_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._
[Sidenote: STATE OF PUBLIC OPINION.]
We have viewed France as it stood in its grand political divisions
previous to the Revolution, and we have seen that there existed strong
motives for change, and that a great force was prepared to level
institutions which were crumbling to pieces of themselves. It is now
necessary to review the state of the popular mind, and consider upon
what principles, and to what extent, the approaching changes were likely
to operate, and at what point they might be expected to stop. Here, as
with respect to the ranks of society, a tacit but almost total change
had been operated in the feelings and sentiments of the public,
principally occasioned, doubtless, by the great ascendency acquired by
literature--that tree of knowledge of good and evil, which, amidst the
richest and most wholesome fruits, bears others, fair in show, and sweet
to the taste, but having the properties of the most deadly poison.
The French, the most ingenious people in Europe, and the most
susceptible of those pleasures which arise from conversation and
literary discussion, had early called in the assistance of men of genius
to enhance their relish for society. The nobles, without renouncing
their aristocratic superiority,--which, on the contrary, was rendered
more striking by the contrast,--permitted literary talents to be a
passport into their saloons. The wealthy financier, and opulent
merchant, emulated the nobility in this as in other articles of taste
and splendour; and their coteries, as well as those of the aristocracy,
were open to men of letters, who were in many cases contented to enjoy
luxury at the expense of independence. Assuredly this species of
patronage, while it often flowed from the vanity or egotism of the
patrons, was not much calculated to enhance the character of those who
were protected. Professors of literature, thus mingling in the society
of the noble and the wealthy upon sufferance, held a rank scarcely
higher than that of musicians or actors, from amongst whom individuals
have often, by their talents and character, become members of the best
society, while the castes, to which such individuals belong, remain in
general exposed to the most humiliating contempt. The lady of quality,
who smiled on the man of letters, and the man of rank, who admitted him
to his intimacy, still retained their consciousness that he was not like
themselves, formed out of the "porcelain clay of the earth;" and even
while receiving their bounties, or participating in their pleasures, the
favourite _savant_ must often have been disturbed by the reflection,
that he was only considered as a creature of sufferance, whom the
caprice of fashion, or a sudden reaction of the ancient etiquette, might
fling out of the society where he was at present tolerated. Under this
disheartening, and even degrading inferiority, the man of letters might
be tempted invidiously to compare the luxurious style of living at which
he sat a permitted guest, with his own paltry hired apartment, and
scanty and uncertain chance of support. And even those of a nobler mood,
when they had conceded to their benefactors all the gratitude they could
justly demand, must sometimes have regretted their own situation,
"Condemn'd as needy supplicants to wait,
While ladies interpose and slaves debate."[24]
It followed, that many of the men of letters, thus protected, became
enemies of the persons, as well as the rank of their patrons; as, for
example, no one in the course of the Revolution expressed greater
hatred to the nobility than Champfort,[25] the favourite and favoured
secretary of the Prince of Condé. Occasions, too, must frequently have
occurred, in which the protected person was almost inevitably forced
upon comparing his own natural and acquired talents with those of his
aristocratic patron, and the result could not be other than a dislike of
the institutions which placed him so far behind persons whom, but for
those prescribed limits, he must have passed in the career of honour and
distinction.
Hence arose that frequent and close inquiry into the origin of ranks,
that general system of impugning the existing regulations, and appealing
to the original states of society in vindication of the original
equality of mankind--hence those ingenious arguments, and eloquent
tirades in favour of primitive and even savage independence, which the
patricians of the day read and applauded with such a smile of mixed
applause and pity, as they would have given to the reveries of a crazed
poet, while the inferior ranks, participating the feelings under which
they were written, caught the ardour of the eloquent authors, and rose
from the perusal with minds prepared to act, whenever action should be
necessary to realize a vision so flattering.
It might have been expected that those belonging to the privileged
classes at least, would have caught the alarm, from hearing doctrines so
fatal to their own interests avowed so boldly, and maintained with so
much talent. It might have been thought that they would have started,
when Raynal proclaimed to the nations of the earth that they could only
be free and happy when they had overthrown every throne and every
altar;[26] but no such alarm was taken. Men of rank considered liberal
principles as the fashion of the day, and embraced them as the readiest
mode of showing that they were above vulgar prejudices. In short, they
adopted political opinions as they put on round hats and jockey-coats,
merely because they were current in good society. They assumed the tone
of philosophers as they would have done that of Arcadian shepherds at a
masquerade, but without any more thoughts of sacrificing their own rank
and immunities in the one case, than of actually driving their flocks
a-field in the other. Count Ségur gives a most interesting account of
the opinions of the young French nobles, in which he himself partook at
this eventful period.
