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 PROFESSOR SMYTH'S 
 
 LECTURES ON THE FRENCH 
 
 REVOLUTION 
 
 VOL. I
 
 Lately published 
 by the same Author- the Second Edition in Two Volumes Qvo. 
 
 LECTURES ON MODERN HISTORY 
 
 FIRST SERIES 
 
 FROM THE IRRUPTION OF THE NORTHERN NATIONS 
 
 TO THE CLOSE OF THE AMERICAN 
 
 REVOLUTION
 
 LECTURES ON HISTORY 
 
 SECOND AND CONCLUDING SERIES 
 
 ON 
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 BY WILLIAM SMYTH 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MODERN IIISTOR'i IN llli; 
 UNIVERSITY OF CAMDRIDOE 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 J. AND J. J. D E I G H T O N 
 
 WILLIAM PICKERING 
 
 LONDON 
 
 1840 
 
 ■ . o , 
 
 •i * J O t 1 
 
 ? J > 3 » >
 
 CHARLES WHITTINGHAM, 
 CHISWICK. 
 
 
 , c * • !•.•••• • "
 
 v./ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Page 
 
 Lecture L Louis XIV 1 
 
 "^ IL Louis XIV 28 
 
 <*> III. Louis XV 50 
 
 IV. Louis XV 74 
 
 5 V. Louis XVI.— Turgot.— Necker, &c 94 
 
 N VI. Calonne 118 
 
 ^ VII. Necker 138 
 
 
 VIII. Tiers Etat 160 
 
 IX. Twenty-third of June 180 
 
 X. Fourteenth of July. The Bastile 204 
 
 XL Fourteenth of July 228 
 
 5 XII. Bailly 252 
 
 1 XIII. Ferrieres 278 
 
 2 XIV. Necessity of Executive Power 302 
 
 ■^ XV. Fourth of August. Destruction of Feudal Rights and 
 
 < Church Establishment 323 
 
 ^ XVI. Mounier. La Fayette. No proper Executive Power . 353 
 
 is 
 
 LU 
 
 o 
 
 42S7B1
 
 LECTURES ON THE FRENCH 
 REVOLUTION. 
 
 LECTURE L 
 
 LOUIS XIV. 
 
 The two following Lectures were originally delivered immedi- 
 ately after the Lectures on the Revolution of 1688. 
 
 1810. 
 
 WE have been now long engaged in the history of 
 England, which it was impossible to leave, while the 
 civil and at last the religious liberties of the country were at 
 issue. 
 
 But we may at length turn to the continent, and inquire 
 what had been in the mean time the history of France. 
 
 We are supposed to have left the French history at the 
 death of Henry IV. The monarchy of France grew up from 
 small beginnings, from the constant accession of one province 
 after another, to the central province, of which Paris was the 
 capital ; in this manner it swelled out at last into that great 
 kingdom, which of all others has had the most influence on 
 the affairs of Europe. Of this monarchy it was Henry IV. 
 that must be considered as amongst the most distinguished 
 founders ; it was he who combined and compressed its 
 discordant parts into a whole ; who first harmonized to a 
 sufficient degree its jarring civil and religious interests by the 
 mildness of his counsels and the viscour of his administration. 
 He appeared at the precise period when the want of such 
 a man was most urgent; and with serious faults in his 
 private, and such defects in his public character, as we have
 
 2 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 noticed, he has always been (and not very unnaturally) the 
 idol of the French people. 
 
 The next interyal is frcni- .that event to the death of Maza- 
 rin, v^^he:.! JiOuj?. XIY. 'a^suined the reins of government 
 himself, and 'became 'his- own nlinister. This was an interval 
 of about half a century, from the middle of the reign of 
 James I. in our own history to the Restoration. During this 
 time, in England, the constitution had been struggling through 
 its difficulties in the strange manner we have seen ; and it 
 might have been hoped that the constitution of France would 
 have made some similar advance to regularity and ameliora- 
 tion. But this was not the case ; and so forgotten were all 
 the best interests, so dissipated and misdirected were all the 
 energies of this great nation, that it is difficult for any one, not 
 a native, even to read the narratives of their historians. 
 
 Louis XIII. came to the crown at the age of nine, and, 
 though the son of the great Henry, remained through life 
 only a fit object of tutelage. Louis XIV. became king when 
 only five years old. So that it is the history of the first 
 favourites, and it is the reigns of Richelieu and Mazarin that 
 we are to read, not of the kings of France. 
 
 The whole, therefore, as might be expected, is a tissue of 
 inexplicable intrigue, which no patience can well unravel, and 
 which it were not worth the labour to unravel, if the attempt 
 were practicable. Whoever succeeded or whoever failed, the 
 queen consort or the queen mother, the minister or the nobility, 
 the Italian favourite or the prince of the blood, the intriguer 
 in the court or the intriguer in the parliament and in the mob 
 of Paris, the people were equally forgotten, and the constitu- 
 tion of the kingdom equally neglected. The authority of the 
 crown, the grandeur of France, and her weight in the politics 
 of Europe, are the only objects deserving of attention which 
 the annals of France have now to offer, even when the objects 
 are of the most dignified nature ; the public good, in every 
 rational sense of the word, seems never to have been within 
 the comprehension of any functionary, or any one description 
 of men in the state. 
 
 In reading the history of France, the Abbe de Mably, an 
 author of strong democratic feelings, may perhaps have 
 accustomed us to expect too much ; but, with the story of
 
 I. LOUIS XIV. 3 
 
 England fresh in the memory, it is impossible not to be 
 impatient on the subject of the civil liberties of France ; impa- 
 tient to observe, that by no prince or minister, at any period 
 or in any shape, any proper representative body, or any fair 
 approach to it, could be created or suffered to exist; even the 
 great Henry, though he called the States General together, in 
 his conversation with his courtiers made light of their autho- 
 rity. 
 
 The first surprise that an English student meets with, on 
 turning to consider this period, is to find that there is no 
 history of the ministers, Richelieu and Mazarin, not even of 
 Richelieu, that has obtained any literary reputation. The 
 lives that are quoted are those by Aubery, which are repre- 
 sented by Voltaire as very fit for the purposes of information ; 
 but it will not, I think, be found an easy task to read them. 
 There is a life of Richelieu by Le Clerc, which is considered 
 as very accurate, and may therefore, like the former, be 
 consulted : but this work is not esteemed in France the work 
 of a good writer, or of a man capable of forming political 
 views. 
 
 With regard to Mazarin, it is quite a specimen of the 
 times, of the minister, and of the people, that a sort of history 
 of him has been marmfactured out of the different satires, 
 epigrams, and occasional pieces of pleasantry which appeared 
 in the course of his administration, arranged in the order of 
 the events to which they refer. 
 
 The memoirs of these times that have been drawn up and 
 published with and without names are innumerable. Of 
 original works, the best are those of M. de Motteville, M. de 
 Montpensier, Cardinal De Retz, Guy Joly, Rochefoucault, 
 M. De la Fayette, La Faire, Gourville, and St. Simon ; these 
 are read, particularly the Memoirs of De Retz. From 
 original works like these, the following histories have been 
 drawn up : L' Intrigue du Cabinet, Louis XIV. sa Cour et le 
 Regent, par D'Anquetil ; L'Esprit de la Fronde, not by 
 D'Anquetil, as supposed ; these last are the books to which I 
 think it best to refer you. 
 
 The memoirs of De Retz are always read ; but, notwith- 
 standing their general liveliness, and the sagacity of the 
 maxims with which they abound, the reader will do well to
 
 4 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 choose out of the pages such as promise well. For a con- 
 tinued scene of intrigue, which cannot be supposed fairly 
 represented by one who was himself the soul of it, which from 
 its complexity it is impossible to understand, and of which 
 the object seems only to have been whether an Italian 
 favourite, a man of like subtlety and intrigue with the author 
 himself, should or should not be the minister of the country ; 
 a picture like this, whatever be the ability of the artist, soon 
 loses its attraction ; and the work, even while entertaining and 
 instructive, for the reasons I have mentioned, seldom rises to 
 the merit of historical instruction. 
 
 The better to judge of this period, and of what may be 
 expected from the accounts given of it by the French writers, 
 the English reader may, in the first place, look at the history 
 as given in different chapters in Russell's Modern History ; he 
 may next find an account suflficiently detailed in the Modern 
 Universal History, with all the French works referred to in 
 the margin ; and lastly, he may consider all that Voltaire, no 
 incompetent judge when the history of France is concerned, 
 has thought it necessary to say on this part of his subject, in 
 the one hundred and seventy fifth and one hundred and 
 seventy sixth chapters of his Essay on the Manners and 
 Spirit of Nations ; when to all these have been added the 
 animated observations of the Abbe de Mably, the reader will 
 be able, I expect, without further research, to form an estimate 
 of the whole sufiicient for all the purposes of real instruction. 
 The chapters in Russell, then, and those in the Modern 
 Universal History and in Voltaire, with the Abbe de Mably, 
 may be sufficient ; or, finally, the French work L' Intrigue du 
 Cabinet presents a narrative which an English reader may go 
 through with considerable interest in many parts, and on the 
 whole without fatigue, and it is quite circumstantial enough 
 for the most regular reader of history. 
 
 But while these sheets are going to press, I perceive that 
 new assistance has been offered to the English reader, and I 
 have had an opportunity of reading the late work of Mr. James 
 on the Life and Times of Louis XIV. ; the two first volumes 
 are dedicated to that part of the history which preceded his 
 formal accession to the throne ; great diligence seems to have 
 been employed by the author, and I know not how the
 
 I. LOUIS XIV. 5 
 
 student can so readily find, as in these pages, all that he need 
 wish to know of the intrigues of Cardinal De Retz, the war of 
 the Fronde, the efforts made to remove Cardinal Mazarin 
 from the administration of the g-overnment, and the struoorles 
 of the minister, with the assistance of Anne of Austria, the 
 queen mother, to retain it. Conde and Turenne give some 
 dignity to the scene, by their appearance in it ; but it is still a 
 miserable scene, tedious and perplexing from its petty intrigues 
 and the total want of any elevated views or patriotic objects 
 in those who were the principal actors in it. We may be 
 grateful to Mr. James for having, notwithstanding, made an 
 interesting work, and for having endeavoured to enable us to 
 understand their movements, and having on this account 
 consulted all the memoirs that relate to them, and compared 
 and judged of their results with candour and ability. His 
 general conclusion may be adopted, that during the wars of 
 the Fronde, neither De Retz, nor Conde, nor Turenne, nor 
 Bouillon, nor La Rochefoucault, nor Beaufort, nor the duke 
 of Orleans had any other design but to serve their vanity, 
 their mterest, their pride, or their resentment ; — that, on the 
 contrary, there really did exist with the court party a great 
 and permanent object, the maintenance of the royal authority ; 
 for this the queen and all her partisans struggled throughout 
 the whole of the contest, and without securing it Mazarin 
 could not rule with any effect ; and this unanimity with regard 
 to their object gave ultimate predominance to the royal party. 
 
 The work that is most known and quoted, more particularly 
 by English readers, is La Vassor ; it must be consulted, 
 especially when any decision is to be formed about the con- 
 duct of the Huguenots or Louis XIV., but it is too long and 
 tedious, and embraces too wide a range. La Vassor was a 
 French refugee, and is not liked by the French critics and 
 writers, chiefly, I suspect, on account of the freedom and 
 propriety of his remarks. The description of his work by 
 Voltaire, in his account of the writers of the age of Louis XIV. 
 will, to an English ear, sound rather like praise, than the 
 censure which seems intended. 
 
 In England, during the period we are now considering, the 
 public disturbances were connected with the public interests ; 
 so, on the continent, the religious interests every where, but
 
 6 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 in France, had a reference to the civil interests of the con- 
 tending parties. In France, on the contrary, the constitution 
 of the country seemed httle concerned in the pubhc disputes ; 
 and when the great Henry and Sully were removed, this 
 unfortunate country was doomed to feel how wide is the 
 difference between a good king or minister and a good con- 
 stitution of government. These men, great and good as they 
 were, and patriotic as they might think themselves, had left 
 no public assembly to represent the nation. The States 
 General had been suffered to fall into disuse, or when sum- 
 moned, only appeared an unwieldy mass, torn asunder by 
 internal jealousies and partial interests, and without any 
 public views. The parliament, in the mean time, could not 
 exercise the authority of the community without evident 
 usurpation. There remained, therefore, on the stage of public 
 affairs, the sovereign, the princes of the blood, and the nobles, 
 the Huguenots, the intriguers in and out of Paris, and the 
 court and court favourites. The intriguers and the court 
 contending with the princes of the blood and the nobles for 
 the plunder of the public ; the nobles, when foiled, ready to 
 set up for sovereign-princes in their own domains, or join the 
 arms of Spain ; the Huguenots always feeling or apprehending 
 infractions of the edict of Nantz, and therefore exposed to be 
 driven or led aside into new civil and religious wars by every 
 enemy of the court or state ; and the power of the crown, the 
 object of the general veneration and regard, converted by 
 force, or by fraud, to serve the private purposes of all parties 
 in their turn ; an afflicting spectacle this, and a striking proof 
 of the value of the representative assemblies of a nation in 
 every era of society, from the rudest to the most refined. Of 
 this period, as I have mentioned, the two distinguished men 
 are Richelieu and Mazarin. 
 
 Richelieu, who first appears, is evidently fitted for a scene 
 like this in many most important respects ; but he either did 
 not comprehend the whole of his high office, or did not live to 
 perform it. The first supposition seems nearest the truth, his 
 objects were the grandeur of France and the force of the 
 monarchy. The permanent happiness of the great mass of 
 the community was only secondary, if indeed it occurred at 
 all. His great merit was tliat power of genius, which rules
 
 I. LOUIS XIV. 7 
 
 every thing around it apparently with or without the necessary 
 means ; his great fault, the want of real patriotism and en- 
 lightened benevolence. He however surveyed the situation 
 of his country, had his objects, and accomphshed them. He 
 could be at no loss to perceive that abroad the great power 
 opposed to France was the house of Austria ; that at home 
 the executive authority was constantly thwarted or controlled, 
 and would always continue to be so, if the princes of the 
 blood and the nobles were not broken down and subdued. 
 And to Richelieu it must have appeared, that neither the 
 house of Austria nor the nobles could be reduced to any 
 tolerable state of inferiority, unless the Huguenots were first 
 crushed ; a powerful body, who could be practised upon by 
 both, and between whom and the court there was a never 
 failing source of mutual jealousy and hostility in the difference 
 of their religious tenets. Such must have been the views and 
 reasonings of Richelieu, and therefore, without troubling him- 
 self about principles or rights, and with no other means but 
 the resources of his own genius, and the authority which 
 belonged to him as the representative of the crown, no leader 
 of armies or military conqueror, he performed the achieve- 
 ments of those who are. He supported the Protestants in 
 Germany, while he subdued the Protestants in France; he 
 broke the force of the house of Austria abroad, and of the 
 nobles at home ; awed the legislative bodies, the parliaments, 
 and all the functionaries of the state; dissipated, terrified, 
 and subjected to his will the intriguers, the courtiers, the 
 generals, the princes of the blood, the nobility, the queen 
 consort, the queen mother, and the very king he served ; 
 imprisoned, ruined, proscribed, or brought to the scaffold 
 every person of authority or respect who could be opposed to 
 him ; and, on the whole, must be considered as the greatest 
 example of the controlling powers of a single mind in the 
 history of any civilized country. 
 
 Peter the Great, when he visited France, embraced his 
 statue in a transport of admiration. We may understand 
 this in the Tamer of Russians ; but it is difficult, after all, 
 to consider Richelieu as a patriot, or the enlightened bene- 
 factor of France ; he cleared away the ground, and this was 
 no doubt a great achievement, for any edifice to be hereafter
 
 8 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 erected for the happiness of his country, but he erected none 
 himself: he left nothing behind him but the royal authority. 
 It may be said, indeed, by his admirers, that amidst the 
 violence of friends and foes, it may not be easy to appreciate 
 his character, proper reference being had to the times in which 
 he lived. " II a fait trop du mal," says the French epigram, 
 " pour en dire du bien ; il a fait trop du bon pour en dire du 
 mal." He is favourably dismissed with a distich like this. 
 
 Had another minister succeeded with powers of genius like 
 his own, and animated with a generous patriotism, it is possi- 
 ble that during the feebleness of Louis XIII. and the minority 
 of Louis XIV. some provisions might have been made for the 
 proper management of the powers and principles of the con- 
 stitution, for the States General, the parliaments, and the 
 various acknowledged authorities of that great kingdom, and 
 that England might not have been the only country in the 
 world where the civil and religious liberties of mankind were 
 to be found successfully established, amid the ruins of the 
 papal power and of the feudal system, at the close of the 
 seventeenth century. But no such happiness awaited France 
 or Europe, for it was Mazarin who succeeded ; a minister 
 who assisted to build up the national grandeur of France 
 (according to the general notions of national grandeur), and 
 that with more skill and success than were at the time 
 acknowledged, but not a minister with a genius like Richelieu, 
 still less with a benevolence that could meditate upon the 
 political situation of a great people ; still less with the under- 
 standing that could revive the energies of a free constitution. 
 
 The nation, in the mean time, thought as little of its best 
 interests as did Mazarin. Compare it with England : instead 
 of the Hampdens and Falklands of our own country, the 
 debates of the long parliament, the battle of Naseby, the 
 exile of James, the election of William, and the enactment of 
 the Bill of Rights, — we have the Cardinal de Retz and the 
 Counsellor Broussel, the intrigues of the town house of Paris, 
 the parliament, and the court, the war of the Fronde, and the 
 alternate fortunes of the Italian favourite ; while the issue of 
 the whole is, the settlement of all differences and disputes, 
 and the final extinction of all hope for the liberties of France, 
 in the rising talents and popularity of Louis XIV.
 
 I. LOUIS XIV. 9 
 
 Louis finished the work which Richeheu had so powerfully 
 begun ; he stepped at once, while yet a youth of fourteen, 
 into the place which that extraordinary man had so prepared 
 for his reception ; and this great nation, most unfortunately 
 for itself and for the world, seems from that moment to have 
 identified its own dignity and happiness with the personal 
 authority and aggrandizement of the monarch on the throne. 
 
 The great object on which the eyes of Europe were turned, 
 for nearly half a century, was Louis XIV.: and on this 
 account, not only the political but even the personal character 
 of the monarch has become a subject of history, and as such 
 must be studied. 
 
 In like manner, a very great interest belongs to the lives 
 and characters, the qualities and talents, of the statesmen, 
 the generals, the men of science and literature, who adorned 
 this remarkable age. 
 
 The subject, therefore, in all its relations, is very copious. 
 It has attracted the genius of the celebrated Voltaire, and has . 
 given occasion to one of his most agreeable and admired 
 productions. If in the general subject, of the reign of Louis, 
 the literature connected with it be included, it may occupy 
 your attention to any possible extent; and it becomes my 
 province, as usual, to mention such works, not as may, but as 
 must be read ; and to attempt, at the same time, to give some 
 faint description of the general importance that belongs to the 
 whole. 
 
 But there is another reason which induces me to recom- 
 mend this part of history to your consideration. It is this : 
 the European forms of government, though originally founded 
 on principles more or less popular, have in general lost their 
 public assemblies, and degenerated into arbitrary monarchies ; 
 monarchies, no doubt, very easily to be distinguished from 
 the monarchies of the east ; but to be distinguished also from 
 that particular monarchy established in our own island. Now 
 to me it appears, that Louis XIV. and his court, the French 
 monarchy and its establishments, the king, the courtiers, and 
 the nobles, the fleets and the armies, the laws and the police, 
 pubhc edifices and institutions, the arts, the sciences, the 
 literature of France, at this renowned period, form altogether, 
 not indeed a fair general specimen, but the most favourable
 
 10 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 specimen that can be well conceived of an arbitrary govern- 
 ment founded upon the European model, but existing without 
 any proper representative bodies of the people. 
 
 What I wish, therefore, the student to do, is to consider 
 well this the most favourable specimen before him ; what are 
 its merits, what its demerits, what on the whole its value, and 
 continually to compare it with our own. 
 
 The whole subject, thus considered, comprises a multiplicity 
 of facts, and has relation to many different principles, but is 
 still, I think, intelligible, and within the limit of an estimate : 
 and to form such an estimate is, as I conceive, a task worthy 
 of any student's best powers of investigation and reflection. 
 
 The form of government established in this island will 
 materially facilitate the progress and increase the importance 
 of an inquiry like this. The histories and constitutions of 
 the two kingdoms have always served to illustrate each 
 other ; and this relation of contrast and comparison by no 
 means ceases at the period now before us. It rather in- 
 creases and seems brought to a sort of close. Survey the 
 whole of society in each kingdom ; in France, for instance, 
 the character of the monarch, the statesman, the courtier, 
 the nobleman, the lawyer, the merchant, and the citizen; 
 survey the military, the aristocratic, the national character. 
 These may, and should be, all compared with the corre- 
 sponding characters that exist in our own country. The 
 peculiar faults and merits of each of these should be traced 
 up, as in general they may, to the single circumstance of 
 certain differences in the forms of government established 
 in the two countries, particularly to the presence or absence 
 of the legislative assemblies ; and still more particularly to 
 the presence or absence of that assembly which represents 
 the people. Certain merits and benefits are compatible with 
 either form : some are found more in the one than in the 
 other ; some, for instance, more under an arbitrary or purely 
 monarchical government, like that of Louis XIV., than under 
 a mixed and free form like our own. 
 
 But as all human good is but the result of a favourable 
 balance struck between contending advantages and disadvan- 
 tages, the question is, on which side does this favourable 
 balance lie : in favour of the arbitrary or the mixed form ? and 
 to what degree does it preponderate ?
 
 I. 
 
 LOUIS XIV. 11 
 
 Were a subject like this, which I have now mentioned, 
 thoroughly investigated, many important mistakes and unfor- 
 tunate dekxsions might be avoided, especially by those who 
 live under a mixed government like our own. Such men are 
 continually expecting to enjoy the blessings of a free form of 
 government without any of its concomitant evils ; the greatest 
 good, without any of the disadvantages by which it must be 
 purchased ; they would have liberty, for instance, without 
 ever being exposed to any popular excesses ; but this is not 
 the manner in which nature dispenses her benefits ; it is to 
 require impossibilities. 
 
 Again, the euthanasia of the British constitution has been 
 said to be an arbitrary monarchy ; an arbitrary monarchy is 
 certainly the point to which it has a great tendency to con- 
 verge in any ordinary state of the world. Let, therefore, the 
 arbitrary monarchy of Louis XIV. be considered; it is, as I 
 have already mentioned, the most favourable specimen that 
 can be offered for our reflection. Let it then be considered, 
 and it will be seen what is the very best result that can 
 possibly take place, if ever the democratic part of our mixed 
 form of constitution, on whatever account, should fall into 
 decay. 
 
 It is for these reasons that I would recommend a more 
 diligent and extensive perusal of the private memoirs and 
 literary works belonging to the age of Louis XIV. than on 
 other occasions I should be disposed to think necessary. An 
 historian, that is, a writer or reader of history, as distinguished 
 from other writers or readers, must no doubt be distinguished 
 by a more intimate knowledge of the private memoirs and 
 literary productions connected with the courts and different 
 kingdoms of Europe. But this is a species of reading which, 
 though very attractive in itself, approaches not a little to a 
 sort of novel reading ; is apt to occupy too large a portion of 
 time, and rather fitted to render a man entertaining in society 
 than instructive in a senate, or intelligent in a cabinet. It is 
 a species of reading which, if long dwelt upon, is not likely 
 to form the mind to those commanding views, and general 
 conclusions which constitute the great interest of history, and 
 which, when they are just and can fairly be drawn, distinguish 
 the statesman from the courtier, and the philosopher from the 
 man of letters. With respect, however, to the age of Louis
 
 12 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 XIV., for the reasons I have mentioned, more of this species 
 of reading may be indulged in than would in general be 
 advisable ; and I shall proceed to state such works as I think 
 may be properly recommended to your attention. 
 
 The great magazine from which subsequent writers of 
 history and compilers of anecdotes have drawn their materials 
 is the Memoirs of the Due de St. Simon. 
 
 On the breaking out of the late French revolution, a com- 
 plete edition of this work seems then, for the first time, to 
 have been given to the world. Before that event it seems 
 not to have been allowed to appear, except in a mutilated 
 state. The freedom, that is the propriety, of remark, which 
 the duke had occasionally exercised, was too great to be 
 exposed to the consideration of the public while the system 
 of government remained the same : but this is only an addi- 
 tional recommendation to a philosophic inquirer. Of the 
 thirteen volumes, the first six belong to the reign of Louis XIV. 
 the two next to the regency of the duke of Orleans, four 
 others to the history of distinguished individuals, and the 
 concluding one to the researches of the duke into the nature 
 and prerogatives of the French peerage, the political constitu- 
 tion of Spain, and matters of a similar nature. 
 
 To render these memoirs properly interesting, or even 
 intelligible, the general detail of the events of the reign must 
 be first known, and must be learnt elsewhere ; and I should 
 therefore propose that some concise account should be read, 
 like that of Renault, for instance, or Millot, or the late, 
 history of D' Anquetil ; when this has been done, the allu- 
 sions and passing remarks and descriptions of St. Simon will 
 be properly felt and understood. Amidst a variety of other 
 matter, particulars of the following nature may be found ; the 
 extent of the king's natural genius and talents ; his ignorance 
 of history, laws, persons, and events, to a degree that led him 
 into occasional mistakes of the grossest nature ; his hatred of 
 birth and talents ; his rage for flattery ; his extreme egotism ; 
 his taste for details ; the manner in which his ministers made 
 him suppose that he directed every thing, while he was in 
 fact himself directed ; his contrivances to keep every one 
 anxious only for his favour, and dependent on that favour for 
 all personal consequence ; his system of espionage, extended
 
 I. 
 
 LOUIS XIV. 13 
 
 even to the opening- of letters. The very arbitrary and violent 
 nature of his selfishness, rendering every one around him (his 
 children, mistresses and courtiers) entirely subsei-vient to his 
 own whims and amusements, in defiance of all considerations 
 of their convenience, and even of their health ; his exterior 
 advantages, his fetes, his gallantries, his mistresses, his splen- 
 dour; the remarkable history of Madame de Maintenon, her 
 management of the king and his ministers ; these are the 
 topics of the work, interspersed with many curious anecdotes 
 and descriptions of the king's children, legitimate and illegiti- 
 mate, with some account of Fenelon ; of the duke of Bur- 
 gundy, the hope of the nation, and of his duchess, the delight 
 of the court. 
 
 The revocation of the edict of Nantz, and some of the 
 leading events of the reign are also discussed ; and among 
 the lives of distinguished persons, some may be readily selected 
 as of more particular consequence, Fenelon, for instance, 
 Heinsius, James II., William III. 
 
 That part which relates to military transactions seems 
 imperfect and very partial, but may be consulted by those 
 who wish to see the manner in which the humiliation of 
 France was surveyed by St. Simon, and probably by most 
 Frenchmen at the time. No proper testimony is paid to the 
 genius of Marlborough, and the English reader looks in vain 
 for the hero and the triumphs of his nation. 
 
 On the whole, the greatest part of these six volumes is 
 worth reading. It is observable, however, that all the good 
 sei?se, that all the virtue, and even the almost cynical spirit of 
 St. Simon, never seem to have suggested to his mind the 
 radical and fatal defect of the whole system, and amidst all 
 the misfortunes of his country, the greatest misfortune of all, 
 the want of a free constitution. The duke even declares to 
 his reader, that he meddles not with politics, and means only 
 to describe what he has himself seen or learned from others 
 of the scene that is more immediately around him. But this 
 circumstance does not render the work at all less important, 
 in the way I have proposed this subject of the reign of 
 Louis XIV. to your consideration. You have only, on this 
 account, the picture of the court of an arbitrary monarch on 
 the European model more faithfully given, and the facility of
 
 14 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 comparing it with your own more complete. And to this 
 task I must therefore take this opportunity of again exhorting 
 you to direct your attention. 
 
 But before I proceed, I must add a word more on the 
 subject of these Memoirs of the Due de St. Simon. 
 
 The lectures that I am now delivering, on the reign of 
 Louis XIV. and on the regency of the Duke of Orleans, were 
 written nearly twenty years ago, and I then naturally depended 
 on the edition of the Memoirs of the Due de St. Simon which 
 had just been published ; a new edition is now, at the close of 
 1829, making its appearance, being the real Memoirs that 
 were drawn up by the Duke himself, and which are now 
 given to the world by the Marquis de St. Simon, from the 
 original MS. in the possession of the editors. The fact seems 
 to have been that the duke had put together eleven folio 
 volumes of papers, manuscript and printed, which he made 
 the materials of his Memoirs ; from these eleven volumes, 
 that were lodged in the Depot des Affaires Strangers, an 
 extract was made by the Abbe de Voisenon, in eight volumes 
 quarto, and from this extract was made another extract, in 
 three volumes octavo, with four of supplement ; but these last 
 seven volumes seem not to have satisfied the public, and on 
 the breaking out of the French revolution, as I have men- 
 tioned, a new work was formed out of the eleven volumes 
 folio, which is the work of which I have just described the 
 contents, and on which I have hitherto relied. Upon com- 
 paring it with the edition now given to the world by the 
 Marquis de St. Simon, I find no occasion to make any altera- 
 tion in what I have said in my prior lectures; every thing 
 that is in the old edition will be found somewhere or other in 
 the new ; but the expressions are sometimes a little modified, 
 and slight omissions made; the whole, however, is new 
 arranged, and much is added by the duke, many new person- 
 ages are brought forward, many new scenes described, addi- 
 tional anecdotes given ; on the whole, the work is now more 
 than ever fitted to answer the purpose I have just mentioned, 
 that of affording the reader a complete notion of the nature 
 of the characters that are to be found under an absolute 
 European monarchy. It is not too much to say, that while 
 reading these volumes, we are as much placed by the side of
 
 I. LOUIS XIV. 15 
 
 Louis and the regent, and passing our days in the midst of 
 the court and courtiers by whom they were surrounded, as if 
 we had lived at Versailles at the time. We hear of the 
 deaths and the marriages, the characters and views of the 
 parties, the fetes and the balls, the intrigues, the gossip and 
 scandal, the news, private and public, every subject, grave or 
 gay, that has occurred, and all given by a very spirited 
 observer, a man of sagacity and sense, and one the very child 
 and creature of such scenes in every respect, except that he 
 was a man of sincere relioion and severe virtue. 
 
 It is true, that a description of this kind will differently 
 affect men of different education and views ; men of republican 
 character will turn away from it with impatience and con- 
 tempt; while, on the other hand, it will not be without its 
 interest, or even its charm, to those who are fitted to take a 
 part in such scenes by the elegance of their manners or the 
 variety of their accomplishments ; and even the philosopher, 
 while he cannot approve (though he may feel the necessity of 
 monarchy) such an exhibition of human nature, as this must 
 be thought, will perhaps be content to consider it as an 
 unfortunate exaggeration of what is in itself neither without 
 its grace nor without its use; he will be ready to acknow- 
 ledge, as the physical strength is always with the multitude, 
 that ranks and distinctions, ceremonials and etiquettes (and 
 therefore those of a court) are among the fences and safe- 
 guards of civilized society; that they silently and peacefully 
 undermine and weaken the empire of brute force among 
 mankind, and call into play other influences of a more 
 intellectual, and therefore more elevated nature; and the 
 only point of anxiety to such a philosopher will be, that the 
 expense of the machinery be not too great, and the injury 
 done to the natural feelings and affections of the heart not 
 too deep and too extensive. 
 
