengeance or ambition led the way;

Still prodigal of war whene'er withstood,

Nor spared to stain the guilty sword with blood;

Urging advantage, he improved all odds,

And made the most of fortune and the gods;

Pleased to o'erturn whate'er withheld his prize,

And saw the ruin with rejoicing eyes."--ROWE.

CONTENTS

VIEW OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

PAGE

CHAP. I.--Review of the state of Europe after the Peace of

Versailles--England--France--Spain--Prussia--Imprudent Innovations

of the Emperor Joseph--Disturbances in his

Dominions--Russia--France--Her ancient System of Monarchy--how

organised--Causes of its Decay--Decay of the Nobility as a body--The

new Nobles--The Country Nobles--The Nobles of the highest Order--The

Church--The higher Orders of the Clergy--The lower Orders--The

Commons--Their increase in Power and Importance--Their Claims

opposed to those of the Privileged Classes, 1

CHAP. II.--State of France continued--State of Public Opinion--Men

of Letters encouraged by the Great--Disadvantages attending this

Patronage--Licentious tendency of the French Literature--Their

Irreligious and Infidel Opinions--Free Opinions on Politics

permitted to be expressed in an abstract and speculative, but not in

a practical Form--Disadvantages arising from the Suppression of Free

Discussion--Anglomania--Share of France in the American

War--Disposition of the Troops who returned from America, 22

CHAP. III.--Proximate Cause of the Revolution--Deranged State of the

Finances--Reforms in the Royal Household--System of Turgot and

Necker--Necker's Exposition of the State of the Public Revenue--The

Red-Book--Necker displaced--Succeeded by Calonne--General State of

the Revenue--Assembly of the Notables--Calonne dismissed--Archbishop

of Sens Administrator of the Finances--The King's Contest with the

Parliament--Bed of Justice--Resistance of the Parliament and general

Disorder in the Kingdom--Vacillating Policy of the Minister--Royal

Sitting--Scheme of forming a Cour Plénière--It proves

ineffectual--Archbishop of Sens retires, and is succeeded by

Necker--He resolves to convoke the States-General--Second Assembly

of Notables previous to Convocation of the States--Questions as to

the Numbers of which the Tiers Etat should consist, and the Mode in

which the Estates should deliberate, 39

CHAP. IV.--Meeting of the States-General--Predominant Influence of

the Tiers Etat--Property not represented sufficiently in that

Body--General character of the Members--Disposition of the Estate of

the Nobles--And of the Clergy--Plan of forming the Three Estates

into two Houses--Its advantages--It fails--The Clergy unite with the

Tiers Etat, which assumes the title of the National Assembly--They

assume the task of Legislation, and declare all former Fiscal

Regulations illegal--They assert their determination to continue

their Sessions--Royal Sitting--Terminates in the Triumph of the

Assembly--Parties in that Body--Mounier--Constitutionalists--

Republicans--Jacobins--Orleans, 58

CHAP. V.--Plan of the Democrats to bring the King and Assembly to

Paris--Banquet of the Garde du Corps--Riot at Paris--A formidable

Mob of Women assemble to march to Versailles--The National Guard

refuse to act against the Insurgents, and demand also to be led to

Versailles--The Female Mob arrive--Their behaviour to the

Assembly--To the King--Alarming Disorders at Night--La Fayette

arrives with the National Guard--Mob force the Palace--Murder the

Body Guards--The Queen's safety endangered--Fayette's arrival with

his Force restores Order--Royal Family obliged to go to reside at

Paris--The Procession--This Step agreeable to the Views of the

Constitutionalists, Republicans, and Anarchists--Duke of Orleans

sent to England, 88

CHAP. VI.--La Fayette resolves to enforce order--A Baker is murdered

by the Rabble--One of his Murderers executed--Decree imposing

Martial Law--Introduction of the Doctrines of Equality--They are in

their exaggerated sense inconsistent with Human Nature and the

progress of Society--The Assembly abolish titles of Nobility,

Armorial bearings, and phrases of Courtesy--Reasoning on these

Innovations--Disorder of Finance--Necker becomes unpopular--Seizure

of Church lands--Issue of Assignats--Necker leaves France in

unpopularity--New Religious Institution--Oath imposed on the

Clergy--Resisted by the greater part of the Order--General View of

the operations of the Constituent Assembly--Enthusiasm of the People

for their new Privileges--Limited Privileges of the Crown--King is

obliged to dissemble--His Negotiations with Mirabeau--With

Bouillé--Attack on the Palace--Prevented by Fayette--Royalists

expelled from the Tuileries--Escape of Louis--He is captured at

Varennes--Brought back to Paris--Riot in the Champ de Mars--Louis

accepts the Constitution, 102

CHAP. VII.--Legislative Assembly--Its Composition--Constitutionalists--

Girondists or Brissotins--Jacobins--Views and Sentiments of Foreign

Nations--England--Views of the Tories and Whigs--Anacharsis

Clootz--Austria--Prussia--Russia--Sweden--Emigration of the French

Princes and Clergy--Increasing Unpopularity of Louis from this

Cause--Death of the Emperor Leopold, and its Effects--France

declares War--Views and Interests of the different Parties in France

at this Period--Decree against Monsieur--Louis interposes his

Veto--Decree against the Priests who should refuse the

Constitutional Oath--Louis again interposes his Veto--Consequences

of these Refusals--Fall of De Lessart--Ministers now chosen from the

Brissotins--All Parties favourable to War, 128

CHAP. VIII.--Defeats of the French on the Frontier--Decay of

Constitutionalists--They form the Club of Feuillans, and are

dispersed by the Jacobins--The Ministry--Dumouriez--Breach of

confidence betwixt the King and his Ministers--Dissolution of the

King's Constitutional Guard--Extravagant measures of the

Jacobins--Alarms of the Girondists--Departmental Army proposed--King

puts his Veto on the decree, against Dumouriez's

representations--Decree against the recusant Priests--King refuses

it--Letter of the Ministers to the King--He dismisses Roland,

Clavière, and Servan--Dumouriez, Duranton, and Lacoste, appointed in

their stead--King ratifies the decree concerning the Departmental

Army--Dumouriez resigns, and departs for the Frontiers--New

Ministers named from the Constitutionalists--Insurrection of 20th

June--Armed Mob intrude into the Assembly--Thence into the

Tuileries--La Fayette repairs to Paris--Remonstrates in favour of

the King--But is compelled to return to the Frontiers--Marseillois

appear in Paris--Duke of Brunswick's manifesto, 152

CHAP. IX.--The Day of the Tenth of August--Tocsin sounded early in

the Morning--Swiss Guards, and relics of the Royal Party, repair to

the Tuileries--Mandat assassinated--Dejection of Louis, and energy

of the Queen--King's Ministers appear at the Bar of the Assembly,

stating the peril of the Royal Family, and requesting a Deputation

might be sent to the Palace--Assembly pass to the Order of the

Day--Louis and his Family repair to the Assembly--Conflict at the

Tuileries--Swiss ordered to repair to the King's Person--and are

many of them shot and dispersed on their way to the Assembly--At the

close of the Day almost all of them are massacred--Royal Family

spend the Night in the Convent of the Feuillans, 172

CHAP. X.--La Fayette compelled to Escape from France--Is made

Prisoner by the Prussians, with three Companions--Reflections--The

Triumvirate, Danton, Robespierre, and Marat--Revolutionary Tribunal

appointed--Stupor of the Legislative Assembly--Longwy, Stenay, and

Verdun, taken by the Prussians--Mob of Paris enraged--Great Massacre

of Prisoners in Paris, commencing on the 2d, and ending 6th

September--Apathy of the Assembly during and after these

Events--Review of its Causes, 182

CHAP. XI.--Election of Representatives for the National

Convention--Jacobins are very active--Right hand Party--Left hand

side--Neutral Members--The Girondists are in possession of the

ostensible Power--They denounce the Jacobin Chiefs, but in an

irregular and feeble manner--Marat, Robespierre, and Danton,

supported by the Commune and Populace of Paris--France declared a

Republic--Duke of Brunswick's Campaign--Neglects the French

Emigrants--Is tardy in his Operations--Occupies the poorest part of

Champagne--His Army becomes sickly--Prospects of a

Battle--Dumouriez's Army recruited with Carmagnoles--The Duke

resolves to Retreat--Thoughts on the consequences of that

measure--The retreat disastrous--The Emigrants disbanded in a great