"Impeded in this light career by the antiquated pride of the old
court, the irksome etiquette of the old order of things, the
severity of the old clergy, the aversion of our parents to our
new fashions and our costumes, which were favourable to the
principles of equality, we felt disposed to adopt with
enthusiasm the philosophical doctrines professed by literary
men, remarkable for their boldness and their wit. Voltaire
seduced our imagination; Rousseau touched our hearts; we felt a
secret pleasure in seeing that their attacks were directed
against an old fabric, which presented to us a Gothic and
ridiculous appearance. We were thus pleased at this petty war,
although it was undermining our own ranks and privileges, and
the remains of our ancient power; but we felt not these attacks
personally; we merely witnessed them. It was as yet but a war of
words and paper, which did not appear to us to threaten the
superiority of existence we enjoyed, consolidated as we thought
it, by a possession of many centuries. * * * We were pleased
with the courage of liberty, whatever language it assumed, and
with the convenience of equality. There is a satisfaction in
descending from a high rank, as long as the resumption of it is
thought to be free and unobstructed; and regardless, therefore,
of consequences, we enjoyed our patrician advantages, together
with the sweets of a plebeian philosophy."[27]
We anxiously desire not to be mistaken. It is not the purport of these
remarks to blame the French aristocracy for extending their patronage to
learning and to genius. The purpose was honourable to themselves, and
fraught with high advantages to the progress of society. The favour of
the Great supplied the want of public encouragement, and fostered talent
which otherwise might never have produced its important and
inappreciable fruits. But it had been better for France, her nobility,
and her literature, had the patronage been extended in some manner which
did not intimately associate the two classes of men. The want of
independence of circumstances is a severe if not an absolute check to
independence of spirit; and thus it often happened, that, to gratify the
passions of their protectors, or to advance their interest, the men of
letters were involved in the worst and most scandalous labyrinths of
_tracasserie_, slander, and malignity; that they were divided into
desperate factions against each other, and reduced to practise all those
arts of dissimulation, flattery, and intrigue, which are the greatest
shame of the literary profession.
[Sidenote: FRENCH LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY.]
As the eighteenth century advanced, the men of literature rose in
importance, and, aware of their own increasing power in a society which
was dependent on them for intellectual gratification, they supported
each other in their claims to what began to be considered the dignity of
a man of letters. This was soon carried into extremes, and assumed, even
in the halls of their protectors, a fanatical violence of opinion, and a
dogmatical mode of expression, which made the veteran Fontenelle declare
himself terrified for the frightful degree of _certainty_ that folks met
with every where in society. The truth is, that men of letters, being
usually men of mere theory, have no opportunity of measuring the
opinions which they have adopted upon hypothetical reasoning, by the
standard of practical experiment. They feel their mental superiority to
those whom they live with, and become habitual believers in, and
assertors of, their own infallibility. If moderation, command of
passions and of temper, be part of philosophy, we seldom find less
philosophy actually displayed, than by a philosopher in defence of a
favourite theory. Nor have we found that churchmen are so desirous of
forming proselytes, or soldiers of extending conquests, as philosophers
in making converts to their own opinions.
In France they had discovered the command which they had acquired over
the public mind, and united as they were--and more especially the
Encyclopedists,[28]--they augmented and secured that impression, by
never permitting the doctrines which they wished to propagate to die
away upon the public ear. For this purpose, they took care these should
be echoed, like thunder amongst hills, from a hundred different points,
presented in a hundred new lights, illustrated by a hundred various
methods, until the public could no longer help receiving that as
undeniable which they heard from so many different quarters. They could
also direct every weapon of satirical hostility against those who
ventured to combat their doctrines, and as their wrath was neither
easily endured nor pacified, they drove from the field most of those
authors, who, in opposition to their opinions, might have exerted
themselves as champions of the Church and Monarchy.
We have already hinted at the disadvantages which literature
experiences, when it is under the protection of private individuals of
opulence, rather than of the public. But in yet another important
respect, the air of _salons_, _ruelles_ and _boudoirs_ is fatal, in many
cases, to the masculine spirit of philosophical self-denial which gives
dignity to literary society. They who make part of the gay society of a
corrupted metropolis, must lend their countenance to follies and vices,
if they do not themselves practise them; and hence, perhaps, French
literature, more than any other in Europe, has been liable to the
reproach of lending its powerful arm to undermine whatever was serious
in morals, or hitherto considered as fixed in principle. Some of their
greatest authors, even Montesquieu himself, have varied their deep
reasonings on the origin of government, and the most profound problems
of philosophy, with licentious tales tending to inflame the passions.