 Certainly the court of Louis XIV. must always be con- 
 sidered as a very remarkable phenomenon in the history of 
 the civilization of mankind ; such, we may say, were our 
 fellow creatures once, in the most distinguished portion, at 
 the time of improving Europe ; and what a curious spectacle, 
 it may surely be added, is here displayed ! under what 
 strange, and often whimsical forms, does our common nature
 
 16 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 here appear ! our vanities, our frailties, and our follies, our 
 noble qualities, our heroism, and our virtues, our genius, our 
 religious feelings, all that is great in our composition, and all 
 that is little, under what extraordinary aspects are they here 
 presented ! Who can wonder that the memoirs connected 
 with these scenes should never want an interest, and to this 
 hour should not want an interest to the readers in fashionable 
 life ; and even, if a real specvdator on human nature, to the 
 philosopher in the shade. But with reference to this new 
 edition of St. Simon, the great misfortune is, that it is 
 now extended to twenty volumes, and I have therefore to 
 observe to you, with some satisfaction, that to each chapter 
 there is a very good index, and by this means a selection of 
 the topics that are most interesting may easily be made. 
 The impression that was given me by the former work, has 
 been now renewed and extremely strengthened. What my 
 first impression was, you will see in the next lecture; from 
 the present work, what I have chiefly brought away is a 
 more strong sense of the misery and ruin of France, produced 
 by the victories of Marlborough and Eugene ; and of the 
 terror and subdued state not only of Louis and his court, but 
 still more of the common people of Paris, and, at the same 
 time, of all intelligent men in the kingdom. Again, a very 
 strong confirmation is afforded of the accuracy of the views of 
 the Whig party in England. All this appears very strongly 
 marked in the present production. And again, the minute 
 and more endless detail of the new work makes more than 
 ever striking the extraordinary system of etiquette that was 
 established, and all the faults and prejudices not only of 
 Louis, the monarch, but of St. Simon, the peer of France, 
 himself. 
 
 The work, however, of St. Simon, it must be confessed, 
 presents a task of considerable labour to the general reader, 
 even though proper advantage is taken of the index, as I 
 have already recommended ; and I proceed, therefore, to men- 
 tion a book which may be proposed not only as a sort of 
 substitute, but as one which, on account of its own merits 
 and popularity, must at all events be perused. This is the 
 work of Du Clos. There is a good preface, and the author 
 acknowledges his obligations to the Duke of St. Simon, whose
 
 r. LOUIS XIV. 17 
 
 particular prejudices he states, and proposes to avoid. It 
 is the history of men and manners, the spirit of the age 
 which Duclos hopes to give ; and the work is certainly very 
 pleasing, the observations those of an acute and sensible 
 writer. That part which relates to Louis XIV. is short ; 
 the work begins, unfortunately, at too late a period ; it must 
 be all read ; and the second book, which contains, more 
 especially, the author's estimate of Louis, should be well 
 weighed. 
 
 After Duclos may be consulted a work lately published by 
 Lacretelle ; a history of France during the eighteenth century, 
 to be connected with his late work on the French Revolution, 
 Lacretelle is an author of reputation ; the first book relates 
 to the close of the reign of Louis XIV., and is very well worth 
 readino-. 
 
 But the most agreeable work of all is that of D'Anquetil, 
 entitled, " Louis le Quatorze, sa Cour et le Regent." It is 
 a work compiled from all the most interesting performances 
 that relate to the general subject. Every thing that concerns 
 Louis XIV. is touched upon, and in a manner the most easy 
 and agreeable. But no subject can be said properly to be 
 discussed ; and with all the good sense of the author, it is 
 entertainment, rather than philosophic instruction, that he 
 affords. The work may be Ukened to a gallery of portraits, 
 which a spectator is led along to look at, and when some- 
 thing interesting and appropriate has been said of each, he is 
 left to depart. The work is prefaced by a valuable account 
 of all the publications connected with the general subject, 
 accompanied with a short critique on each. Both are, on 
 every account, of great consequence to an English reader. 
 
 The student must, on the whole, remember that the kind of 
 personal acquaintance which is desirable with all the more 
 remarkable characters of this age, can only be acquired from 
 this publication, which D'Anquetil seems to have devoted to 
 that very purpose. 
 
 Among such characters must be numbered Madame de 
 Maintenon, the mistress, or rather the wife of Louis. Such 
 were her qualities, her talents, and her situation, that the 
 particulars of her life form a part of the history of the times ; 
 and her memoirs must be read to make you thoroughly 
 
 c
 
 18 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 acquainted with that monarch and that court, on whom, 
 unfortunately, so much of the happiness of Europe at the 
 time depended. Her memoirs, edited by Beaumelle (the 
 book so decried by Voltaire), has been able to preserve its 
 reputation, notwithstanding the censures and invectives of a 
 writer so universally read and admired on the continent, as 
 Voltaire. It is still considered by French scholars as giving 
 an extremely good account of what it professes to describe, 
 and as necessary to be read. 
 
 The reader must prepare himself to submit to the eternal 
 praises of Madame de Maintenon, and he may contrast the 
 unfavourable representations of St. Simon with the unlimited 
 panegyrics of the writer of her memoirs. 
 
 There are several small volumes of her letters ; some of the 
 letters may be read. The student, after becoming acquainted 
 with the history of the reign, will be at no loss to select a few 
 for his perusal, judging of their contents from the persons 
 to whom they are addressed. As parts of history, they are 
 little interesting or instructive, but they are the letters of a 
 woman of taste and good natural sense, placed in an extra- 
 ordinary situation, connected with the leading personages, 
 and influencing the events of a remarkable period. The 
 letter to the Duchess of Burgundy may be mentioned as a 
 favourable specimen of the writer and of the publication. 
 Other letters have lately been published. You will see an 
 account of them in the eighty-eighth number of the Edin- 
 burgh Review, by Sir James Mackintosh, and several curious 
 and important historical notices which he^has been able to 
 select from them. 
 
 The work of Voltaire, the Age of Louis XIV., is well known, 
 and has been long and universally admired ; as it is not very 
 long, and is every where written with liveliness and ease, 
 it may be read with advantage twice ; that is, after, as well as 
 before the works I have alluded to. The great praise of 
 Voltaire as an historian is, that he was the first who directed 
 the attention of mankind to the more proper subjects of 
 history — the arts, manners, and laws of every country, the 
 progress of society, the history of human happiness ; that he 
 was the first who gave those general results, those compre- 
 hensive estimates which are the great lessons of statesmen.
 
 I. LOUIS XIV. 1!) 
 
 Had he been born and educated under a free government, 
 the great subjects of history would in all probability have 
 been all of them regularly and gravely discussed ; and much 
 of what may now be objected to him in the way of defect or 
 fault would then, as I conceive, not have appeared. In 
 writing the age of Louis XIV. he had every possible advan- 
 tage. He was about twenty-one when Louis died ; he had 
 all the information, oral and written, within his reach, and he 
 lived at a distance of time when he could investigate the 
 truth, and estimate the importance of every thing before 
 him. 
 
 Voltaire is a writer whose expressions always convey his 
 thoughts very clearly to his reader, and he treats particular 
 subjects separately ; yet it still appears to me very difficult to 
 draw any distinct results from those of his chapters, more 
 particularly, which are connected with subjects of pohtical 
 economy and ecclesiastical affairs ; and if this observation be 
 just, it is an important fault in this celebrated performance. 
 
 The work has been noticed in a general manner by La- 
 cretelle in his third volume. Lacretelle considers it as an 
 eifort of Voltaire in the cause of all that heroism, elevation of 
 character, and good taste, which Voltaire conceived to be on 
 the decline when he drew up his work. Lacretelle supposes 
 him to have been desirous to display, at the same time, the 
 striking influence of letters and the arts, and to have hoped 
 to animate his countrymen to the imitation of the virtues of 
 Turenne, Catinat, and Fenelon, and the splendid qualities of 
 Louis XIV. The^ work, when it appeared, was received with 
 enthusiasm ; the situation of Louis XV. and of the court 
 at the time, gave a new interest, and secured a ready recep- 
 tion and applause for whatever could revive the remembrance 
 of the brilliant scenes and imposing character of his prede- 
 cessor. 
 
 In later times it has been thought not quite to satisfy the 
 French scholars, as being, after all, rather a general view and 
 outline of this interesting era, than a complete and well 
 digested history ; but it is possible that on the subject of their 
 grand monarque, nothing that was not intolerably minute 
 and tedious would have satisfied such critics. An Enohsh 
 student may rest contented when he finds that its general
 
 20 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 merits are acknowledged, and when he hears it confessed that 
 no better work on the subject has ever yet been produced. 
 
 The constant merit of Voltaire is the ease and beauty of his 
 narrative, the agreeable and often valuable observations with 
 which it is accompanied ; above all, that he never trifles with 
 the time of his reader. 
 
 The great objections to the work will be sufficiently ap- 
 parent to all but Frenchmen, and are not such as Frenchmen 
 at any former period would have discovered. 
 
 But of late, when a new order of things was beginning to 
 appear, the celebrated Condorcet, while writing the life of 
 Voltaire, thought it necessary to declare, that this renowned 
 author, in his Age of Louis XIV., had certainly sacrificed too 
 much to the prejudices of his youth. 
 
 But a far greater and more constant fault of Voltaire, in 
 his historical writings, is a never ceasing disposition to place 
 every thing in a lively point of view. 
 
 To the production of this species of dramatic effect it 
 cannot but happen that the dull precision of facts must be 
 sometimes sacrificed — characters and events must be strained 
 into an antithesis ; they must be huddled up together into 
 a general estimate ; they must be disposed of by a stroke 
 of satire or a witticism ; they must " point a moral, or adorn 
 a tale." All this may be entertaining: it always is; but it is 
 not always history ; the representation and remarks of Voltaire 
 must be therefore received at all times with hesitation and 
 distrust. It must be confessed, however, that the reader will 
 be surprised to find, on further examination, as Dr. Robertson 
 appears to have been, how often this most amusing of writers 
 has authorities for his facts, and proper foundations on which 
 to rest the liveliness of his sallies, and the instruction of his 
 remarks. 
 
 On the whole, Voltaire's Age of Louis XIV. may be 
 studied by an English reader, as conveying the most full and 
 distinct impression that can be found of the nature of the 
 French character; of the character of the government, the 
 monarch, the nobles, the generals, the courtiers, and women of 
 quality, and of the whole nation, when found in the state that 
 is to them most natural and agreeable ; in short, of the great
 
 I. LOUIS XIV. 21 
 
 edifice wliich \vaf5 in the first place levelled to the earth by 
 the French Revolution. 
 
 When works like these, the publications of the French 
 nation, have been read, they must be afterwards compared 
 with the writings of our own country. The whole pic- 
 ture will then be complete, and not before. With our own 
 authors, the constant theme of reprobation is the ambition of 
 Louis XIV., and the miseries it occasioned. It cannot be 
 expected that this ambition will be very properly criticised by 
 the French writers, or even the personal faults of the monarch 
 very accurately estimated ; yet more is said than could have 
 been expected both by St. Simon and Duclos. Voltaire is 
 always ready to raise his voice against war and intolerance, 
 and therefore occasionally against the leading faults of the 
 monarch, but by no means in a tone sufficiently strong ; and 
 he must be considered, on the whole, as the panegyrist rather 
 than the historian, both of his countrymen and of Louis. 
 Lacretelle had the advantage of writing since the Revolution, 
 and it was therefore more easy for him both to discover and 
 to state the unfavourable as well as the favourable character- 
 istics of the reign. 
 
 Through the whole, however, of these French publications, 
 a jealousy, not to say hatred, of England, and a passion for 
 their own nation, is manifest, sometimes to a degree that 
 annihilates, always to a degree that obscures in them, the 
 more regular suggestions of propriety and candour, not to 
 say all due consideration of the general rights and interests 
 of Europe. 
 
 But these riohts and interests of mankind ouoht never 
 to be forgotten by any reader, above all, by the readers of 
 a free country. On the continent, the state whose liberties 
 were more immediately in peril was Holland, but the power 
 that could best be opposed to Louis, to preserve the balance 
 of Europe, was the House of Austria. In conjunction, there- 
 fore, with the accounts of the French writers and those of our 
 own country, some idea ought to be formed of the situation 
 of that House, and of the empire ; and the work of Mr. Coxe 
 on this occasion very opportunely presents itself. As this 
 part of it is very concise, and founded on the best authorities.
 
 22 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 I recommend it to be read at the same time with the works 
 before mentioned. They will be fomid all to illustrate each 
 other, and united, to be sufficient to give you, as I conceive, a 
 very full view of the whole subject. 
 
 But I must now recommend to you a book, which you 
 might not perhaps have expected me to mention as a portion 
 of historic reading — the Adventures of Telemachus. The 
 connexion, however, of this celebrated work with the general 
 subject now before us, and its own separate importance, may 
 be easily described to you. 
 
 One of the subjects which occupies the history and the 
 memoirs of this period is the education and character of the 
 Duke of Burgundy, the grandson of Louis, the presumptive 
 heir to the crown. 
 
 The merits of the duke will be found to illustrate by 
 contrast all the faults of Louis ; to exhibit to the view in 
 various ways all the objectionable parts of the king's charac- 
 ter and administration. 
 
 The Duke of Burgundy, originally debased by every evil 
 propensity, and distinguished by every unfortunate habit, 
 that could have rendered him the disgrace and dread of his 
 country, became, at last, by the happy influence of his own 
 reflections and of wise and good men, who laboured for his 
 improvement, the hope and promise of France, and indeed of 
 Europe. This is a fact that may keep us from lightly de- 
 spairing of ourselves or others ; it may really be regarded as a 
 problem whether, if the duke had lived and come to the 
 throne, the late French Revolution would have occurred. 
 Fenelon was his instructor, and the character of the prelate 
 becomes on that account more than ever interesting. It is 
 given at great length by St. Simon, and appears in all the 
 books I have recommended. 
 
 The subsequent events, the late Revolution in France, may 
 naturally awaken in us some curiosity to know what could 
 have been the communications that passed between such a 
 preceptor and such a pupil ; what could have been the lessons 
 of instruction that were oflTered by the virtuous prelate to the 
 grandson of such a jealous and despotic prince as Louis 
 XIV. 
 
 Some idea may be formed from the book I have mentioned
 
 r. LOUIS XIV. 23 
 
 — the Telemachus. This work, by a lucky accident, has 
 reached us ; it was not intended for the public eye. 
 
 We may have already perused it as an elevated sort of 
 novel, as an inferior sort of epic poem ; but, for the reasons I 
 have mentioned, there are parts of it which fall within the 
 province of historical reading. No doubt the general topics 
 of instruction that are here supposed to be addressed to 
 the son of Ulysses must have been insisted upon by the 
 bishop in his private conferences with his illustrious pupil. It 
 is to these that I would wish you to advert. By looking 
 over the arouments affixed to the different books, it will 
 be easy to select particular topics of this nature, and to 
 meditate them, without reading those descriptions and nar- 
 ratives which might once have appeared to us the more 
 interesting portion of the work. 
 
 It cannot be expected that the lessons of the prelate should 
 be other than of a very general nature ; but the subjects 
 chosen are the right subjects — the importance of the distribu- 
 tion of justice, of a sincere and active interest in the happiness 
 of the community, the temptations to which all princes are 
 exposed, their necessary defects, the great merit of candour 
 and docility, the difficulty with which they can escape from 
 flatterers, how seldom they search for men of wisdom and 
 virtue ; unless they do, how impossible it is that the wise and 
 the virtuous should approach them ; the importance of frugality 
 in a state ; of morality ; of religion ; and the lesson which the 
 bishop seems to have had, above all others, at heart, is the 
 invaluable nature of the blessing of peace, and how inseparable 
 is the love of it from the character of every inielhgent and 
 virtuous ruler. On the whole, the maxims of government 
 which the prelate presents to the reception of the duke, are all 
 of a mild and enlightened cast, and well fitted to contribute 
 to the happiness of the community. The most material 
 omission seems, at first sight, to be, that no notice is taken of 
 the value of representative assemblies, in all forms of govern- 
 ment. The bishop must have known that they were a regular 
 part of the constitution of his own country, and in our own 
 neighbouring island of England, he had seen a most desirable 
 revolution effected by means of them without bloodshed or 
 disorder. But he discusses neither their merits nor their
 
 24 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 defects ; and, without entering into any specific exemplifica- 
 tion of his own pohtical principles, seems to think it sufficient 
 to inculcate them in a general manner, to inspire his pupil, 
 if possible, with the proper tone and sentiment, and to leave 
 the application to his own discernment of fit seasons and cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 And this was perhaps the best and only course. To have 
 attempted more than this would have been most probably 
 to have defeated his own intentions. What he wrote in his 
 work was sufficiently strong to be considered, in many places, 
 as a satire on Louis XIV,, and many have supposed that 
 Fenelon was nominated, or rather banished to a bishoprick at 
 Cambray, not so much because his religious heresies as 
 because his political instructions were disrelished by the court. 
 It is certain that the Duke of Burgundy was himself animated 
 with the most lively interest in the welfare of the community ; 
 and there is a remarkable letter of Madame de Maintenon 
 among those which have been given to the public, in which 
 she tells the Duke of Bouvilliers that the king, on the death 
 of the prince, the Duke of Burgundy, had looked over his 
 papers, and had committed every thing that came from 
 Fenelon to the flames ; no slight testimony to the merit of the 
 bishop. 
 
 But the Telemachus is to be considered on another account. 
 It has been represented as containing the principles of that 
 more improved system of political economy, which, under the 
 auspices of Adam Smith, has been for some time slowly, and 
 at last rapidly making its way not only into the deliberations 
 of cabinets, but even into the understanding of the pubhc. 
 There is certainly merit of this kind in the work of Fenelon ; 
 merit which must be considered as very great, when we reflect 
 that he was thinking on these subjects, and in general thinking 
 reasonably, at the very time that the celebrated Colbert, the 
 minister of France, was proceeding upon a more obvious, and 
 then an established system directly the reverse. Colbert was 
 marshalling from his desk, as he flattered himself, the industry 
 of mankind by the powers of legislation, and supposing that 
 he could move his pen, as a magician would his wand, and by 
 bounties and drawbacks, and by the encouragement of the 
 state (as he called it), raise up wealth and happiness at his 
 pleasure. 
 
 i
 
 I. LOUIS XIV. 25 
 
 The ideas of the good bishop were far more just and 
 profound. On account of the importance of the subject of 
 pohtical economy, I will give an instance or two ; and I do this 
 the rather, I confess, to take the chance of attracting your 
 thoughts to this great subject — the science of national pros- 
 perity, a subject that will hereafter often and deeply occupy 
 your minds, if you come to be men of reflection and bene- 
 volence. I am at the close of my lecture, but one or two 
 points may be mentioned ; and I will take those that are 
 among the most important in the science. 
 
 " Instruct me," says Telemachus in the third book, " how I 
 may establish in Ithaca commerce like that of the Tyrians. 
 The true way, replies Narbas, is to receive all strangers 
 readily ; let them find in your ports safety, accommodation, 
 perfect freedom ; above all, do not attempt to restrain com- 
 merce by directing it according to your own notions. Let the 
 prince have no concern in it. He will be sufficiently enriched 
 by the riches which commerce will bring into his dominions. 
 It is with commerce as with some springs ; attempt to change 
 their course, and you dry them up." To write thus at the 
 period when Fenelon wrote, was no doubt extraordinary merit. 
 
 It is not to be expected that in the infancy of the science of 
 political economy, Fenelon should be entirely accurate. Thus 
 he says, " the true secret of gaining much is, not to wish 
 to gain too much." Adam Smith could say nothing better — 
 nothing that more completely opposes those custom house 
 statesmen who draw forth all the machinery of bounties and 
 restrictions, and vainly hope to make their own nation rich by 
 keeping every other nation poor ; that is, to enrich the trades- 
 man by impoverishing his customers. But the bishop imme- 
 diately subjoins these words, — " and by knowing the proper 
 moment when to lose." Here Fenelon seems not to be quite 
 aware that if the intercourse is spontaneous, neither nation 
 can ever lose ; that the very existence of the traffic, if no laws 
 have interfered, is of itself a sufficient indication that not only 
 one, but that both parties more or less profit by it ; that to 
 suppose that the gain of the one is the loss of the other, is the 
 great and important mistake of the whole subject. 
 
 The next striking feature of the system of Fenelon is the 
 earnestness with which he lays down the paramount import-
 
 26 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 ance of agriculture, " The reason of the happy change which 
 you see is that agriculture is had in honour, and that the 
 lands are well cultivated. The true force and the true riches 
 of a community depend on the number of the people and 
 the abundance of provisions." But Fenelon next proceeds 
 to lay down the fatal evils of luxury ; and when he comes to 
 the remedy of these evils, he becomes a Colbert in his turn ; he 
 makes, in the first place, a distinction between those arts 
 which are superfluous and those which are liberal; vainly 
 proposing to expel the one and retain the other. He then 
 goes on to state, that in such a case the taste and manners of 
 a nation must be changed. But how ? Why, says he, new 
 laws must be established ; as if men could be made moderate 
 in their desires or reasonable in their fancies by edicts and 
 commands. This is little to understand this important sub- 
 ject, the nature of the human mind, or the principles on 
 which the exertions of mankind, mental and corporeal, i. e. 
 their prosperity and their happiness really depend. A proper 
 estimate of this particular subject of luxury, and the more 
 peculiar vices of civilization (a very curious and indeed difficult 
 subject), must be derived neither from the licentious Mande- 
 ville, who undertook to prove, with great powers of lively, 
 though coarse declamation, that private vices are public 
 benefits, nor the eloquent Rousseau, nor the pure and elevated 
 Fenelon, but from the essays of the reasoning Hume — those, 
 for instance, on commerce and on refinement in the arts. 
 
 Fenelon seems himself almost to abandon his confidence in 
 laws and edicts, and to modify in the next sentence the nature 
 of his political prescription. " Who," says he, " can undertake 
 a reformation like this, but some philosophic king ; one who 
 would by his own example shame the ostentatious prodigality 
 of others ; one who would encourage the wise by the sanction 
 of his authority in their honourable frugality ?" 
 
 It is instructive to see the mind of Fenelon labouring with 
 the difficulties of the great problem of rendering the people 
 happy by good government. His general notions I have 
 already alluded to ; they are stated with still greater regularity 
 in his twelfth book. He depends too much on the operation 
 of laws ; is too ready to interfere with regulations of this kind ; 
 and his plans, which could not be carried into effect in a small
 
 I. LOUIS XIV. 27 
 
 state, nor attempted in a large one, are after all inconsistent 
 with many of the leading and vital principles of public pros- 
 perity and freedom. One important mistake seems to be this : 
 he supposes that the earth will always continue to produce 
 sufficient food for the inhabitants, if properly cultivated, yet, in 
 the progress of his speculations, we find him at last obliged to 
 regulate the extent of ground which each family is to possess, 
 and, still pursued by difficulty, finally to propose that when 
 the land of any particular society of men is insufficient for their 
 proper support, colonies should be sent abroad ; but this is 
 only to adjourn the difficulty one stage more. What at length 
 are the colonies to do ? 
 
 This is to cut the knot, not untie it ; and they who would 
 learn the real nature of this great problem of human pros- 
 perity, the difficulties with which it has to struggle, and the 
 kind of assistance which it may receive from the exertions of 
 self-denial and virtue in individuals, and from the operation of 
 wise counsels in the legislature, must meditate long and 
 anxiously the works of Adam Smith and Mr. Malthus. 
 
 I may mention, as I am concluding my lecture, that there 
 have been some books published by Mr. Butler on the subject 
 of Fenelon, the Gallican church, and other topics connected 
 with this and the subsequent reign. 
 
 They are highly deserving of your consideration, and they 
 are a sort of literary curiosity, as it seems to have been the 
 object of the author — I speak not of his controversial but his 
 historic works — to give the greatest possible quantity of infor- 
 mation in the least possible compass, a very novel idea, not 
 likely to be very popular in Paternoster Row.
 
 28 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 LECTURE 11. 
 
 LOUIS XIV. 
 
 IN my last lecture I endeavoured to give you an account 
 of such histories and memoirs as might convey an adequate 
 notion of a monarch so celebrated as Louis XIV., and an era 
 so remarkable as that in which he flourished. 
 
 The subject will be found very extensive, even if contracted 
 within the least possible limits ; it is impossible now, in the 
 slightest degree, to conceive the impression that was once 
 made on Europe by this extraordinary king of this extra- 
 ordinary people ; in times less interesting than our own, the 
 subject might occupy, as I do not doubt it often has occupied, 
 even a large portion of the life of men of literature and 
 science. 
 
 I cannot advise this, in the present situation of human 
 knowledge and human affairs ; it is certainly fitted to afford 
 you much entertainment and instruction, but when these have 
 been derived, I would recommend you to hasten on to other 
 characters and other periods, which have also a claim on your 
 curiosity and diligence. 
 
 The reign of Louis was very long, and the history of the 
 reign is the history of Europe. 
 
 In like manner, the particulars respecting the monarch 
 himself are innumerable ; no detail, therefore, either of the one 
 or the other can be here attempted. 
 
 I will, however, select from the history two subjects for 
 your reflection, which, whenever remembered, will always 
 revive in your mind a very strong and proper impression of 
 the real character of this celebrated prince, and always prevent 
 you from being too much deceived by his showy qualities, and 
 even his solid claims to your approbation. 
 
 The two subjects that 1 shall select from the history are, —
 
 n. LOUIS XIV. 29 
 
 first, the revocation of the edict of Nantz; second, the burning 
 of the Palatinate. 
 
 The revocation of the edict of Nantz is a subject with 
 which, as Protestants, as Englishmen, as readers of history, 
 you cannot be too well acquainted. No event ever excited a 
 greater sensation in Europe ; as such it must be considered 
 attentively by those who read history. 
 
 But it deserves also your meditation as a very striking 
 specimen of the evils of intolerance. The evils which this 
 great measure of national intolerance produced were very 
 striking, and are acknowledged. And similar evils every 
 measure of national intolerance has a tendency to produce. 
 
 We do not say that states are not to support or defend 
 their establishments ; but we say that it is the practice of 
 men, even in the best of times, to defend them by harsh and 
 inmecessary, and therefore by unjust and unwise expedients ; 
 that in concerns of this nature the members of the superior 
 sect are always deplorably selfish or unreasonably timid. 
 
 The edict of Nantz was the final adjustment of the religious 
 wars in France ; the terms that were procured for the Hugue- 
 nots by Henry IV. When Louis therefore revoked this edict, 
 he in fact declared that he would keep terms with this part 
 of his subjects no longer. 
 
 There is a very striking chapter on this subject of the revo- 
 cation by the Due de St. Simon, where he reprobates this 
 measure with all the warmth of an enlightened statesman, 
 and all the indignant feeling of a lover of truth and a man of 
 humanity. His sentiments are in part transferred by D'An- 
 quetil to his own work. This unjust and cruel revocation is 
 likewise noticed in very proper terms by Beaumelle, in his 
 Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon, and again briefly in 
 Duclos. Voltaire has also treated the subject in his chapter 
 on Calvinism, in his Age of Louis XIV. His account of the 
 more early conduct of the Huguenots seems not sufficiently 
 favourable. He may indeed be always suspected of surveying 
 the comparative merits of different sects with too much in- 
 difference to treat them with relative justice ; and this indif- 
 ference will operate unfavourably to the oppressed sect ; yet 
 the chapter, on the whole, does him honour, particularly 
 if we consider the early period of life at which it was written,
 
 30 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 and the age and nation to which he belonged. The criminahty 
 of Louis is sufficiently apparent even from this representation 
 of his biographer. 
 
 There is a regular and professed work on this subject — the 
 History of the Edict of Nantz, printed in Holland, and pub- 
 lished a few years after the revocation. These volumes must 
 be considered as a statement of the whole of the case of the 
 members of the reformed church, drawn up, probably, by one 
 of themselves. The preface of this work should at least be 
 read. At the end of the fifth volume will be found a col- 
 lection of edicts, and other official documents, that sufficiently 
 tell their own story. 
 
 From all these books and treatises, however, I will content 
 myself with giving you one extract only ; it is from St. Simon. 
 Observe his assertions, observe the manner in which he de- 
 scribes the effects of this revocation ; he lived at the time. 
 " In this way," says he, " without the slightest pretext, the 
 slightest necessity, was one-fourth of the kingdom to be 
 depopulated ; its trade to be ruined ; the whole country to be 
 abandoned to the public and avowed pillage of dragoons ; the 
 innocent of both sexes were to be devoted to punishment 
 or torture, and that by thousands ; families were to be stripped 
 of their possessions ; relations armed against each other ; our 
 manufactures to be transferred to strans^ers, and the world 
 was to see crowds of their fellow-creatures proscribed, naked, 
 fugitive, guilty of no crimes, and yet seeking asylum in foreign 
 lands, not in their own country, which was in the mean time 
 subjecting to the galleys and to the lash the noble, the 
 affluent, and the aged, the delicate and the weak, and in many 
 cases those who w^ere distinguished for their piety, their know- 
 ledge, and their virtue ; and all this on no other account than 
 that of religion : and still further to enhance the horrors of 
 such proceedings, in this manner was every province to be 
 filled with sacrilegious or perjured men ; those who were 
 forced, or those who pretended willingly to conform, and who 
 sacrificed their consciences to their worldly welfare and repose ; 
 nay, such in the result were the abominations thus produced 
 by obsequiousness and by cruelty, that the same space of 
 twenty-four hours was sufficient not unfrequently to conduct 
 men from tortures to abjuration, from abjuration to the holy
 
 II. LOUIS XIV. 31 
 
 communion ; and an unhappy sufferer found a conductor and a 
 witness, on these occasions, often in the person of the common 
 hangman." 
 
 A melancholy history this ! of which St. Simon proceeds 
 still fiirther to give the detail — a detail in which I need not 
 follow him. 
 
 The king, it seems, received from all quarters the most 
 soothing accounts of the conversions that had been etlected ; 
 two thousand in one place ! six thousand in another ! con- 
 gratulated himself on the wonders achieved by his piety and 
 his power ; and flattered himself, says St. Simon, that he had 
 renewed the times, and rivalled the glory of the first propaga- 
 tors of Christianity. 
 