measure--Reflections on their Fate--The Prince of Condé's Army, 199

CHAP. XII.--Jacobins determine upon the Execution of Louis--Progress

and Reasons of the King's Unpopularity--Girondists taken by

surprise, by a proposal for the Abolition of Royalty made by the

Jacobins--Proposal carried--Thoughts on the New System of

Government--Compared with that of Rome, Greece, America, and other

Republican States--Enthusiasm throughout France at the

Change--Follies it gave birth to--And Crimes--Monuments of Art

destroyed--Madame Roland interposes to save the Life of the

King--Barrère--Girondists move for a Departmental

Legion--Carried--Revoked--and Girondists defeated--The Authority of

the Community of Paris paramount even over the Convention--Documents

of the Iron-Chest--Parallel betwixt Charles I. and Louis

XVI.--Motion by Pétion, that the King should be Tried before the

Convention, 208

CHAP. XIII.--THE TRIAL OF LOUIS--Indecision of the Girondists, and

its Effects--The Royal Family insulted by the Agents of the

Community--The King deprived of his Son's society--The King brought

to Trial before the Convention--His First Examination--Carried back

to Prison amidst Insult and Abuse--Tumult in the Assembly--The King

deprived of Intercourse with his Family--Malesherbes appointed as

Counsel to defend the King--and De Seze--Louis again brought before

the Convention--Opening Speech of De Seze--King remanded to the

Temple--Stormy Debate--Eloquent attack of Vergniaud on the

Jacobins--Sentence of DEATH pronounced against the King--General

Sympathy for his Fate--Dumouriez arrives in Paris--Vainly tries to

avert the King's Fate--LOUIS XVI. BEHEADED on 21st January,

1793--MARIE ANTOINETTE on the 16th October thereafter--The Princess

ELIZABETH in May 1794--The Dauphin perishes, by cruelty, June 8th,

1795--The Princess Royal exchanged for La Fayette, 19th December,

1795, 236

CHAP. XIV.--Dumouriez--His displeasure at the Treatment of the

Flemish Provinces by the Convention--His projects in

consequence--Gains the ill-will of his Army--and is forced to fly to

the Austrian Camp--Lives many years in retreat, and finally dies in

England--Struggles betwixt the Girondists and Jacobins--Robespierre

impeaches the Leaders of the Girondists, and is denounced by

them--Decree of Accusation against Marat--Commission of

Twelve--Marat acquitted--Terror of the Girondists--Jacobins prepare

to attack the Palais Royal, but are repulsed--Repair to the

Convention, who recall the Commission of Twelve--Louvet and other

Girondist Leaders Fly from Paris--Convention go forth in procession

to expostulate with the People--Forced back to their Hall, and

compelled to Decree the Accusation of Thirty of their

Body--Girondists finally ruined--and their principal Leaders

perish--Close of their History, 258

CHAP. XV.--Views of Parties in Britain relative to the

Revolution--Affiliated Societies--Counterpoised by Aristocratic

Associations--Aristocratic Party eager for War with France--The

French proclaim the Navigation of the Scheldt--British Ambassador

recalled from Paris, and French Envoy no longer accredited in

London--France declares War against England--British Army sent to

Holland, under the Duke of York--State of the Army--View of the

Military Positions of France--in Flanders--on the Rhine--in

Piedmont--Savoy--on the Pyrenees--State of the War in La

Vendée--Description of the Country--Le Bocage--Le Louroux--Close

Union betwixt the Nobles and Peasantry--Both strongly attached to

Royalty, and abhorrent of the Revolution--The Priests--The Religion

of the Vendéans outraged by the Convention--A general Insurrection

takes place in 1793--Military Organisation and Habits of the

Vendéans--Division in the British Cabinet on the Mode of conducting

the War--Pitt--Wyndham--Reasoning upon the subject--Vendéans

defeated--They defeat, in their turn, the French Troops at

Laval--But are ultimately destroyed and dispersed--Unfortunate

Expedition to Quiberon--La Charette defeated and executed, and the

War of La Vendée finally terminated--Unsuccessful Resistance of

Bourdeaux, Marseilles, and Lyons, to the Convention--Siege of

Lyons--Its Surrender and dreadful Punishment--Siege of Toulon, 274

CHAP. XVI.--Views of the British Cabinet regarding the French

Revolution--Extraordinary Situation of France--Explanation of the

Anomaly which it exhibited--System of Terror--Committee of Public

Safety--Of Public Security--David the Painter--Law against Suspected

Persons--Revolutionary Tribunal--Effects of the Emigration of the

Princes and Nobles--Causes of the Passiveness of the French People

under the Tyranny of the Jacobins--Singular Address of the Committee

of Public Safety--General Reflections, 307

CHAP. XVII.--Marat, Danton, Robespierre--Marat poniarded--Danton and

Robespierre become Rivals--Commune of Paris--their gross

Irreligion--Gobel--Goddess of Reason--Marriage reduced to a Civil

Contract--Views of Danton--and of Robespierre--Principal Leaders of

the Commune arrested--and Nineteen of them executed--Danton arrested

by the influence of Robespierre--and, along with Camille Desmoulins,

Westermann, and La Croix, taken before the Revolutionary Tribunal,

condemned, and executed--Decree issued, on the motion of

Robespierre, acknowledging a Supreme Being--Cécilée

Regnault--Gradual Change in the Public Mind--Robespierre becomes

unpopular--Makes every effort to retrieve his power--Stormy Debate

in the Convention--Collot D'Herbois, Tallien, &c., expelled from the

Jacobin Club at the instigation of Robespierre--Robespierre

denounced in the Convention on the 9th Thermidor, (27th July, 1794,)

and, after furious struggles, arrested, along with his brother,

Couthon, and Saint Just--Henriot, Commandant of the National Guard,

arrested--Terrorists take refuge in the Hotel de Ville--Attempt

their own lives--Robespierre wounds himself--but lives, along with

most of the others, long enough to be carried to the Guillotine, and

executed--His character--Struggles that followed his Fate--Final

Destruction of the Jacobinical System--and return of

Tranquillity--Singular colour given to Society in Paris--Ball of the

Victims, 321

CHAP. XVIII.--Retrospective View of the External Relations of

France--Her great Military Successes--Whence they arose--Effect of

the Compulsory Levies--Military Genius and Character of the

French--French Generals--New Mode of Training the Troops--Light

Troops--Successive Attacks in Column--Attachment of the Soldiers to

the Revolution--Also of the Generals--Carnot--Effect of the French

principles preached to the Countries invaded by their Arms--Close of

the Revolution with the fall of Robespierre--Reflections upon what

was to succeed, 364

[Illustration]

CHAPTER I.

VIEW OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

_Review of the state of Europe after the Peace of

Versailles--England--France--Spain--Prussia--Imprudent

Innovations of the Emperor Joseph--Disturbances in his

Dominions--Russia--France--Her ancient System of Monarchy--how

organized--Causes of its Decay--Decay of the Nobility as a

body--The new Nobles--The Country Nobles--The Nobles of the

highest Order--The Church--The higher Orders of the Clergy--The

lower Orders--The Commons--Their increase in Power and

Importance--Their Claims opposed to those of the Privileged

Classes._

When we look back on past events, however important, it is difficult to

recall the precise sensations with which we viewed them in their

progress, and to recollect the fears, hopes, doubts, and difficulties,

for which Time and the course of Fortune have formed a termination, so

different probably from that which we had anticipated. When the rush of

the inundation was before our eyes, and in our ears, we were scarce able

to remember the state of things before its rage commenced, and when,

subsequently, the deluge has subsided within the natural limits of the

stream, it is still more difficult to recollect with precision the

terrors it inspired when at its height. That which is present possesses

such power over our senses and our imagination, that it requires no

common effort to recall those sensations which expired with preceding

events. Yet, to do this is the peculiar province of history, which will

be written and read in vain, unless it can connect with its details an

accurate idea of the impression which these produced on men's minds

while they were yet in their transit. It is with this view that we

attempt to resume the history of France and of Europe, at the conclusion

of the American war--a period now only remembered by the more advanced

part of the present generation.

[Sidenote: STATE OF EUROPE.]