Hence, partaking of the license of its professors, the degraded
literature of modern times called in to its alliance that immorality,
which not only Christian, but even heathen philosophy had considered as
the greatest obstacle to a pure, wise, and happy state of existence. The
licentiousness which walked abroad in such disgusting and undisguised
nakedness, was a part of the unhappy bequest left by the Regent Duke of
Orleans to the country which he governed. The decorum of the court
during the times of Louis XIV. had prevented such excesses; if there was
enough of vice, it was at least decently veiled. But the conduct of
Orleans and his minions was marked with open infamy, deep enough to
have called down, in the age of miracles, an immediate judgment from
Heaven; and crimes which the worst of the Roman emperors would have at
least hidden in his solitary Isle of Caprea, were acted as publicly as
if men had had no eyes, or God no thunderbolts.[29]
From this filthy Cocytus flowed those streams of impurity which
disgraced France during the reign of Louis XV., and which,
notwithstanding the example of a prince who was himself a model of
domestic virtue, continued in that of Louis XVI. to infect society,
morals, and, above all, literature. We do not here allude merely to
those lighter pieces of indecency in which humour and fancy outrun the
bounds of delicacy. These are to be found in the literature of most
nations, and are generally in the hands of mere libertines and men of
pleasure, so well acquainted with the practice of vice, that the theory
cannot make them worse than they are. But there was a strain of
voluptuous and seducing immorality which pervaded not only the lighter
and gayer compositions of the French, but tinged the writings of those
who called the world to admire them as poets of the highest mood, or to
listen as to philosophers of the most lofty pretensions. Voltaire,
Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu,--names which France must always esteem
her highest honour,--were so guilty in this particular, that the young
and virtuous must either altogether abstain from the works which are
every where the topic of ordinary discussion and admiration, or must
peruse much that is hurtful to delicacy, and dangerous to morals, in the
formation of their future character. The latter alternative was
universally adopted; for the curious will read as the thirsty will
drink, though the cup and page be polluted.
So far had an indifference to delicacy influenced the society of France,
and so widely spread was this habitual impurity of language and ideas,
especially among those who pretended to philosophy, that Madame Roland,
a woman admirable for courage and talents, and not, so far as appears,
vicious in her private morals, not only mentions the profligate novels
of Louvet as replete with the graces of imagination, the salt of
criticism, and the tone of philosophy, but affords the public, in her
own person, details with which a courtezan of the higher class should be
unwilling to season her private conversation.[30]
This license, with the corruption of morals, of which it is both the
sign and the cause, leads directly to feelings the most inconsistent
with manly and virtuous patriotism. Voluptuousness, and its
consequences, render the libertine incapable of relish for what is
simply and abstractedly beautiful or sublime, whether in literature or
in the arts, and destroy the taste, while they degrade and blunt the
understanding. But, above all, such libertinism leads to the exclusive
pursuit of selfish gratification, for egotism is its foundation and its
essence. Egotism is necessarily the very reverse of patriotism, since
the one principle is founded exclusively upon the individual's pursuit
of his own peculiar objects of pleasure or advantage, while the other
demands a sacrifice, not only of these individual pursuits, but of
fortune and life itself, to the cause of the public weal. Patriotism
has, accordingly, always been found to flourish in that state of society
which is most favourable to the stern and manly virtues of self-denial,
temperance, chastity, contempt of luxury, patient exertion, and elevated
contemplation; and the public spirit of a nation has invariably borne a
just proportion to its private morals.
[Sidenote: INFIDELITY.]
Religion cannot exist where immorality generally prevails, any more than
a light can burn where the air is corrupted; and, accordingly,
infidelity was so general in France, as to predominate in almost every
rank of society. The errors of the Church of Rome, as we have already
noticed, connected as they are with her ambitious attempts towards
dominion over men, in their temporal as well as spiritual capacity, had
long become the argument of the philosopher, and the jest of the
satirist; but in exploding these pretensions, and holding them up to
ridicule, the philosophers of the age involved with them the general
doctrines of Christianity itself; nay, some went so far as not only to
deny inspiration, but to extinguish, by their sophistry, the lights of
natural religion, implanted in our bosoms as a part of our birth-right.
Like the disorderly rabble at the time of the Reformation, (but with
infinitely deeper guilt,) they not only pulled down the symbols of
idolatry, which ignorance or priestcraft had introduced into the
Christian Church, but sacrilegiously defaced and desecrated the altar
itself. This work the philosophers, as they termed themselves, carried
on with such an unlimited and eager zeal, as plainly to show that
infidelity, as well as divinity, hath its fanaticism. An envenomed fury
against religion and all its doctrines; a promptitude to avail
themselves of every circumstance by which Christianity could be
misrepresented; an ingenuity in mixing up their opinions in works, which
seemed the least fitting to involve such discussions; above all, a
pertinacity in slandering, ridiculing, and vilifying all who ventured to
oppose their principles, distinguished the correspondents in this
celebrated conspiracy against a religion, which, however it may be
defaced by human inventions, breathes only that peace on earth, and good
will to the children of men, which was proclaimed by Heaven at its
divine origin.
If these prejudiced and envenomed opponents had possessed half the
desire of truth, or half the benevolence towards mankind, which were
eternally on their lips, they would have formed the true estimate of
the spirit of Christianity, not from the use which had been made of the
mere name by ambitious priests or enthusiastic fools, but by its vital
effects upon mankind at large. They would have seen, that under its
influence a thousand brutal and sanguinary superstitions had died away;
that polygamy had been abolished, and with polygamy all the obstacles
which it offers to domestic happiness, as well as to the due education
of youth, and the natural and gradual civilisation of society. They must
then have owned, that slavery, which they regarded, or affected to
regard, with such horror, had first been gradually ameliorated, and
finally abolished by the influence of the Christian doctrines--that
there was no one virtue teaching to elevate mankind or benefit society,
which was not enjoined by the precepts they endeavoured to misrepresent
and weaken--no one vice by which humanity is degraded and society
endangered, upon which Christianity hath not imposed a solemn anathema.