 The revocation of the edict of Nantz is memorable in the 
 history of mankind ; and, fortunately for the interests of 
 humanity, those who had to be exiles from their native land, 
 and to fly for refuge to strangers, were in general men of such 
 industrious habits and useful occupations, men so meritorious 
 and so ingenious, that the impolicy of the measure was even 
 more glaring than might at the time, perhaps, appear its 
 injustice. As such it has remained in the eyes of posterity. 
 Its impolicy has become a sort of by-word among the nations 
 of Europe ; and the most uninformed and vnienlightened man 
 has never, from this period, wanted an instance sufticiently 
 strong to strike his understanding, and to show him how 
 great are the mistakes which may be committed in this 
 important subject of the management of religious sects. 
 
 For some time the influence of this measure was favourable 
 to the world, though perhaps not so much in this as in another 
 respect. It inspired every state in Europe with a hatred of 
 Louis, which materially assisted William III. not only in his 
 eflbrts to establish the freedom of England, but at all times in 
 his laudable ambition to resist the unlawful ambition of Louis; 
 but this revolution, in its more natural and immediate effect, 
 that of conveying an awful warning against intolerance, 
 probably neither had at the time, nor ever will have, all the 
 influence which it ought to have on the reflections of mankind. 
 
 Indeed the effect produced for a long time was rather of an 
 opposite nature. 
 
 The two sects were but the more inflamed against each
 
 32 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 other. The Protestants naturally supposed that the bigotry 
 of their Roman Catholic opponents had no limits, and that 
 they were justified in defending themselves, and in establishing 
 by any possible means their own predominancy. This could 
 not be done without legal provisions and enactments of a very 
 horrible nature in the first instance, and which were to remain 
 on statute books long after the reasons which gave occasion 
 to them had ceased to exist. Consequences like these could 
 not be favourable to the general principles of toleration, — 
 these principles were in many instances grossly violated ; and 
 mankind have been subsequently benefited by the example of 
 the edict of Nantz, only in the way I have already described, 
 in showing the impolicy of intolerance rather than the injus- 
 tice of it. The impolicy at least was visible — for to England 
 and other countries were driven in exile many of the most 
 valuable and respectable artisans and families of France. 
 
 I now proceed to the second subject, which I proposed to 
 select as a specimen of the character of Louis, — the burning 
 of the Palatinate. 
 
 The student will find, if he reads the history, that in order 
 to distress the enemy for provisions this fine country was to 
 be converted into a desert. In the midst of winter the whole 
 population was to be driven by the military from their habi- 
 tations ; and while these hapless beings were to leave behind 
 them their towns and villages in flames, they were to wander 
 forward — the aged and the helpless — to seek food and shelter 
 in whatever manner and in whatever country they thought 
 best. A monster, says Lamontey, has been found to applaud 
 the massacre of St. Bartholomew, but none ever to excuse the 
 burning of the Palatinate. 
 
 It is sometimes said that Louis was not harsh in his nature, 
 or intentionally cruel, though his minister was. It is indeed 
 difficult to suppose that he was. There are anecdotes men- 
 tioned in different books of memoirs, one more particularly in 
 St. Simon, which enable us to entertain more favourable ideas 
 of his character. But the lesson to be derived from these 
 outrages is only rendered more striking and instructive, if 
 such be the fact. 
 
 These orders, which Attila might have issued from his camp, 
 were dispatched by Louis from his palace at Versailles, from
 
 II. LOUIS XIV. 33 
 
 the midst of his fetes and spectacles — while he was sur- 
 rounded by every thing which could awaken his senses to 
 pleasure, and harmonize his mind to happiness. 
 
 The imagination of the monarch, amid the various artifices 
 of bliss which his situation afforded, was employed, it should 
 seem, in a manner too agreeable to turn aside and survey all 
 the repulsive spectacles of misery which his abominable orders 
 could not fail to occasion. 
 
 Not referring therefore at this moment, as I naturally 
 might, to the indignation and horror which such atrocious 
 proceedings will necessarily excite in your minds, I shall make 
 a remark rather of a collateral nature, on account of what I 
 conceive to be its practical importance. 
 
 The remark is indeed familiar to you, but may strike you 
 more when made to you on an occasion like the present. 
 
 It is — the unfortunate effect of affluence more or less upon 
 every one of us ; the manner in which we are made to partici- 
 pate, in a certain degree, the insensibility of Louis. 
 
 The delicacies of food and clothing, for instance, are enjoyed 
 with little concern for those to whom the necessaries of life 
 are scarcely attainable ; and it has thus passed into a proverb, 
 that one half of the world knows not what becomes of the 
 other. One of our first moral writers has been pleased to 
 speak in a manner somewhat disrespectful of those moralists 
 and poets, like Thomson, who have noticed and lamented this 
 disposition in the human mind, to enjoy its own blessings 
 rather than disquiet itself with the calamities of others. I 
 allude to Adam Smith — but was he well employed on this 
 occasion ? It is the province of sympathy to render us alive 
 to the evils of those around us. This he would admit. So is 
 it equally the province of reason and good sense to save the 
 mind from too deep an interest in afflictions which we can 
 neither prevent nor remedy. This we concede on our part. 
 No doubt, therefore, it is the perfection of the human cha- 
 racter to be at once equal to its own happiness, and yet sen- 
 sible to those miseries of our fellow-creatures which its exer- 
 tions can alleviate. But surely it remains to be remarked, 
 that it is not in any deficiency of attention to ourselves that 
 human nature offends. This is not the weakness of mankind, 
 or the aspect under which they need be regarded by a moralist 
 
 D
 
 34 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 with any pain. If there be sometimes found those who are 
 formed of a finer clay, so as really to have the comforts of 
 their own existence diminished and interrupted by sympa- 
 thizing too long and too quickly with the calamities of those 
 around them, such may surely be considered as exceptions to 
 be set apart from their fellow mortals, as those more amiable 
 beings, who are not hkely by their example to injure the 
 general cause of reasonable enjoyment in the world ; and 
 whom the more natural prevalence of careless selfishness 
 renders it not easy often to find, and surely not very possible 
 long to censure. 
 
 Having now presented to your remembrance two particular 
 subjects so necessary to a proper estimate of Louis XIV., I 
 will next endeavour to propose to you a system of arrange- 
 ment which may enable you the better to form a general 
 notion of the vast assemblage of events and circumstances 
 which belong to the character of this renowaied monarch and 
 this most memorable era. 
 
 In reading therefore the various works to which I have 
 referred, it will I think contribute to give you a clearer idea of 
 the whole, if you consider Louis XIV. under three different 
 aspects : 1st, His conduct wath respect to those more imme- 
 diately around him — his personal character. 2dly, His con- 
 duct to his people— his character as the sovereign of France. 
 3dly, His conduct with respect to surrounding states — his 
 character as one of the great potentates of Europe. 
 
 All these subjects are necessarily connected with each other; 
 in strict propriety they cannot be well separated; and the 
 discussion of the one immediately runs into references to 
 some one of the other. But there may still be some advan- 
 tage in keeping them as much apart as the nature of things 
 will allow ; and, in considering the whole subject as made up 
 of these three parts, to each of which the student may more 
 immediately turn, as the particular object of his studies at the 
 time requires. 
 
 The personal character of Louis affords a striking specimen 
 of the virtues and vices that may result from an extreme sen- 
 sibihty to praise ; his vanity, his pride, his love of applause 
 and his love of glory are continually presented to the reader. 
 
 As this sensibiMty to praise is found more or less in every
 
 II. LOUIS XIV. 35 
 
 man ; and though given us by our Creator for the wisest pin- 
 poses, hable Hke every other principle of our nature to be 
 abused, it may not be amiss briefly to state the three leadins: 
 distinctions that belong to the subject. These distinctions are 
 often neglected, or not seen ; and as one of the uses of his- 
 tory is to improve the moral character, as well as to enlighten 
 the political views of the student, I may perhaps be allowed 
 to turn for a moment from the one to the other, more parti- 
 cularly as I am addressing myself to the young, to those 
 whose dispositions may be considered as now in the very act 
 of assuming the tone and direction, which may materially 
 influence their subsequent happiness and usefulness to the 
 community. 
 
 The highest merit is to learn and practise virtue for its own 
 reward : not indeed to be insensible to the praise of others; to 
 receive it when reasonably offered, and even to enjoy it ; but 
 to receive it and enjoy it rather as a good that is properly an 
 attendant on the performance of meritorious actions, than as 
 the original object to be attained by them — as an attendant 
 on good actions, not the object of them. In this manner the 
 character is kept modest and reasonable, and is left sus- 
 ceptible of the highest motives which can be inspired by virtue 
 and religion ; and yet it is not required from any man to make 
 vain efforts to exclude from his feelings that co-incident plea- 
 sure which we are by nature formed to derive from the 
 applause of our fellow creatures : so to understand virtue and 
 so to practise it seems the highest merit. 
 
 The next merit is to perform good actions from the love of 
 true glory ; that is, from sensibility to praise, but to praise 
 bestowed on actions that are themselves praiseworthy, that 
 are really meritorious, and the proper objects of moral appro- 
 bation. This, though not the highest merit of which human 
 nature is capable, is still merit. 
 
 What I have now, in the third and last place, to mention, 
 is, sensibility to praise, however procured; to praise when 
 given to actions, whether meritorious or not ; when even given 
 by mistake to supposed qualities or actions not really existing. 
 To this last description of sentiment belongs vanity, under all 
 its whimsical, contemptible, and prevailing forms ; to the 
 second (the love of true glory) belongs self-estimation ; to
 
 36 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 the first (the love of virtue) belongs the high consciousness 
 of purity and right. 
 
 In certain respects all these are connected w^ith, and bor- 
 dering upon, each other ; and the confounding of them to- 
 gether, and the attributing indiscriminately to each, or to all, 
 the praise or censure that belongs exclusively to some one of 
 them, is the great fallacy of the licentious moralists, Roche- 
 foucault and Mandeville for instance. 
 
 It is the fault too, or mistake, often of men of the world ; 
 and of all who have more acuteness in their understandings, 
 than kindness in their temperaments ; a fault very visible in 
 their writings, and for ever in their conversation. 
 
 These three descriptions of sentiment, which I have thus 
 adverted to, are, however, all essentially different in them- 
 selves ; and it is no unprofitable amusement for a philosophic 
 mind to observe, in its own instance, and in the instances of 
 others, the various combinations and alternations of these dif- 
 ferent principles, — the love of virtue, the love of true glory, 
 and the love of mere praise. 
 
 It is the last, the love of mere praise, which is the original 
 and first rude impulse of nature. 
 
 By education and reflection this is gradually improved into 
 the second, the love of true glory ; and at length elevated into 
 the first, the love of virtue. But it may happen that this con- 
 version of the one into the other, this happy improvement of 
 the moral character, may never take place at all, or at least 
 very imperfectly. 
 
 Of all mortals those who are the most unfortunately 
 situated in this respect, and the least likely to receive this 
 improvement, are the rulers of the earth, kings and princes, 
 those who have a merit in the eyes of others, independent of 
 their own personal good qualities ; in like manner all who 
 belong to the privileged orders of society, the nobility of a 
 country, its gentry and men of family and distinction. 
 
 The same observations may even descend, more or less, to 
 every man, who from any advantage whatever, not only of 
 birth or fortune, but even of personal appearance, of beauty, 
 strength, or activity, possesses any merit in the eyes of others 
 which is not properly his own, any merit which he does not 
 strictly earn by the superiority of his understanding, or of his 
 virtues.
 
 II. LOUIS XIV. 37 
 
 But if such be the situation of all beings, and of whatever 
 sex, whether privileged by society or favoured by nature, it 
 was more particularly so of Louis XIV. ; and this is one of 
 the lessons which his character affords. Louis was one of 
 those rulers of the earth, who became a king while an infant, 
 whose education was most defective, who was left ignorant, 
 according to the account of St. Simon, to a degree that is 
 quite astonishing ; who was surrounded not only by courtiers 
 and sycophants but by a nation, whose character, if analyzed, 
 seems never to ascend beyond the merit of the second degree 
 I have mentioned, the love of true glory, not often so high ; 
 whose character is much more generally moulded by the mere 
 love of praise, of praise however procured. 
 
 As Louis was, unfortunately for the world, possessed also 
 of a fine constitution and a handsome person, his moral 
 improvement was rendered still more impossible ; and the 
 result, as seen in St. Simon, was precisely all that a speculator 
 on human nature would have expected. 
 
 Eternally uneasy, and in action, as every man will be, who 
 (though on a smaller scale), thinks of nothing but praise; 
 eternally finding, or looking to find, an audience, before whom 
 he might exhibit his performances ; eternally at his levees or 
 on his terraces, a sort of posture-master ; the very rising and 
 going to bed was with Louis a sort of drama; through the 
 whole of the royal day he had his exits and his entrances ; 
 and whether he rode or walked, or dined or dressed, the whole 
 world was supposed to be present, and the hero of the piece 
 was Louis. Even at the hour of prayer, it was the grand 
 monarque that was at his devotions ; and no ideas, however 
 awful, however overwhelming, could sweep away from his 
 mind, even for a moment, the tinsel trumpery of human 
 grandeur. 
 
 But Louis not only desired to live upon applause, but was 
 enabled to do so. The applause was always ready, he had 
 only to look and to receive it ; and in the total absence of all 
 that moral discipline which other human beings more or less 
 find in the looks and words of those around them, no wonder 
 that he became ungovernably selfish, a ridiculous egotist, so 
 as even to join in singing his own panegyrics ; no wonder that 
 he was a slave to his passions, and that he at last conceived 
 
 i
 
 38 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 not only that his own people, but that the world itself was 
 intended merely to furnish out materials for what he was 
 pleased to denominate, his glory. 
 
 It is remarkable how completely the French nation gave in 
 to these delusions, how thoroughly they identified themselves 
 with their monarch. They had lost their States-General, they 
 had no houses of representation to convey any worthier images 
 of the nation, or to furnish them with the materials of more 
 dignified reflection ; they had just emerged from the horrors of 
 religious wars and the miseries of domestic confusion and dis- 
 pute. Independent of these political circumstances, their own 
 merits and faults, their wisdom and their follies, were all those 
 of the young king; their virtues the same, the same their 
 vices. Praise is with them to be acquired, if by proper means, 
 well, but at all events to be acquired. The cause therefore of 
 both was common ; their sympathies with their monarch, their 
 excuses for his conduct were always ready ; and their property, 
 their lives, their talents, and their genius, all became the 
 instruments of his power, and were wielded at his pleasure to 
 the purposes of his own gratification and aggrandizement. 
 
 And this leads me to the second aspect under which he is 
 to be viewed. What was he to his people ? To them he has 
 often been considered as a benefactor; at least it has been 
 thought that France, as a great kingdom, is under lasting 
 obligations to him. This may be admitted, but must then be 
 understood in a certain limited sense. 
 
 For instance, the religious and civil wars, and long years of 
 contest, hatred, and bloodshed, of private wrongs, and public 
 executions, had left the French nation fierce and ferocious. 
 Louis had the merit of civilizing them. This he did in the 
 first place, as has been generally observed, by the arts and 
 sciences which he encouraged and protected. But, again, he 
 must have produced the same salutary effect in another way, 
 one, not so generally noticed. For instance, he constantly 
 exhibited in his own person, and in the persons of his minis- 
 ters and officers, the whole power of the state, regularly 
 asserted, exercised, and diffused all over the community ; 
 maintaining, every where, order, tranquillity, and the due 
 execution of the laws of civil and criminal justice. On both 
 accounts, therefore, he contributed to civilize France. This is
 
 II. LOUIS XIV. 39 
 
 the most favourable point of view in which Louis can be sur- 
 veyed. It is very creditable to Louis that, coming to the 
 throne so young, and to a kingdom so situated as France then 
 was, he was yet able to carry on the government without 
 incurring any renewal of domestic confusion, or the apparent 
 domination of any minister, by whose power or genius he was 
 himself eclipsed. Again, under the influence of his personal 
 qualities, the great feudatories of the state became no longer 
 a dangerous description of men, ready to be themselves 
 monarchs, but a mere court noblesse, dependent on the 
 sovereign for their honours, distinctions, and often even their 
 private fortunes. He could 
 
 " Grace with a smile and ruin with a frown." 
 
 Louis, in this respect, followed up, and indeed carried to 
 excess, the original achievement of the great Henry and the 
 triumphs of Richelieu ; evezi the manners of the people were 
 affected ; and on the whole, the kingdom, in every respect, 
 though not without some unfavourable collateral effects, was 
 materially civilized. He had undoubtedly, at the same time, 
 the very important merit of choosing able men for the various 
 departments of the state. And this is not only at all times 
 the best criterion of the merit of every prince, but it is more 
 particularly so of Louis • from whose ignorance, vanity, pride, 
 and impetuosity, no conduct so rational could have been 
 expected. 
 
 It happened that during the reign of Louis the most cele- 
 brated men appeared that have ever adorned this great king- 
 dom. And as they all seemed to move under the influence of 
 his protection and encouragement, their glory has, in the 
 general apprehension of mankind, been reflected on the 
 monarch. Nor is this entirely unjust : however soberly we 
 may estimate the influence of the great on the talents of 
 those around them, and however powerful the effect, which 
 we may ascribe, in affairs of this nature, to the mere opera- 
 tions of chance, merit, and even considerable merit, must still 
 be left to Louis, when we consider all those very striking and 
 successful exertions of genius and learning which are seen, 
 under his auspices, to have illustrated his age and nation. 
 
 This, the great praise of Louis, has been seized upon by one
 
 40 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 of his panegyrists. " Turenne," says he, " Conde, Luxem- 
 burgh, were his generals ; Colbert, Louvois, Tourcy, were his 
 statesmen ; Vauban, his engineer ; Perault constructed his 
 palaces — they were adorned by Le Poussin and Le Brun ; Le 
 Notre laid out his gardens ; Corneille and Racine wrote his 
 tragedies ; Moliere, his comedies ; Boileau was his poet ; Bos- 
 suet, Bourdaloue, Massillon, were his preachers. It is in this 
 august assemblage of men, whose fame can never die, that 
 this monarch, whom they acknowledged as their patron 
 and protector, presents himself to the admiration of pos- 
 terity." 
 
 There is certainly something here to arrest us in the career 
 of our censure, after travelling through all the strange and 
 disgraceful disorders of the former reign. We see at length, 
 a disciplined army, public order, authority every where vigilant 
 and resistless ; regular government duly administered through 
 all its departments ; habits of obedience and loyalty deeply 
 engrafted, and thoroughly introduced into the national cha- 
 racter. To these, the solid bases of this system, and of every 
 system of government, must be added the more ornamental 
 part — the paintings, the statues, the splendid vases, the li- 
 braries — all the rich and massy furniture, with which the 
 great national edifice, the work of Louis XIV., was adorned; 
 and we thus see, altogether presented to us, that magnificent 
 whole, which so strongly impressed, which so entirely fasci- 
 nated and overpowered not only the French people, but the 
 people of all the kingdoms of Europe ; and if no more remained 
 to be told, the admiration of posterity might not only be 
 demanded for Louis, but allowed. There is, however, much 
 more to be told, and we must not, like the French people 
 themselves at the time, be insensible to the serious faults 
 which so obscured the merits of their grand monarqne. 
 
 The great object of the administration of Louis was, from 
 the first, to suffer nothing of weight or dignity to exist in the 
 state, but what immediately emanated from the throne, or was 
 visibly dependent on his pleasure. He wished himself to 
 direct the marine, the army, and the finances ; every where to 
 be the spring and principle of every movement. The people 
 were to have no other guardian of their happiness, the empire 
 no other security ; his ministers, his generals, no other patron
 
 II. LOUIS XIV. 41 
 
 or protector ; ubove all, there was to appear no representative 
 of" the national consequence and will but himself. The ancient 
 assemblies of the community, the States-General, were at all 
 events not to be summoned. " L'etat, c'est moi" was his 
 favourite phrase. He was in his own apprehension, as is very 
 apparent from different passages in his works, a sort of divi- 
 nity on earth, certainly the representative of the Divinity. 
 
 All this was but the result of his inordinate love of 
 distinction, his total selfishness, and the contracted views 
 which had resulted from an education originally defective. 
 To accomplish this monopoly of all power and all consequence 
 was the secret and entire labour of his life on every occasion — 
 at the most frivolous entertainment as at the most important 
 sitting of the cabinet. His ministers were therefore obliged to 
 endeavour to direct his councils by contrivance and stratagem, 
 and to deceive him into a belief that he was himself the origin 
 of the plans which he only adopted. His nobility was to 
 remain continually within the reach of his smiles or frowns, or 
 they lost all their personal influence and weight. It was a 
 sufficient accusation that he " never saw them," as he termed 
 it. 
 
 Not only the nobility, but every person was to be kept in a 
 state of constant subjection to his criticisms by an extensive 
 system of espionage, which descended to the most disgraceful 
 expedients, and entered into the detail of all the intrigues and 
 silly adventures of the metropolis ; he had a police that kept 
 every person and every concern within his view ; every being 
 was to be fixed in his own exact station and office, and the 
 movements of every mind and body that approached the 
 court, or enjoyed any distinction there or elsewhere, were to be 
 combined into a sort of harmony with those of the monarch, 
 by the most widely extended and duly adjusted system of form 
 and etiquette that was probably ever devised or executed : 
 Louis and the court which I have thus described, were to meet 
 and parade in palaces, whose extent and magnificence were 
 to rival the romances of the imagination ; even Nature herself 
 was to be insulted and overpowered, to achieve the wonders of 
 Versailles ; the sums expended are understood to have in- 
 creased in so friohtful a manner that the kino" at last threw 
 the accounts into the fire ; still, however, continuing theiii.
 
 42 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 They had reached more than sixty milhons of our money ; 
 the very roofs of this palace would cover a surface of twenty- 
 five French acres; similar prodigality was exhibited at Marly, 
 and his rage for expensive buildings was quite a characteristic 
 and a most criminal one of his reign. All this was fitted to 
 produce what it did produce, the spectacle which I have 
 already described, as so striking to all Europe, and as so 
 deserving of the curiosity and reflection of every reader of 
 history ; the best specimen that can be shown of the court and 
 the administration of an arbitrary monarch, on the European, 
 not Asiatic model, but without any representative bodies of 
 the people, or indeed of the nobility ; the spectacle of a great 
 kingdom advanced to a situation in some respects of an 
 enviable, and in most respects of a very imposing appear- 
 ance; — opulent cities, spacious roads, canals and ports and 
 harbours, arsenals and dockyards, every apparatus, naval and 
 military, for attack or defence ; — academies, hospitals, public 
 buildings and palaces; — manufactures, arts and sciences; — 
 statesmen, theologians, philosophers, historians, and anti- 
 quarians, orators and poets; — much of the accommodation, 
 much of the embellishment, all the outward magnificence 
 of civilization. All this is certainly to be found, and gave rise 
 to what was called the Age of Louis XIV. ; and it seems 
 at first sight too presumptuous to say that all this is still 
 insufficient, to say that civilization can realize something still 
 more valuable to the community, and more dignified to the 
 monarch ; yet such is assuredly the truth ; and it is no improper 
 indulgence of national pride to say, that in consequence of 
 our public assemblies, and more particularly of our represen- 
 tative assembly, our House of Commons, more, and even far 
 more than all this, striking and splendid as it may be, is 
 undoubtedly to be found in this distinguished island of our 
 own. 
 
 It might perhaps be too much to have expected from Louis 
 a foresight of the danger as well as knowledge of the injustice 
 of his system ; a consciousness that though the grandeur of 
 his reign could not be denied, the solidity was doubtful, that 
 the bubble might at any moment burst, that all was false and 
 hollow, and that no government was really safe which violated 
 the common feelings and reason of mankind. But the whole
 
 II. LOUIS XIV. 43 
 
 is a memorable illustration of this great maxim in political 
 science ; a striking spectacle for the instruction of posterity. 
 The lesson may be said to commence with the destruction 
 of the free constitution of France by Louis XL and Richelieu, 
 to have proceeded along with the confirmation of arbitrary 
 power, which was advanced to an elaborate and perfect system 
 by Louis XIV., and to have terminated in the awful catas- 
 trophe that has happened in our own times. 
 
 An enlarged philosophy of this kind it might have been too 
 much to have required from a prince so educated and so 
 situated as Louis : but thouo-h he mig-ht not have discovered 
 the true and best foundations of the security and grandeur of 
 his monarchy, still he might have understood the obvious 
 interests of his people, the ruinous nature of his passion for 
 military glorv and expense, and the more than ordinary wick- 
 edness of his unprincipled ambition. 
 
 On the contrary, to advert now to the third consideration, 
 his relation to foreign states, Louis was long the terror of the 
 civilized world ; he was long considered as the tyrant that 
 menaced the liberties of Holland and every kingdom that he 
 could overpower ; as the monarch who had entertained thoughts 
 even of universal empire. 
 
 But \v hat was to be the result ? At home a system of taxation 
 was to be urged on to the most oppressive expedients ; peasants 
 were to be hunted down and seized, to be forcibly enlisted 
 in the armies : abroad, Holland, England, Europe were to 
 be attacked or insulted ; a succession of battles was to be 
 fought, attended with the most frightful carnage ; that is, the 
 industrious were to be impoverished, the tender were to mourn, 
 and the brave were to die, because Louis was to be called 
 great, because Louis had chosen to be enrolled among the 
 conquerors of the earth ! It is surely difficult to love, it is 
 surely strange to admire a monarch like this. Of the last 
 forty-eight years of his reign, twenty-nine were years of war ; 
 more than a million of men were sacrificed ; the state was so 
 reduced that the very servants of the king, covered with his 
 liveries, asked alms at the doors of his palace at Versailles. 
 
 He had scarcely begun to reign when he assumed those 
 imperious and menacing airs which indicated but too clearly 
 what Europe had to expect.
 
 44 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 The invasion of the Franche Compte followed in 1668, and 
 of Holland in 1672; and so insolent was his conduct, so 
 unreasonable and so unjust, that he enabled William, the great 
 hero of the liberties of mankind, to form, in opposition to his 
 designs, the celebrated league of Augsburg. Ten years of 
 war, bloody and ruinous both to France and Europe, followed ; 
 and the character of Louis had been now so displayed, and its 
 ambition so well understood, that the will of the king of 
 Spain, which gave the Spanish crown to one of the younger 
 princes of his family, was resisted by Europe, and gave occa- 
 sion to the war of the Succession — the war which was so 
 marked by the triumphs of Marlborough and Eugene, and 
 which had almost reduced Louis to contend for his crown, and 
 France for its independence, at the very gates of Paris. 
 
 These, the leading measures of his reign, form, united, a 
 most dreadful indictment against him ; and it is impossible to 
 distinguish such a monarch from any other of those mistaken 
 and guilty mortals who have so misused their power as to 
 deserve every mark of disgust and reprobation which can 
 be inflicted upon them by the historian and by the thinking 
 part of mankind. 
 
 On his death-bed, when it was now indeed but too late, 
 when, as one of our old divines expresses it, " the phantastic 
 images of self-love are removed, and the gay remembrances of 
 vain opinion and popular noises;" at this awful period the 
 monarch seems to have been conscious, if not entirely of his 
 fault, at least that he had much mistaken the first duties of 
 a sovereign. " My child," says he to the dauphin, " seek 
 peace as the source of every good ; avoid war as the source of 
 every evil. My example in this respect is not a good one ; 
 do not imitate it ; it is that part of my life and reign which I 
 most repent." 
 
 But how strong must have been the reasons for repentance 
 before they could have reached the infatuated mind of a 
 monarch like Louis. 
 
 France is understood never to have recovered from the 
 efforts which she made to gratify the pride and injustice of her 
 sovereign. 
 
 The punishments of kings and nations are sometimes awful 
 in their ultimate, though not immediate accomplishmexit.
 
 II. LOUIS XIV. 45 
 
 Louis found himself and his empire advanced at one period 
 of his reign to the highest point of what he conceived to be 
 human glory. In a century afterwards his monarchy was at 
 an end, and his descendant was expiring under the hand of 
 the public executioner. — But I must now hasten to take leave 
 of this celebrated age and its celebrated hero. 
 
 Madame de Genlis, in a preface to one of her beautiful 
 compositions, the Memoirs of Madame de Valiere, has endea- 
 voured to assert the cause of this renowned monarch, and to 
 present him to the love as well as the remembrance of man- 
 kind ; but the character of her favourite has been already 
 decided, and no new estimate, agreeable to her wishes, can 
 now be procured. There is little (that I may briefly recapitu- 
 late what I have said), there is little in Louis to be loved, and 
 not much that can properly be admired. He violated his most 
 acknowledged duties ; he was an adulterer, and even openly 
 so ; in the same carriage with him, and in presence of his 
 armies, were seen his two mistresses and his queen. He 
 found in Madame de Valiere one whom he not only loved, but 
 one who would have thought herself but too happy to have 
 been loved by him ; too happy, as he well knew, if she had 
 been the object of his affection and choice in a private station, 
 and had shared with him, and for his sake endured the 
 obscurity of a cottage or the privations of the most laborious 
 life ; yet this mistress — his mistress in spite of all her sense of 
 right and honourable feelings, this unfortunate lady, he saw 
 consign herself to a living death in a cloister, only because he 
 had abandoned her for another. What next ensued ? This 
 second object of his attachment he again abandoned for a 
 third ; an adulterer to his queen while she lived, and at last, 
 by his connexion with Madame de Maintenon, subsiding into 
 an anomalous and mixed situation of right and wrong, licen- 
 tiousness and duty; too proud to be supposed a husband, 
 too devout (as he imagined) to be a keeper, and at last only 
 taught to know himself by the defeats of his generals, and the 
 overwhelming calamities which he had brought upon his 
 people. What is there here to be loved? What is there in 
 the man, as a husband, a father, or a master, to interest our 
 affections ? What is there that we would wish to be found in 
 the character of our children, our friends, or ourselves ? As a
 
 46 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 king, what are his praises ? The reducing of his kingdom to 
 order and civihzation by the authority of his government; the 
 selection of men of abihty for his ministers ,• the protection 
 of the fine arts ; important merits these, no doubt ; but these, 
 are all. 
 
 If the maxims of government v^^hich he confirmed and esta- 
 blished, — its revolting practices, his lettres de cachet, and his 
 Bastile ; if the spirit of ambition which he indulged and trans- 
 mitted ; if the habits of licentiousness and expense which he 
 countenanced in his court ; if the systems of taxation which he 
 entailed on his people ; if these could not fail immediately to 
 produce the most severe calamities ; if ultimately they pro- 
 duced the necessity, or at least gave occasion to the late 
 dreadful revolution — if these points be admitted — and how 
 are they to be contested ? — it will be difficult to select from 
 the whole course of history a single mortal whose follies 
 have been so injurious, whose faults have been so fatal to his 
 fellow-creatures as were those of Louis XIV. 
 
 The concluding scenes of the life of Louis are described 
 with great minuteness by St. Simon. He died penitent, and 
 was often observed joining his hands in prayer, and striking 
 his breast while in the act of self-confession. I could wish 
 you to turn to this particular portion of the Memoirs of the 
 duke, not only because Louis is an example to show that 
 after an ill-spent life the bitter hour of self-reproach must 
 come, and this, whatever be the deceitful nature of the human 
 heart (no man ever had one so deceitful as Louis), but because 
 a youthful student can never be too strongly reminded of the 
 transitory nature of every thing human ; however he may 
 value, and justly value, the proper enjoyments of this sub- 
 lunary state, he must never forget that the pleasures, whether 
 rational or not, of his existence, and his existence itself, in 
 this world at least, must pass away. 
 