The peace concluded at Versailles in 1783, was reasonably supposed to

augur a long repose to Europe. The high and emulous tone assumed in

former times by the rival nations, had been lowered and tamed by recent

circumstances. England, under the guidance of a weak, at least a most

unlucky administration,[5] had purchased peace at the expense of her

North American Empire, and the resignation of supremacy over her

colonies; a loss great in itself, but exaggerated in the eyes of the

nation, by the rending asunder of the ties of common descent, and

exclusive commercial intercourse, and by a sense of the wars waged, and

expenses encountered for the protection and advancement of the fair

empire which England found herself obliged to surrender. The lustre of

the British arms, so brilliant at the Peace of Fontainbleau, had been

tarnished, if not extinguished. In spite of the gallant defence of

Gibraltar, the general result of the war on land had been unfavourable

to her military reputation; and notwithstanding the opportune and

splendid victories of Rodney, the coasts of Britain had been insulted,

and her fleets compelled to retire into port, while those of her

combined enemies rode masters of the channel.[6] The spirit of the

country also had been lowered, by the unequal contest which had been

sustained, and by the sense that her naval superiority was an object of

invidious hatred to united Europe. This had been lately made manifest,

by the armed alliance of the northern nations, which, though termed a

neutrality, was, in fact, a league made to abate the pretensions of

England to maritime supremacy. There are to be added to these

disheartening and depressing circumstances, the decay of commerce during

the long course of hostilities, with the want of credit and depression

of the price of land, which are the usual consequences of a transition

from war to peace, ere capital has regained its natural channel. All

these things being considered, it appeared the manifest interest of

England to husband her exhausted resources, and recruit her diminished

wealth, by cultivating peace and tranquillity for a long course of time.

William Pitt, never more distinguished than in his financial operations,

was engaged in new modelling the revenue of the country, and adding to

the return of the taxes, while he diminished their pressure. It could

scarcely be supposed that any object of national ambition would have

been permitted to disturb him in a task so necessary.

Neither had France, the natural rival of England, come off from the

contest in such circumstances of triumph and advantage, as were likely

to encourage her to a speedy renewal of the struggle. It is true, she

had seen and contributed to the humiliation of her ancient enemy, but

she had paid dearly for the gratification of her revenge, as nations and

individuals are wont to do. Her finances, tampered with by successive

sets of ministers, who looked no farther than to temporary expedients

for carrying on the necessary expenses of government, now presented an

alarming prospect; and it seemed as if the wildest and most enterprising

ministers would hardly have dared, in their most sanguine moments, to

have recommended either war itself, or any measures of which war might

be the consequence.

Spain was in a like state of exhaustion. She had been hurried into the

alliance against England, partly by the consequences of the family

alliance betwixt her Bourbons and those of France, but still more by the

eager and engrossing desire to possess herself once more of Gibraltar.

The Castilian pride, long galled by beholding this important fortress in

the hands of heretics and foreigners, highly applauded the war, which

gave a chance of its recovery, and seconded, with all the power of the

kingdom, the gigantic efforts made for that purpose. All these immense

preparations, with the most formidable means of attack ever used on such

an occasion, had totally failed, and the kingdom of Spain remained at

once stunned and mortified by the failure, and broken down by the

expenses of so huge an undertaking. An attack upon Algiers, in 1784-5,

tended to exhaust the remains of her military ardour. Spain, therefore,

relapsed into inactivity and repose, dispirited by the miscarriage of

her favourite scheme, and possessing neither the means nor the audacity

necessary to meditate its speedy renewal.

Neither were the sovereigns of the late belligerent powers of that

ambitious and active character which was likely to drag the kingdoms

which they swayed into the renewal of hostilities. The classic eye of

the historian Gibbon saw Arcadius and Honorius, the weakest and most

indolent of the Roman Emperors, slumbering upon the thrones of the House

of Bourbon;[7] and the just and loyal character of George III.

precluded any effort on his part to undermine the peace which he signed

unwillingly, or to attempt the resumption of those rights which he had

formally, though reluctantly, surrendered. His expression to the

ambassador of the United States,[8] was a trait of character never to be

omitted or forgotten:--"I have been the last man in my dominions to

accede to this peace, which separates America from my kingdoms--I will

be the first man, now it is made, to resist any attempt to infringe it."

The acute historian whom we have already quoted seems to have

apprehended, in the character and ambition of the northern potentates,

those causes of disturbance which were not to be found in the western

part of the European republic. But Catherine, the Semiramis of the

north, had her views of extensive dominion chiefly turned towards her

eastern and southern frontier, and the finances of her immense, but

comparatively poor and unpeopled empire, were burdened with the expenses

of a luxurious court, requiring at once to be gratified with the

splendour of Asia and the refinements of Europe. The strength of her

empire also, though immense, was unwieldy, and the empire had not been

uniformly fortunate in its wars with the more prompt, though less

numerous armies of the King of Prussia, her neighbour. Thus Russia, no

less than other powers in Europe, appeared more desirous of reposing her

gigantic strength, than of adventuring upon new and hazardous conquests.

Even her views upon Turkey, which circumstances seemed to render more

flattering than ever, she was contented to resign, in 1784, when only

half accomplished; a pledge, not only that her thoughts were sincerely

bent upon peace, but that she felt the necessity of resisting even the

most tempting opportunities for resuming the course of victory which she

had, four years before, pursued so successfully.

[Sidenote: GERMANY.]

Frederick of Prussia himself, who had been so long, by dint of genius

and talent, the animating soul of the political intrigues in Europe, had

run too many risks, in the course of his adventurous and eventful reign,

to be desirous of encountering new hazards in the extremity of life. His

empire, extended as it was from the shores of the Baltic to the

frontiers of Holland, consisted of various detached portions, which it

required the aid of time to consolidate into a single kingdom. And,

accustomed to study the signs of the times, it could not have escaped

Frederick, that sentiments and feelings were afloat, connected with, and

fostered by, the spirit of unlimited investigation, which he himself had

termed philosophy, such as might soon call upon the sovereigns to arm in

a common cause, and ought to prevent them, in the meanwhile, from

wasting their strength in mutual struggles, and giving advantage to a

common enemy.

If such anticipations occupied and agitated the last years of

Frederick's life, they had not the same effect upon the Emperor Joseph

II., who, without the same clear-eyed precision of judgment, endeavoured

to tread in the steps of the King of Prussia, as a reformer, and as a

conqueror. It would be unjust to deny to this prince the praise of

considerable talents, and inclination to employ them for the good of the

country which he ruled. But it frequently happens, that the talents, and

even the virtues of sovereigns, exercised without respect to time and

circumstances, become the misfortune of their government. It is

particularly the lot of princes, endowed with such personal advantages,

to be confident in their own abilities, and, unless educated in the

severe school of adversity, to prefer favourites, who assent to and

repeat their opinions, to independent counsellors, whose experience

might correct their own hasty conclusions. And thus, although the

personal merits of Joseph II. were in every respect acknowledged, his

talents in a great measure recognised, and his patriotic intentions

scarcely disputable, it fell to his lot, during the period we treat of,

to excite more apprehension and discontent among his subjects, than if

he had been a prince content to rule by a minister, and wear out an

indolent life in the forms and pleasures of a court. Accordingly, the

Emperor, in many of his schemes of reform, too hastily adopted, or at

least too incautiously and peremptorily executed, had the misfortune to

introduce fearful commotions among the people, whose situation he meant

to ameliorate, while in his external relations he rendered Austria the

quarter from which a breach of European peace was most to be

apprehended. It seemed, indeed, as if the Emperor had contrived to

reconcile his philosophical professions with the exercise of the most

selfish policy towards the United Provinces, both in opening the

Scheldt, and in dismantling the barrier towns, which had been placed in

their hands as a defence against the power of France. By the first of

these measures the Emperor gained nothing but the paltry sum of money

for which he sold his pretensions,[9] and the shame of having shown

himself ungrateful for the important services which the United Provinces

had rendered to his ancestors. But the dismantling of the Dutch barrier

was subsequently attended by circumstances alike calamitous to Austria,

and to the whole continent of Europe.