They might also, in their capacity of philosophers, have considered the
peculiar aptitude of the Christian religion, not only to all ranks and
conditions of mankind, but to all climates and to all stages of society.
Nor ought it to have escaped them, that the system contains within
itself a key to those difficulties, doubts, and mysteries, by which the
human mind is agitated, so soon as it is raised beyond the mere objects
which interest the senses. Milton has made the maze of metaphysics, and
the bewildering state of mind which they engender, a part of the
employment, and perhaps of the punishment, of the lower regions.[31]
Christianity alone offers a clew to this labyrinth, a solution to these
melancholy and discouraging doubts; and however its doctrines may be
hard to unaided flesh and blood, yet explaining as they do the system of
the universe, which without them is so incomprehensible, and through
their practical influence rendering men in all ages more worthy to act
their part in the general plan, it seems wonderful how those, whose
professed pursuit was wisdom, should have looked on religion not alone
with that indifference, which was the only feeling evinced by the
heathen philosophers towards the gross mythology of their time, but with
hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. One would rather have
expected, that, after such a review, men professing the real spirit
which searches after truth and wisdom, if unhappily they were still
unable to persuade themselves that a religion so worthy of the Deity (if
such an expression may be used) had emanated directly from revelation,
might have had the modesty to lay their finger on their lip and distrust
their own judgment, instead of disturbing the faith of others; or, if
confirmed in their incredulity, might have taken the leisure to compute
at least what was to be gained by rooting up a tree which bore such
goodly fruits, without having the means of replacing it by aught which
could produce the same advantage to the commonwealth.
Unhappily blinded by self-conceit, heated with the ardour of
controversy, gratifying their literary pride by becoming members of a
league, in which kings and princes were included, and procuring
followers by flattering the vanity of some, and stimulating the cupidity
of others, the men of the most distinguished parts in France became
allied in a sort of anti-crusade against Christianity, and indeed
against religious principles of every kind. How they succeeded is too
universally known; and when it is considered that these men of letters,
who ended by degrading the morals, and destroying the religion of so
many of the citizens of France, had been first called into public
estimation by the patronage of the higher orders, it is impossible not
to think of the Israelitish champion, who, brought into the house of
Dagon to make sport for the festive assembly, ended by pulling it down
upon the heads of the guests--and upon his own.
We do not tax the whole nation of France with being infirm in religious
faith, and relaxed in morals; still less do we aver that the Revolution,
which broke forth in that country, owed its rise exclusively to the
license and infidelity, which were but too current there. The necessity
of a great change in the principles of the ancient French monarchy, had
its source in the usurpations of preceding kings over the liberties of
the subject, and the opportunity for effecting this change was afforded
by the weakness and pecuniary distresses of the present government.
These would have existed had the French court, and her higher orders,
retained the simple and virtuous manners of Sparta, united with the
strong and pure faith of primitive Christians. The difference lay in
this, that a simple, virtuous, and religious people would have rested
content with such changes and alterations in the constitution of their
government as might remove the evils of which they had just and pressing
reason to complain. They would have endeavoured to redress obvious and
practical errors in the body politic, without being led into extremes
either by the love of realising visionary theories, the vanity of
enforcing their own particular philosophical or political doctrines, or
the selfish arguments of demagogues, who, in the prospect of bettering
their own situation by wealth, or obtaining scope for their ambition,
aspired, in the words of the dramatic poet, to throw the elements of
society into confusion, and thus
"disturb the peace of all the world,
To rule it when 'twas wildest."
It was to such men as these last that Heaven, in punishment of the sins
of France and of Europe, and perhaps to teach mankind a dreadful lesson,
abandoned the management of the French Revolution, the original
movements of which, so far as they went to secure to the people the
restoration of their natural liberty, and the abolition of the
usurpations of the crown, had become not only desirable through the
change of times, and by the influence of public opinion, but
peremptorily necessary and inevitable.
[Sidenote: FEUDAL SYSTEM.]