 He has seen Louis XIV. the idol and the master of the 
 most brilliant court that Europe has ever witnessed ; he has 
 seen him surrounded by his mistresses, his ladies, and his 
 courtiers, his statesmen and his generals, his artists and his 
 bards, and he has now to see of all these things the awful and 
 concluding lesson — 
 
 " To what comj^lexion they must come at last."
 
 II. LOUIS XIV. 47 
 
 Louis is to undergo the same appalling change which is 
 the law of our common nature — Louis is to die. 
 
 The physicians are assembled, and they can afford no 
 succour; the gens d'armerie are brought up, and at last they 
 can no longer be reviewed, even from the window ; the musi- 
 cians cannot now be listened to, " charm they never so 
 wisely;" the conversation of Madame de Maintenon and the 
 ladies can interest no more ; the king sits drowsy or asleep, 
 and wakes confused ; the pulse fails, and he lies on his royal 
 bed helpless and expiring, fallen from his high estate, and his 
 kingdom departing from him ; a greater monarch than he has 
 at last appeared, to whose dart, as he prepares to strike, his 
 own earthly sceptre, if opposed, would be but a pigmy's straw ; 
 and this terrific being now marshals him the way he is to go, 
 the way to that vale and shadow, glimmering on the confines 
 of the present world and the future, which he is now to enter 
 and which stands for ever open to receive the fleeting genera- 
 tions of mankind. It must be ever thus, and the poet, while 
 musing in his churchyard path, repeats but the sentiment 
 which might have been felt on the terraces of Versailles : — 
 
 " The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
 And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
 Await alike the inevitable hour ; 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 
 
 I will make one observation more, not unconnected with the 
 general subject of the reign, and conclude. 
 
 Literature and the arts flourished in the reign of Louis, as 
 they did in that of Augustus. It has hence been made a 
 question whether they flourish not under an arbitrary monarchy 
 better than under a government, that is free ; nor are there 
 wanting reasons to show that this may be the case, and, at 
 all events, it will be said, what reasoning like the fact ? 
 
 But when this is made a question, it should be considered 
 what is included under the terms of literature and the arts. 
 
 Literature and the arts can flourish while they disturb not 
 the arbitrary maxims, civil or religious, which are adopted by 
 the government under which they appear — but no longer. 
 
 This measured licence, however, this contracted indulgence, 
 can never be favourable to the common cause of the genius of 
 the human mind, which kindles by mutual sympathy in every
 
 48 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 direction, and which can in this manner, and in this manner 
 only, reach its full and natural perfection. 
 
 It is not considered how capricious and unjust may be the 
 arbitrary monarch, even while he professes himself to be the 
 patron of literature and the arts. Virgil could find a patron 
 in Augustus, but Ovid experienced only a persecutor and 
 a tyrant. The same despot who could give a donation to the 
 Mantuan bard for the compliment to Marcellus, could tear 
 away the author of the Metamorphoses from the splendours 
 of Rome, and the delights of polished society, and cast him 
 out upon the snows of Thrace amid the barbarians that sur- 
 rounded the Euxine ; his complaints, the tender and elegant 
 Tristia, that were written from the desolate wastes of these 
 inhospitable regions, have never ceased to move every reader 
 of sensibility and taste, but they could produce no impression 
 on the master of an arbitrary government ; and the hapless 
 poet, sickening under the sensations of hope deferred, at last 
 despaired, and confessed that his genius had been his ruin. 
 
 " Ingenio peril Naso poeta meo." 
 
 Virgil, however, and Ovid might both have sung in courts 
 and capitals, where Tacitus could not have thought ; and the 
 pages of this philosophic historian will now for ever attest the 
 connexion that subsists between the genius and the freedom 
 of the human mind. The same great truth was again felt, 
 even under all the patronage of a court, by Longinus. In 
 every age and succeeding period of the world the conclusion is 
 the same. Raphael and Michael Angelo might have adorned 
 palaces and temples with all the forms of sublimity and 
 beauty, in cities where Galileo could not have unveiled the 
 science of the heavens, nor Luther laid open the book of hfe. 
 Under Louis XIV., in hke manner (the celebrated patron 
 of every muse), Boileau, and Poussin, and Bossuet, and 
 other illustrious men, divines, and artists, and poets could 
 find emoluments and distinctions; but Fenelon had to be 
 removed to a distance and to disguise the effusions of his 
 patriotism and wisdom. 
 
 In our own country, in hke manner, the immortal Locke, 
 under James II., was a student persecuted and silent; the 
 world received no benefit from the labours of his thouohts.
 
 II. 
 
 LOUIS XIV. 49 
 
 But the lapse of a few years and the renewal of a free form of 
 government saw him cherished and admired; saw him give 
 to mankind his Treatise on Government, his Reasonableness of 
 Christianity, his Essay on Toleration, his Essay on the Human 
 Mind, and contribute more, perhaps, than any individual who 
 can be mentioned, to the best interests of his fellow-creatures, 
 by contributing to remove obscurity from the mind, servility 
 from the heart, and dogmatism from the understanding, 
 
 I need not continue this subject further. The arts that 
 adorn, and the literature that charms the polished leisure 
 of society, may flourish under a Louis as they did under 
 an Augustus, but not so the higher pursuits of the human 
 understandino-. It is freedom alone which can conduct the 
 genius of mankind to that sublimer perception of truth, to 
 which the Almighty Master sometimes admits (as in his 
 wisdom he sees best) the aspiring, though bounded faculties 
 of his creatures.
 
 50 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 LOUIS XV. 
 
 The two following Lectures were originally delivered after the 
 Lectures on the American War, and were the conclusion of 
 the second Course. The character of the Regent is adverted 
 to in the twenty-seventh Lecture of the same Course. 
 
 1811. 
 
 IT is impossible for us, who live at this period, not to turn to 
 the reisfn of Louis XV. with an interest that those who 
 lived before us can never have experienced. To them it must 
 have appeared (in this island at least,) little more than the his- 
 tory of private and public profligacy, of an ambitious and licen- 
 tious court, of a debauched king, and of his unprincipled mis- 
 tresses ; a scene, that by the virtuous and the good, under our 
 own free government, would be only surveyed for a moment, 
 and that, with scorn and horror ; of which the image would 
 be banished from the memory, as a sort of pollution to the 
 thoughts. 
 
 We approach it, now, with sentiments not of less repug- 
 nance, but of more curiosity, and indeed with a sort of awful 
 anxiety. Most of us have seen, we all of us feel, (our children 
 to many a distant age are destined to feel,) the effects of the 
 most tremendous Revolution that Europe has ever known, 
 since the decline of the Roman empire. Even in the reign of 
 Louis XIV. we can now discern, as we read, the coming of 
 this great event. What signs may we not expect to see in the 
 long reign of his immediate successor, Louis XV. ? Ignorant 
 as men are, at the time, of the bearings and consequences not 
 only of what they see passing around them, but often of what 
 they are doing themselves, — it is still competent for us, after
 
 ni. LOUIS XV. 51 
 
 the event is known, to trace out the causes, with which it 
 appears to have been connected through many a distant year ; 
 and if men are ever, by any reading and meditation, to be 
 improved in the great scale of their pubhc relations, if they 
 are ever to be formed, some into statesmen, others into intel- 
 ligent citizens, it is not a little by retrospects like these. 
 
 After what I have now said of the interest that belonog to 
 this period, you will be disappointed to hear from me that 
 there is no very good account of the reign, to which I can 
 refer you. It has not yet been written as a portion of French 
 history. It is indeed the misery of all those who have to read"~1 
 French history, to find on all occasions a crowd of memoirs \ 
 offered to them, with and without names, instead of any regu- 
 lar history, delivered to the world by any author of reputation. 
 But the history of Louis XV. probably appeared at the time1 
 to be only the history of his mistresses and their favourites. 
 To have given any account of their proceedings, that would 
 have been worthy of the name of history, might not at the 
 moment have been very prudent. Perhaps no writer adequate 
 to the task could have been found ; and every thinking man 
 in France, after the reign of Louis XV., amid the confusion 
 and pressure of the events that succeeded it, was little at 
 leisure to begin a history of the times that were past. Duclos 
 deserts us about the period at which we are now arrived. A 
 few words about Cardinal Fleury, and a good account of the 
 Seven Years' War, more particularly of the concern the French 
 took in it, comprises the remainder of his work. We are 
 therefore left to look out for some other guide, and I do not 
 conceive that any can be found who would properly satisfy a 
 French scholar ; but, perhaps, English students like yourselves 
 may be more easily satisfied. Certain reasons exist why you 
 may be. For instance, the great subjects of the reign, to 
 which you will turn with interest, may be considered in a 
 general manner; and therefore you may be satisfied when a 
 native of the country may not — the foreign politics of the 
 reign form the first subject of inquiry. 
 
 Now, these may be found in the histories of other countries, 
 and are of the usual stamp ; the politics of craft and ambition. 
 They therefore may be estimated in a general manner. Next, 
 you will observe, that the domestic politics, though of the
 
 62 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 most important nature, can also be estimated in a general 
 manner. What were they ? 
 
 1st, The disputes between the court and the parliaments; 
 those of a financial and those of an ecclesiastical nature. 
 
 2d, The effect, in the mean time, which the writings of dif- 
 ferent eminent authors were producing upon the public mind, 
 — the progress of the new opinions. 
 
 These, together, constitute the great subject of domestic 
 interest during the reign of Louis. And they, too, can be best 
 comprehended by looking at them, as it were, from a distance, 
 and throwing them, if possible, into large masses. 
 
 The detail, therefore, on the whole, I venture to conclude, 
 though naturally sought for by French scholars, need not be 
 required by those of this country. 
 
 We might find, as the French readers may find, and as they 
 require us to find, memoirs of mistresses and favourites ; of 
 Madame de Pompadour, of la Comtesse Dubarri, or even of the 
 Due de Choiseul, the minister. But we should perceive that 
 it was to little purpose we had occupied our time and run the 
 chance of debasing our minds by accompanying such person- 
 ages through their disgusting scenes of court intrigue or impu- 
 dent profligacy. 
 
 It is known beforehand that it is by such means that states 
 and empires, whatever be their apparent strength, may be 
 brought to destruction ; and, when this is known, what is 
 there else to know ? The more minute transactions of these 
 disoraceful scenes we need not dwell on. 
 
 Again, we should find it very difficult to go through all 
 the particulars of the struggle between the crown and the 
 parliaments, even were they any where presented to our view. 
 But I know not that they are. There is a work by Voltaire 
 on the subject of the parliaments, but it is little to our pre- 
 sent purpose ; stops short and huddles up the subject, where 
 we might have wished it to proceed, fully and methodically ; 
 is rather a history of them from the earliest epoch than a 
 history of them during this important period ; and it has 
 been considered as a partial representation, as a sacrifice to 
 the court, made by this distinguished author, the better to 
 dispose the court to favour, or to tolerate his own designs 
 against Christianity.
 
 iir. LOUIS XV. 63 
 
 In like manner, it would not be very easy to read the detail 
 of the financial histoiy of these times, though its general im- 
 portance is easily understood. It seems enough for us to 
 comprehend, as we can readily do, that the court would not 
 be economical ; would neither be virtuous at home nor abstain 
 from wars abroad ; that the clergy and nobility would not pay 
 their shares to the general contribution ; and that, therefore, 
 different comptrollers-general, who were to find supplies for 
 the general expense, had only the same impossibilities to per- 
 form, and lamentations to utter. 
 
 If then the detail of these subjects be not entirely neces- 
 sary, you may be more reconciled to the ajoparently inadequate 
 information which can be offered to you, even on such a sub- 
 ject as the reign of Louis XV. ; a reign which I have an- 
 nounced, and must continue to announce, to you, as the pre- 
 lude to the French Revolution. 
 
 But I spoke of general information that might be offered to 
 you ; what then is it ? 
 
 Though no writer, as I have already observed, has made a 
 regular history of this period, something has been done. 
 
 In the first place, a sort of history of Louis XV. has been 
 written by Voltaire. The foreign politics of the reign may 
 be collected from this work, and an idea of the principal 
 events. 
 
 The same may be done from the short account supplied by 
 D'Anquetil, in his late History, (of fifteen octavo volumes,) 
 which, as a short general history of France, drawn up at the 
 instigation of Buonaparte, I have already taken occasion to 
 recommend. 
 
 But, finally, and on the whole, the work on which I depend, 
 both for the internal and external concerns of this reign, is the 
 work of Lacretelle. I have already mentioned it. It is in- 
 tended by him as an introduction to his estimate (his Precis), 
 of the French Revolution. It embraces a view of the foreign 
 politics of the reign, and of the more domestic transactions ; 
 the disputes between the court and parliaments, and, lastly, 
 an account of the different authors, and writings, that influ- 
 enced the subsequent fortunes of the French monarchy. 
 
 Here then we have, as I conceive, what we want. Lacre- 
 telle is considered as having drawn up his account from such
 
 54 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 books as are in the hands of men of letters in France, and 
 from such other sources of conversation and inquiry as are to 
 us in this country inaccessible. The author may be thought, 
 and I believe is thought, by those French scholars who are 
 conversant w^ith these times, to have passed over the transac- 
 tions of them W\i\\ a sort of general, and sometimes even 
 superficial elegance, w^hich he interrupts not by any occa- 
 sional display of very minute research. But I must here 
 recall to your mind what I have just said. He may still pre- 
 sent an English reader with an account that, for the reasons I 
 have mentioned, will be sufficiently detailed and profound ; 
 nay more, one that is only the fitter for our perusal, from 
 being of a general nature. I do not think the matter of these 
 volumes of Lacretelle well arranged, and it will easily be per- 
 ceived that due deference is paid to the political views of the 
 present ruler of France, Buonaparte ; that the author's 
 hatred also to England is unceasing : but in a literary point of 
 view he is always a pleasing, and often a very beautiful writer ; 
 and, with the exceptions I have mentioned, may be wel- 
 comed not only as a guide, but, on the whole, as a sufficient 
 guide. 
 
 Since I wrote this paragraph I have observed that M^. de 
 Sta'el speaks favourably of this author, of Lacretelle. 
 
 We will now advert a little more particularly to the reign 
 before us. Louis XV. reigned a considerable part of the last 
 century, from 1715 to 1774, almost as long as he lived. In 
 1715 began the regency of the Duke of Orleans, who died in 
 1723. A short period of about two years and a half compre- 
 hends the administration of the Duke of Bourbon, or rather 
 of his mistress, la Marquise de Prie. Fleury then appears on 
 the stage, and dies in 1743. He was therefore minister of 
 France for seventeen years. On his death, the king (Louis 
 XV.) undertook to be his own prime minister; an unpromising 
 experiment for a country at any time. In this instance the 
 result was only, that the king's mistress, M*^. de Chateauroux, 
 became the ruler of France, and soon after M^. de Pompadour, 
 another mistress, whose reign was prolonged from 1745 to 
 1763. Different courtiers and prelates were seen to hold the 
 first offices of the state during this apparent premiership of 
 the monarch. The ladies seem to have chosen or tolerated
 
 III. LOUIS XV. 55 
 
 Cardinal Ten9in, Argencon, Orsy, Mauripaux, and Amelot, 
 who, with the Dukes Noailles and Richelieu succeeded to 
 Fleury. 
 
 Afterwards, we have Argengon and Machault, and then 
 come the most celebrated of the ministers or favourites of M''. 
 de Pompadour, the Abbe de Bernis and the Due de Choiseul. 
 The last is the most distinguished minister after Fleury. He 
 continued in favour from 1758, not only to 1763, when M''. de 
 Pompadour died, but for a few years after. He was at length 
 disgraced by la Comtesse Dubarri, who had become the king's 
 mistress soon after the death of M^. de Pompadour, and re- 
 mained so, nearly to the death of the monarch himself, in 1774. 
 
 You will learn from Lacretelle more fully the names and 
 characters of these mistresses and ministers by whom 
 France was thus governed durino; this reig-n. Little or no 
 information respecting them is to be derived from Voltaire. 
 And his account, in many respects, particularly in this, ap- 
 pears to me but meagre and indifferent. He probably chose 
 to be on good terms with the principal persons of the court 
 and administration at the time he lived. Madame de Pom- 
 padour was a kind of patroness to him. 
 
 You will then, for the present, bear in mind, the better to 
 understand what observations I can offer, that the regent, 
 Duke of Orleans, of whom I have already spoken, is the first 
 ruler of the kingdom, down to the year 1723 ; Cardinal 
 Fleury soon follows, and continues minister seventeen years ; 
 Madame de Pompadour succeeds for about seventeen years 
 more ; till the termination of the great war, in which Lord 
 Chatham was our minister, in the year 1763; then comes la 
 Comtesse Dubarri ; that the Due de Choiseul, during the last 
 five years of M^. de Pompadour, had been minister ; that he 
 continued minister about thirteen years, till the end of the 
 year 1770, when la Comtesse Dubarri was disgraced, and the 
 chancellor Maupeou, and the Due D'Aiguillon remained in 
 power till 1774, the end of the reign. 
 
 The whole subject may be now divided into two parts ; the 
 foreign politics and the domestic. 
 
 These are (necessarily perhaps) mixed up and intermingled 
 in Lacretelle, but I would wish you to consider the train of 
 each of them apart, referring, no doubt, each to the other,
 
 56 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 from time to time, but keeping each of them in the first place 
 as much as possible apart, that you may afterwards be more 
 aware of the folly of the whole course of the one, from observ- 
 ing, by a sort of side glance as you go along, the folly of the 
 whole course of the other. For, to describe the whole, in one 
 word, you will see in the foreign politics, for the most part, 
 every readiness to embark in enterprises of war and expense, 
 while, at home, in the mean time, you will observe every rea- 
 diness on the part of the court to outrage the opinions of the 
 public ; i. e. every means employed to increase the embarrass- 
 ment of the finances, and yet every pains taken at the same 
 time to render it impossible to tax the people and repair the 
 evil. 
 
 We will now treat of these two subjects, the foreign and 
 domestic concerns, each in their order : our notices can be but 
 sHght, but I will endeavour to direct your views to the prin- 
 cipal points. 
 
 Of the foreign politics Voltaire gives the leading facts, still 
 more Lacretelle ; but Coxe's house of Austria must be read 
 along with them ; and these, with our own histories, will be 
 sufficient. 
 
 Of the foreign politics of the reign, you will remember that 
 the great features are, 1st, The peace maintained between 
 France and England during the administration of the regent 
 and Fleury. Then the war, in which Maria Theresa, the 
 young empress queen of the house of Austria was attacked in 
 the year 1741, in which France took a part, and to which war 
 Fleury most disgracefully assented. Next, a total change in 
 the policy of France ; an alliance with the house of Austria 
 during the reign of M*^. de Pompadour, and an interference in 
 the seven years' war in 1756, in favour of Maria Theresa, 
 and against the kings of Prussia and England. 
 
 These are the three great features. There are two events 
 of a more detached nature, that may be kept apart from the 
 rest : 1st, An interference in the affairs of Poland by Fleury, 
 early in the year 1735, in consequence of which the Dutchies 
 of Lorraine and Bar were ceded to France; and, 2dly, An 
 interference in the affairs of Genoa and Corsica, by the Due 
 de Choiseul in the year 1768, in consequence of which Corsica 
 was annexed to the crown of France.
 
 III. LOUIS XV. 57 
 
 These seem to me the great features of the foreign pohtics 
 of the reign ; but we will allude a little more distinctly to them, 
 and then to the ministers who conducted them. Of the 
 administration of the regent we have spoken in a former lec- 
 ture. A most fortunate vmion of interest, between France and 
 England then existed ; fortunate even in the apprehension of 
 the rulers of each country. 
 
 Cardinal Fleury, who succeeded the regent, was distin- 
 guished, like the sensible minister of England, (Walpole), for 
 his love of peace. 
 
 " Peace is my dear delight, not Fleury 's more." 
 
 This was again most fortunate for mankind ; but it must be 
 confessed that Fleury was quite outdone by Walpole in this 
 inestimable quality, the love of peace. Fleury suftered (how- 
 ever unwillingly), but he suffered France to interfere in the 
 succession to the crown of Poland, and placed England in 
 such a situation that Walpole must have been perplexed in 
 the extreme. 
 
 It is with the greatest difficulty we can accede to the cau- 
 tious politics of Walpole on this occasion, while he declined 
 assisting the house of Austria. 
 
 The Cardinal had no right to try the peaceful temper of 
 England and her ministers so severely. The Dutchies of 
 Lorraine and Bar were annexed to France, and became the 
 boasts of the administration of the pacific Fleury. 
 
 Accession of territory should form no part of the wishes of 
 any such minister; it is not on such objects that he should 
 rest his fame. The great accusation of Fleury, is, that though 
 fond of peace, he had not magnanimity enough to be con- 
 sistent; to abstain from attempts to aggrandize France, and 
 to depress the house of Austria ; but without a magnanimity 
 and consistency of this kind, how vain is it to pretend to the 
 praise of a love of peace. 
 
 This affair of Poland you will see sufficiently detailed in 
 Coxe, and it is interesting. The next transaction is the war of 
 1741, against Maria Theresa. Fleury seems to have had the 
 merit of opposing those councils in the French cabinet which 
 produced and assisted the unjustifiable attack on the young- 
 queen. But, to oppose is not always sufficient. He ought
 
 58 FRENCH REVOLUTION. leut. 
 
 assuredly to have retired from the cabinet, or insisted on 
 directing it to the purposes of peace and justice. He did 
 neither. He died in the midst of the first misfortunes of the 
 war ; misfortunes which justified, no doubt to his own mind, 
 the pacific councils he had offered, while the invasion of Eng- 
 land, by the Pretender, must in like manner have sanctioned 
 to the mind of Walpole, at the time when he also was dying, 
 the pacific policy, which he too had maintained through the 
 whole of his administration. 
 
 The war which Fleury suffered his country to engage in 
 against Maria Theresa, is the war to which Johnson alludes 
 in his 1 " Vanity of Human Wishes;" the poem, in which he 
 continues, by a variety of instances, to imitate one of the 
 finest compositions of ancient literature, till he produces one 
 of the finest of modern ; certainly of its kind, the finest : 
 
 "The bold Bavarian, in a luckless hour," &c. 
 
 On the character of Fleury, and on the character of his 
 administration, there are good observations scattered through 
 the work of Lacretelle. I depend upon your reading them, 
 and do not undertake to afford you here the proper benefit of 
 them. The character of this minister was that of wisdom, 
 not of genius ; and rather the wisdom of old age than of the 
 understanding in its vigour. He might be distinguished 
 among the rulers of France (he easily was) for disinterested- 
 ness and a love of economy. But he left nothing to live after 
 him. No institution, no scheme of useful policy, no improve- 
 ment of the constitution, or even laws of his country. Lor- 
 raine alone spoke his merits; an objectionable testimony, as 
 his real merits were of a peaceful and a different kind. 
 
 His views, however, his intentions, his wishes, if these were 
 in the minister of a great country sufficient, were of the 
 proper nature ; and, as far as the foreign politics of France 
 were concerned, would not have tended, as did those of his 
 successors, to accelerate the Revolution we have seen. 
 
 Descending then, thirdly, from the regent and Fleury, who 
 died in 1743, we have to observe, that his death, during the 
 war, produced no favourable effect on the councils of France; 
 much the contrary : Louis XV. was rendered only more eager 
 to rule, and more unfit. When the venerable governor of his
 
 III. LOUIS XV. 59 
 
 youth was no more, he became more than ever devoted to his 
 mistress and to his pleasures. And the energies of this great 
 kingdom were directed by different ministers and generals, 
 who acted but little in concert with each other, and therefore 
 the French arms were not successful, and Maria Theresa was 
 not subdued. 
 
 In 1744, England and France, that had been only auxi- 
 liaries, became principals, inflamed (as usual) by their most 
 unfortunate spirit of rivalship, and the Duke of Cumberland 
 was little able to renew the triumphs of Marlborough, cir- 
 cumstanced as Europe then was, and opposed as he was to 
 Marshal Saxe. The war was at length brought to a conclu- 
 sion by the peace of Aix la Chapelle in 1748 ; and the monarch 
 and the ministers, of France at least, might have been asked 
 for what intelligible reason they had embroiled instead of 
 pacifying Europe, and why their country and England were 
 to be seen as principals contending in every quarter of the 
 world. Even England, that began with a war against Spain 
 in Sir Robert Walpole's administration, made a peace that had 
 no reference to the original grounds of her indignation and 
 fuiy. In making, however, the peace of Aix la Chapelle, 
 France seems to have deserved, for one passing interval, the 
 applause of mankind. Her conduct was concihatory, and her 
 terms moderate. 
 
 Of this war and of the peace you will see an ample account 
 in all the different histories. 
 
 We now come to the Seven Years' War. 
 
 It will no doubt surprise you, as you proceed in the history, 
 to find France at length uniting herself to the House of 
 Austria : — that Maria Theresa should be anxious to gain over 
 or even neutralize France, is very intelligible; she might 
 thus recover from the king of Prussia the province of Silesia ; 
 but that France should assist the House of Austria, her ancient 
 rival, to depress a new power, that of Prussia, whom it was 
 more natural for her to convert into a new ally, was surely 
 a system of policy never to have been expected. Such how- 
 ever was the fact. You will see the account well given 
 in Coxe. 
 
 This union gave occasion to the celebrated Seven Years' 
 War; the war which Maria Theresa waged, to recover her
 
 60 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 possessions, and, if possible, destroy Prussia. England we 
 see (as usual) engaging with France in every quarter of the 
 world, each power appearing as a principal, for they found a 
 subject of dispute even in the back settlements of America. 
 Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, all beheld their battles and 
 their sieges; the diseases and the death that marked the 
 presence of their arms ; and even the far distant and lonely 
 tracts of the ocean were broken in upon by the sounds, and dyed 
 by the carnage of their bloody contentions. The same trage- 
 dies of guilt and madness that had a few years before been 
 brought to a conclusion, and even greater than these, were 
 again renewed. The continent in the mean time, which these 
 arbiters of the world, France and England, might have 
 attempted (and successfully) to rescue from its fate, was 
 abandoned to slaughter and devastation, while the king of 
 Prussia, defended by all the qualities of an unconqvierable 
 hero, what he had acquired by all the arts of an unprincipled 
 politician. 
 
 These are melancholy scenes for you to witness ; you will 
 draw, I hope, the proper lessons from them. I have already 
 taken every opportunity to recommend them to your thoughts. 
 You will best understand the part that France took in the 
 Seven Years' War, and the mistakes which were committed, 
 by consulting Duclos. By the extraordinary exertions of 
 England, and talents of the great war minister, Mr. Pitt, 
 France was obhged to sue for peace, and under the councils of 
 Lord Bute, soon after the accession of his present majesty, it 
 was granted to her in the year 1763. 
 
 Of these enterprises of ambition and impolitic wars, I must 
 content myself with this general notice. The great character- 
 istics of these foreign politics of France were a spirit of rival- 
 ship to England, and an ambition to be the leading power on 
 the continent. But the observation that I think ought to 
 be made is not only the general injustice of these projects 
 of France, and therefore their general impolicy, but the 
 peculiar impolicy, the peculiar infatuation of the monarch and 
 ministers of this great country during the whole of the last 
 half century, who could all this time entirely turn away their 
 eyes from all that was passing more near them in their own 
 country, and never condescend to consider how far their schemes
 
 III. LOUIS XV. 61 
 
 of aggrandizement and hostility abroad ought to be checked 
 and controlled by the state of the public opinion and public 
 debt at home. It is an awful lesson to see the court, the 
 ministers, the nobility of a great empire like this, all proceed- 
 ing upon the established principles and prejudices of their 
 respective situations, never for a moment casting a philosophic 
 view on their real situation, and thus hurried along like the 
 savage in his canoe, who sleeps upon the stream till the stream 
 has become a torrent, and he is precipitated to his destruc- 
 tion. 
 
 Finally, I must add that the ill success of these wars, and 
 some defeats that the French arms experienced, put the people 
 of France (fond as they were, and have always been, of 
 military glory) quite out of humour with their government, 
 and in this way somewhat contributed, as it has been always 
 understood, to produce the revolution. 
 
 So much for the first part of our general subject — the 
 foreign politics of France. 
 
 We now proceed to the consideration of the domestic 
 concerns of France. These, as I have already observed, have 
 now an interest which formerly they could not have been 
 thought to deserve, for while you are considering these domes- 
 tic concerns, you must bear in mind the revolution you have 
 lately witnessed, even more than while considering the foreign 
 concerns to which we have just alluded. The foreign wars, 
 it is true, contributed to the difficulties of the state, and placed 
 the public debt more and more out of the reach of all manage- 
 ment, by the financiers of France; but the domestic events 
 in the mean time contributed still more to the late revolution, 
 and therefore are not only deserving your observation as parts 
 of general history, but more particularly as parts of the histoiy 
 of that great event. 
 
 In these domestic transactions of the reign of Louis XV. 
 the two principal points to which you are to look are the 
 disputes of the crown with the parliaments, and the progress 
 of the new opinions. It was by these means that at length 
 such an alteration took place in the public sentiment, that the 
 monarchy itself became unpopular, and the physical strength 
 of the community was at length turned against this monarchy 
 and its upholders, in the reign of Louis XVI.
 
 62 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 You have already adverted to the foreign pohtics of France, 
 and are aware of their effects on the pubhc debt ; you are now 
 then to observe the history of the domestic concerns, and 
 to consider how the disputes between the crown and the par- 
 haments operated to ahenate those constitutional bodies from 
 the court ; how the opinions and feehngs of the people 
 were continually outraged ; while you are next to observe, 
 that during all this period the most distinguished writers were 
 sometimes enlightening, sometimes misleading, but at all 
 events were continually agitating the public mind on subjects 
 of religion and government. 
 
 Here, then, we have in a general point of view presented to 
 us the great causes of the revolution. 
 
 1 st, The wars, the public debts, and distresses of the state ; 
 2d, The crown and the court rendered unpopular by the 
 disputes with the parhaments ; and, 3dly, in the mean time 
 writers of every description turning the attention of the public 
 to the concerns of religion and government, and that in a 
 manner totally hostile to her existing establishments. 
 
 The result of the whole was, the loss of all public opinion, 
 the destruction of all the proper supports of government, and 
 the consequence, an unrestrained revolution — a revolution of 
 the most tremendous nature. 
 
 To begin, then, this subject of the domestic concerns of 
 France. It may be distinguished, as I have mentioned, into 
 two great divisions — the disputes of the crown with the par- 
 liaments, and the progress of the new opinions. 
 
 First, then, with respect to these disputes with the par- 
 liaments, and the resistance made by these bodies to the 
 crown. 
 
 One might at first suppose that this resistance would have 
 been always of a civil nature, respecting the finances, for 
 instance, but not so ; the resistance not only had a reference 
 to the finances, but for a long time to points of a religious 
 nature. 
 