In another respect, the reforms carried through by Joseph II. tended to

prepare the public mind for future innovations, made with a ruder hand,

and upon a much larger scale.[10] The suppression of the religious

orders, and the appropriation of their revenues to the general purposes

of government, had in it something to flatter the feelings of those of

the Reformed religion; but, in a moral point of view, the seizing upon

the property of any private individual, or public body, is an invasion

of the most sacred principles of public justice, and such spoliation

cannot be vindicated by urgent circumstances of state-necessity, or any

plausible pretext of state-advantage whatsoever, since no necessity can

vindicate what is in itself unjust, and no public advantage can

compensate a breach of public faith.[11] Joseph was also the first

Catholic sovereign who broke through the solemn degree of reverence

attached by that religion to the person of the Sovereign Pontiff. The

Pope's fruitless and humiliating visit to Vienna furnished the shadow of

a precedent for the conduct of Napoleon to Pius VII.[12]

Another and yet less justifiable cause of innovation, placed in peril,

and left in doubt and discontent, some of the fairest provinces of the

Austrian dominions, and those which the wisest of their princes had

governed with peculiar tenderness and moderation. The Austrian

Netherlands had been in a literal sense dismantled and left open to the

first invader, by the demolition of the barrier fortresses; and it seems

to have been the systematic purpose of the Emperor to eradicate and

destroy that love and regard for their prince and his government, which

in time of need proves the most effectual moral substitute for moats and

ramparts. The history of the house of Burgundy bore witness on every

page to the love of the Flemings for liberty, and the jealousy with

which they have, from the earliest ages, watched the privileges they had

obtained from their princes. Yet in that country, and amongst these

people, Joseph carried on his measures of innovation with a hand so

unsparing, as if he meant to bring the question of liberty or arbitrary

power to a very brief and military decision betwixt him and his

subjects.

[Sidenote: FLEMISH DISTURBANCES.]

His alterations were not in Flanders, as elsewhere, confined to the

ecclesiastical state alone, although such innovations were peculiarly

offensive to a people rigidly Catholic, but were extended through the

most important parts of the civil government. Changes in the courts of

justice were threatened--the great seal, which had hitherto remained

with the chancellor of the States, was transferred to the Imperial

minister--a Council of State, composed of commissioners nominated by the

Emperor, was appointed to discharge the duties hitherto intrusted to a

standing committee of the States of Brabant--their universities were

altered and new-modelled--and their magistrates subjected to arbitrary

arrests and sent to Vienna, instead of being tried in their own country

and by their own laws. The Flemish people beheld these innovations with

the sentiments natural to freemen, and not a little stimulated certainly

by the scenes which had lately passed in North America, where, under

circumstances of far less provocation, a large empire had emancipated

itself from the mother country. The States remonstrated loudly, and

refused submission to the decrees which encroached on their

constitutional liberties, and at length arrayed a military force in

support of their patriotic opposition.

Joseph, who at the same time he thus wantonly provoked the States and

people of Flanders, had been seduced by Russia to join her ambitious

plan upon Turkey, bent apparently before the storm he had excited, and

for a time yielded to accommodation with his subjects of Flanders,

renounced the most obnoxious of his new measures, and confirmed the

privileges of the nation, at what was called the Joyous Entry.[13] But

this spirit of conciliation was only assumed for the purpose of

deception; for so soon as he had assembled in Flanders what was deemed a

sufficient armed force to sustain his despotic purposes, the Emperor

threw off the mask, and, by the most violent acts of military force,

endeavoured to overthrow the constitution he had agreed to observe, and

to enforce the arbitrary measures which he had pretended to abandon. For

a brief period of two years, Flanders remained in a state of suppressed,

but deeply-founded and wide-extended discontent, watching for a moment

favourable to freedom and to vengeance. It proved an ample store-house

of combustibles, prompt to catch fire, as the flame now arising in

France began to expand itself; nor can it be doubted, that the condition

of the Flemish provinces, whether considered in a military or in a

political light, was one of the principal causes of the subsequent

success of the French Republican arms. Joseph himself, broken-hearted

and dispirited, died in the very beginning of the troubles he had

wantonly provoked.[14] Desirous of fame as a legislator and a warrior,

and certainly born with talents to acquire it, he left his arms

dishonoured by the successes of the despised Turks, and his fair

dominions of the Netherlands and of Hungary upon the very eve of

insurrection. A lampoon, written upon the hospital for lunatics at

Vienna, might be said to be no unjust epitaph for a monarch, one so

hopeful and so beloved--"Josephus, ubique Secundus, hic Primus."

These Flemish disturbances might be regarded as symptoms of the new

opinions which were tacitly gaining ground in Europe, and which preceded

the grand explosion, as slight shocks of an earthquake usually announce

the approach of its general convulsion. The like may be said of the

short-lived Dutch revolution of 1787, in which the ancient faction of

Louvestein, under the encouragement of France, for a time completely

triumphed over that of the Stadtholder, deposed him from his hereditary

command of Captain-General of the Army of the States, and reduced, or

endeavoured to reduce, the confederation of the United States to a pure

democracy. This was also a strong sign of the times; for, although

totally opposite to the inclination of the majority of the

States-General, of the equestrian body, of the landed proprietors, nay,

of the very populace, most of whom were from habit and principle

attached to the House of Orange, the burghers of the large towns drove

on the work of revolution with such warmth of zeal and promptitude of

action, as showed a great part of the middling classes to be deeply

tinctured with the desire of gaining further liberty, and a larger share

in the legislation and administration of the country, than pertained to

them under the old oligarchical constitution.

The revolutionary government, in the Dutch provinces, did not, however,

conduct their affairs with prudence. Without waiting to organize their

own force, or weaken that of the enemy--without obtaining the necessary

countenance and protection of France, or co-operating with the

malecontents in the Austrian Netherlands, they gave, by arresting the

Princess of Orange, (sister of the King of Prussia,) an opportunity of

foreign interference, of which that prince failed not to avail himself.

His armies, commanded by the Duke of Brunswick, poured into the United

Provinces, and with little difficulty possessed themselves of Utrecht,

Amsterdam, and the other cities which constituted the strength of the

Louvestein or republican faction. The King then replaced the House of

Orange in all its power, privileges, and functions. The conduct of the

Dutch republicans during their brief hour of authority had been neither

so moderate nor so popular as to make their sudden and almost

unresisting fall a matter of general regret. On the contrary, it was

considered as a probable pledge of the continuance of peace in Europe,

especially as France, busied with her own affairs, declined interference

in those of the United States.

[Sidenote: INTRIGUES OF RUSSIA.]

The intrigues of Russia had, in accomplishment of the ambitious schemes

of Catherine, lighted up war with Sweden, as well as with Turkey; but in

both cases hostilities were commenced upon the old plan of fighting one

or two battles, and wresting a fortress of a province from a

neighbouring state; and it seems likely, that the intervention of France

and England, equally interested in preserving the balance of power,

might have ended these troubles, but for the progress of that great and

hitherto unheard-of course of events, which prepared, carried on, and

matured, the FRENCH REVOLUTION.

* * * * *

It is necessary, for the execution of our plan, that we should review

this period of history, the most important, perhaps, during its

currency, and in its consequences, which the annals of mankind afford;

and although the very title is sufficient to awaken in most bosoms

either horror or admiration, yet, neither insensible of the blessings of

national liberty, nor of those which flow from the protection of just

laws, and a moderate but firm executive government, we may perhaps be

enabled to trace its events with the candour of one, who, looking back

on past scenes, feels divested of the keen and angry spirit with which,

in common with his contemporaries, he may have judged them while they

were yet in progress.

We have shortly reviewed the state of Europe in general, which we have

seen to be either pacific or disturbed by troubles of no long duration;

but it was in France that a thousand circumstances, some arising out of

the general history of the world, some peculiar to that country herself,

mingled, like the ingredients in the witches' cauldron, to produce in

succession many a formidable but passing apparition, until concluded by

the stern Vision of absolute and military power, as those in the drama

are introduced by that of the Armed Head.[15]

The first and most effective cause of the Revolution, was the change

which had taken place in the feelings of the French towards their

government, and the monarch who was its head. The devoted loyalty of the

people to their king had been for several ages the most marked

characteristic of the nation; it was their honour in their own eyes, and

matter of contempt and ridicule in those of the English, because it

seemed in its excess to swallow up all ideas of patriotism. That very

excess of loyalty, however, was founded not on a servile, but upon a

generous principle. France is ambitious, fond of military glory, and

willingly identifies herself with the fame acquired by her soldiers.

Down to the reign of Louis XV., the French monarch was, in the eyes of

his subjects, a general, and the whole people an army. An army must be

under severe discipline, and a general must possess absolute power; but

the soldier feels no degradation from the restraint which is necessary

to his profession, and without which he cannot be led to conquest.

[Sidenote: FRENCH MONARCHY.]