The feudal system of France, like that of the rest of Europe, had, in
its original composition, all the germs of national freedom. The great
peers, in whose hands the common defence was reposed, acknowledged the
king's power as _suzerain_, obeyed his commands as their military
leader, and attended his courts as their supreme judge; but recognised
no despotic authority in the crown, and were prompt to defend the
slightest encroachment upon their own rights. If they themselves were
not equally tender of the rights and liberties of their own vassals,
their acts of encroachment flowed not from the feudal system, but from
its imperfections. The tendency and spirit of these singular
institutions, were to preserve to each individual his just and natural
rights; but a system, almost purely military, was liable to be
frequently abused by the most formidable soldier, and was, besides,
otherwise ill fitted to preserve rights which were purely civil. It is
not necessary to trace the progress from the days of Louis XIII.
downwards, by which ambitious monarchs, seconded by able and subtle
ministers, contrived to emancipate themselves from the restraints of
their powerful vassals, or by which the descendants of these high
feudatories, who had been the controllers of the prince so soon as he
outstepped the bounds of legitimate authority, were now ranked around
the throne in the capacity of mere courtiers or satellites, who derived
their lustre solely from the favour of royalty. This unhappy and
shortsighted policy had, however, accomplished its end, and the crown
had concentrated within its prerogative almost the entire liberties of
the French nation; and now, like an overgorged animal of prey, had
reason to repent its fatal voracity, while it lay almost helpless,
exposed to the assaults of those whom it had despoiled.
We have already observed, that for a considerable time the Frenchman's
love of his country had been transferred to the crown; that his national
delight in martial glory fixed his attachment upon the monarch as the
leader of his armies; and that this feeling had supported the devotion
of the nation to Louis XIV., not only during his victories, but even
amid his reverses. But the succeeding reign had less to impose on the
imagination. The erection of a palace obtains for the nation the praise
of magnificence, and the celebration of public and splendid festivals
gives the people at least the pleasure of a holiday; the pensioning
artists and men of letters, again, is honourable to the country which
fosters the arts; but the court of Louis XV., undiminished in expense,
was also selfish in its expenditure. The enriching of needy favourites,
their relations, and their parasites, had none of the dazzling
munificence of the Grand Monarque; and while the taxes became daily more
oppressive on the subjects, the mode in which the revenue was employed
not only became less honourable to the court, and less creditable to the
country, but lost the dazzle and show which gives the lower orders
pleasure as the beholders of a pageant.
The consolation which the imagination of the French had found in the
military honour of their nation, seemed also about to fail them. The
bravery of the troops remained the same, but the genius of the
commanders, and the fortune of the monarch under whose auspices they
fought, had in a great measure abandoned them, and the destiny of France
seemed to be on the wane. The victory of Fontenoy[32] was all that was
to be placed in opposition to the numerous disasters of the Seven Years'
War, in which France was almost everywhere else defeated; and it was
little wonder, that in a reign attended with so many subjects of
mortification, the enthusiastic devotion of the people to the sovereign
should begin to give way. The king had engrossed so much power in his
own person, that he had become as it were personally responsible for
every miscarriage and defeat which the country underwent. Such is the
risk incurred by absolute monarchs, who are exposed to all the popular
obloquy for maladministration, from which, in limited governments, kings
are in a great measure screened by the intervention of the other powers
of the constitution, or by the responsibility of ministers for the
measures which they advise; while he that has ascended to the actual
peak and extreme summit of power, has no barrier left to secure him from
the tempest.
Another and most powerful cause fanned the rising discontent, with which
the French of the eighteenth century began to regard the government
under which they lived. Like men awakened from a flattering dream, they
compared their own condition with that of the subjects of free states,
and perceived that they had either never enjoyed, or had been gradually
robbed of, the chief part of the most valuable privileges and immunities
to which man may claim a natural right. They had no national
representation of any kind, and but for the slender barrier offered by
the courts of justice, or parliaments, as they were called, were subject
to unlimited exactions on the sole authority of the sovereign. The
property of the nation was therefore at the disposal of the crown, which
might increase taxes to any amount, and cause them to be levied by
force, if force was necessary. The personal freedom of the citizen was
equally exposed to aggressions by _lettres de cachet_.[33] The French
people, in short, had neither, in the strict sense, liberty nor
property, and if they did not suffer all the inconveniences in practice
which so evil a government announces, it was because public opinion, the
softened temper of the age, and the good disposition of the kings
themselves, did not permit the scenes of cruelty and despotism to be
revived in the eighteenth century, which Louis XI. had practised three
ages before.
These abuses, and others arising out of the disproportioned privileges
of the noblesse and the clergy, who were exempted from contributing to
the necessities of the state; the unequal mode of levying the taxes, and
other great errors of the constitution; above all, the total absorption
of every right and authority in the person of the sovereign,--these were
too gross in their nature, and too destructive in their consequences, to
have escaped deep thought on the part of reflecting persons, and hatred
and dislike from those who suffered more or less under the practical
evils.
[Sidenote: SUPPRESSION OF FREE DISCUSSION.]
They had not, in particular, eluded the observation and censure of the
acute reasoners and deep thinkers, who had already become the guiding
spirits of the age; but the despotism under which they lived prevented
those speculations from assuming a practical and useful character. In a
free country, the wise and the learned are not only permitted, but
invited, to examine the institutions under which they live, to defend
them against the suggestions of rash innovators, or to propose such
alterations as the lapse of time and change of manners may render
necessary. Their disquisitions are, therefore, usefully and beneficially
directed to the repair of the existing government, not to its
demolition, and if they propose alteration in parts, it is only for the
purpose of securing the rest of the fabric. But in France, no
opportunity was permitted of free discussion on politics, any more than
on matters of religion.