 And in this manner is an interest given to many discussions 
 and transactions which could otherwise have no great attrac- 
 tion, for many of the readers of history. 
 
 I shall now proceed to allude, in the first place, to the
 
 III. 
 
 LOUIS XV. 63 
 
 history of these rehgious disputes, afterwards to those of a 
 financial nature. 
 
 You will recollect, while I am alluding to them, that the 
 continual effect of them was to alienate the minds of the 
 public from the court, and even from the monarch himself, 
 and thus to prepare the way for the revolution. 
 
 These religious disputes then turned chiefly on the nature 
 and operation of grace, and the freedom of the human will. 
 The Jesuits and the Jansenists were the combatants on the 
 different sides. The court sided with the former — the Jesuits ; 
 the parliaments with the latter — the Jansenists. 
 
 These topics of dispute (the nature and operation of grace 
 and the freedom of the human will) are represented by many 
 as of a frivolous nature ; but none ever less deserved the name. 
 The points debated are among the most important questions, 
 tlie most magnificent problems, that can be proposed to the 
 human understanding. 
 
 The fact, however, is, that it does not appear that the great 
 Creator of the human mind ever intended that such problems 
 should be solved by any faculties which he has bestowed. 
 And the mistake of mankind is, not that of originally endea- 
 vouring to comprehend them, and of being anxious about 
 them, but that of peremptorily deciding upon them, as if they 
 were subjects within our reach ; not only deciding, but even 
 converting them into doctrines which we call upon others 
 to believe ; which we even convert into marks, by which we 
 distinguish communities and sects, and by which we actually 
 proceed to determine their favourable or unfavourable accep- 
 tance with the Almighty. It is not that these topics are 
 frivolous, but that they lead to discussions which become so. 
 When men affect to instruct each other upon questions which 
 they are not in reality permitted to understand : when they 
 endeavour to reply to their opponents by distinctions without 
 a difference ; when they produce explanations that only offer 
 one term instead of another ; which speak to the ear, not the 
 mind, and when in the result they surround themselves by a 
 labyrinth, where it is impossible to find either a resting place 
 or an exit. Controversies of this nature marked (you may 
 remember) the first progress of the reformation.
 
 64 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 They were presented to you in the History of the Low 
 Countries; Arminius and Gomar were (you may remember) 
 the great leaders on the different sides. As you read the 
 French history you may recollect them in the reign of Louis 
 XIV. 
 
 This monarch was in truth a mere bigot, for such must 
 every man be called who insists upon points of doctrine to 
 a degree neither warranted by their importance nor the nature 
 of their evidence, and insists upon them in a manner unfavour- 
 able to the interests of society at any time, still more so to the 
 particular interests of the community at the period in which 
 he lives. 
 
 A good account is given of our present subject by Belsham, 
 in his eleventh book of the History of Great Britain ; it is as 
 concise as possible : a more lively and detailed account by 
 Voltaire, in his chapter on Jansenism, in his Age of Louis 
 XIV. Lacretelle must be read as giving the particulars in 
 a less desultory and epigrammatic, and therefore more reason- 
 able and intelligible manner than Voltaire, who has generally 
 on these occasions the unpardonable fault of Gibbon — that 
 of so telling his story that it cannot possibly be understood, 
 unless the facts have been learned elsewhere. 
 
 From Voltaire, however, it may be collected that a doctor 
 of Louvaine, named Baius, so early as 1552 had published on 
 the subject of predestination and free-will, that his doctrines 
 were resisted by the pope, and that the Spanish Jesuit, Molina, 
 having also thought that he had made some discoveries on 
 these points, set about explaining them to the world. His 
 opinions to a certain degree prevailed, and they gave rise to the 
 sect of the Molinists, who favoured the doctrines of free-will. 
 
 But some time after the opposite tenets of Baius — the 
 necessarian tenets — were revived by Cornelius Jansen, bishop 
 of Ypres ; and his writings were so successful that they were 
 followed by the appearance of a sect, called after their founder, 
 Jansenists. 
 
 The Jesuits and the court espoused the former system, that 
 of free-will ; the parliaments, and particularly the parliament 
 of Paris, the latter, that of necessity. These general terms 
 will give you a sufficient idea of the nature of their systems. 
 " Superstition (says Hume) is an enemy to civil liberty, enthu-
 
 III. LOUIS XV. 65 
 
 siasm a friend to it. The Molinists (says Hume), while con- 
 ducted by the Jesuits, are great friends to superstition, rioid 
 observers of external forms and ceremonies, and devoted to 
 the authority of the priests and to tradition. The Jansenists 
 are enthusiasts, and zealous promoters of the passionate devo- 
 tion, and of the inward life, little influenced by authority, and 
 in a word but half catholics. The Jesuits are the tyrants of 
 the people, and the slaves of the court, and the Jansenists 
 preserve alive the small sparks of the love of liberty which 
 are to be found in the French nation." This was written 
 by Hume about 1742. 
 
 You wall now comprehend the manner in which religious 
 disputes gave occasion to a constant series of hostilities between 
 the court and parliaments from the time of Louis XIV. inclu- 
 sive. The details of this struggle I cannot enter into, but you 
 may read a sufficient account of them in Voltaire and Lacre- 
 telle ; and you ought to read them ; first, because you will thus 
 read the beginning, in some respects, of the late revolution in 
 France; and, 2dly, because the history of such contentions 
 may teach you forbearance and magnanimity, and a little 
 good sense in your own conduct on all similar occasions ; 
 occasions which can never be wanting. 
 
 I cannot, I say, enter into the details of this struggle, but I 
 will now mention to you the steps through which the parties 
 proceeded in the course of it. You may obsei've them while I 
 read them, and draw conclusions, without any comment of mine. 
 
 1st. Orders came from the archbishop and the clergy (the 
 Jesuit side) to refuse the sacraments. 
 
 2nd. Censures and prosecutions from the parliament (the 
 Jansenist side) against those who obeyed such orders. 
 
 3rd. A mandate from the court to stay all such prosecutions 
 of the parliament. 
 
 4th. Remonstrances from the parliament. 
 
 5th. The royal commands renewed. 
 
 6th. Fresh remonstrances from the parliament. 
 
 7th. References from the king to his former commands. 
 
 8th. Suspension of all business on the part of the parlia- 
 ments (which you will remember were judicial bodies.) 
 
 9th. Orders from the crown to revoke these resolutions 
 of suspension. 
 
 F
 
 66 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 10th. The parliament attempts to attach the revenue of the 
 archbishop. 
 
 11th. At length lettres de cachet are issued; all the mem- 
 bers of two of the courts of parliament are exiled ; four others 
 are sent to the state prisons ; letters patent are issued, and an 
 attempt is made to form new courts of justice instead of the 
 parliaments. 
 
 But these letters patent were not valid till they were judi- 
 cially enregistered. The inferior courts refused therefore to 
 register them. 
 
 The nation was at length inflamed ; the provincial parlia- 
 ments remonstrated and justified the parliament of Paris ; the 
 clergy who refused the sacraments were every where prose- 
 cuted ; and what then could the court now do ? And what had 
 the archbishop and the clergy next to advise? They had 
 evidently no measure left. Conceive in what a situation this 
 great kingdom was now placed ; on the one hand the legal 
 business of the country, and on the other the most solemn 
 rites of the religion of the country, had ceased ; social existence 
 seemed to stop and be suspended. The parliament was there- 
 fore recalled, and the archbishop exiled. Such is the speci- 
 men I have to ofl:er of these contests. 
 
 But how was the breach thus produced between the king and 
 his parliaments to be ever properly healed ? How was the folly 
 of the court, and indeed of the clergy, to be ever repaired ? 
 What folly could be greater than for the court to take a part 
 in religious disputes like these between the Jesuits and the 
 Jansenists? What more unskilful than to give the parhaments 
 an opportunity of resisting the crown in points where men are 
 least of all disposed to be obedient — on subjects of religion ; 
 where resistance to authority assumes the highest tone and 
 character that can belong to it ; and men seem driven at once 
 to the alternative of choosing whether they shall obey God or 
 man. 
 
 The original controversy came at length to be forgotten ; 
 the cause of the parliaments was supposed to be the cause of 
 the nation ; the secret of the constitution, as must have been 
 known both to the court and to the clergy, lay in the re- 
 sistance which the parliaments could or could not legally 
 make to the commands of the monarch ; and the seeds were
 
 in. LOUIS XV. 67 
 
 tlius sown of that revolution which at last broke out to 
 the destruction of the court, the clergy, and all the estab- 
 lished orders tog-ether. 
 
 And now with respect to the financial disputes. 
 
 It was in the course of the religious disputes on the subject 
 of Jansenism that appeared the celebrated Provincial Letters of 
 Pascal. 
 
 " The comedies of Moliere," says Voltaire, " have not 
 more wit than the former part of these letters, nor the writings 
 of Bossuet more sublimity than the latter." 
 
 The Jesuits seem never to have recovered from the effects 
 produced by these celebrated compositions. 
 
 The intolerant part which the Jesuists took in these poli- 
 tical and religious disputes raised them up enemies in the 
 parliament and nation, who were not to be appeased. The 
 whole order was suppressed in the middle of the last century. 
 
 You will see very interesting particulars in the relation 
 which Lacretelle gives to explain this very extraordinary 
 event. Various circumstances concurred in producing it ; but 
 the accusations of their enemies formed a splendid eulogium 
 on their talents, if not their virtues ; and their order must 
 always be mentioned, whenever the history of the human mind 
 is to be given, the nature of its faculties to be illustrated, or 
 the progress of its improvement explained. 
 
 So much for the religious contests between the parliaments 
 and the court. 
 
 In my next lecture I must proceed to the financial disputes 
 between the court and the parliament, and I must advert also 
 to the progress of the new opinions, as concurring with the 
 religious and financial disputes to make the court unpopular, 
 and at length to produce the revolution. 
 
 But before I conclude my present lecture, I must allude to 
 a subject which I have already mentioned to ^ou as belonging 
 to this reign of Louis XV. — the conquest of Corsica ; a sort 
 of insulated event, but one which may be reckoned up among 
 the foreign transactions of the kingdom, and which I might 
 have mentioned at the close of them ; but as it must have 
 always been introduced as a sort of digression from the main 
 subject, whenever I had noticed it, I thought it less likely to 
 internipt the train of your thoughts, if I presented it to you
 
 68 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 now, while concluding this present lecture, and before I begin 
 the lecture of to-morrow. 
 
 It was under the administration of the Due de Choiseul, in 
 the year 1768, that this conquest of Corsica was accom- 
 plished. The Genoese had long exercised a sort of sovereignty 
 over the island, but were unable properly to secure its obe- 
 dience. France had been applied to, and at last the Genoese 
 surrendered all their rights to the crown of France, and armies 
 were sent by the Due de Choiseul no longer to assist the 
 Genoese, but to bring the country under subjection to Louis 
 XV. 
 
 Voltaire gives a regular account of the fortunes of this 
 island from the earliest times, and of the whole transaction ; 
 but as you can easily turn to his work hereafter, and even 
 now can anticipate what he would say on the subject of the 
 conquest itself, it may be at present more interesting to you 
 to allude to the terms lately made use of by Lacretelle, in 
 giving the history of this conquest. 
 
 Lacretelle is an historian, you will remember, writing under 
 the government of Buonaparte ; not a word, therefore, of the 
 natural rights of mankind, the laws of nations, or the infamy 
 of this transaction on the part of the French nation. 
 
 " A conquest," says Lacretelle, " more important than this 
 of Avignon, and which the Due de Choiseul had the good 
 fortune to achieve, without disturbing the general peace, 
 attested the dexterity of this minister — the conquest of Corsica. 
 After giving a history of the island, as Voltaire had done, the 
 Due de Choiseul (says he) received but coldly the Genoese, 
 who came to offer him considerable sums for our soldiers, to 
 be employed in the reduction of Corsica. But he soon after 
 began to offer to the Genoese, in his turn, sums far more 
 considerable, for the cession to France of a possession much 
 too burdensome and uncertain for a republic like theirs ; the 
 negotiation was conducted with a secrecy that prevented all 
 jealousy in the English ; the king of France announced himself 
 to the Corsicans as a mediator, who was disposed to have their 
 independence acknowledged. Their chief Paoli gave credit 
 to these assurances. In the month of May, 1768, Europe 
 learned with surprise that the Genoese had by treaty ceded 
 Corsica to France ; in truth, this cession was not announced
 
 III. LOUIS XV. 69 
 
 as final and irrevocable ; the Genoese reserved the ri^ht of 
 resuming their sovereignty when they could reimburse the 
 French their expenses. This illusory clause was only intended, 
 says Lacretelle, to soften the resentment of the English ; the 
 king of France soon showed the fallacy of the whole, by 
 assuming the title of king of Corsica. 
 
 The Corsicans displayed all the indignation of a people 
 abused by vain promises. The English animated their resis- 
 tance by promises of their own, equally fallacious. Lacre- 
 telle then proceeds to state shortly, that the war was for some 
 time, on the part of the French, not successful ; that the 
 French general represented the enterprise to be as foolish as 
 it was expensive ; that the king hesitated, but that the minister 
 insisted on the importance of the island, «&;c., and that his 
 decision prevailed. 
 
 " No movement," the historian goes on to say, " was 
 obsei-ved in the ports of England, and it was impossible not 
 to form a high idea of the talents of a minister who had thus 
 deceived or intimidated a government so jealous and so 
 haughty ; a new general was sent ; the Corsicans, outraged by 
 the inaction of the English, lost all courage ; Paoli, who had 
 made them expect their assistance, partook of the general 
 despair. After being chased from post to post, he was for- 
 tunate enough to reach a sea-port and embark for England ; 
 Corsica was reduced, and the Due de Choiseul had the glory 
 of having given a new province to his master, of having made 
 a conquest merely by means of his political address, and of 
 having thrown down the gauntlet to the English, even when 
 intoxicated with all their triumphs, which they did not think 
 proper to take up. " Why," says Lacretelle, " was England 
 so timid on this occasion ? On account of the troubles in her 
 American colonies." 
 
 What says our own historian ? " The transfer of Corsica to 
 France," says Adolphus, " was an early topic of debate, but 
 produced no interesting remark or useful information ; a motion 
 for the correspondence between the British and French minis- 
 try, and for instructions and other papers, introduced a 
 discussion on the value of the acquisition. The opposition 
 maintained that every accession of power to France was 
 dangerous to this country ; and as great attention had been
 
 70 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 paid for so many years to the maintenance of a proper equili- 
 brium among the powers of Europe, the invasion of that 
 island ouo-ht to have been considered as a violent breach of 
 treaty, and subversive of that equilibrium. It was replied, 
 that Corsica was a place of no importance, destitute of a good 
 harbour, and an acquisition that would prove rather an evil 
 than a benefit to France; but at all events, loaded as we 
 already were with debt, folly and madness alone could impel 
 us to engage in a war for so small an object." 
 
 To the ministers of England, and apparently to this histo- 
 rian of England, there was nothing then at issue but the 
 mere possession of a barren island in the Mediterranean. 
 Ministers of the same temperament had in their proclamation 
 at the peace forbidden the king's subjects to afford assistance 
 to the Corsicans, and had even presumed to call them rebels. 
 " I expected not this from England," said their gallant chief- 
 tain. From England he could not have received such an 
 outrage; the public sentiment was in his favour, and suffi- 
 ciently clear, and it will be an ill omen for England when on 
 such an occasion it is not so : 
 
 " For he who values liberty, confines 
 His zeal for her predominance within 
 No narrow bounds, her cause engages him 
 Wherever pleaded — 'tis the cause of man." 
 
 So was it on this occasion. It was the cause of man, and not 
 of the weeds on the sea-shore, or the heath upon the mountains 
 of Corsica, but that of the security of every unoffending 
 community, hoAvever small ; the security and the shelter that 
 are thrown around every nation by the common pact and 
 guarantee of the republic of nations, while it is content with, 
 its own possessions, and neither insults nor invades those of 
 others, and this too in the very view and vicinity of nations 
 more powerful and wealthy, who, like the affluent andthe great 
 on the smaller scale of the social and civil connexions of men, 
 are to respect the innocence, and to beat off the spoiler from 
 the cottage of their neighbour, not themselves to become the 
 murderers and the robbers, the Ahabs of sacred writ, who 
 annex to their own wide extent of possessions, and their own 
 assemblage of enjoyments, the humble pittance which the
 
 III. LOUIS XV. 71 
 
 villager has placed upon his board, and the little spot that he 
 has loved, as the inheritance of his fathers. 
 
 The author of the Annual Register, who gives a very good 
 account of these transactions, very properly observes, " that it 
 was evident, from the difficulties which the French encoun- 
 tered and the losses they sustained, without any other opposi- 
 tion, than the single virtue of the natives, that this attempt 
 might have been easily rendered abortive, and that nothing 
 but the most unaccountable supineness in states, that were 
 not only interested in the preservation of this island, but 
 much more in preventing any new accession of power or domi- 
 nion to France, could have given it even a probability of suc- 
 cess."— Ann. Reg. 1769, p. 46. 
 
 The efforts of these heroic islanders to resist the power of 
 France, even as related by Voltaire, w'ere, as you will find, of 
 the most extraordinary nature. The carnage was dreadful. 
 
 These are the events in history that it is so painful to 
 observe. The description of the Romans must not be con- 
 fined to those conquerors of the world ; it is but too true of 
 every great people, " Si locuples hostis est, avari, si pauper, 
 ambitiosi sunt." The new world is no sooner discovered, the 
 riches of the west and of the east are no sooner exposed to 
 view, than out rush from every port and haven, the iron men 
 of Europe, to rifle and to massacre the unhappy possessors of 
 these fatal treasures. We have the conquest of Mexico and 
 the conquest of Peru, the Dutch East India Company, and 
 the French East India Company, and the honourable Com- 
 pany (honourable did I say ?) of British merchants trading to 
 the East Indies. We have one quarter of the world given 
 away by the Pope, and we have another quarter purchased 
 from the Mogul ; and because the Corsicans it seems had 
 neither the mines of the west nor the gems and spices of the 
 East, these islanders were to be envied, the first rude gifts 
 that nature has to bestow, the trees of their mountains, and 
 the sinews of their frames ; navies, it seems, might be drawn 
 froom their woods, and soldiers from their population ; they 
 breathed the free air of their wild country, without asking the 
 leave of France ; they loved and hated, and hoped, and feared 
 without orders from Versailles. 
 
 How httle could the Due de Choiseul suspect, while he was
 
 '2 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 sending his countrymen, the troops of his king, to perish, 
 battahon after battahon ; while he was calhng upon the gal- 
 lant officers of France to perpetrate his foul butcheries of an 
 unoffending people, hemming in the brave with his bayonets, 
 and corrupting the irresolute with his gold ; waging a sacri- 
 legious war against human virtue under every form ;— how little 
 could this triumphant minister of the court of Louis suspect, 
 that from out of the freemen he was thus bribing, pursuing, 
 and murdering, that from out of those very men who were 
 thus to be converted into subjects of the French monarchy, 
 should arise in the next generation — how httle could the Due 
 de Choiseul suspect it — the man, the very Buonaparte, who 
 was to usurp the throne of his master, and from the very 
 palaces of the Bourbons, where he was himself sitting, issue 
 orders to execute like traitors and outcasts, the princes of 
 their race ; trample under his feet " the pride, the pomp and 
 the circumstance" not only of that House of Bourbon, but even 
 of that House of Austria, which the Due de Choiseul had so 
 cherished and united to the throne of France ; realize more of 
 empire than the proudest of the Bourbons had ever fancied 
 in their most splendid visions ; and ministers like himself, and 
 monarchs like his master, the helpless or unworthy potentates 
 of the continent, " catch in his fuiy and make nothing of." 
 
 Yet these things have we seen ; such is the eventful era in 
 which we live, and such the mysterious dispensations of that 
 Providence, which not unfrequently seems to mock the coun- 
 cils of the worldly wise, and which suffers no course of con- 
 duct ultimately to deserve the character of real wisdom or 
 sane ambition, but that conduct on which nations, as well as 
 individuals, had best confide; that conduct which is inde- 
 pendent of all changes of events, by being founded on the 
 eternal rules of humanity and justice. 
 
 Several years have elapsed since what I have just dehvered 
 was first written. During this period what changes have we 
 not seen ? Buonaparte was then in the zenith of his power, 
 the lord of the ascendant ; but has any thing since happened 
 to invalidate the force of what I then said ? Is he to whom I 
 have just alluded an example to the contrary ? 
 
 I must confess that I do not so interpret the events we have 
 witnessed.
 
 III. LOUIS XV. 73 
 
 I am conscious, indeed, that I speak of the dispensations 
 of that awful Being, in whose sight a thousand years are but 
 as one day ; that this, our subhinary state, is rather a state of 
 probation, than of present reward and punishment ; but, when 
 due attention has been paid to these considerations, where, I 
 may still ask, where, during this extraordinary era, of five and 
 twenty years, from the breaking out of the French Revolu- 
 tion, where are the instances in the conduct of any of the 
 nations of Europe, or of their rulers ; where are the instances 
 of violence, of injustice, of inhumanity, that have ultimately 
 been of benefit to their perpetrators. 
 
 Be assured that the magnanimity of uprightness, and all 
 the elevating and all the attractive qualities of the human 
 mind, are the best protection of nations, as well as individuals; 
 that the path of honour is the path of true policy ; and that 
 the great Governor of the world, in public, as well as in pri- 
 vate life, has indissolubly connected, even on this side the 
 grave, the happiness of his creatures, with the exercise of their 
 virtues, and the fulfilment of their duties.
 
 74 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 LOUIS XV. 
 
 MY last lecture endeavoured to call your attention to the 
 reign of Louis XV. The task must have been easy, 
 when I had once announced to you that this reign, long as it 
 was, extending through almost the whole of the last centuiy, 
 was but a prelude to the French Revolution. 
 
 I endeavoured to state to you the great points to which 
 you should direct your observation ; the wars in which France 
 was engaged, and why they were impolitic (to say nothing of 
 the injustice of them) to a degree of infatuation. Afterwards, 
 I attempted to exhibit to you the reasons why the public 
 mind, while the national debt was thus increasing, advanced 
 fast into a state of alienation from the monarchy and the 
 existing establishments. This alienation took place partly in 
 consequence of the disputes between the parliaments and the 
 court, and partly from the progress of the new opinions. The 
 disputes between the parliaments and the court were of a 
 twofold nature ; they were religious and they were financial. 
 In the last lecture we alluded to the religious disputes : to-day 
 we must first allude to those of a financial nature, and at 
 length to the effects produced by the progress of the new 
 opinions. 
 
 It will readily be supposed that the oppo^tion of the par- 
 liaments to the crown was not confined to religious matters. 
 The finances, it will easily be conceived, were a constant sub- 
 ject of complaint and ill-humour. The secret of the French 
 constitution, as I must often repeat, lay in the power or right 
 which the Parliaments had, to deny their sanction to the 
 king's edicts, and therefore to the taxes. The power of thus 
 legalizing the king's taxes would not have been contested with 
 the States General ; but the parliament only claimed as the
 
 IV. LOUIS XV. 75 
 
 representative of the States General, in the intervals of their 
 sittings ; and the right was therefore open to dispute. 
 
 Now, whether their claim was, or was not, well-founded, 
 still, as the right was a great constitutional question, the 
 obvious policy of the crown was to give the parliament as few 
 opportunities as possible of asserting it. 
 
 But this could only be done, as far as taxation was con- 
 cerned, in three modes : 
 
 1st, By keeping the expenses of the crown and court as low 
 as possible. 
 
 2dly, By abstaining from foreign wars. 
 
 Or, lastly, by persuading or obhging the clergy and nobility 
 to pay their shares of the public burthen. 
 
 Now, it was impossible for any ministers of finance to pro- 
 duce any reform in the two first modes of diminishing the public 
 expense ; no system of economy, no system of peace, and 
 avoidance of foreign wars, was possible. But neither, on the 
 other hand, was the third mode possible; for neither the 
 nobility nor the clergy had virtue to do what it was both their 
 duty and ultimate interest to do, to pay their shares of the 
 public burthen. The finances, therefore, got at length into 
 irremediable embarrassment. The situation of a minister of 
 finance may be easily conceived, and is not ill-described by 
 Lacretelle. " If one of these unhappy functionaries," says he, 
 " endeavoured to ascertain the real situation of the public 
 revenue, he was disgraced. He was in danger if he talked 
 of any existing evil, and ruined if he proposed any remedy. 
 Did he speak of any reduction in the expenses, the court were 
 furious ; of any equalizing of the imposts, the parliaments, the 
 clergy, and the nobility were in an uproar ; was he exact and 
 methodical in conducting business, the financiers ridiculed 
 him as a man of little mind and of no genius ; did he endea- 
 vour in his edicts to disguise and conceal the new impositions 
 which he laid, the economists denounced him not only as 
 guilty of oppression, but of the most egregious folly. To 
 escape from difficulties like these, what resource, but to anti- 
 cipate, from year to year, the coming revenue ; and yet what 
 expedient so ruinous ? One really knows not, continues the 
 historian, what were the views of the different comptrollers- 
 general that succeeded to each other. One talks of the Moris,
 
 76 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 the Bretagnes, and the Sechelles ; and one seems to be speak- 
 ing but of the same person ; so hke are they to each other in 
 the expedients to which they resorted and in their comph- 
 ances, the obscurity of their march, and the rapidity of their 
 fall. 
 
 You will observe that the parliaments were, in the mean 
 time, the chief enemies which the court had to fear; they 
 imposed the only restraint that could be imposed on its ex- 
 penses, whether of domestic profligacy or foreign war ; they 
 did so, by the remonstrances and the opposition which they 
 regularly made to the enregistering of the taxes. This oppo- 
 sition had more or less existed for a long period. We have 
 alluded in a former lecture to the subject of the taxes ; and 
 the extraordinary measures proposed by the celebrated John 
 Law, and acceded to by the regent. To these measures the 
 parliaments made every resistance in their power, and had at 
 least the comfort of reflecting, amid the general distress, that 
 they had laboured to protect the public from the evils they 
 were suffering; still, they had thus been thrown, which is a 
 circumstance more immediately to our present purpose, into a 
 state of opposition to government. 
 
 This opposition was again renewed in the administration of 
 the Due de Bourbon in 1725, when his ministers of finance 
 had recourse to the only expedient that could meet the profu- 
 sion of the court ; an impost of one-fifth on all the revenues of 
 the kingdom, those of the privileged orders not excepted. Such 
 was the weight of opinion in favour of the authority of the 
 crown at that time in France, (though only about seventy years 
 before the trial and execution of the late king,) that even this 
 measure, the measure of an impost of one shilling and five 
 pence on all the revenues of the kingdom, in opposition to the 
 nobles, to the clergy, to the parliaments in Paris and the pro- 
 vinces, was actually, from the mere authority of the crown, 
 enregistered by the parliament in Paris, and carried ; though 
 the impost was such, that it was understood that it would 
 bear away not one-fifth, but one-fourth of the net revenue 
 of every man of property in the kingdom ; and even though 
 the Duke of Bourbon, the minister, was not respected by the 
 public. 
 
 The next year, indeed, on the elevation of Fleury, this im-
 
 IV. LOUIS XV. 77 
 
 post whfch he had opposed, though perhaps somewhat faintly, 
 was by tlie cardinal removed. 
 
 The receipt had been injured by the opposition that had 
 been made. Under such a feeble government as the duke's, 
 it had not been levied with any strictness. Fleury endea- 
 voured to meet the financial difficulties by economy and finan- 
 cial expedients. He could not, however, escape the remon- 
 strances of the parliament, who predicted loudly a national 
 bankruptcy, and did no service by such language and conduct 
 to the authority of the crown. 
 
 On the whole, however, Fleury must be considered as suc- 
 cessful in his manaoement of the finances. 
 
 But the scene was altered when he was no more ; and w^hen 
 the economy, which he had maintained by every expedient in 
 his power, died with him ; when the reign of indifferent minis- 
 ters and expensive mistresses succeeded. 
 
 I may not now be able to advert further to the profusion of 
 the court and the history of the taxes. But the same general 
 idea of the subject of the parties concerned, and their modes 
 of behaviour, on all occasions, may perhaps be formed from 
 a slight alhision to an affair which excited considerable inte- 
 rest at the time, and deservedly. M. de Pompadour, the 
 mistress of Louis XV. made and unmade the treasurers at 
 her pleasure, and of course, the treasury lay at her mercy. 
 She at length introduced the practice of drawing bills on tlie 
 treasury which had no other sanction but the mere signature 
 of the king, no service specified. Of these, as it may be 
 supposed, the more the king signed, the more he had to sign ; 
 one compliance leading to another ; and it was easier to sign 
 his name than to take the trouble of refusing. 
 
 A practice like this, as the historian observes, was enough 
 to bring the best established monarchy to ruin. The comp- 
 trollers-general were in despair. 
 
 At length one of these comptrollers-general, Machault, 
 formed a regular design, the only measure left him, to tax, if 
 not the nobility, at least the clergy. He wanted not firmness 
 nor address ; and the parliament were less disposed to resist 
 the edicts of the crown, when it was found that they were 
 directed exclusively against the clergy. The clergy, however, 
 warded the blow, in the following manner. They had got the
 
 78 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 court leagued with them in their resistance to the parliament 
 on the subject of Jansenism. This dispute, as I mentioned, 
 at the end of my last lecture, came to a crisis. You may 
 remember that it was found expedient by the court to recall 
 the parliaments from their exile, and to persuade the clergy 
 to wave their intolerant measures, the refusal of the sacra- 
 ments, the rites of sepulture, &c. &c. 
 
 The clergy, therefore, on this occasion, made their bargain 
 with the court ; and procured in return, for their compliance, 
 with respect to the sacraments, rites of sepulture, &c. the dis- 
 missal of Machault, the comptroller-general, who had proposed 
 to tax them. 
 
 They left the kingdom, therefore, and the finances to their 
 fate. No doubt they congratulated themselves not a little on 
 thus defeating a scheme which they probably declared in the 
 blindness of their selfishness would have been the ruin of their 
 order and of all religion. And no doubt the same blindness 
 of selfishness would have been visible in the conduct of the 
 nobility if they also had been required, as they ought to have 
 been, to pay their contingent to the general burthens. Such a 
 measure they would have declared aloud was a direct attack 
 on the privileges of their order, and tended only to destroy 
 their constitutional importance ; was an attack on the mo- 
 narchy itself, proceeded only from a secret hostility to all 
 government, &:c. &;c. 
 
 The clergy escaped the tax, the nobility were not even 
 threatened. The finances, therefore, advanced further and 
 further into embarrassment and disgrace. The subsequent 
 events (the Revolution) are but too well known. 
 
 Such particulars as these (I can only glance at them), may 
 serve to illustrate the general nature of the subject. The 
 folly and profligacy of Louis and the court ; the blindness and 
 disgusting selfishness of the privileged orders ; and the diffi- 
 culties that the ministers of finance were under from the 
 moment they attempted to serve their country; while in the 
 mean time that country was evidently journeying on in an 
 accelerated progress, to a national bankruptcy. 
 