Every true Frenchman, therefore, submitted, without scruple to that

abridgement of personal liberty which appeared necessary to render the

monarch great, and France victorious. The King, according to this

system, was regarded less as an individual than as the representative of

the concentrated honour of the kingdom; and in this sentiment, however

extravagant and Quixotic, there mingled much that was generous,

patriotic, and disinterested. The same feeling was awakened after all

the changes of the Revolution, by the wonderful successes of the

Individual of whom the future volumes are to treat, and who transferred,

in many instances to his own person, by deeds almost exceeding

credibility, the species of devoted attachment with which France

formerly regarded the ancient line of her kings.

The nobility shared with the king in the advantages which this

predilection spread around him. If the monarch was regarded as the chief

ornament of the community, they were the minor gems by whose lustre that

of the crown was relieved or adorned. If he was the supreme general of

the state, they were the officers attached to his person, and necessary

to the execution of his commands, each in his degree bound to advance

the honour and glory of the common country. When such sentiments were at

their height, there could be no murmuring against the peculiar

privileges of the nobility, any more than against the almost absolute

authority of the monarch. Each had that rank in the state which was

regarded as his birth-right, and for one of the lower orders to repine

that he enjoyed not the immunities peculiar to the noblesse, would have

been as unavailing, and as foolish, as to lament that he was not born to

an independent estate. Thus, the Frenchman, contented, though with an

illusion, laughed, danced, and indulged all the gaiety of his national

character, in circumstances under which his insular neighbours would

have thought the slightest token of patience dishonourable and

degrading. The distress or privation which the French plebeian suffered

in his own person, was made up to him in imagination by his interest in

the national glory.

Was a citizen of Paris postponed in rank to the lowest military officer,

he consoled himself by reading the victories of the French arms in the

Gazette; and was he unduly and unequally taxed to support the expense of

the crown, still the public feasts which were given, and the palaces

which were built, were to him a source of compensation. He looked on at

the Carousal, he admired the splendour of Versailles, and enjoyed a

reflected share of their splendour, in recollecting that they displayed

the magnificence of his country. This state of things, however illusory,

seemed, while the illusion lasted, to realize the wish of those

legislators, who have endeavoured to form a general fund of national

happiness, from which each individual is to draw his personal share of

enjoyment. If the monarch enjoyed the display of his own grace and

agility, while he hunted, or rode at the ring, the spectators had their

share of pleasure in witnessing it: if Louis had the satisfaction of

beholding the splendid piles of Versailles and the Louvre arise at his

command, the subject admired them when raised, and his real portion of

pleasure was not, perhaps, inferior to that of the founder. The people

were like men inconveniently placed in a crowded theatre, who think

little of the personal inconveniences they are subjected to by the heat

and pressure, while their mind is engrossed by the splendours of the

representation. In short, not only the political opinions of Frenchmen

but their actual feelings, were, in the earlier days of the eighteenth

century, expressed in the motto which they chose for their national

palace--"Earth hath no nation like the French--no Nation a City like

Paris, or a King like Louis."

The French enjoyed this assumed superiority with the less chance of

being undeceived, that they listened not to any voice from other lands,

which pointed out the deficiencies in the frame of government under

which they lived, or which hinted the superior privileges enjoyed by the

subjects of a more free state. The intense love of our own country, and

admiration of its constitution, is usually accompanied with a contempt

or dislike of foreign states, and their modes of government. The French,

in the reign of Louis XIV., enamoured of their own institutions,

regarded those of other nations as unworthy of their consideration; and

if they paused for a moment to gaze on the complicated constitution of

their great rival, it was soon dismissed as a subject totally

unintelligible, with some expression of pity, perhaps, for the poor

sovereign who had the ill luck to preside over a government embarrassed

by so many restraints and limitations.[16] Yet, into whatever political

errors the French people were led by the excess of their loyalty, it

would be unjust to brand them as a nation of a mean and slavish spirit.

Servitude infers dishonour, and dishonour to a Frenchman is the last of

evils. Burke more justly regarded them as a people misled to their

disadvantage, by high and romantic ideas of honour and fidelity, and

who, actuated by a principle of public spirit in their submission to

their monarch, worshipped, in his person, the Fortune of France their

common country.

During the reign of Louis XIV., every thing tended to support the

sentiment which connected the national honour with the wars and

undertakings of the king. His success, in the earlier years of his

reign, was splendid, and he might be regarded for many years, as the

dictator of Europe. During this period, the universal opinion of his

talents, together with his successes abroad, and his magnificence at

home, fostered the idea that the Grand Monarque was in himself the

tutelar deity, and only representative, of the great nation whose powers

he wielded. Sorrow and desolation came on his latter years; but be it

said to the honour of the French people, that the devoted allegiance

they had paid to Louis in prosperity, was not withdrawn when fortune

seemed to have turned her back upon her original favourite. France

poured her youth forth as readily, if not so gaily, to repair the

defeats of her monarch's old age, as she had previously yielded them to

secure and extend the victories of his early reign. Louis had perfectly

succeeded in establishing the crown as the sole pivot upon which public

affairs turned, and in attaching to his person, as the representative of

France, all the importance which in other countries is given to the

great body of the nation.

Nor had the spirit of the French monarchy, in surrounding itself with

all the dignity of absolute power, failed to secure the support of those

auxiliaries which have the most extended influence upon the public mind,

by engaging at once religion and literature in defence of its authority.

The Gallican Church, more dependent upon the monarch, and less so upon

the Pope, than is usual in Catholic countries, gave to the power of the

crown all the mysterious and supernatural terrors annexed to an origin

in divine right, and directed against those who encroached on the limits

of the royal prerogative, or even ventured to scrutinize too minutely

the foundation of its authority, the penalties annexed to a breach of

the divine law. Louis XIV. repaid this important service by a constant,

and even scrupulous attention to observances prescribed by the Church,

which strengthened, in the eyes of the public, the alliance so strictly

formed betwixt the altar and the throne. Those who look to the private

morals of the monarch may indeed form some doubt of the sincerity of his

religious professions, considering how little they influenced his

practice; and yet, when we reflect upon the frequent inconsistencies of

mankind in this particular, we may hesitate to charge with hypocrisy a

conduct, which was dictated perhaps as much by conscience as by

political convenience. Even judging more severely, it must be allowed

that hypocrisy, though so different from religion, indicates its

existence, as smoke points out that of pure fire. Hypocrisy cannot exist

unless religion be to a certain extent held in esteem, because no one

would be at the trouble to assume a mask which was not respectable, and

so far compliance with the external forms of religion is a tribute paid

to the doctrines which it teaches. The hypocrite assumes a virtue if he

has it not, and the example of his conduct may be salutary to others,

though his pretensions to piety are wickedness to Him, who trieth the

heart and reins.

On the other hand, the Academy formed by the wily Richelieu served to

unite the literature of France into one focus, under the immediate

patronage of the crown, to whose bounty its professors were taught to

look even for the very means of subsistence. The greater nobles caught

this ardour of patronage from the sovereign, and as the latter pensioned

and supported the principal literary characters of his reign, the former

granted shelter and support to others of the same rank, who were lodged

at their hotels, fed at their tables, and were admitted to their society

upon terms somewhat less degrading than those which were granted to

artists and musicians, and who gave to the Great, knowledge or amusement

in exchange for the hospitality they received. Men in a situation so

subordinate, could only at first accommodate their compositions to the

taste and interest of their protectors. They heightened by adulation and

flattery the claims of the king and the nobles upon the community; and

the nation, indifferent at that time to all literature which was not of

native growth, felt their respect for their own government enhanced and

extended by the works of those men of genius who flourished under its

protection.

Such was the system of French monarchy, and such it remained, in outward

show at least, until the peace of Fontainbleau. But its foundation had

been gradually undermined; public opinion had undergone a silent but

almost a total change, and it might be compared to some ancient tower

swayed from its base by the lapse of time, and waiting the first blast

of a hurricane, or shock of an earthquake, to be prostrated in the dust.

How the lapse of half a century, or little more, could have produced a

change so total, must next be considered; and this can only be done by

viewing separately the various changes which the lapse of years had

produced on the various orders of the state.

[Sidenote: DECAY OF THE NOBILITY.]