An essay upon the French monarchy, showing by what means the existing
institutions might have been brought more into union with the wishes and
wants of the people, must have procured for its author a place in the
Bastile; and yet subsequent events have shown, that a system, which
might have introduced prudently and gradually into the decayed frame of
the French government the spirit of liberty, which was originally
inherent in every feudal monarchy, would have been the most valuable
present which political wisdom could have rendered to the country. The
bonds which pressed so heavily on the subject might thus have been
gradually slackened, and at length totally removed, without the perilous
expedient of casting them all loose at once. But the philosophers, who
had certainly talents sufficient for the purpose, were not permitted to
apply to the state of the French government the original principles on
which it was founded, or to trace the manner in which usurpations and
abuses had taken place, and propose a mode by which, without varying its
form, those encroachments might be restrained, and those abuses
corrected. An author was indeed at liberty to speculate at any length
upon general doctrines of government; he might imagine to himself a
Utopia or Atalantis, and argue upon abstract ideas of the rights in
which government originates; but on no account was he permitted to
render any of his lucubrations practically useful, by adapting them to
the municipal regulations of France. The political sage was placed, with
regard to his country, in the condition of a physician prescribing for
the favourite Sultana of some jealous despot, whom he is required to
cure without seeing his patient, and without obtaining any accurate
knowledge of her malady, its symptoms, and its progress. In this manner
the theory of government was kept studiously separated from the
practice. The political philosopher might, if he pleased, speculate upon
the former, but he was prohibited, under severe personal penalties, to
illustrate the subject by any allusion to the latter. Thus, the eloquent
and profound work of Montesquieu professed, indeed, to explain the
general rights of the people, and the principles upon which government
itself rested, but his pages show no mode by which these could be
resorted to for the reformation of the constitution of his country. He
laid before the patient a medical treatise on disease in general,
instead of a special prescription; applying to his peculiar habits and
distemper.
In consequence of these unhappy restrictions upon open and manly
political discussion, the French government, in its actual state, was
never represented as capable of either improvement or regeneration; and
while general and abstract doctrines of original freedom were every
where the subject of eulogy, it was never considered for a moment in
what manner these new and more liberal principles could be applied to
the improvement of the existing system. The natural conclusion must have
been, that the monarchical government in France was either perfection in
itself, and consequently stood in need of no reformation, or that it was
so utterly inconsistent with the liberties of the people as to be
susceptible of none. No one was hardy enough to claim for it the former
character, and, least of all, those who presided in its councils, and
seemed to acknowledge the imperfection of the system, by prohibiting all
discussion on the subject. It seemed, therefore, to follow, as no unfair
inference, that to obtain the advantages which the new elementary
doctrines held forth, and which were so desirable and so much desired, a
total abolition of the existing government to its very foundation, was
an indispensable preliminary; and there is little doubt that this
opinion prevailed so generally at the time of the Revolution, as to
prevent any firm or resolute stand being made in defence even of such of
the actual institutions of France, as might have been amalgamated with
the proposed reform.
[Sidenote: ANGLOMANIA.]
While all practical discussion of the constitution of France, as a
subject either above or beneath philosophical inquiry, was thus
cautiously omitted in those works which pretended to treat of civil
rights, that of England, with its counterpoises and checks, its liberal
principle of equality of rights, the security which it affords for
personal liberty and individual property, and the free opportunities of
discussion upon every topic, became naturally the subject of eulogy
amongst those who were awakening their countrymen to a sense of the
benefits of national freedom. The time was past, when, as in the days of
Louis XIV., the French regarded the institutions of the English with
contempt, as fit only for merchants and shopkeepers, but unworthy of a
nation of warriors, whose pride was in their subordination to their
nobles, as that of the nobles consisted in obedience to their king. That
prejudice had long passed away, and Frenchmen now admired, not without
envy, the noble system of masculine freedom which had been consolidated
by the successive efforts of so many patriots in so many ages. A sudden
revulsion seemed to take place in their general feelings towards their
neighbours, and France, who had so long dictated to all Europe in
matters of fashion, seemed now herself disposed to borrow the more
simple forms and fashions of her ancient rival. The spirit of imitating
the English, was carried even to the verge of absurdity.[34] Not only
did Frenchmen of quality adopt the round hat and frock coat, which set
etiquette at defiance--not only had they English carriages, dogs, and
horses, but even English butlers were hired, that the wine, which was
the growth of France, might be placed on the table with the grace
peculiar to England.[35] These were, indeed, the mere ebullitions of
fashion carried to excess, but, like the foam on the crest of the
billow, they argued the depth and strength of the wave beneath, and,
insignificant in themselves, were formidable as evincing the contempt
with which the French now regarded all those forms and usages, which had
hitherto been thought peculiar to their own country. This principle of
imitation rose to such extravagance, that it was happily termed the
Anglomania.[36]
While the young French gallants were emulously employed in this mimicry
of the English fashions, relinquishing the external signs of rank which
always produced some effect on the vulgar, men of thought and reflection
were engaged in analyzing those principles of the British government, on
which the national character has been formed, and which have afforded
her the means of rising from so many reverses, and maintaining a sway
among the kingdoms of Europe, so disproportioned to her population and
extent.