 It is to be observed, too, that France, all this time, took her 
 part in the affairs of Europe, and engaged in foreign wars, as 
 if under no financial difficulties whatever.
 
 IV 
 
 LOUIS XV. 79 
 
 The Seven Years' War, in which she engaged, contributed 
 materially to these embarrassments. Neither the death of 
 the queen, nor of Madame de Pompadour, produced any bene- 
 ficial effect on the mind of the king. His excesses, after the 
 year 1763, were but the more disgraceful; and M*". du Barre, 
 a new mistress, succeeded M^ de Pompadour, with all the 
 faults, and none of the merits of the former. 
 
 You will now, I conceive, be able to form a general idea of 
 the opposition that always more or less, existed between the 
 parliaments and the crown during this long reign of Louis 
 XV. Opposition, partly arising on the subject of religion, 
 partly of finance ; and, on the whole, you are to bear away an 
 impression that, all through the reign, publicly and privately, 
 such a series of outrages was offered to public opinion, by 
 unfeeling profusion, by intolerance, by levies of money, and 
 abominable immoralities, as could not but be at least a pre- 
 parative for the Revolution that followed. 
 
 Before, however, I entirely conclude this part of my general 
 subject, the financial disputes, I must at least mention, and 
 direct your attention to the very remarkable affair of the Due 
 D'Aiguillon. The detail of it is too long for me to do more 
 than mention it. I have not time now to enter into it ; but 
 you must remember that it ended in the actual suppression of 
 the parliaments. And you are to consider what must have 
 been at eveiy step, as you read the particulars, the irritation 
 of the public mind, and the national indignation that must 
 have accompanied so violent a measure as the destruction of 
 their parliaments. 
 
 This very striking event, however, seems not to have pro- 
 duced such visible effects as might have been expected ; and 
 the real situation of France was not generally apprehended by 
 those who lived at the time, either in or out of the kingdom. 
 
 " The noble efforts," says the author of the Annual Regis- 
 ter, in 1771, "of that faithful repository of the laws, and 
 remembrancer of the ancient rights of the people, the parlia- 
 ment of Paris, in the cause of liberty and mankind, have 
 fatally terminated in its own final dissolution. 
 
 " Its fall was not more dorious from the cause in which it 
 was engaged, than from the circumstances which attended it ; 
 several of the other parliaments having become voluntary 
 sacrifices at its funeral pyre.
 
 80 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 " That ancient spirit from which the Franks derive their 
 name, though still gloriously alive in the breasts of a few, no 
 longer exists in the bulk of the people. Long dazzled with 
 the splendour of a magnificent and voluptuous court, with the 
 glare of a vast military power, and with the glory of some 
 great monarchs, they cannot now in the grave light of the 
 shade, behold things in their natural state ; nor can those 
 who have been long used to submit without inquiry to every 
 act of power, who have been successfully encouraged in dis- 
 sipation, and been taught to trifle with the most important 
 subjects, suddenly acquire that strength and tenor of mind 
 which is alone capable of forming strong resolutions, and of 
 undertaking arduous and dangerous tasks. Thus has this 
 great revolution in the history and government of France 
 taken place without the smallest commotion, or without the 
 opposition that in other periods would have attended an 
 infraction of the heritable jurisdiction of a petty vassal." 
 
 This paragraph was written in the year 1771, by no less 
 a man than Mr. Burke, and is no doubt a fair specimen of 
 the opinions which intelligent men formed of the situation 
 of France at the time. In general, therefore, they seem not 
 to have been aware of the changes that were to ensue. Had 
 Burke, however, set himself to reason on the subject with the 
 same philosophic spirit with which we are soon after to see 
 him survey the situation of the North American colonies, no 
 doubt he would have perceived that there were great prin- 
 ciples in existence, and even in action in France, which might 
 indeed be counteracted by circumstances, but which certainly 
 were capable at least of producing great alterations, whether 
 favourable or not to the monarchy and to the kingdom. Par- 
 ticular circumstances, the personal character of a monarch 
 or a minister, for instance, may disturb the natural operation 
 of such general principles, suspend them for a time, or even 
 nullify them altogether. The tide, too, of human affairs runs 
 with a very different rapidity at different periods ; sometimes 
 seems to pause even for long intervals, and then rushes 
 forward with a force and a swiftness that exceed all possible 
 anticipation. In these cases the state of quiescence has been 
 more imaginary than real. The lesson, however, of the whole 
 is certainly this, that men of education and influence should
 
 IV. LOUIS XV. 81 
 
 be very attentive to observe all the general principles that are 
 fitted to act upon a community, and that may be found at any 
 particular time to exist in it, and that the fault of men, espe- 
 cially the rulers of mankind, is that of neglecting these 
 general principles too much. But this fault arises not always 
 from mere want of intelligence, it is often rather from apathy 
 and indolence — no effect without a cause, but no cause W'ithout 
 a tendency to produce an effect. Of this men are aware ; nor 
 do they suppose that they are to gather grapes from thorns, or 
 figs from thistles. But it is easier to repose upon an existing' 
 system and contribute to its dangers, than by virtuous conduct 
 to alter it in time, and prevent the calamities which it is cal- 
 culated to produce. Louis XV. is himself a specimen of 
 rulers of this ordinary description. He began with personal 
 indolence, which soon ripened into sensuality, its natural 
 consequence ; this again into a sort of languid indifference to 
 public affairs, and even to the situation of the monarchy 
 itself. He amused himself with knowino- all the little anec- 
 dotes and scandal in every court of Europe ; but he interested 
 not himself in the literature and the philosophy of his own 
 country. He was aware of, and felt a sort of vague dis- 
 quietude at the extraordinary movement that was going on 
 in the public mind ; but he talked only with ill-humour or 
 disdain of the philosophers, the encyclopedists, and above all, 
 of Voltaire. " Those people," he would sometimes say, " will 
 destroy the monarchy ;" but he seemed to console himself 
 with the thought that after all he was not the monarch that 
 was menaced, and in Louis, on this occasion, in his indolence, 
 apathy, quiescence, and want of active virtue, we may no 
 doubt see the portrait of the greater part of the privileged 
 orders of France almost to the very moment when the States 
 General were assembled at the beginnino- of the revolution. 
 
 Li the Memoirs of Madame de Hausset, lady's maid to 
 Madame de Pompadour, appears an anonymous letter that 
 was addressed to Louis XV., and whatever might be the 
 motives of the writer, the picture that he gives the king of the 
 state of his affairs is accurate and strikino-. 
 
 " Your finances," says he, in the course of the letter, " are 
 in the greatest disorder, and the great majority of states have 
 perished through this cause. 
 
 G
 
 82 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 " Your ministers are without genius and capacity. 
 
 " A seditious flame has sprung up in the very bosom of 
 your parliaments; you seek to corrupt them, and the remedy 
 is worse than the disease. 
 
 " Open war is carried on against rehgion. 
 
 " The Encyclopedists, under pretence of enlightening man- 
 kind, are sapping the foundations of religion. 
 
 " All the different kinds of liberty are connected ; the 
 philosophers and the protestants tend towards republicanism 
 as well as the Jansenists ; the philosophers strike at the root? 
 the others lop the branches, and their efforts, without being 
 concerted, will one day lay the tree low. 
 
 " Add to these the Economists, whose object is political 
 liberty, as that of others is liberty of worship, and the govern- 
 ment may find itself in twenty or thirty years undermined in 
 every direction, and will then fall with a crash. 
 
 " Lose no time in restoring order to the state of the finances. 
 Embarrassments necessitate fresh taxes, which grind the 
 people, and induce them towards revolt. 
 
 " A time will come, sire, when the people shall be enlight- 
 ened ; and that time is probably approaching." 
 
 This letter, it is said, produced a strong impression on the 
 king, M^. de Pompadour, and the Due de Choiseul. 
 
 Again — " the regent," said the king one day (p. 37), " was 
 very wrong in restoring to the parliaments the right of re- 
 monstrating. They will end in ruining the state." " Oh, 
 sire," said one of his courtiers, " it is too strong to be shaken 
 by a set of petty justices." 
 
 " They are an assembly of republicans," replied the king • 
 " however, here is enough of the subject ; things will last as 
 they are, as long as I shall." 
 
 I proceed now to the second point to be considered in the 
 domestic concerns of the reign of Louis XV. — the progress of 
 the new opinions. Not meaning to give any regular history of 
 the French revolution, still less to enter into the different 
 writings that belong to this part of the general subject, my 
 observations must be very short, and I am happy to have it 
 in my power to refer you to the author I have already men- 
 tioned, Lacretelle, to whose authority, on this very delicate 
 subject of the influence of the new opinions, I do not at
 
 IV. LOUIS XV. 83 
 
 present see that any objection can well be made. He has 
 already written a Precis of the French revolution, highly and 
 generally esteemed. He is represented to me as attached in 
 reality to the principles of free government, and yet he writes 
 under the protection of the government of Buonaparte. It 
 could not have been the wish of that or of any government 
 that the principles which produced irreligion and anarchy 
 should be favoured — the doctrines of levellers or republicans — 
 lest they should prove fatal to itself: nor again, that the old 
 government should be favoured — its evils, the vices and the 
 faults of its court and of its nobles — lest the new order of 
 things which had been established on their overthrow, should 
 appear less necessary or less desirable. There seems, there- 
 fore, on the whole, from the character and situation of the 
 writer, a sufficient chance for impartiality. Lacretelle is a 
 man of letters, and has more opportunities of information, and 
 more incitements to inform himself on these particular points, 
 than those not resident in France can possibly have ; and it 
 will therefore be sufficient for me just to mention to you for 
 the present a few of his opinions, and leave you to consider 
 more regularly what he has to offer when you come to read 
 his work, and when you can perhaps compare it with what 
 you may be able to learn from other sources of inquiry. 
 
 He conceives, then, that the writers to whom, among other 
 causes, the events of the French revolution are attributed, 
 acted not in that concert, which has been supposed, either 
 against the throne or the altar, or at least but for a very short 
 interval; that to the year 1748 (the peace of Aix la Chapelle) 
 the philosophers, as they are called, formed no distinct party • 
 that Voltaire had but feeble auxiliaries; that Montesquieu 
 soared too high ; that changes, however, had taken place in 
 manners, and gave a presage of similar changes in opinions ; 
 that even in the reign of Louis XIV. two different succeeding 
 ages of literature may be observed ; during the best part of his 
 reign, literature, he thinks, like every thing else, tended only 
 to the support of order and authority ; that men were liber- 
 tines rather than unbelievers, but that to this golden age 
 of Louis XIV. succeeded even in the same reign a second age, 
 beginning about 1685, marked in the government of the 
 country by the repeal of the edict of Nantz, and by iiitole-
 
 84 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 ranee, and in the history of hterature distinguished by the 
 appearance of the Telemaque of Fenelon. 
 
 That the French had begun to make remarks upon their 
 government, and that the Telemaque furnished them with 
 their lessons ; that religion then met its first adversary in 
 Bayle ; that manners had in the meantime declined, and were 
 not to be favourably influenced by the austerities of Louis 
 XIV. ; that they were however unfavourably influenced by 
 the more distinguished writers of the time. 
 
 During the regency of the Duke of Orleans, Lacretelle 
 conceives that literature sacrificed less than the arts did, to 
 the corruptions and vices of the day ; but he observes, that 
 men of letters then first began to be animated with the ambi- 
 tion of succeeding in society ; men of fashion and rank became 
 their friends rather than their patrons ; that it was thus by their 
 conversation rather than by their writings, that they were 
 elevated into a sort of invisible legislators ; that in this situa- 
 tion of things at length shone forth Voltaire and Montes- 
 quieu. 
 
 Voltaire must be considered as the great literary character 
 in France during the last century ; his Oedipus appeared so 
 early as 1716; he died not till 1778. 
 
 As far as relates to our present subject, he must be looked 
 upon as the great adversary not only of the particular Roman 
 Catholic religion ofhis country, but of Christianity itself under 
 every form and description. Fanaticism was at first, and 
 indeed always, the avowed object of his attack; but as he 
 advanced in years the destruction of Christianity itself seems 
 to have been the great passion of his life. 
 
 Lacretelle, with great propriety, is very particular in his 
 account of Voltaire ; his character, -the great events of his 
 life, and his writings. To him I must refer you. 
 
 Montesquieu must be considered as addressing himself to 
 the statesmen of the world, and as not suffering to expire in 
 France the flame which had first been raised into existence 
 by the Telemaque of Fenelon. He and Voltaire both passed 
 over into England, and the one afterwards exhibited to his 
 countrymen the picture of the philosophy of England, and 
 the other that of the grandeur of the Romans. Montesquieu 
 was long applauded rather than comprehended ; but both he
 
 IV. LOUIS XV. 85 
 
 and Voltaire were eminently successful, and on the whole, 
 freedom of thought was thus introduced into France, and 
 soon after exercised in a very great degree. 
 
 In this manner we arrive at the close of the administration 
 of Fleury; and Lacretelle observes, that the contest which 
 always exists between the favourers of new opinions and the 
 followers of old, in literature as well as politics, began now to 
 turn in favour of the former, the favourers of new opinions. 
 
 As soon as the peace of Aix la Chapelle was concluded (in 
 1748), a great fermentation existed. The monarch was devoted 
 to pleasure, and relaxed the reins of government, and the 
 parliaments and clergy were each candidates for the authority 
 he had thus abandoned. 
 
 At this interval appeared the second great work of Montes- 
 quieu, L' Esprit des Loix. 
 
 Voltaire in the mean time found favour at court; M*^. de 
 Pompadour patronised him, though not so Louis XV., who 
 saw in him, as he thought and declared, a man who would 
 endeavour to hurry along in the current of public opinion even 
 the monarchy itself. 
 
 The influence of the work of Montesquieu is evidently con- 
 sidered by Lacretelle as very great. The success was for 
 a long time undecided. But at length, says he, the most 
 frivolous would have thought that they were betraying their 
 incapacity, by only moderately admiring his Spirit of Laws. 
 But after Montesquieu, who died in 1755, appeared Buffon, 
 Diderot, D'Alembert, Duclos, Condillac, Helvetius, and above 
 all, Rousseau. To Rousseau the attention of Lacretelle is 
 more particularly directed ; a sort of life is given of him, his 
 writings and their influence carefully noted. I must refer 
 you to his account of Rousseau, as I have already done to his 
 account of Voltaire. 
 
 It is with some difficulty that I can restrain myself from 
 endeavouring to turn to your advantage (here and immedi- 
 ately) the description which Lacretelle has given of both these 
 distinguished men, but I am always as careful of your time, 
 particularly while in this place, as I know well how to be, and 
 must depend on your reading for yourselves his narratives and 
 observations. 
 
 Soon after the peace of 1748 (about the years 1751 and
 
 86 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 and 1752), Paris became the great resort for men of letters. 
 Diderot is represented as the real centre round which they 
 revolved, and to him is applied by Lacretelle the description 
 of Catiline by Sallust — " Vastus animus immoderata, incre- 
 dibilia, nimis alta semper cupiebat." 
 
 Diderot is considered as being not only, like Voltaire, a 
 furious enemy to Christianity, but as at length becoming an 
 atheist, lest he should be outstripped in the race of incredu- 
 lousness. 
 
 Lastly, he is said to have formed the project of the French 
 Encyclopedie as a means of diffusing v\^hat he called light to 
 all Europe, as well as France, and of destroying all ancient 
 prejudices, that is, all modes of belief. 
 
 D'Alembert was his associate, the great friend of Voltaire, 
 and apparently the idol of all men of literature and science, 
 not only for the extent and depth of his genius, but his amiable 
 and estimable qualities. Two volumes of the work appeared 
 in 1751. 
 
 This date will strike us, on a little reflection, as a very 
 early one — the time of George II., only five years after the 
 crown of this country was fought for in this very island, in 
 the rebellion of 1745. 
 
 The clergy, the Jesuits, the government, were at first 
 alarmed. The work early in the next year was suppressed, 
 as contrary to religion and to the state ; the principal authors 
 menaced. 
 
 But Madame de Pompadour was a lady who on this 
 occasion personated the Goddess of Fortune, and her caprices 
 or views of her own interest happening to shift about into 
 a contrary direction, the suppression was taken off, and the 
 storm, to which the work had been exposed, passed over. 
 
 Voltaire continued his attacks on Christianity under every 
 form, but is considered by Lacretelle as stopping at this point, 
 and as opposing, not favouring, the new opinions on other 
 subjects. He sharply condemned those new opinions which 
 menaced the stability of the state, and very indignantly those 
 which affected the principles of good taste. Voltaire was the 
 philosopher of the court, not of the nation. " Why do you 
 not stop where Voltaire does," was the language held by the 
 Due de Choiseul and the people of fashion to the philosophers
 
 IV. LOUIS XV. 87 
 
 (jf the day. " Him we can comprehend ; amid al! his sallies 
 he respects authority, but you — you are mysterious and ob- 
 scure, and discuss and lay down your doctrines in a pedantic, 
 suspicious, and disagreeable manner. We abandon to you 
 religion and the clergy. Is not this sufficient ? many, too, of 
 our prejudices ; why cannot you have some regard for tliose 
 at least that are useful ?" 
 
 But we must now observe, that we are arrived at a second 
 stage in our present subject — the minds of men of talents in 
 France ten years after the publication of the Encyclopedie 
 had begun, it seems, to require a master more powerful than 
 could be found in Voltaire, or in any disciple of his school. 
 
 The great rival genius of the century had appeared — the 
 eloquent Rousseau; and in the effusions of his ardent and 
 irritated mind, a new world had been displayed, to which the 
 world, then existing, constituted on the ancient system, seemed 
 " weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable." 
 
 It was Rousseau, though abominated by Voltaire, and 
 though disliked by the philosophers, who could neither hold 
 him in his transports, nor direct him in his march — it was 
 Rousseau that became the philosopher of the young, the 
 young of both sexes, of that rising generation destined so 
 materially to influence the fortunes of the ancient government 
 of France, and the happiness of mankind. 
 
 His prize declamation against the arts and sciences; his 
 discourse on the Inequality of Conditions — (it was Diderot that 
 had whispered to him the nature and the force of his talents) — 
 the new Eloise, the Emile, the Social Contract, the Letters 
 from the Mountains — these were the writings that so awakened 
 the enthusiasm of the readers of France soon after the middle 
 of the last century ; these were the writings, that as their 
 influence descended through the different ranks of society, 
 from year to year, bewildered the speculations of the inex- 
 perienced, amid the evils inseparable from our condition, and 
 the visions of unattainable perfection. 
 
 Such effects it may be thought took place very naturally 
 among the readers of France, during the close of the last 
 century, situated as France then was. But this is not suffi- 
 ciently to apprehend the powers of Rousseau. Even now, and 
 in England, let every man, let every young man more parti-
 
 88 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 cularly, be careful how he approaches these productions with 
 too great a confidence in himself, and too regardless of the 
 fate of others. To this hour, even, after all the calamitous 
 events of the French revolution, at a distance from all the 
 contagion then experienced — the contagion of a thousand 
 fermenting minds, importunate hopes and benevolent aspira- 
 tions — in the absence of every thing that can mislead and 
 inflame, that can call away the understanding from its per- 
 ceptions of truth, or the sentiments from their impressions of ' 
 duty — in the very calm and solitude of domestic happiness or 
 political tranquillity, even thus happily situated, let no man 
 presume to suppose himself safe, when exposed to the eloquence 
 of Rousseau, safe when placed within the circle of that mighty 
 magician. His is the spell that can teach the heart to wander 
 till it knows not, and cares not, whither it is going, or how 
 fatally it is lost ; his is the wand under whose influence, as it 
 waves around, crimes the deepest change their colour, absur- 
 dities the most lowly elevate their aspect and their form ; 
 suicide, seduction, the equality of civilized man, the happi- 
 ness of savage existence. — Extraordinary being ! Intelligence 
 and insanity mingling their streams into one wild current of 
 strange and uncertain brightness ! The moralist and the 
 logician ; the estimator of man and of society through every 
 stage of their existence; the believing sceptic; the master of 
 the heart ; the agitator of the understanding ; attracting, and 
 yet repelling; fascinating, and yet wearying our attention; 
 disgustful, yet of a sensibility too tender and unhappy not to 
 be pitied and almost beloved ; ridiculous, yet of a genius and 
 a wisdom too sublime not to be respected, and almost re- 
 vered ! 
 
 There are other writers besides those already mentioned 
 that are enumerated by Lacretelle— Helvetius, for instance, 
 and the materialists. Helvetius and his school must also be 
 considered as principal figures in the general picture which 
 we are now sketching. From the year 1758 to 1770, La- 
 cretelle observes, that the French literature was disgraced by 
 a great number of publications, where atheism was openly 
 professed ; the authors seem to have been anonymous. The 
 true philosophers, Turgot, Malesherbes, and their associates, 
 lamented over these perversions of the human intellect ; and 
 Voltaire protested against the principles of many of those who
 
 IV. LOUIS XV. 89 
 
 ranged themselves under his standard. Marmontel, La 
 Harpe, and other men of letters did the same. The works 
 against Revelation, continues Lacretelle, were still more nu- 
 merous : some with all the grossness, he says, which generally 
 marks them ; others recommended by graces of style, like 
 those of Voltaire ; others, again, by logical subtilties, like 
 those of Rousseau. 
 
 The stage was, it seems, not overlooked, as affording an 
 opportunity to wage war against opinions that were old. 
 Lastly, men of talents made it a practice to entertain society 
 by their sallies against the doctrines of religion, till at length 
 the conversation which at the beginning of the century dis- 
 graced the private parties of the regent, descended, as the 
 century advanced, through the intermediate ranks, down even 
 to the night cellars of the metropolis. 
 
 Such are the remarks I have to offer respecting the new 
 opinions of France, borrowing my facts from Lacretelle. And 
 in this manner we are conducted to the end of the reion of 
 Louis XV. But I have selected these facts, as those more 
 immediately important, from a large mass stated by Lacre- 
 telle in about three hundred pages of his work, in his ninth 
 and twelfth books. In reading these books, I would recom- 
 mend it to the reader to do what Lacretelle has not done : 
 set apart as much as possible those writings which may be 
 supposed to have affected the opinions of the public on 
 subjects o^ morality, religion, ^inA government, and distinguish 
 them carefully from those that belong to general literature 
 only, or even to science. It is the former that are evidently 
 alone deserving your attention, while you are endeavouring to 
 form a philosophic estimate of the rise of the French revolu- 
 tion ; and the mind is drawn aside from its object, when 
 others are mentioned ; any others but those which affected 
 morality, religion, and government. I have found some diffi- 
 culty in making the selection and separation which I am 
 proposing to your imitation, and I may not have entirely 
 succeeded. I conceive, however, that the important features 
 are those I have enumerated : Voltaire, Montesquieu, L'En- 
 cyclopedie, Rousseau, Helvetius, and the materialists; finally, 
 the low publications of the atheistical school : these are the 
 authors and the writings. 
 
 The circumstances more particularly are, the introduction of
 
 90 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 allusions and invectives against old opinions and prejudices 
 on the stage ; the circulation of remarks and witticisms of an 
 irreligious nature in the conversations of society ; and, finally, 
 the alteration that gradually took place in the manners and 
 views both of society and men of letters themselves, in conse- 
 quence of which the authors of books were no longer sohtary 
 students, insulated and unseen, but men of the world, ambi- 
 tious to shine in society ; forming its taste, influencing its 
 opinions, and producing by visible and rapid agency, that 
 alteration in the views, sentiments, and habits of the commu- 
 nity, which had always before appeared the slow and silent 
 effect of time alone. 
 
 It may be added, that the natural progress of the prosperity 
 of France, in despite of its wars, must have extended very 
 widely the circle of men of inteUigence and independence ; 
 that circle which comprehends within it what in every country 
 may be called (as far as politics are concerned) the effective 
 public. 
 
 Now, reflect for a moment on the few particulars that have 
 
 been mentioned. 
 
 The writings of Voltaire — how were these to be resisted by 
 the doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic commu- 
 nion ? What materials were not in his works supplied for the 
 ridicule of what was thought to be Christianity, in a nation of 
 which gaiety has been always the passion, and thoughtlessness 
 the reproach ? 
 
 Who can refute, as it has been well said, a sneer or a wit- 
 ticism ? But what Frenchman, it may be added, would have 
 ever tried ? 
 
 Again, the writings of Montesquieu — how were the great 
 views of this estimator of ages and nations, how were they 
 to be shut out from the minds of men of intelligence in 
 France? — By the transactions of their own times, and the 
 scenes of their own history ? — the wars and mistresses of their 
 monarchs ? — the lettres de cachet of their ministers ? — their 
 exiled and ruined parliaments ?— the shades and spectres of 
 their constitution and government ? 
 
 But ao-ain, how was the public (the effective public in the 
 sense just explained) to be indifferent to the pages of Rous- 
 geau ?— the piercing invectives, the soothing sophistries, the
 
 IV. LOUIS XV. 91 
 
 warm and splendid visions of this most eloquent of men ; the 
 deceiver of the imagination of others, the victim of his own — 
 how were these to be rendered harmless and of no avail? — 
 By the extremes of wretchedness exhibited in the metropolis 
 of France? — the painted emptiness of its vanities, in the 
 absence of the domestic virtues ? — the ignorance and profligacy 
 of its populace, set off" by the dissolute efli'ontery of its court 
 and nobles ? 
 
 But, lastly, amid this general debasement of maxims and 
 of manners, was it for the low schools, the materialists, the 
 atheists, and the obscene writers, to blush and to stand silent 
 and appalled ? 
 
 I must leave this subject to your own reflections. Assuredly 
 the reign of Louis XV. will afford you ample materials. In 
 what a rapid manner have we passed along the surface of 
 them, yet how many and how weighty have been the topics 
 to which your curiosity has been directed ! 
 
 Through nearly the whole of the last century, the great 
 kingdom of France has been seen under the direction of 
 cabinets that continued to indulge themselves in every enter- 
 prise of ambition and injustice. 
 
 Beginning with a debt to which her revenue was unequal, 
 and persevering still further to accumulate a weight so dan- 
 gerous to her monarchy ; determined always to take the same 
 part in the politics of Europe, and incur the same expenses as 
 if she had been possessed of funds adequate to discharge the 
 interest of her old debts, and even to meet the interest of new 
 ones. Unhappy country, destroying and destroyed ! disturb- 
 ing every potentate and neighbour, and ruled in the mean 
 time by debauched kings, with their impudent mistresses and 
 daring ministers, who could waste not only in wars, but in 
 excesses of every kind of ostentation or of profligacy, the 
 earnings that could be wrung from the hands of peasants, and 
 from the incomes of the laborious and virtuous classes of the 
 community. Continue the picture : the clergy and the nobi- 
 lity, you will remember, are in the mean time seen to refuse 
 their contingents to the general expense ; and the hereditary 
 maxim of the privileged orders is to be this — " that they, 
 forsooth, are not to be taxed." Every outrage is in the mean 
 time to be offered to public opinion. The parliaments, the
 
 92 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 only images of the nation, then constitutionally existing, are 
 to be kept by the court in a continual warfare, sometimes of a 
 religious, sometimes of a financial nature. 
 
 At length a bold and bad man, the Due D'Aiguillon, 
 because he is a peer of the realm and a favourite, is to be 
 protected in the mal-administration of one of the provinces ; 
 every contempt of national justice is to be shown, and at last 
 the very parliaments themselves are by violence to be extin- 
 guished and put down, as if no law and no will were to be 
 left in the land but that of the king and his mistresses, or 
 some base parasite like the chancellor Maupeou, who could 
 prefer the smiles and honours of beings like Louis XV. and 
 la Comtesse Dubarri to the consciousness of rectitude, and the 
 approbation of the wise and good. 
 
 But while the dreadful harvest of all these offences is 
 ripening, present at this moment to your imagination men like 
 Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Diderot. The doc- 
 trines and corruptions, for instance, of an ecclesiastical estab- 
 lishment, where ceremony was to supply the place of piety, 
 and a wretch like Du Bois could be made a dignitary, were 
 ridiculed and exposed by one writer ; just views of policy and 
 government were exhibited in the mean time by another; 
 lastly, the enthusiasm that sighs for unattainable perfection was 
 excited by a third : the abused and the oppressed were told 
 their wrongs, but the giddy and the ignorant were called upon 
 to redress them. Government, it appeared, was to exercise 
 authority without any assistance from the natural associations 
 of the human mind. The members of society were to go 
 through the duties of common life without the virtue of self- 
 denial ; at length even the wise man (such are sometimes the 
 awful follies of the wise) — even the wise man was to say in 
 his heart, " There is no God." 
 
 These are the materials for your reflection as you close the 
 history of Louis XV. Fewer and less than these they cannot 
 possibly be. Where are you to find lessons if not here ? 
 
 The rulers of mankind — the gentry, the nobility, the clergy, 
 the magistrates of a country, its princes and its monarchs, by 
 no means excluding its still more powerful monarchs, the men 
 of genius— all these seem but too often to suppose that the 
 general laws of the moral world are to be suspended or new-
 
 IV. LOUIS XV. 93 
 
 modelled for their particular convenience, enjoyments, or 
 repose. 
 
 They gratify tlieir passions, whether of literaiy vanity, 
 political ambition, or personal sensuality ; they exercise no 
 self-government, and show no public spirit ; they are base and 
 selfish, or they are daring and dissolute, or they are profane 
 and irreligious ; they disregard the ordinances of their country, 
 corrupt its manners, or destroy its opinions, each according to 
 his own particular temperament or temptation ; and then they 
 know not, it seems, how it happens that the public opinion 
 becomes unfavourable to the establishments of the state ; that 
 the lower orders are wretched and immoral ; that whenever an 
 occasion offers they are even mutinous and savage. 
 
 These things are, however, but too intelligible. 
 
 But even more may ensue, and calamities still more dread- 
 ful — a revolution may ensue — a community declines, the storm 
 gathers, the scene sinks deeper and deeper into shade, the 
 darkness at length comes, and the tempest. But who shall 
 abide their coming? The cry is then heard, and the lamenta- 
 tion ; there is at length silence, for the judgment is accom- 
 plished. 
 
 The historian shudders as he draws aside the rent and 
 bloody veil, and the philosopher sees traced in the footsteps of 
 the Destrovino- Anoel the dreadful lesson that he has so 
 often explained in vain.
 
 94 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 LOUIS XVL— TURGOT.— NECKER, etc. 
 
 The first Course of these Lectures on the French Revolution, 
 down to the close of the Constituent Assembly, was delivered 
 in 1826 5 the subsequent Course in 1827. 
 
 THE four lectures that you have last heard were origmally 
 intended to be the conclusion of my labours, and at the 
 same time to prepare my hearers for the future study of tlie 
 French revolution. The revolution itself I always thought too 
 vast a subject for me to attempt, and that it must be left to 
 my successors ; but I became at last uneasy, on observing the 
 hourly importance of every thing connected with this great 
 event. It was but too plain that the youth of this place 
 should not be suffered by me to go into the world without 
 having had their attention directed in some general manner, 
 however imperfect, to those opinions and events which would 
 affect the interests and politics of it, not only while they were 
 allowed to exist in it, but long after they were passed away 
 and were no more. Sentiments like these were only impressed 
 more deeply upon my mind by further reflection, and I there- 
 fore now proceed to offer you what I have written, only under 
 what appeared to me the necessity of the case, and the duty of 
 making every effort in my power, and not from the slightest 
 expectation that I could deliver lectures on the French Revo- 
 lution, that I could for a moment consider as worthy of a 
 theme so extensive and so important. 
 