First, then, it is to be observed, that in these latter times the

wasting effects of luxury and vanity had totally ruined the greater part

of the French nobility, a word which, in respect of that country,

comprehended what is called in Britain the nobility and gentry, or

natural aristocracy of the kingdom. This body, during the reign of Louis

XIV., though far even then from supporting the part which their fathers

had acted in history, yet existed, as it were, through their

remembrances, and disguised their dependence upon the throne by the

outward show of fortune, as well as by the consequence attached to

hereditary right. They were one step nearer the days, not then totally

forgotten, when the nobles of France, with their retainers, actually

formed the army of the kingdom; and they still presented, to the

imagination at least, the descendants of a body of chivalrous heroes,

ready to tread in the path of their ancestors, should the times ever

render necessary the calling forth the Ban, or Arrière-Ban--the feudal

array of the Gallic chivalry. But this delusion had passed away; the

defence of states was intrusted in France, as in other countries, to the

exertions of a standing army; and, in the latter part of the eighteenth

century, the nobles of France presented a melancholy contrast to their

predecessors.

The number of the order was of itself sufficient to diminish its

consequence. It had been imprudently increased by new creations. There

were in the kingdom about eighty thousand families enjoying the

privileges of nobility; and the order was divided into different

classes, which looked on each other with mutual jealousy and contempt.

The first general distinction was betwixt the Ancient, and Modern, or

new noblesse. The former were nobles of old creation, whose ancestors

had obtained their rank from real or supposed services rendered to the

nation in her councils or her battles. The new nobles had found an

easier access to the same elevation, by the purchase of territories, or

of offices, or of letters of nobility, any of which easy modes invested

the owners with titles and rank, often held by men whose wealth had been

accumulated in mean and sordid occupations, or by farmers-general, and

financiers, whom the people considered as acquiring their fortunes at

the expense of the state. These numerous additions to the privileged

body of nobles accorded ill with its original composition, and

introduced schism and disunion into the body itself. The descendants of

the ancient chivalry of France looked with scorn upon the new men, who,

rising perhaps from the very lees of the people, claimed from superior

wealth a share in the privileges of the aristocracy.

Again, secondly, there was, amongst the ancient nobles themselves, but

too ample room for division between the upper and wealthier class of

nobility, who had fortunes adequate to maintain their rank, and the much

more numerous body, whose poverty rendered them pensioners upon the

state for the means of supporting their dignity. Of about one thousand

houses, of which the ancient noblesse is computed to have consisted,

there were not above two or three hundred families who had retained the

means of maintaining their rank without the assistance of the crown.

Their claims to monopolize commissions in the army, and situations in

the government, together with their exemption from taxes, were their

sole resources; resources burdensome to the state, and odious to the

people, without being in the same degree beneficial to those who enjoyed

them. Even in military service, which was considered as their

birth-right, the nobility of the second class were seldom permitted to

rise above a certain limited rank. Long service might exalt one of them

to the _grade_ of lieutenant-colonel, or the government of some small

town, but all the better rewards of a life spent in the army were

reserved for nobles of the highest order. It followed as a matter of

course, that amidst so many of this privileged body who languished in

poverty, and could not rise from it by the ordinary paths of industry,

some must have had recourse to loose and dishonourable practices; and

that gambling-houses and places of debauchery should have been

frequented and patronised by individuals, whose ancient descent, titles,

and emblems of nobility, did not save them from the suspicion of very

dishonourable conduct, the disgrace of which affected the character of

the whole body.

There must be noticed a third classification of the order, into the

Haute Noblesse, or men of the highest rank, most of whom spent their

lives at court, and in discharge of the great offices of the crown and

state, and the Noblesse Campagnarde, who continued to reside upon their

patrimonial estates in the provinces.

The noblesse of the latter class had fallen gradually into a state of

general contempt, which was deeply to be regretted. They were ridiculed

and scorned by the courtiers, who despised the rusticity of their

manners, and by the nobles of newer creation, who, conscious of their

own wealth, contemned the poverty of these ancient but decayed families.

The "bold peasant" himself not more a kingdom's pride than is the plain

country gentleman, who, living on his own means, and amongst his own

people, becomes the natural protector and referee of the farmer and the

peasant, and, in case of need, either the firmest assertor of their

rights and his own against the aggressions of the crown, or the

independent and undaunted defender of the crown's rights, against the

innovations of political fanaticism. In La Vendée alone, the nobles had

united their interest and their fortune with those of the peasants who

cultivated their estates, and there alone were they found in their

proper and honourable character of proprietors residing on their own

domains, and discharging the duties which are inalienably attached to

the owner of landed property. And--mark-worthy circumstance!--in La

Vendée alone was any stand made in behalf of the ancient proprietors,

constitution, or religion of France; for there alone the nobles and the

cultivators of the soil held towards each other their natural and proper

relations of patron and client, faithful dependents, and generous and

affectionate superiors.[17] In the other provinces of France, the

nobility, speaking generally, possessed neither power nor influence

among the peasantry, while the population around them was guided and

influenced by men belonging to the Church, to the law, or to business;

classes which were in general better educated, better informed, and

possessed of more talent and knowledge of the world than the poor

Noblesse Campagnarde, who seemed as much limited, caged, and imprisoned,

within the restraints of their rank, as if they had been shut up within

the dungeons of their ruinous chateaux; and who had only their titles

and dusty parchments to oppose to the real superiority of wealth and

information so generally to be found in the class which they affected to

despise. Hence, Ségur describes the country gentlemen of his younger

days as punctilious, ignorant, and quarrelsome, shunned by the

better-informed of the middle classes, idle and dissipated, and wasting

their leisure hours in coffee-houses, theatres, and billiard-rooms.[18]

The more wealthy families, and the high noblesse, as they were called,

saw this degradation of the inferior part of their order without pity,

or rather with pleasure. These last had risen as much above their

natural duties, as the rural nobility had sunk beneath them. They had

too well followed the course which Richelieu had contrived to recommend

to their fathers, and instead of acting as the natural chiefs and

leaders of the nobility and gentry of the provinces, they were

continually engaged in intriguing for charges round the king's person,

for posts in the administration, for additional titles and

decorations--for all and every thing which could make the successful

courtier, and distinguish him from the independent noble. Their

education and habits also were totally unfavourable to grave or serious

thought and exertion. If the trumpet had sounded, it would have found a

ready echo in their bosoms; but light literature at best, and much more

frequently silly and frivolous amusements, a constant pursuit of

pleasure, and a perpetual succession of intrigues, either of love or

petty politics, made their character, in time of peace, approach in

insignificance to that of the women of the court, whom it was the

business of their lives to captivate and amuse.[19] There were noble

exceptions, but in general the order, in every thing but military

courage, had assumed a trivial and effeminate character, from which

patriotic sacrifices, or masculine wisdom, were scarcely to be expected.

While the first nobles of France were engaged in these frivolous

pursuits, their procureurs, bailiffs, stewards, intendants, or by

whatever name their agents and managers were designated, enjoyed the

real influence which their constituents rejected as beneath them, rose

into a degree of authority and credit, which eclipsed recollection of

the distant and regardless proprietor, and formed a rank in the state

not very different from that of the middle-men in Ireland. These agents

were necessarily of plebeian birth, and their profession required that

they should be familiar with the details of public business, which they

administered in the name of their seigneurs. Many of this condition

gained power and wealth in the course of the Revolution, thus

succeeding, like an able and intelligent vizier, to the power which was

forfeited by the idle and voluptuous sultan. Of the high noblesse it

might with truth be said, that they still formed the grace of the court

of France, though they had ceased to be its defence. They were

accomplished, brave, full of honour, and in many instances endowed with

talent. But the communication was broken off betwixt them and the

subordinate orders, over whom, in just degree, they ought to have

possessed a natural influence. The chain of gradual and insensible

connexion was rusted by time, in almost all its dependencies; forcibly

distorted, and contemptuously wrenched asunder, in many. The noble had

neglected and flung from him the most precious jewel in his

coronet--the love and respect of the country-gentleman, the farmer, and

the peasant, an advantage so natural to his condition in a

well-constituted society, and founded upon principles so estimable, that

he who contemns or destroys it, is guilty of little less than high

treason, both to his own rank, and to the community in general. Such a

change, however, had taken place in France, so that the noblesse might

be compared to a court-sword, the hilt carved, ornamented, and gilded,

such as might grace a day of parade, but the blade gone, or composed of

the most worthless materials.