[Sidenote: AMERICAN WAR.]
To complete the conquest of English opinions, even in France herself,
over those of French origin, came the consequences of the American War.
Those true Frenchmen who disdained to borrow the sentiments of political
freedom from England, might now derive them from a country with whom
France could have no rivalry, but in whom, on the contrary, she
recognised the enemy of the island, in policy or prejudice termed her
own natural foe. The deep sympathy manifested by the French in the
success of the American insurgents, though diametrically opposite to the
interests of their government, or perhaps of the nation at large, was
compounded of too many ingredients influencing all ranks, to be overcome
or silenced by cold considerations of political prudence. The nobility,
always eager of martial distinction, were in general desirous of war,
and most of them, the pupils of the celebrated _Encyclopédie_, were
doubly delighted to lend their swords to the cause of freedom. The
statesmen imagined that they saw, in the success of the American
insurgents, the total downfall of the English empire, or at least a far
descent from that pinnacle of dignity which she had attained at the
Peace of 1763, and they eagerly urged Louis XVI. to profit by the
opportunity, hitherto sought in vain, of humbling a rival so formidable.
In the courtly circles, and particularly in that which surrounded Marie
Antoinette, the American deputation had the address or good fortune to
become popular, by mingling in them with manners and sentiments entirely
opposite to those of courts and courtiers, and exhibiting, amid the
extremity of refinement, in dress, speech, and manners, a republican
simplicity, rendered interesting both by the contrast, and by the
talents which Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane evinced, not only in the
business of diplomacy, but in the intercourse of society.[37] Impelled
by these and other combining causes, a despotic government, whose
subjects were already thoroughly imbued with opinions hostile to its
constitution in Church and State, with a discontented people, and a
revenue wellnigh bankrupt, was thrust, as if by fatality, into a contest
conducted upon principles most adverse to its own existence.
The king, almost alone, whether dreading the expense of a ruinous war,
whether alarmed already at the progress of democratic principles, or
whether desirous of observing good faith with England, considered that
there ought to be a stronger motive for war, than barely the opportunity
of waging it with success; the king, therefore, almost alone, opposed
this great political error. It was not the only occasion in which, wiser
than his counsellors, he nevertheless yielded up to their urgency
opinions founded in unbiassed morality, and unpretending common sense. A
good judgment, and a sound moral sense, were the principal attributes of
this excellent prince, and happy it would have been had they been
mingled with more confidence in himself, and a deeper distrust of
others.
Other counsels prevailed over the private opinion of Louis--the war was
commenced--successfully carried on, and victoriously concluded. We have
seen that the French auxiliaries brought with them to America minds apt
to receive, if not already[38] imbued with, those principles of freedom
for which the colonies had taken up arms against the mother country, and
it is not to be wondered if they returned to France strongly
prepossessed in favour of a cause, for which they had encountered
danger, and in which they had reaped honour.[39]
The inferior officers of the French auxiliary army, chiefly men of
birth, agreeably to the existing rules of the French service, belonged,
most of them, to the class of country nobles, who, from causes, already
noticed, were far from being satisfied with the system which rendered
their rise difficult, in the only profession which their prejudices, and
those of France, permitted them to assume. The proportion of plebeians
who had intruded themselves, by connivance and indirect means, into the
military ranks, looked with eagerness to some change which should give a
free and open career to their courage and their ambition, and were
proportionally discontented with regulations which were recently
adopted, calculated to render their rise in the army more difficult than
before.[40] In these sentiments were united the whole of the
non-commissioned officers, and the ranks of the common soldiery, all of
whom, confiding in their own courage and fortune, now became indignant
at those barriers which closed against them the road to military
advancement, and to superior command. The officers of superior rank, who
derived their descent from the high noblesse, were chiefly young men of
ambitious enterprise and warm imaginations, whom not only a love of
honour, but an enthusiastic feeling of devotion to the new philosophy,
and the political principles which it inculcated, had called to arms.
Amongst these were Rochambeau, La Fayette, the Lameths, Chastellux,
Ségur, and others of exalted rank, but of no less exalted feelings for
the popular cause. They readily forgot, in the full current of their
enthusiasm, that their own rank in society was endangered by the
progress of popular opinions; or, if they at all remembered that their
interest was thus implicated, it was with the generous disinterestedness
of youth, prompt to sacrifice to the public advantage whatever of
selfish immunities was attached to their own condition.