 In the lectures that I delivered on the reign of Louis XIV., 
 I endeavoured to give some general notion of the monarchy 
 which he may be said to have created ; of the splendid edifice 
 which the revolution levelled with the dust. Unless you know 
 what it was, you cannot understand what the patriots and
 
 V. LOUIS XVI. 95 
 
 agitators of that period either attempted or effected. Voltaire's 
 Age of Louis XIV. will afford you the best account of it, and 
 in the shortest time. 
 
 In the lectures that followed in the long reign of Louis 
 XV., I endeavoured to explain how the minds of the French 
 people became alienated from their government. I alluded to 
 the financial disputes and the religious disputes between the 
 court and parliaments ; the manner in which these parliaments 
 (judicial bodies) were exiled and recalled, broken up, and 
 at last destroyed; how the public feelings, political, moral, 
 and religious, were in every way outraged and defied ; how an 
 opening was thus made for any new opinions that could be 
 proposed. 
 
 I then endeavoured to give you some notion of the new 
 opinions that in fact were proposed; their various nature, 
 philosophic, visionary, anarchical, sceptical, and atheistical, 
 immoral and licentious, obscene and disgusting ; and again, of 
 the various descriptions of men, and of the very extraordinary 
 men, by whom they were exhibited to the country ; and you 
 will now, I hope, be prepared to receive the description I am 
 about to give of the late French revolution ; to give in a very 
 few words. It was the conflict of the new opinions with the 
 old ; apparently it was only the fall of a government under 
 the weight of its financial engagements. But there was no 
 reason why Louis might not have called the States General or 
 any public assemblies together, to provide for the contingen- 
 cies of the state, without being precipitated from his throne, 
 unless the times had been of a very peculiar nature. They 
 certainly were so, and I have endeavoured to describe how 
 they became so ; the conduct of the rulers and the privileged 
 orders, and the conduct and writings of the men of genius of 
 every description so acted and re-acted upon each other, and 
 upon the community, that the revolution we have seen — the 
 conflict of the new opinions and the old — was the result. 
 
 I must now, and in the succeeding lectures, enter a little 
 into the detail, and you must observe the statements and 
 opinions I make, and remember them while you read the 
 history for yourselves. Public lectures are always but a pre- 
 paration for subsequent study. It is not easy to form reason- 
 able views, and you must be therefore patient while you find
 
 96 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 me hereafter endeavouring to estimate the motives and conduct 
 of every person and party that appears, in a manner that may 
 seem to you somewhat minute and tedious. 
 
 But it is from such descriptions that instruction is to be 
 gathered ; it is during the first opening scenes, and during the 
 approach of revolutions, that lessons are to be found ; the 
 w^isdom or folly of the parties is then of the greatest conse- 
 quence. The point is always how revolutions are to be avoided 
 while reforms are accomphshed ; and during the present lec- 
 tures, the patience of my hearers must be often exercised, 
 while I endeavour to exhibit what were the mistakes and 
 faults that were committed by all parties in their turn. 
 
 I have been assured that no fair relative justice has been 
 done to those who took a part in these memorable transac- 
 tions ; the French historians on the revolution, Mignet, Thiers, 
 and others, are totally intolerable ; introducing into the subject 
 the doctrine of necessity, and resolving every thing into a sort 
 of concatenated series of events, of which no further account 
 need be given, but that they could not have happened other- 
 wise. The province of the reflecting historian, on a supposition 
 of this kind, is at an end. 
 
 I shall advert to this point hereafter ; it is sufficient for the 
 present to enter a protest against all such views of history or 
 its concerns. 
 
 I enter upon my subject with views far different, hoping to 
 exhibit to you the relative merits and demerits of all concerned 
 for the purposes of your instruction ; and this may not be so 
 easy a task, as has been theirs, who have neither praise nor 
 censure which they can morally bestow ; but it is a task which 
 must be performed, at least attempted ; and aware of its diffi- 
 culty, I have not presumed to present myself here, and read 
 to you wdiat has not been considered by others as well as 
 myself. I have requested and received the assistance of one 
 whom I think eminently fitted to render me this kind and 
 necessary office ; a very judicious and intelligent man on all 
 occasions, and one well conversant with the occurrences and 
 actors in these memorable scenes — Mr. Mallet. In conse- 
 quence of his suggestions I have made additions to the 
 lectures, as they originally stood; in consequence of his objec- 
 tions, I have made modifications of what I had written, that
 
 V. LOUIS XVI. 97 
 
 are material, and when our sentiments differed (they some- 
 times did so, though rather in degree than in kind), and when 
 I could not sincerely give up my opinion, I have incorporated 
 his remarks into my lectures, and they will appear in con- 
 junction with my own, in such a manner that you will, 
 without observing it, in fact be left to judge between us; 
 nor do I think that the distrust of my own judgment, which 
 I have thus described to you, should be forgotten by any of 
 you on any public occasion ; such are the imperfections of the 
 mind, and such its occasional eclipses. 
 
 To proceed, then, to the consideration of the great subject 
 before us. 
 
 My first observation is a startling one. The French revo- 
 lution must be considered as having failed : in every imme- 
 diate and proper sense of the word, it failed. 
 
 No beautiful system of civil and religious liberty was seen 
 to arise in France, and they, who wished well to the happiness 
 of mankind and who had looked forward to the progressive 
 improvement of the human species, saw swept from their view 
 all the splendid visions on which they had so fondly gazed. 
 What cause for so cruel a disappointment to the expectations 
 of the wise and good ? There had been long a conflict between 
 the old opinions and the new; the government was lost in 
 public estimation ; the king was without energy, ill fitted for 
 his situation; the privileged orders were too selfish; the 
 patriots too violent; the great military powers of Europe 
 interfered. ^ 
 
 Such is a short explanation of this deplorable event — the 
 failure of this great experiment. 
 
 It is a great calamity to mankind when the patriots of 
 a countiy fail ; they are the salt of the earth. We are placed 
 by our Almighty Master in a world where nothing can be 
 obtained without enterprise and efibrt; but the conclusion 
 from the failure of such men is, that enterprise and effort are 
 in vain. 
 
 It may be, however, useful to allude in such passing manner 
 as the nature of these lectures will admit, to the great scenes 
 of this interesting history, to see what instruction can be 
 reaped from it, and what estimate can be formed of it, asking 
 ourselves what we could have done, what attempted in each 
 
 H
 
 98 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 different situation, each crisis that will be presented to us. 
 It is easy to blame ; of two different courses that might have 
 been pursued, it is easy to see, when one has failed, that the 
 other should have been preferred ; but what we are to do is 
 this : we are to try to place ourselves in the situation of those 
 who had alternatives before them and were obliged to act ; 
 we must, above all, try not to judge from the event. Mistakes 
 were no doubt committed, but the great lesson of the whole 
 is the wisdom, the duty in all political affairs, of moderation, 
 a lesson that will be thought by some too trite to be worth 
 the drawing, and by others too tame and uninteresting to be 
 likely to be observed by such absurd and furious beings 
 as mankind are composed of; yet it is the great lesson of the 
 whole, and it is the lesson that by me, at least, must for ever 
 be inculcated. 
 
 The first book I would have you turn to is Lacretelle's 
 History of the Eighteenth Century — not his Precis of the 
 Revolution, but his History of the Eighteenth Century. 
 
 We have already passed through the reign of Louis XV. 
 We can now go on with the fourteenth book, the Accession 
 of Louis XVL to the throne. You will find the situation of 
 things to be something of the following nature. The young- 
 king was grave, decorous, sensible, modest, pious, virtuous, 
 and deeply interested in the happiness of his people — such 
 was the young king. Louis, just twenty, was happy to call 
 to his assistance the experience of the Count de Maurepas, a 
 statesman that was old enough to have been a counsellor to 
 Louis XIV. The ministers of Louis XV., you will see, were 
 dismissed ; among them the chancellor Maupeou, who had 
 contrived the destruction of the parliaments. The celebrated 
 Turgot was called into office. 
 
 A new system was therefore evidently adopted. Turgot 
 was the favourite of the philosophers, and he was soon 
 removed from the marine, where the old minister had origi- 
 nally thought proper to place him, to the situation of the 
 comptroller-general of the finances. You will now remember 
 what I have said of the new opinions. It was in the finances 
 that Turgot was expected to introduce the most important 
 reforms, these to be followed by reforms in the laws, and
 
 V. LOUIS XVI. 99 
 
 these ao:ain, by reforms in the manners of the country and all 
 the ancient institutions of the monarchy. 
 
 Now that such hopes should be entertained not only by 
 men of intelligence, but by the young monarch himself, was 
 highly natural. Benevolence was the ruling passion of his 
 nature ; this may assuredly be asserted, and must never 
 through the whole of this history be forgotten ; but he was 
 born a king, no doubt, and had his appropriate difficulties 
 and temptations : hitherto we see no mistake. You will find 
 in the notes of Lacretelle an affecting letter from Turgot, 
 addressed to the young king. 
 
 " We will have no bankruptcies," said the philosophic 
 minister, " no augmentation of the imposts, no loans. I shall 
 have to combat abuses of every kind ; to combat those who 
 are benefited by them, and even the kindness, sire, of your 
 own nature. I shall be feared, hated, and calumniated ; but 
 the affecting goodness with which you pressed my hands in 
 yours, to witness your acceptance of my devotion to your 
 service, is never to be obliterated from my recollection, and 
 must support me under every trial." 
 
 This letter is surely very creditable to both parties. The 
 minister had said, you will observe, " we will have no bank- 
 ruptcies ;" and I will now stop for a moment to mention, that 
 there is in the community a great looseness of thought upon 
 this subject of a national bankruptcy. You hear people 
 speaking " of a national sponge," of " sweeping away the 
 stocks at once," as if the whole was a castle in the air, which 
 might be made to disappear, and no one be affected. 
 
 It is a pity that such light reasoners do not ask themselves 
 what must be the consequence if those who now receive their 
 dividends were to receive them no longer. This is a very 
 short and intelligible question. Do they not know, does not 
 every one know, that they who receive dividends are not so 
 much a few rich capitalists as widows and orphans — the 
 helpless and the unprotected, particularly the female part of 
 the community ; the old and the infirm ; public institutions of 
 every description ; hospitals ; places of education : suppose all 
 these without their usual means of support ? a partial earth- 
 quake or a deluge would in comparison be a trifling calamity.
 
 100 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 But to return. The finances were the great point to be 
 considered ; the minister had no doubt directed his view to the 
 real difficulty. The revenue, through a long succession of 
 years, had continually fallen short of the expenditure. There 
 could be no repose for the monarch, no real security for his 
 crown, unless some happy alteration could be effected in the 
 management of the finances. You have already, in considering 
 the reign of Louis XV., seen sufficiently the importance of 
 this part of the subject ; but the question was, what could be 
 attempted, supposing, as was the case, that the minister was 
 enlightened, and the monarch benevolent. Great improve- 
 ments in the system of taxation ; in the nature of the taxes, in 
 the collection of them, in the expenditure of them ; again, 
 great reforms in the expenditure of the court ; an active and 
 skilful resistance, a sort of war to be waged against abuses of 
 every kind, against profligacy and folly, wherever they might 
 appear : these improvements were possible. 
 
 But when all this was done, all this it was evident would 
 be insufficient unless something more could be accomplished. 
 
 The fact was, that the privileged orders were exempted to 
 a certain degree from the taxes to which the rest of the 
 country was exposed. Now, unless they could be brought to 
 bear their part, no real relief could be afforded to the mo- 
 narchy. The accumulated deficit, the annual deficit, were 
 each too great. 
 
 To accomplish so desirable an end was the great object, 
 was the great hinge on which turned the happiness of the 
 community, the authority of the monarch, the safety of the 
 privileged orders themselves, and unless these orders could be 
 brought to rise superior to their own views of self-interest, and 
 the prejudices of their birth, and even their views of the con- 
 stitution of their country, there could, in truth, be no chance 
 for the improvement or even the welfare of France, in the 
 state of things which had arisen from the expenses of govern- 
 ment on one side, and the prevalence of the new opinions on 
 the other. 
 
 Of all this Turgot seems to have been well aware. He 
 had announced himself as decidedly of opinion that an impost 
 must be fairly and equally levied upon proprietors of every 
 description ; and certainly this was a doctrine perfectly right
 
 V. TURCOT. 101 
 
 and just. What meanness in the privileged orders to resist 
 it ; what selfishness, what guilt ; but what folly, particularly 
 when the country had evidently begun to inquire and to 
 think ; what truth so obvious as ^th^s,' that nothing can be 
 secure that is not agreeable to the moral feelinfrs of mankind. 
 Still the minister and the m^narfh .W'^ie! to' take' ii'ito' their 
 account the inherent baseness and stupidity of mankind on 
 all such occasions ; and the student should himself now 
 consider how, in the situation of the monarch and the minis- 
 ter, he would have endeavoured to procure from the privileged 
 orders so reasonable and so necessary a sacrifice. 
 
 It will not be easy for him to determine upon his measure, 
 but certainly he will not, I think, propose the measure that 
 really was adopted — the recall of the parliaments. 
 
 If he turns to the reion of Louis XV. he will see in what 
 manner these bodies were superseded and destroyed. But 
 why renew their existence? They were connected with the 
 privileged orders rather than with the king or the people. 
 
 Their doctrine had been, that a tax could not be legally 
 levied, unless first enregistered by them. What chance for 
 any great scheme of improvement in the finances, such as the 
 minister contemplated, if their consent was first to be made 
 necessary. Their proper oflace was the administration of 
 justice ; other courts had been, on their suppression, erected : 
 what need of their revival ? 
 
 What but opposition could be expected from them to such 
 measures as intelligent men would have proposed, such as the 
 minister himself no doubt meditated, and as he had probably 
 already, in the whole or in part, introduced to the consideration 
 of the young monarch. The free commerce of grain, for 
 instance ; the suppression of oppressive duties — that on salt, 
 the gabelle ; the abolition of the corvees, or the repairing of 
 the roads by the peasantry ; the abolition of tyrannical feudal 
 usages ; the imposition of a land-tax, from which the nobles 
 and clergy should not be exempt ; a more merciful criminal 
 code ; a civil code, improved, and throughout the whole of 
 France consistent and every where the same. What hope for 
 projects like these, particularly the last, if they were to pass 
 through the ordeals of the parliaments ? 
 
 Turgot was well aware how unfavourable to his plans
 
 102 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 would be the restoration of the parliaments, and he opposed 
 it, as did the minister of war ; but the old courtier, the Count 
 de Mautepa?, prevailed, and the parliaments were in an evil 
 hour recalled. It ih^not easy to say what could be the motive 
 with ManreraSy unle.ss jealousy of Turgot ; but with the king, 
 at leasty it wprs. purely. a. mistake. The measure was indeed 
 popular, no reason this for its adoption, but rather the con- 
 trary. The king was on this account only the more likely to 
 create a power which he could not control ; Malesherbes was 
 added to the ministry, a valuable auxiliary to Turgot ; but in 
 the event, what was the fate of this minister of reform, of 
 Turgot ? Maurepas was not faithful to him ; the privileged 
 orders were soon united against him, and the parliaments and 
 the clergy forgot their differences, the better to oppose him. 
 The queen committed the mistake of uniting with the old 
 minister and the noblesse against the reformers, as they were 
 called, and when Turgot at length produced his six edicts, 
 a clamour arose, that seemed to indicate that all the very 
 elements of the public safety had been endangered. The five 
 last of these edicts had reference only to the proper manage- 
 ment of the interior traffic and business of the metropolis, 
 more particularly the commerce of grain, but the first was the 
 suppression of the abominable corvees ; and the roads were, by 
 the new edict, to be repaired, and the expense defrayed by a 
 contribution from which the privileged orders were not to be 
 exempt ; hinc illae lacrymae — the nobles and the prelates, it 
 seems, considered themselves as degraded if they were to con- 
 tribute to the repair of roads ; and they would no doubt have 
 declared that their dignity and their existence, the very rights 
 of property itself, were endangered, if they were now for the 
 first time, they would have said, in the history of the mo- 
 narchy, to be subjected to the visits of the tax-gatherer. It is 
 in the sentiments and the conduct of these privileged orders, 
 on this and on all similar occasions, former or subsequent, 
 that you are to find one of the greatest lessons to be derived 
 from this French Revolution. Nothing, as I must for ever 
 repeat, that is not agreeable to the fair, obvious conclusions 
 of the moral feelings of mankind, can be in politics secure. 
 These moral feehngs may slumber for years, for ages, but if 
 by any chance they are awakened, the wise and the good will
 
 V. TURGOT. 103 
 
 conform to them in time, will conform to them with all pos- 
 sible expedition, will make what sacrifices are necessary, and 
 the truth is, that if sacrifices are made early, such sacrifices 
 may be found light and be little felt ; not so, if delayed ; no 
 wisdom, no moral sensibility of this kind, was on this occasion 
 shown by the parliaments and the privileged orders, and it 
 never was on any subsequent occasion shown, till too late. 
 They saw not exactly their situation, probably no one in 
 France at the time did ; but were they not calling for reforms 
 and sacrifices from the king, from every one but themselves ? 
 Was not this at least plain ; and was it not plain, also, that 
 the peasants and the public were alone contributing to an 
 expense which they themselves were bound in common justice 
 to share ? Were they not taking the business of reform from 
 the king and his ministers, where alone it could be safely 
 lodged, to be undertaken by themselves : and with whose 
 assistance, it may be asked, if they moved not in concert with 
 the king and his ministers — with whose assistance, but as in 
 the former times of the parliaments, the assistance of the 
 people — the assistance of the people ! And this, then, was 
 the expedient of the parliaments and the privileged orders, for 
 the accomplishment of their own, and the happiness and 
 prosperity of the community. In the event, you will see, that 
 the minister Turgot was dismissed, that the excellent Males- 
 herbes retired, and that the nobles, the parliaments, and the 
 clergy were triumphant. But triumphant over whom ? Over 
 a benevolent monarch, and a patriotic minister. Turgot soon 
 after died, early in 1781 ; his epitaph might have been the 
 couplet of the poet : 
 
 " Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land, 
 All fear, none aid you, and few understand." 
 
 No doubt the possibility of a revolution little occurred to 
 the privileged orders, yet there is a remarkable passage in a 
 letter of our own Lord Chesterfield, so early as the year 1753, 
 twenty-three years before these proceedings of the parliaments, 
 and before the times of Turgot, which shows plainly that this 
 possibility was clearly seen by him. " Wherever you are," 
 says he, writing to his son, " inform yourself minutely of, and 
 attend particularly to the affairs of France ; they grow serious,
 
 104 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 and in my opinion will grow more and more so every day ; 
 
 the people are poor, consequently discontented : 
 
 those who have religion are divided in their notions of it, 
 which is saying, that they hate one another ; the clergy will 
 not forgive the parliament, nor the parliament forgive them : 
 the army must, without doubt, take (in their own minds at 
 least) different parts in all these disputes, which upon occasion 
 would break out; armies, though always the supporters and 
 tools of absolute power for the time being, are always the 
 destroyers of it too, by frequently changing the hands in which 
 
 they think proper to lodge it The French nation 
 
 reasons freely, which they never did before, upon matters 
 of religion and government, and begin to be spregiudicati, to 
 have got rid of their prejudices; the officers do so too, in 
 short, all the symptoms which I have ever met with in history, 
 previous to great changes and revolutions in government, now 
 exist, and daily increase in France." 
 
 This was written in the year 1753. His lordship seems to 
 have fixed his eye more particularly on the religious dissen- 
 sions between the court and the parliaments, the Jesuits and 
 the Jansenists, but he had observed also the freedom of 
 discussion that was making its appearance. A civil war seems 
 to have been his expectation, and the privileged orders, there- 
 fore, twenty-three years afterwards, should have shown a 
 little more discernment than they did. His concluding re- 
 mark was not exactly verified by the event. " I am glad of 
 it," says he, " the rest of Europe will be the quieter, and have 
 time to recover." He had been evidently in the habit of 
 considering France as the great disturber of the peace of 
 mankind. 
 
 Expectations of changes and revolutions, views of this kind, 
 are no doubt often entertained hghtly, taken up hastily, and 
 produced at random. But this is not a passage of any such 
 nature ; and it comes from a man of the world and a states- 
 man. 
 
 Of what value would such a man as Lord Chesterfield have 
 been to his order in France on the occasions which followed, 
 and how reasonable and prophetic would have been the advice 
 he would have given. I shall have quite failed in what I have 
 already delivered in this lecture, if I have not excited your
 
 V. TURCOT. 105 
 
 curiosity with regard to the origin and first opening of this 
 French revolution. It is in these opening scenes that the 
 great lessons of instruction are to be always found. No 
 philosopher, no statesman can render his country or mankind 
 so great a service as to advance their civil or religious 
 liberties, and yet secure them from these dreadful revolutions ; 
 to reform, to improve, but without violence and bloodshed : 
 and to attain a wisdom of this exalted cast, no means so 
 natural as the long and careful meditation of the rise and 
 first progress of great changes, like these we are now survey- 
 ino-. 
 
 I have already given you a faint, general sketch of this 
 part of the subject; but I will dwell upon it a little longer. 
 
 The situation of the king is the great point of curiosity ; he 
 is benevolent, and wishes the happiness of his people ; he is 
 calm and sensible, and therefore summons to his assistance an 
 ancient counsellor M. de Maurepas, and, at the same time, a 
 man then celebrated for his intelligence, and for those more 
 enlarged views which the gradual progress of civilization and 
 knowledge had introduced to the notice of the French nation 
 — M. Turgot. All this Louis does, but Louis was born a king, 
 and had the feelings natural to his birth and situation; he 
 could not mean so to alter the institutions of his country that 
 he should appear to himself to be king no longer ; and any 
 philosopher and any patriot that required this of him was 
 unfeeling and unjust. He was surrounded, too, by a court 
 (the queen at its head) who could not be expected to see any 
 merit in any minister or any system that at all disturbed their 
 usual routine of opinions and enjoyments ; beside him stood a 
 noblesse and a clergy, among whom many men of intelligence 
 and patriotism might be found ; of more, indeed, than could 
 be expected to belong to those bodies in their collective capa- 
 city; but the question was, whether those bodies could be 
 persuaded to act with any feeling for the lower orders, with 
 any due sense of the sacrifices that were now required of 
 them ; for on this depended the safety of their monarchy, the 
 repose of their king, the real security of themselves. Their 
 organ at this time seemed to be the parliaments, particularly 
 the parliament of Paris, the members of which had long been 
 engaged in struggles with the crown, appeared to be animated
 
 106 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 with a wish to save the country from oppression, more parti- 
 cularly from taxation, but seemed ready to unite with the 
 privileged orders in resistance to every measure that the king- 
 could propose, if any taxation was thus to reach the privileged 
 orders themselves, as well as the rest of the community. 
 
 Now, I ask what more unhappy state of things can be 
 conceived for the monarch ? What is he to do, and where is 
 his power ? He is quite young ; the patriotic minister Turgot 
 would go far greater lengths than could be intelligible to him, 
 than could be agreeable to his other minister, to an old 
 courtier, the experienced friend on whom the king naturally 
 depended, than could be endured by the privileged orders, or 
 thought of with any patience by the court. 
 
 What now could the king do ? What but endeavour to 
 turn to the best advantage he could the intelligence and senti- 
 ments of all concerned, and make such attempts for the welfare 
 of the community as might appear likely to succeed. He 
 therefore proposes the six edicts of Turgot, which I have men- 
 tioned, to the parliaments. The privileged orders are in these 
 edicts only required to contribute like the rest of the commu- 
 nity to the repair of the roads, nothing more ; but no, the 
 edicts are resisted by the parliaments (the privileged orders 
 had taken the alarm). The king then insists upon their being 
 enregistered, and calls a bed of justice. 
 
 But the result of the whole is, that the patriotic minister is 
 dismissed, and the edicts gradually forgotten. This no doubt 
 the king should not have submitted to; though young, he 
 should have seen that nothing unreasonable had been pro- 
 posed, and that his patriotic minister must be supported while 
 he was only proposing what was reasonable, and while it was 
 clear that, sooner or later, and in some way or other, sacrifices 
 of their personal interests must be procured from the privi- 
 leged orders, or the finances fall into the most irremediable 
 confusion, his own happiness be at an end, and possibly even 
 his crown endangered. 
 
 The student should, I think, fix his attention very earnestly 
 on this particular part of the history. 
 
 It is probable that a monarch not only of benevolence but 
 of decision of character, who would have insisted upon these 
 edicts, and carried his minister through all his difficulties.
 
 V. TURGOT. 107 
 
 might thus have prevented the Revolution ; if the king could 
 but have seen his danger at so early a period as this, all 
 might have been well; but he did not, nor indeed did any- 
 one at the time. He was young and inexperienced, and even 
 if he had speculated more deeply and successfully on his 
 situation, he was not of a temperament to confront and 
 overpower resistance. 
 
 All through the history of the Revolution, and from the very 
 first appearance of it, this want of character in the king must 
 be considered as the great misfortune of all ; as contributing to 
 its progress and failure, as fatal to his people, and still more 
 fatal to himself. 
 
 On this occasion it operated most unhappily, and whatever 
 we may say of the king in his existing situation of youthfulness 
 and ignorance, his counsellors at least are not to be forgiven ; 
 nor is he himself, if Turgot, as probably he did, made proper 
 representations to him, and presented to his consideration 
 views that were reasonable, and such as were fitted somewhat 
 to alarm him, anxious and uneasy as he already was. The case 
 before them all, the king included, was simple, the steps few : 
 the finances, for instance, were to be repaired ; the immuni- 
 ties, therefore, of the privileged orders were to be disturbed, 
 modified, more or less conceded : this could not be done with- 
 out a struggle ; but it was evident if the king gave up his 
 minister, and retired from this struggle, that the struggle 
 might then come to be, not between the privileged orders and 
 the king, but between them and the community; the king- 
 withdrawn from the field, to be rendered insignificant, and 
 perhaps put aside or trampled down amid the chances of the 
 combat. 
 
 These are reflections, it may be said, only obvious from the 
 event; the danger, it may, however, be replied, the danger 
 might not be obvious, but the faults that the king was com- 
 mitting, these really were obvious ; and he is not to be pardoned 
 for the commission of them. He should have prevented Turgot 
 from producing these edicts, or supported him in them ; he did 
 worst of all, he suffered them to be proposed ; he made the 
 parliaments, as I have already mentioned, enregister them by 
 a bed of justice, that is, by force ; and he then gradually and 
 silently abandoned the minister and the edicts together. But
 
 108 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 the defects of the character of Louis — for defects he had — 
 were but too important ; a want of rational confidence in him- 
 self, an unwillingness to rule any one, while born the ruler of 
 millions, born and not created by his own choice, and this is 
 his excuse, and must always be remembered ; and positive 
 vices, and outrageous faults would have been less fatal to 
 himself and to his country than was this unhappy failing (this 
 want of character) at this singular crisis. 
 
 What was to be his situation when both the edicts and the 
 minister were gone. Probity and wisdom, if attempting any 
 opposition to the privileged orders, had evidently no chance 
 at court, even when honoured by his protection. But what 
 hope was there then for the finances, that is, for his own 
 repose, perhaps security ? You will easily conceive the situa- 
 tion of the court, and what must necessarily have been the 
 character of any 7iew comptroller of the finances. How little 
 agreeable were the sounds of economy, of reform, the total 
 want of all real ability, that must have belonged to any 
 minister that could now undertake, on any opposite system, 
 the post, from which Turgot had been driven. 
 
 One remark is indeed to be made ; the king, amidst all the 
 frivolity and folly, whether grave or gay, that surrounded him, 
 had still his anxieties directed to the right point. He was 
 never at ease about the finances ; his attention was still fixed 
 upon them — this is merit and sense. And, at last, in a very 
 singular manner, which you will see explained in the histories, 
 a Swiss banker, M. Necker, was called to the administration 
 of them; the old minister, Maurepas, still remaining the 
 minister, and at the head of affairs. The maxim of Turgot 
 was, " no new loans and no new impositions." This was 
 tolerably hardy, when the annual deficit was twenty-five mil- 
 lions of livres ; but Necker's was even more so, " new loans, 
 and yet no new taxes." 
 
 This system might indeed save him and the king from con- 
 tests with the parliaments, the nobility, and the clergy, but 
 how was the interest of these loans to be paid ? By the sup- 
 pression of offices, Necker would have replied, reforms in the 
 expenditure of the court, in the collection of the taxes, and by 
 all the savings of a very vigilant economy ; but economy was 
 apparently a very inadequate resource for a minister of finance.
 
 V. 
 
 NECKER. 109 
 
 of French finance, to depend upon. The loans, however, suc- 
 ceeded; they were made, and they were registered by the 
 parhaments, though not without difficuUy. 
 
 But, in the midst of these transactions came on the peri- 
 lous question of war with England. The North American 
 colonies had declared themselves independent. An oppor- 
 tunity was offered to France of humbhng her ancient rival ; 
 how was it to be resisted ? how, by a French cabinet ? by the 
 French people? It is understood that the king, when he 
 signed the treaty with the revolted colonies, could not help 
 saying to the minister, Vergennes, " You will remember, sir, 
 that this is contrary to my opinion." The king was surely 
 right; it was no time for France to engage herself in a war 
 when the finances were already in a state of confusion. She 
 had received no offence from England ; had no grounds of inter- 
 ference between her and her colonies ; the war was unjust on 
 the part of France, as well as impolitic ; either reason should 
 have been sufficient. No doubt it would have been difficult 
 to have preserved a neutrality, and the king would have thus 
 rendered himself unpopular : but his want of firmness on this 
 second great occasion, and the want of honour and good 
 faith to England in the ministers of France, must be consi- 
 dered as having mutually contributed, and most materially, 
 to the Revolution that followed. Dodsley's Annual Register 
 for 1789, opens with a statement of the effects produced upon 
 the affairs of France by her interference in the American con- 
 test ; the influence attributed to it is very great, and I do not 
 conceive exaggerated, I refer you to the work itself. Those 
 of the young French officers who distinguished themselves in 
 America, (Fayette and others), became afterwards the patriots 
 and heroes of the French Revolution. The appearance of 
 Franklin at Paris was quite an event. 
 