It only remains to be mentioned, that there subsisted, besides all the

distinctions we have noticed, an essential difference in political

opinions among the noblesse themselves, considered as a body. There were

many of the order, who, looking to the exigencies of the kingdom, were

patriotically disposed to sacrifice their own exclusive privileges, in

order to afford a chance of its regeneration. These of course were

disposed to favour an alteration or reform in the original constitution

of France; but besides these enlightened individuals, the nobility had

the misfortune to include many disappointed and desperate men,

ungratified by any of the advantages which their rank made them capable

of receiving, and whose advantages of birth and education only rendered

them more deeply dangerous, or more daringly profligate. A plebeian,

dishonoured by his vices, or depressed by the poverty which is their

consequence, sinks easily into the insignificance from which wealth or

character alone raised him; but the noble often retains the means, as

well as the desire, to avenge himself on society, for an expulsion which

he feels not the less because he is conscious of deserving it. Such were

the debauched Roman youth, among whom were found Cataline, and

associates equal in talents and in depravity to their leader; and such

was the celebrated Mirabeau, who, almost expelled from his own class, as

an irreclaimable profligate, entered the arena of the Revolution as a

first-rate reformer, and a popular advocate of the lower orders.

The state of the Church, that second pillar of the throne, was scarce

more solid than that of the nobility. Generally speaking, it might be

said, that, for a long time, the higher orders of the clergy had ceased

to take a vital concern in their profession, or to exercise its

functions in a manner which interested the feelings and affections of

men.

The Catholic Church had grown old, and unfortunately did not possess the

means of renovating her doctrines, or improving her constitution, so as

to keep pace with the enlargement of the human understanding. The lofty

claims to infallibility which she had set up and maintained during the

middle ages, claims which she could neither renounce nor modify, now

threatened, in more enlightened times, like battlements too heavy for

the foundation, to be the means of ruining the edifice they were

designed to defend. _Vestigia nulla retrorsum_, continued to be the

motto of the Church of Rome. She could explain nothing, soften nothing,

renounce nothing, consistently with her assertion of impeccability. The

whole trash which had been accumulated for ages of darkness and

ignorance, whether consisting of extravagant pretensions, incredible

assertions, absurd doctrines which confounded the understanding, or

puerile ceremonies which revolted the taste, were alike incapable of

being explained away or abandoned. It would certainly have been--humanly

speaking--advantageous, alike for the Church of Rome, and for

Christianity in general, that the former had possessed the means of

relinquishing her extravagant claims, modifying her more obnoxious

doctrines, and retrenching her superstitious ceremonial, as increasing

knowledge showed the injustice of the one, and the absurdity of the

other. But this power she dared not assume; and hence, perhaps, the

great schism which divides the Christian world, which might otherwise

never have existed, or at least not in its present extended and

embittered state. But, in all events, the Church of Rome, retaining the

spiritual empire over so large and fair a portion of the Christian

world, would not have been reduced to the alternative of either

defending propositions, which, in the eyes of all enlightened men, are

altogether untenable, or of beholding the most essential and vital

doctrines of Christianity confounded with them, and the whole system

exposed to the scorn of the infidel. The more enlightened and better

informed part of the French nation had fallen very generally into the

latter extreme.

Infidelity, in attacking the absurd claims and extravagant doctrines of

the Church of Rome, had artfully availed herself of those abuses, as if

they had been really a part of the Christian religion; and they whose

credulity could not digest the grossest articles of the Papist creed,

thought themselves entitled to conclude, in general, against religion

itself, from the abuses engrafted upon it by ignorance and priestcraft.

The same circumstances which favoured the assault, tended to weaken the

defence. Embarrassed by the necessity of defending the mass of human

inventions with which their Church had obscured and deformed

Christianity, the Catholic clergy were not the best advocates even in

the best of causes; and though there were many brilliant exceptions, yet

it must be owned that a great part of the higher orders of the

priesthood gave themselves little trouble about maintaining the

doctrines, or extending the influence of the Church, considering it only

in the light of an asylum, where, under the condition of certain

renunciations, they enjoyed, in indolent tranquillity, a state of ease

and luxury. Those who thought on the subject more deeply, were contented

quietly to repose the safety of the Church upon the restrictions on the

press, which prevented the possibility of free discussion. The usual

effect followed; and many who, if manly and open debate upon theological

subjects had been allowed, would doubtless have been enabled to winnow

the wheat from the chaff, were, in the state of darkness to which they

were reduced, led to reject Christianity itself, along with the

corruptions of the Romish Church, and to become absolute infidels

instead of reformed Christians.

[Sidenote: THE CLERGY--DUBOIS.]

The long and violent dispute also betwixt the Jesuits and the

Jansenists, had for many years tended to lessen the general

consideration for the Church at large, and especially for the higher

orders of the clergy. In that quarrel, much had taken place that was

disgraceful. The mask of religion has been often used to cover more

savage and extensive persecutions, but at no time did the spirit of

intrigue, of personal malice, of slander, and circumvention, appear more

disgustingly from under the sacred disguise; and in the eyes of the

thoughtless and the vulgar, the general cause of religion suffered in

proportion.

The number of the clergy who were thus indifferent to doctrine or duty

was greatly increased, since the promotion to the great benefices had

ceased to be distributed with regard to the morals, piety, talents, and

erudition of the candidates, but was bestowed among the younger branches

of the noblesse, upon men who were at little pains to reconcile the

looseness of their former habits and opinions with the sanctity of their

new profession, and who, embracing the Church solely as a means of

maintenance, were little calculated by their lives or learning to extend

its consideration. Among other vile innovations of the celebrated

regent, Duke of Orleans, he set the most barefaced example of such

dishonourable preferment, and had increased in proportion the contempt

entertained for the hierarchy, even in its highest dignities,--since how

was it possible to respect the purple itself, after it had covered the

shoulders of the infamous Dubois?[20]

It might have been expected, and it was doubtless in a great measure the

case, that the respect paid to the characters and efficient utility of

the curates, upon whom, generally speaking, the charge of souls actually

devolved, might have made up for the want of consideration withheld from

the higher orders of the Church. There can be no doubt that this

respectable body of churchmen possessed great and deserved influence

over their parishioners; but then they were themselves languishing under

poverty and neglect, and, as human beings, cannot be supposed to have

viewed with indifference their superiors enjoying wealth and ease,

while in some cases they dishonoured the robe they wore, and in others

disowned the doctrines they were appointed to teach. Alive to feelings

so natural, and mingling with the middling classes, of which they formed

a most respectable portion, they must necessarily have become embued

with their principles and opinions, and a very obvious train of

reasoning would extend the consequences to their own condition. If the

state was encumbered rather than benefited by the privileges of the

higher order, was not the Church in the same condition? And if secular

rank was to be thrown open as a general object of ambition to the able

and the worthy, ought not the dignities of the Church to be rendered

more accessible to those, who, in humility and truth, discharged the

toilsome duties of its inferior offices, and who might therefore claim,

in due degree of succession, to attain higher preferment? There can be

no injustice in ascribing to this body sentiments, which might have been

no less just regarding the Church than advantageous to themselves; and,

accordingly, it was not long before this body of churchmen showed

distinctly, that their political views were the same with those of the

Third Estate, to which they solemnly united themselves, strengthening

thereby greatly the first revolutionary movements. But their conduct,

when they beheld the whole system of their religion aimed at, should

acquit the French clergy of the charge of self-interest, since no body,

considered as such, ever showed itself more willing to encounter

persecution, and submit to privation for conscience' sake.

[Sidenote: TIERS ETAT.]

While the Noblesse and the Church, considered as branches of the state,

were thus divided amongst themselves, and fallen into discredit with the

nation at large; while they were envied for their ancient immunities

without being any longer feared for their power; while they were

ridiculed at once and hated for the assumption of a superiority which

their personal qualities did not always vindicate, the lowest order, the

Commons, or, as they were at that time termed, the Third Estate, had

gradually acquired an extent and importance unknown to the feudal ages,

in which originated the ancient division of the estates of the kingdom.

The Third Estate no longer, as in the days of Henry IV., consisted

merely of the burghers and petty traders in the small towns of a feudal

kingdom, bred up almost as the vassals of the nobles and clergy, by

whose expenditure they acquired their living. Commerce and colonies had

introduced wealth, from sources to which the nobles and the churchmen

had no access. Not only a very great proportion of the disposable

capital was in the hands of the Third Estate, who thus formed the bulk

of the moneyed interest of France, but a large share of the landed

property was also in their possession.