The return of the French army from America thus brought a strong body of
auxiliaries to the popular and now prevalent opinions; and the French
love of military glory, which had so long been the safeguard of the
throne, became intimately identified with that distinguished portion of
the army which had been so lately and so successfully engaged in
defending the claims of the people against the rights of an established
government.[41] Their laurels were green and newly gathered, while those
which had been obtained in the cause of monarchy were of an ancient
date, and tarnished by the reverses of the Seven Years' War. The
reception of the returned soldiery and their leaders was proportionally
enthusiastic; and it became soon evident, that when the eventful
struggle betwixt the existing monarchy and its adversaries should
commence, the latter were to have the support in sentiment, and probably
in action, of that distinguished part of the army, which had of late
maintained and recovered the military character of France. It was,
accordingly, from its ranks that the Revolution derived many of its most
formidable champions, and it was their example which detached a great
proportion of the French soldiers from their natural allegiance to the
sovereign, which had been for so many ages expressed in their war-cry of
"Vive le Roi," and which was revived, though with an altered object, in
that of "Vive l'Empereur."
There remains but to notice the other proximate cause of the Revolution,
but which is so intimately connected with its rise and progress, that we
cannot disjoin it from our brief review of the revolutionary movements
to which it gave the first decisive impulse.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes.
[25] See his Maximes et Pensées, &c. &c. He died by his own hand in
1794.
[26] Revolution of America, 1781, pp. 44, 58. When, however, Raynal
beheld the abuse of liberty in the progress of the French Revolution, he
attempted to retrieve his errors. In May, 1791, he addressed to the
Constituent Assembly a most eloquent letter, in which he says, "I am, I
own to you, deeply afflicted at the crimes which plunge this empire into
mourning. It is true that I am to look back with horror at myself for
being one of those who, by feeling a noble indignation against ambitious
power, may have furnished arms to licentiousness." Raynal was deprived
of all his property during the Revolution, and died in poverty in 1796.
[27] Ségur's Memoirs, vol. i., p. 39.
[28] Diderot, &c., the conductors of the celebrated Encyclopédie.
[29] Lacretelle Hist. de France, tom. i., p. 105; Mémoires de Mad. Du
Barry, tom. ii., p. 3.
[30] The particulars we allude to, though suppressed in the second
edition of Madame Roland's Mémoires, are restored in the "Collection des
Mémoires rélatifs à la Révolution Française," published at Paris, [56
vols. 8vo.] This is fair play; for if the details be disgusting, the
light which they cast upon the character of the author is too valuable
to be lost.--S.
[31]
"Others apart sat on a hill retired,
In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost."
PAR. LOST, b. ii.
[32] The battle was fought May 1, 1745, between the French, under
Marshal Saxe, and the allies, under William Duke of Cumberland.
[33] Private letters or mandates, issued under the royal _signet_, for
the apprehension of individuals who were obnoxious to the court.
[34] Ségur, tom. i., p. 268; ii., p. 24.
[35] One striking feature of this Anglomania was the general institution
of _Clubs_, and the consequent desertion of female society. "If our
happy inconstancy," wrote Baron de Grimm, in 1790, "did not give room to
hope that the fashion will not be everlasting, it might certainly be
apprehended that the taste for clubs would lead insensibly to a very
marked revolution both in the spirit and morals of the nation; but that
disposition, which we possess by nature, of growing tired of every
thing, affords some satisfaction in all our follies."--_Correspondence._
[36] An instance is given, ludicrous in itself, but almost prophetic,
when connected with subsequent events. A courtier, deeply infected with
the fashion of the time, was riding beside the king's carriage at a full
trot, without observing that his horse's heels threw the mud into the
royal vehicle. "Vous me crottez, monsieur," said the king. The horseman,
considering the words were "Vous trottez," and that the prince
complimented his equestrian performance, answered, "Oui, sire, à
l'Angloise." The good-humoured monarch drew up the glass, and only said
to the gentleman in the carriage, "Voilà une Anglomanie bien forte!"
Alas! the unhappy prince lived to see the example of England, in her
most dismal period, followed to a much more formidable extent.--S.
[37] See Ségur, tom. i., p. 101.
[38] By some young enthusiasts, the assumption of republican habits was
carried to all the heights of revolutionary affectation and
extravagance. Ségur mentions a young coxcomb, named Mauduit, who already
distinguished himself by renouncing the ordinary courtesies of life, and
insisting on being called by his Christian and surname, without the
usual addition of Monsieur.--S.--"Mauduit's career was short, and his
end an unhappy one; for being employed at St. Domingo, he threw himself
among a party of revolters, and was assassinated by the
negroes."--SÉGUR.
[39] "The passion for republican institutions infected even the
courtiers of the palace. Thunders of applause shook the theatre of
Versailles at the celebrated lines of Voltaire--
"Je suis fils de Brutus, et je porte en mon cœur
La liberté gravée et les rois en horreur."
SÉGUR, tom. i., p. 253.
[40] Plebeians formerly got into the army by obtaining the subscription
of four men of noble birth, attesting their patrician descent; and such
certificates, however false, could always be obtained for a small sum.
But by a regulation of the Count Ségur, after the American war,
candidates for the military profession were obliged to produce a
certificate of noble birth from the king's genealogist, in addition to
the attestations which were formerly held sufficient.--S.
[41] Lacretelle, tom. v., p. 341.