There was, moreover, the influence which many plebeians possessed, as

creditors, over those needy nobles whom they had supplied with money,

while another portion of the same class rose into wealth and

consideration, at the expense of the more opulent patricians who were

ruining themselves. Paris had increased to a tremendous extent, and her

citizens had risen to a corresponding degree of consideration; and while

they profited by the luxury and dissipation, both of the court and

courtiers, had become rich in proportion as the government and

privileged classes grew poor. Those citizens who were thus enriched,

endeavoured, by bestowing on their families all the advantages of good

education, to counterbalance their inferiority of birth, and to qualify

their children to support their part in the scenes, to which their

altered fortunes, and the prospects of the country, appeared to call

them. In short, it is not too much to say, that the middling classes

acquired the advantages of wealth, consequence, and effective power, in

a proportion more than equal to that in which the nobility had lost

these attributes. Thus, the Third Estate seemed to increase in extent,

number, and strength, like a waxing inundation, threatening with every

increasing wave to overwhelm the ancient and decayed barriers of

exclusions and immunities, behind which the privileged ranks still

fortified themselves.

It was not in the nature of man, that the bold, the talented, the

ambitious, of a rank which felt its own power and consequence, should be

long contented to remain acquiescent in political regulations, which

depressed them in the state of society beneath men to whom they felt

themselves equal in all respects, excepting the factitious circumstances

of birth, or of Church orders. It was no less impossible that they

should long continue satisfied with the feudal dogmas, which exempted

the noblesse from taxes, because they served the nation with their

sword, and the clergy, because they propitiated Heaven in its favour

with their prayers. The maxim, however true in the feudal ages when it

originated, had become an extravagant legal fiction in the eighteenth

century, when all the world knew that both the noble soldier and the

priest were paid for the services they no longer rendered to the state,

while the _roturier_ had both valour and learning to fight his own

battles and perform his own devotions; and when, in fact, it was their

arms which combated, and their learning which enlightened the state,

rather than those of the privileged orders.[21]

Thus, a body, opulent and important, and carrying along with their

claims the sympathy of the whole people, were arranged in formidable

array against the privileges of the nobles and clergy, and bound to

further the approaching changes by the strongest of human ties,

emulation and self-interest.

The point was stated with unusual frankness by Emeri, a distinguished

member of the National Assembly, and a man of honour and talent. In the

course of a confidential communication with the celebrated Marquis de

Bouillé, the latter had avowed his principles of royalty, and his

detestation of the new constitution, to which he said he only rendered

obedience, because the King had sworn to maintain it. "You are right,

being yourself a nobleman," replied Emeri, with equal candour; "and had

I been born noble, such would have been my principles; but I, a plebeian

_Avocat_, must naturally desire a revolution, and cherish that

constitution which has called me, and those of my rank, out of a state

of degradation."[22]

Considering the situation, therefore, of the three separate bodies,

which, before the revolutionary impulse commenced, were the constituent

parts of the kingdom of France, it was evident, that in case of a

collision, the Nobles and Clergy might esteem themselves fortunate, if,

divided as they were among themselves, they could maintain an effectual

defence of the whole, or a portion of their privileges, while the Third

Estate, confident in their numbers and in their unanimity, were ready to

assail and carry by storm the whole system, over the least breach which

might be effected in the ancient constitution. Lally Tolendal gave a

comprehensive view of the state of parties in these words:--"The commons

desired to conquer, the nobles to preserve what they already possessed.

The clergy stood inactive, resolved to join the victorious party. If

there was a man in France who wished for concord and peace, it was the

king."[23]

FOOTNOTES:

[5] In consequence of the censure passed on the Peace by the House of

Commons, the Shelburne ministry was dissolved on the 26th of February,

1783.

[6] "During nearly twenty years, ever since the termination of the war

with France in 1763, the British flag had scarcely been any where

triumphant; while the navies of the House of Bourbon, throughout the

progress of the American contest, annually insulted us in the Channel,

intercepted our mercantile convoys, blocked our harbours, and threatened

our coasts."--WRAXALL, 1782.

[7] "The deepest wounds were inflicted on the empire during the

minorities of the sons and grandsons of Theodosius; and after those

incapable princes seemed to attain the age of manhood, they abandoned

the church to the bishops, the state to the eunuchs, and the provinces

to the barbarians. Europe is now divided into twelve powerful, though

unequal kingdoms, three respectable commonwealths, and a variety of

smaller, though independent states: the chances of royal and ministerial

talents are multiplied, at least with the number of its rulers; and a

Julian, or Semiramis, may reign in the north, while Arcadius and

Honorius again slumber on the thrones of the south."--GIBBON'S _Decline

and Fall_, vol. iii., p. 636.

"It may not be generally known that Louis the Sixteenth is a great

reader, and a great reader of English books. On perusing a passage in my

History, which seems to compare him to Arcadius or Honorius, he

expressed his resentment to the Prince of B*****, from whom the

intelligence was conveyed to me. I shall neither disclaim the allusion,

nor examine the likeness; but the situation of the late King of France

excludes all suspicion of flattery; and I am ready to declare, that the

concluding observations of my third volume were written before his

accession to the throne."--GIBBON'S _Memoirs_, vol. i., p. 126.

[8] On the occasion of the first audience of Mr. Adams, in June,

1785.--See WRAXALL'S _Own Time_, vol. i., p. 381.

[9] "The sum, after long debates, was fixed by the Emperor at ten

million guilders."--COXE'S _House of Austria_, vol. ii., p. 583.

[10] "Joseph the Second borrowed the language of philosophy, when he

wished to suppress the monks of Belgium, and to seize their revenues:

but there was seen on him a mask only of philosophy, covering the

hideous countenance of a greedy despot: and the people ran to arms.

Nothing better than another kind of despotism has been seen in the

revolutionary powers."--BRISSOT, _Letter to his Constituents_, 1794.

[11] "In 1780, there were 2024 convents in the Austrian dominions: These

were diminished to 700, and 36,000 monks and nuns to 2700. Joseph might

have applied to his own reforms the remark he afterwards made to General

D'Alten, on the reforms of the French:--'The new constitution of France

has not been very polite to the high clergy and nobility; and I still

doubt much if all these fine things can be carried into

execution!'"--COXE, vol. ii., p. 578.

[12] "The Pope reached Vienna in February, 1782. He was received with

every mark of exterior homage and veneration; but his exhortations and

remonstrances were treated with coldness and reserve, and he was so

narrowly watched, that the back-door of his apartments was blocked up to

prevent him from receiving private visitors. Chagrined with the

inflexibility of the Emperor, and mortified by an unmeaning ceremonial,

and an affected display of veneration for the Holy See, while it was

robbed of its richest possessions, and its most valuable privileges,

Pius quitted Vienna at the expiration of a month, equally disgusted and

humiliated, after having exhibited himself as a disappointed suppliant

at the foot of that throne which had been so often shaken by the thunder

of the Vatican."--_Ibid._, p. 632.

[13] The charter by which the privileges of the Flemings were settled,

had been promulgated on the _entry_ of Philip the Good into Brussels.

Hence this name.--See COXE.

[14] "Joseph expired at Vienna, in February, 1790, at the age of

forty-nine, extenuated by diseases, caused or accelerated in their

progress by his own irritability of temper, agitation of mind, and the

embarrassment of his affairs."--WRAXALL, vol. i., p. 277.

[15] See _Macbeth_, act iv., sc. i.

[16] The old French proverb bore,--

"Le roi d'Angleterre,

Est le roi d'Enfer."--S.

[17] See the Memoirs of the Marchioness De La Rochejaquelein, p. 48.

[18] Ségur's Memoirs, vol. i., p. 76.

[19] For a curious picture of the life of the French nobles of fifty

years since, see the first volume of Madame Genlis's Memoirs. Had there

been any more solid pursuits in society than the gay trifles she so

pleasantly describes, they could not have escaped so intelligent an

observer.--S.

[20] "A person of mean extraction, remarkable only for his vices, had

been employed in correcting the Regent's tasks, and, by a servile

complacence for all his inclinations, had acquired an ascendency over

his pupil, which he abused, for the purpose of corrupting his morals,

debasing his character, and ultimately rendering his administration an

object of universal indignation. Soon after his patron's accession to

power, Dubois was admitted into the council of state. He asked for the

Archbishopric of Cambray. Unaccustomed as he was to delicate scruples,

the Regent was startled at the idea of encountering the scandal to which

such a prostitution of honours must expose him. He, however, ultimately

yielded. This man, one of the most profligate that ever existed, was

actually married at the time he received Catholic orders, but he

suborned the witnesses, and contrived to have the parish registers,

which might have deposed against him, destroyed."--See LACRETELLE, tom.

i., p. 348.

[21] Thiers, Histoire de la Rév. Franç., tom. i., p. 34.

[22] Mémoires de Bouillé, p. 289.

[23] Plaidoyer pour Louis Seize, 1793.