 While the war with England continues, the history of this ^ 
 French Revolution seems suspended. Necker is the minister 
 of finance, and is employed in making provision for the 
 expenses of the war by all the possible expedients of economy. 
 This would have surely been but a strange system of finance — 
 loans, and the interest to be paid by particular measures of 
 economy — even if there had been no war, and even if the 
 court had been virtuous and patriotic ; but the court was not
 
 110 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 so ; it was giddy, frivolous, and expensive. The king was too 
 easily satisfied with his own privations and sacrifices, and 
 thought that doing this, he had done every thing ; and he was 
 too indulgent to the queen and the light troop of pleasure by 
 which she was surrounded. The situation of Necker was 
 indeed deplorable; the apathy of Maurepas, the facility of 
 the king, the caprices and folly of the court. " Never shall 
 I forget," he says in a work he published in 1791, "the 
 long dark staircase of M. de Maurepas, the terror and the 
 melancholy with which I used to ascend it, uncertain of the 
 success of some idea that had occurred to me, likely, if carried 
 into effect, to produce an increase of the revenue ; but likely, 
 at the same time, to fall severely, though justly, on someone or 
 other ; the address, the expedients, I had to make use of to 
 succeed ; the sort of hesitation and diffidence with which I 
 ventured to intermingle in my representations any of those 
 great fundamental truths, those maxims of justice and of 
 right, with which my own heart was animated. I was really 
 like the ancient Sully when he stood surrounded by the young 
 and tittering courtiers of Louis XIIL" Victories, it seems, 
 were the hopes of Necker in this unseasonable war ; and then 
 an honourable peace, he thought, would open all the world to 
 the French commerce, and the influx from the customs would 
 render other taxes unnecessary. 
 
 Necker was popular with the monied men, and carried his 
 loans and his annuities very successfully. They were enre- 
 gistered, but with some difficulty, by the parliament of Paris. 
 He met there, however, an acute and violent opponent in 
 D'Espremesnil, who inspired his colleagues, young and old, 
 with an ardour and a boldness like his own ; turned the grave 
 legal court of the parliament of Paris into a political assembly, 
 like the House of Commons in England, and at last talked 
 of an appeal to the States General. The words fell with little 
 effect upon the ear of the public at this moment ; but, twelve 
 years after, they were the signal of the Revolution. 
 
 Opposition of this kind from the parliaments, and many 
 secret misgivings, must no doubt have not a little disquieted 
 the mind of Necker. He meant well to the country, but was 
 in the first place faithful to the king he served. He saw the 
 wonders produced by credit in England. He had been in
 
 V. 
 
 NECKER. Ill 
 
 that country, and a free government must have appeared to 
 him the secret of the whole. 
 
 Publicity of accounts, and representation of the people, 
 these must have occurred to him as the real remedies for all 
 the miseries of the great empire of France ; for the disorders 
 of the finances; the oppressions of the people; the vices of the 
 nobility and of the privileged orders ; the anxieties and inse- 
 curity of the monarch. 
 
 But how were such objects to be accomplished or to be 
 approached? The kingdom of France, as you are already 
 aware, was originally composed of a number of small and 
 separate kingdoms, which had gradually been forced or per- 
 suaded to accumulate round one great central province. The 
 great merit of Henry IV. was, that he kept them together; 
 and, durino; the time of Richelieu and Louis XIV. the whole 
 kingdom got consohdated, and became at last one and indi- 
 visible ; but each province had its laws and its customs ; 
 many of them (the Pays d'Etat, as they were called*), had 
 
 *The great vassals of France had always endeavoured to have 
 seignorial possessions in France; it had been the object of 
 every succeeding monarch to reunite the great fiefs to the 
 crown. 
 
 They accomplished their object so far, that at the accession 
 of Louis XIII. the seventy-two great fiefs of France were 
 united to the crown, and all the feudal lords attended at the 
 States General in 1614. (Louis XIII.) In Butler you will see 
 a table of the re-union of the fiefs to the crown, and an enu- 
 meration of the additions that were thus made by each 
 monarch from Hugh Capet to Louis XV. 
 
 With respect to law, eachseignory had its particular usages, 
 scarcely two ahke. Charles VII. in 1453, endeavoured to 
 ascertain them. Forty-two years elapsed before the customs 
 of any one place were verified. The measure lingered, and 
 was resumed in the reign of Louis XII., and about the year 
 1619 (time of Louis XIII.) was completed. The customs of 
 each place formed into one collection, was called the Grand 
 Coutumier de France. The best edition of it is in four 
 volumes folio.
 
 112 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 made distinct bargains with the crown, which were still in 
 full effect ; and any rational system of commercial intercourse, 
 certainly any system of uniform jurisprudence, seemed im- 
 possible. (You will easily understand this part of the subject 
 from Mr, C. Butler's publications, his Horae Juridicse, and 
 his work on the Revolutions of the German Empire.) How 
 could a minister like Necker, a Protestant from Geneva, 
 reduce to order such a chaos of feudal usages and opinions ? 
 What, again, could he effect on the subject of the represen- 
 tation of the people ? The States General, the original repre- 
 sentation of the country, had been long disused, and it was 
 evidently a most perilous experiment to revive them. The 
 parliament was sufficiently factious and troublesome ; and 
 these difficulties, that must have presented themselves to the 
 meditations of this philosophic minister, would only have 
 appeared more alarming and insuperable if he had endea- 
 voured to discuss them with his youthful sovereign ; who, 
 benevolent as he was, was neither enterprising nor resolute, 
 was still a pupil to his ancient counsellor, Maurepas, and 
 devoted to the queen ; who, like the court around her, could 
 have little taste for reforms and improvements, and the timely 
 counsels of prospective wisdom. 
 
 But one of the measures which Necker now adopted was 
 of a very important nature, and in itself not a little objec- 
 tionable. He published his Compte Rendu ; that is, the Re- 
 port he had furnished to the king, of the finances ; in other 
 words, he gave publicity to the national accounts. He 
 unveiled every mystery that they contained ; that is, he threw 
 himself, for the support of his financial schemes, on the can- 
 dour and intelligence of the community. 
 
 No doubt, what he meant by this measure was to persuade 
 or morally oblige the privileged orders to contribute to the 
 public burden. It was but too evident to him, as it must 
 have always been to every thinking man, as it had been to 
 Turgot, as it must have been to the king himself, that this 
 contribution of the privileged orders was the great remedy, 
 was at least the first more immediate and practical remedy for 
 the evils that embarrassed the government. 
 
 But surely this publication of the Compte RendCi was, on the 
 whole, a measure, the expediency of which may be very rea-
 
 V. NECKER. 113 
 
 sonably doubted, if not entirely denied. What good could 
 have been expected to result from it, by any very sensible and 
 sagacious man ? The new opinions did not then want fresh 
 fuel, or any new and authentic means of attack. Neckerknew 
 enough of the privileged orders to doubt the influence of rea- 
 sonable motives on their minds. The great accusation against 
 this minister has been always that of personal vanity, a love, 
 a passion for pubhc applause. 
 
 Materials for such an accusation may perhaps be here 
 found. It is not very agreeable to see defects of this kind in 
 the character of a benevolent, virtuous, and enlightened man, 
 but if they appear, they must be noted. 
 
 But the next great measure of Necker was to improve, if 
 possible, the constitution of the country ; to introduce some 
 representation of the community into the system of the go- 
 vernment ; to create some bodies that should be the organs of 
 the respectable and intelligent part of the people. In this 
 manner he might have hoped gradually and silently to ex- 
 tinguish the pohtical importance of the parhament of Paris, 
 and eventually to control the selfish passions of the privileged 
 orders. He seems to have done what alone could be done ; 
 to have availed himself of existing institutions, and to have 
 endeavoured to modify and wield them to his purposes. Good 
 was chiefly to be expected, he must have thought, from 
 gradual amelioration, and training the people to better habits 
 and modes of political thought and government. He was, 
 perhaps, too late, but this was his misfortune, not his fault. 
 He revived the idea of Turgot, and formed a project of provin- 
 cial administrations. According to Necker's management, 
 these bodies would have become a sort of States General, 
 not collected at Paris, but established in every province, 
 consisting of nobility, clergy, and (equal in number to the 
 other two) of Tiers Etat. 
 
 The provinces of the Pays d'Etat, Languedoc, Burgundy, 
 &c. had assemblies already of this description. Many advan- 
 tao;es would have been thus obtained ; the vexations arisinar 
 from the immediate agency of the officers of the crown, the 
 taxgatherers, the intendants of the provinces, would have 
 been thus avoided ; the dangers to be feared from the parlia- 
 ment of Paris weakened ; the dangers to be feared from Paris 
 
 I
 
 114 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 itself escaped ; and a step made, an important one no doubt, 
 yet on the whole, a cautious one, towards the accomplishment 
 of those objects which the patriotic minister and benevolent 
 monarch had equally at heart. You will see some account of 
 this part of our subject in the work of M*^. de Stael ; it has not, 
 I conceive, been considered with sufficient attention by the 
 writers on the French Revolution, not even by M*^. de Stael 
 herself. Yet what she says is valuable and curious. To me 
 it appears among the first measures that the king should have 
 attempted to carry, and he should have attached himself firmly 
 to Necker, as the only minister fitted to serve him. The ex- 
 periment is considered by M^. de Stael as having been suc- 
 cessful in the two provinces, where it was tried ; but a work 
 upon the subject, addressed to the king by Necker himself, in 
 which his ultimate views were displayed, having come to the 
 knowledge of the parliament, so much opposition was excited, 
 that the minister was overpowered. The minister, it seems, 
 had no object but economy and the welfare of the state ; and 
 no powerful friend in the court but the monarch himself, who, 
 in a crisis like this, was unhappily from his nature unfitted for 
 the office. 
 
 The parliament saw, from Necker's own work, that their 
 own influence, that their own existence, as a political body, if 
 his provincial assemblies succeeded, would gradually cease; 
 and the privileged orders saw, that new powers and authorities 
 were, according to Necker's plan, to arise in the state, which 
 could be of no advantage to them ; but, on the contrary, must 
 eventually, more or less, deprive them of their immunities, and 
 withdraw from them their prerogatives. The old minister 
 therefore combined with every one around him, in and about the 
 court and his more immediate sphere, and Necker was dis- 
 posed of as a common grievance, and dismissed from the 
 ministry. 
 
 You will, I hope, not be unwilling to know a little more of 
 this measure, proposed by Necker, so early as 1780 and 1781, 
 — these provincial assemblies. 
 
 1st. There is a Memoir of Turgot relative to the subject ; and 
 2dly, a Memoir of Necker. Both ministers had seen that it 
 was desirable to emancipate the crown from the interference 
 of the parliaments, that it was necessary to make the privi- 
 leged orders contribute ; and that these points could not be
 
 V. NECKER. 115 
 
 accomplished without borrowing for the sovereign some autho- 
 rity from the community. 
 
 Turgot seems to have referred himself entirely to the Tiers 
 Etat, and to have made use of no other order in his organiza- 
 tion of these provincial assemblies ; but Necker avoided this 
 error, and composed his assemblies of all the orders in the 
 state, in the way, you will see hereafter, that the States Gene- 
 ral were composed, one-fourth clergy, one-fourth nobility, 
 one-half Tiers Etat, 
 
 The views of Turgot, you will also see, were more po- 
 pular, were probably too popular. Necker's were much less 
 so. These provincial assemblies, consisting of all the three 
 orders, nobility, clergy, and Tiers Etat, seem to have been M. 
 Necker's measure, in truth, his expedient, to make as near an 
 approach as consistently with his duty to his master he 
 thought he could, to the system of representation established 
 in England. The privileged orders, though it must be allowed 
 that, in one way or another, they paid much more than is 
 supposed, still were more exempted from the taxes, that were 
 paid by the country, than, on the one hand, he thought just 
 or agreeable to the interest of the monarchy ; yet still, on the 
 other, by force to compel them to pay their quota, and with 
 or without their acquiescence to abolish their privileges, was 
 not what Necker at all considered as practicable, or even as 
 very reasonable ; and, on the whole, therefore, he rather hoped 
 insensibly and in due time to accomplish these great objects, 
 by mixing the privileged orders in this manner, with the Tiers 
 Etat, and introducing them gradually to the benefits and prac- 
 tices of the representative system. M. Necker, in this first 
 administration, was certainly ready to compound, to balance 
 and capitulate with evils ; and no idle taste for innovation and 
 experiment seems to have formed any part of his character. 
 
 You will find the difficulties of Necker's situation and the 
 difficulties of the state well described by M*". de Stael. You 
 will see the evils he hoped to remedy, the advantages he 
 hoped to procure, by the estabhshment of the provincial admi- 
 nistrations ; even from what I have already said you will have 
 a general notion of them. You will sufficiently comprehend 
 them from her work, and only from her work. 
 
 You will then turn to the detail of the history, and you will 
 understand that the old minister, Maurepas, became jealous
 
 116 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 of Necker, whose merits and virtues, aud whose importance 
 at that time to the state he did not properly comprehend, you 
 will find that the king gave way ; and you will see, I think, 
 some reason to suspect that Necker was at the time more 
 interested in his own personal consequence than was exactly 
 necessary ; was, in short, too vain. I consider this part of the 
 work of Mad. de Stael as valuable and curious, and I conceive 
 it will be sufficient for me to direct your attention very parti- 
 cularly to it. 
 
 It is quite impossible to offer any abridgment or represen- 
 tation of the pages of such a writer. She herself gives only a 
 rapid sketch, all beaming with light and beauty ; and it is in 
 vain to provide for the case of those who would not meditate 
 with delight and interest, every thing that can be said by such 
 a writer on such a subject as the French Revolution. 
 
 If Necker had succeeded, as he ought to have done, in this, 
 his first administration, the Revolution might have been 
 adjourned, and possibly even prevented. If he had continued 
 to succeed, as he went on, and if the king's mind had gra- 
 dually opened to the crisis in which he and his kingdom were 
 in truth placed, and to the necessity he lay under of being 
 steady and decisive, there can be little doubt that the govern- 
 ment would thus have been regularly ameliorated, and the 
 country at length advanced to a new and more becoming- 
 situation of general intelligence and happiness. No such 
 good fortune awaited France or Europe ; and with Necker, in 
 1781, as it appears to me, departed all real hope for any 
 peaceful alterations in the objectionable institutions, inconve- 
 nient usages, and unfortunate opinions of the inhabitants of 
 this great country. 
 
 One word on the subject of the parliaments and I conclude. 
 It was the parliaments that were the great obstacles in the 
 way of Necker. It was these bodies that most effectually 
 resisted the plans of Necker for the safety of the monarchy. 
 They were acting perhaps according to the natural prejudices 
 of their situation ; but they have been praised by respectable 
 writers, and thought patriotic at this period of their history, 
 and at periods immediately succeeding it. I do not, I con- 
 fess, see any great reason for such approbation of their con- 
 duct. What did they mean, what was the end and intention 
 of their eternal complaints and opposition ? Did they wish to
 
 V. 
 
 NECKER. 117 
 
 impede the benevolent efforts of the king, and to depress the 
 lower orders, more than they were already depressed ? No. 
 Their language was that of a general zeal for the public good. 
 Did they mean to render the privileges of the higher orders 
 less injurious to the interests of the community ? No. For 
 they resisted Turgot, and more especially Necker, while 
 endeavouring to effect these ends, at every moment and at 
 every turn. Would they do good themselves ? No. Would 
 they suffer others to attempt it? No. What other description 
 than this can be given of men who are factious or wrong 
 headed ? 
 
 Their great leader, M, D'Espremesnil saw his mistake too 
 late. He united himself afterwards to the king, and perished 
 like him, a victim to the Revolution. 
 
 There is a passage in the Memoirs of Baron de Grimm, on 
 the subject of these parliaments, which you should by all 
 means peruse attentively. He was led to the consideration of 
 them in April, 1789, by the situation of France and the ap- 
 proaching meeting of the States General. He had been long 
 in the country, was by profession an observer, and on every 
 subject was one, very acute and intelligent. You will find his 
 description of these important bodies very unfavourable ; and 
 I have myself just expressed sentiments unfavourable also. 
 No doubt I must not forget, nor must the student, that these 
 bodies were the only representatives of the civil and religious 
 liberties of the country, that ever appeared or could well be 
 found. The merit of such resistance, under any arbitrary 
 government, must not be lightly estimated ; and the tempta- 
 tions of their situation, and the treatment they had often and 
 even lately received, must not be overlooked. But the ques- 
 tion is not that of their prior merits and their general merits, 
 which were very great ; but what was the nature of their oppo- 
 sition during the periods we are now more immediately con- 
 sidering — whether that opposition had not all the marks of a 
 factious and seditious opposition. Was it not vague and in- 
 extinguishable ; not to be either satisfied or pacified ; without 
 precise object expressed, or intelligible system proposed ; and 
 therefore factious and seditious ? Surely it was most injurious 
 to the public weal, at this particular juncture, while Turgot, 
 Necker, Calonne, and others, were endeavouring to assist the 
 king in settling the disordered affairs of this great kingdom.
 
 118 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 CALONNE. 
 
 MY last lecture was employed in endeavouring to describe 
 to you the manner in which the opportunity of probably 
 preventing the revolution was lost during the earlier parts of 
 the king's reign ; lost by the want of character in the king, 
 and by the selfishness and blindness of the privileged orders. 
 
 My chief topics were the efforts of Turgot to introduce a 
 tax on the nobility and clergy, and the fault the king committed 
 in suffering him to be overpowered by the court and privileged 
 orders, and driven into retirement. 
 
 Again, the fault that was next committed by his ministers 
 rather than himself, when they engaged in a manner so 
 impolitic and unjust in our American war, and thus gave such 
 circulation and energy to the new opinions. 
 
 I next alluded to the efforts that were made by Necker for 
 the improvement of the finances, and more particularly the 
 amehoration of the constitution of France by his measure of 
 the provincial administrations, and the fault that was again 
 committed by the king in suffering this minister, like his 
 predecessor Turgot, to be overpowered by the court and pri- 
 vileged orders, and driven, in like manner, into retirement. 
 
 I concluded with giving a very unfavourable opinion of the 
 parliaments. Whatever might be their former merits, I re- 
 presented them as having acted at this period in a manner 
 very unreasonable, perverse, and factious, highly unfavourable 
 to the interests of their country. 
 
 I now proceed. When Necker was dismissed, the king 
 took his next two financial ministers from the parliament, to 
 lessen, perhaps, their opposition ; but these ministers seem to 
 have been wholly inefficient, though the return of peace gave 
 them opportunities more favourable than any which Necker
 
 VI. CALONNE. 119 
 
 had enjoyed. Regular magistrates, like these new ministers, 
 and privileged bodies, Hke the parliaments they came from, 
 have naturally, as Madame de Stael observes, a dread of 
 innovations, and yet some change was surely to be attempted, 
 when things, if left to themselves, were evidently journeying 
 on to disorder and ruin. 
 
 This was probably in some way or other understood or felt 
 by the court, for M, de Calonne was called to the administra- 
 tion of the finances, a man of brilliant talents, and probably 
 in every respect the contrast of the worthy magistrates who 
 had thus preceded him. You will see a great deal deserving 
 of your attention on the subject of M. de Calonne, in the 
 books I have referred you to. 
 
 You will find no difficulty, in the mean time, to conceive 
 the situation of the king, the minister, and the kingdom. 
 
 The writings of the philosophers, the success of the Ameri- 
 can cause, and the disorder of the finances, the publications 
 of Necker, the distresses of the state, every thing conspired 
 to agitate the public mind ; to lead men to find a pleasure in 
 political speculations; to induce them to form extravagant 
 expectations of the reforms that were to be introduced into 
 France ; of the wonders that were to be achieved by men of 
 intelligence and patriotism ; before the century yet closed, it 
 seems to have been agreed that the last half of the eighteenth 
 was to do more for mankind than all the ages that had pre- 
 ceded it. 
 
 It was certainly most unfortunate that a sentiment, a sort 
 of enthusiasm like this, should have got possession of a nation 
 like the French, capable, as a nation, of every thing and 
 of any thing but calmness and sobriety of thinking ; a virtue, 
 this last, that is the safeguard of all the rest. 
 
 The manners and the talents of Calonne, you will see, as I 
 have already mentioned, fully described in the works and 
 histories I have referred to. Always agreeable and accommo- 
 dating, he seemed to find no difficulties, and to make none. 
 Did a courtier want a post ? It was ready. Did the queen 
 wish for a little place or pension for a favourite ? It was ready 
 also. The money was ready, in like manner, if a prince 
 of the blood had a debt to discharge, contracted, perhaps, at 
 a gaming house; the minister was always cheerful and at
 
 120 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 leisure, and perfectly happy to listen to the wishes of every 
 one. 
 
 But in the midst of this new era of felicity, this golden 
 age, as it must have appeared to tlie courtiers and the court, 
 the minister became sensible that the expenses of the state 
 far exceeded the revenues, and the king found himself brought 
 to the same point as before, that there could be for him and 
 his kingdom no comfort and no security, unless the privileged 
 orders could be induced to take their share of the general 
 burden, and unless some provision that might really be effec- 
 tive could in this manner be made for the restoration of the 
 finances. 
 
 Nothing can be more painful than to consider, in however 
 brief and passing a manner, the situation of this unfortunate 
 monarch, and this great kingdom, at this particular period. 
 It was now the year 1785, two years after the peace. The 
 parliament had registered the last loan not till after three 
 remonstrances, after a formal protest, after being summoned 
 to Versailles. The king very properly concluded, that when 
 he was obliged to have recourse to force, he was losing the 
 character of the father of his people. He was disquieted and 
 unhappy ; but if the parliaments were refractory, and if the 
 privileged orders could not be managed, and if the middle 
 classses of the community were becoming more intelligent, 
 and if there was nothing around the monarch but dissatisfac 
 tion and restlessness, and vague aspirations after some settle- 
 ment and improvement, which he knew not how to procure, 
 nor exactly to comprehend, what expedient was there left 
 him, and what measure was he to adopt ? He was too bene- 
 volent to join the courtiers, and by force and fury, banishing 
 the parliaments, and trampling on all privileges of every kind, 
 collect the revenue he wanted by the undisguised exertions of 
 absolute power ; nor was he of an understanding sufficiently 
 decisive, enterprising, and elevated, to strike into some path 
 of wisdom for himself, and, like a man of genius, control men, 
 circumstances, and every thing around him, and convert them 
 to his purposes. Unfortunately for himself, and indeed for 
 his country, he had no pretensions of the kind. But we must 
 return to the history. 
 
 His minister, M, deCalonne, had ; and he therefore proposed
 
 VI. . CALONNE. 121 
 
 what he considered as a grand measure, and what he repre- 
 sented to the kino; as an infallible method of saving; him from 
 all new loans, all new imposts, and above all, from all further 
 opposition from the parliaments. 
 
 The monarch could perceive that these were the great 
 problems to be solved ; and how was this to be effected ? 
 The answer was, by new management of the imposts, and by 
 an abolition of those privileges which the timidity of the 
 government (the minister observed) had allowed not only to 
 the Pays d'Etat, but to the two orders, the most powerful of 
 the kingdom — the nobility and the clergy. No doubt the 
 king might have thought these two orders should on no 
 account be exempted. 
 
 But what, then, was M. de Calonne's measure ? He referred 
 very properly to the history of the ancient practices and 
 institutions of the country, the right point to turn to for any 
 reformer ; and he proposed to call together the assembly that 
 had appeared in 1627 — the assembly of the Notables; in other 
 words, an assembly of the chief people of France ; and for 
 what purpose ? To consider the whole of the case, and to give 
 their advice ; and what advice was expected ? The only advice 
 that was reasonable would have answered M. de Calonne, that 
 all orders in the state should make common cause, and the 
 privileged orders contribute ; and then with the sanction of 
 such advice, the king, it was intended, should afterwards 
 proceed to carry the measure into execution, and make himself 
 and his people happy. Such were the views of Calonne. 
 
 And were, then, the privileged orders themselves, who con- 
 stituted the main body of this assembly, expected to give this 
 advice, this disinterested patriotic advice ; to forego their own 
 privileges, and submit themselves to the taxgatherers ? Now, 
 if there was any one measure more to be avoided than 
 another, it was a measure like this. 
 
 M. de Calonne had seen what had been the result of 
 reviving the parliaments. What assistance had these bodies 
 rendered to the king or his ministers, or M. de Calonne 
 himself, in the settlement of the finances ? And what material 
 difference could be shewn between the parliaments and the 
 notables? What folly greater than to call bodies of men 
 together, to discuss things in general ; men collected from all
 
 122 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 quarters on a sudden (and, as it were, for the first time), to 
 talk over the affairs of the nation ; an ingenious expedient 
 this for setthng the disordered concerns of a great country ! 
 " But no," would have said the minister, " I had propositions 
 to make, evils to state, remedies to propose." — But to whom ? 
 and when did a body of men act otherwise than with the 
 spirit and prejudices of that body ? Individuals may be disin- 
 terested, may be virtuous, may be wise, may rise superior to 
 their temptations, but bodies of men never, if collected and 
 addressed as a body ; and no dream could be more shadowy 
 than a delusion like this ; more unworthy of the talents and 
 situation of the minister, or even of the natural good sense of 
 the king himself. 
 
 It is very true that Calonne could demonstrate the utility 
 and reasonableness of his plans, to those who would listen to 
 him ; and on this he depended — a vain dependence, if the only 
 dependence, as every one will fmd, who has to deal with 
 bodies of men, or even individuals, and has points to obtain, 
 and measures to carry. 
 
 " On life's vast ocean diversely we sail, 
 Reason the card, but passion is the gale." 
 
 Calonne has published a work on the French Revolution — 
 " De I'Etat de France present et a venir." At the end of it he 
 gives an outline of his plan ; nothing can be more reasonable, 
 and it remains an eternal indictment on the people of conse- 
 quence then in France, more particularly on that part of 
 them that composed the assembly of the Notables. 
 
 " What difficulties," he says in the close, " can be placed in 
 the balance against such advantages ; what pretexts can there 
 be for any disquietudes on the subject?" 
 
 " More will be paid," he continues, " no doubt; but paid 
 by whom ? By those who now do not pay enough. They will 
 hereafter pay every one in due proportion, and no one will 
 be ag-o-rieved. 
 
 " ' But privileges will be sacrificed.' — Why, yes," he replies, 
 " but then justice ordains and necessity requires it. Would it 
 be better to overcharge those who are not privileged — the 
 people ? ' But there will be a great outcry raised.' This must 
 be expected. Can one ever effect any general good without
 
 VI. CALONNE. 123 
 
 running counter to particular interests ? Can any one intro- 
 duce reforms, and no complaint be heard ?" 
 
 " The voice of patriotism," he goes on to say, " that attach- 
 ment due to a sovereign, who concerts with his subjects the 
 means of assuring the public tranquillity, the very sentiment 
 of honour, a sentiment so powerful in the breast of French- 
 men, can one doubt a moment that considerations of this kind 
 will not triumph over every other?" ^ 
 
 In this manner did the minister express himself in March 
 1787. But alas ! in his postscript in 1790 — " Such," he says, 
 " is the address that was considered as an incendiary produc- 
 tion ; not that the truth of its statements has been ever contra- 
 dicted ; it was discovered (it seems) that I had not spoken in 
 terms sufficiently measured of the privileged orders, and to 
 appease them I have been sacrificed." These are, as it were, 
 the last words of Calonne. 
 
 Lacretelle, at the close of his seventeenth chapter, gives the 
 reasonings that may probably have passed through the mind 
 of the minister, and made a part of his conversation with his 
 friends at the time. At the end of the chapter there is a list 
 of the Notables, their division into seven chambers, and the 
 names are given; princes of the blood, archbishops and 
 bishops, marshals, counsellors of state and presidents of par- 
 liaments, prevots and mayors ; a selection from all the rank, 
 official dignity, and talents of the kingdom. 
 
 Unfortunately for Calonne, the minister Vergennes died 
 about a week before the opening of the assembly. 
 
 Opposition had been for some time pi'eparing against him. 
 Nothing could be more ingenious than his management of the 
 assembly, as far as mechanical divisions went, for while it was 
 only a minority of the whole body that favoured his projects? 
 by breaking up the assembly into different chambers, and 
 parcelling out his minority with skill, he had a majority of the 
 chambers ; but all was vain : the parliaments, the intriguing 
 Bishop of Toulouse, the clergy, the people of consequence, 
 even the queen were against him. 
 
 At last he seemed to have no friend, and he was actually 
 obliged to fly. The same aristocracy and clergy that thus 
 beat him off and banished him as a public enemy, and a sort 
 of swindler, he lived to see flying, in like manner, for their
 
 124 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 lives, from the senseless and unprincipled demagogues, the 
 rulers that but too soon succeeded him, the popular, furious 
 tyrants from whom the plans of Calonne gave the privileged 
 orders their only chance of a timely escape, 
 
 " It is to Calonne," says M^ de Stael, " that the revolution 
 is to be imputed, if such an event can be attributed to any 
 single individual. No doubt the minister was too sanguine, 
 was too presumptuous; attended too httle to the obvious 
 principles of human nature ; but to whom is the fault, is the 
 guilt of this calamity to be attributed ? To the minister who 
 has depended too confidently on the disinterestedness, the 
 sense of justice, the reasonableness of the privileged orders, or 
 to those privileged orders themselves, who, in a great crisis of 
 pubhc affairs, have been wanting to their country in such 
 necessary qualities ? 
 
 You will see in the books I have referred to, Lacretelle, the 
 Annual Register, &:c.,a very sufficient account of the proceed- 
 ings that took place, the speeches of the king and the minister, 
 and the views and movements of his opponents in and out of 
 the assembly. Some circumstances were unfavourable to him ; 
 but I consider the whole as a memorable example to prove 
 what I have announced to you— first, that no minister is to 
 collect bodies of men together with no other dependence than 
 the reasonableness of his own views, opposed to their natural 
 prejudices and selfish interests ; and secondly, that the ad- 
 herence which bodies of men (I do not say individuals) show 
 to their prejudices and selfish interests is always most infatu- 
 ated and most blind, and in situations of a critical nature may 
 be, and generally is, fatal to themselves and to their country. 
 
 But these observations, I must remind you, might be urged 
 with much more reason in every period preceding the ministry 
 of Calonne. Turgot and Necker were patriotic ministers, 
 of virtuous and respectable character, the representatives of 
 the king and the people. Calonne was of a different descrip- 
 tion, of licentious character, and the minister of the queen and 
 the court. What might be properly conceded by the privi- 
 leged orders to the former, might not be equally so to the 
 latter ; the privileged orders were to give up their exemptions 
 from taxation, that is, to give up part of their property ; but 
 property is never given up, whatever may be the arguments of
 
 VI. CALONNE. 125 
 
 the reasoner in the closet, without some very serious compen- 
 sation, or the application of something like necessity and 
 force. 
 
 Great want of magnanimity, of patriotism, of knowledge of 
 human nature, was shown by the different parties on this 
 occasion. The king and court, particularly the king, should 
 have offered distinct and important ameliorations in the go- 
 vernment, in lieu of the privileges to be conceded ; and on the 
 part of the privileged orders, if the concession of privileges 
 was to be by them denied, it should have been denied, not, as 
 it was, without any reason given, but because patriotic con- 
 cessions on the part of the court and monarch were not at 
 the same time proposed. 
 
 Still, and finally, after all the weight, that may be allowed 
 to observations of this kind, the conduct of the privileged 
 orders on this occasion must for ever be held up to mankind 
 as an example of the selfish blindness of which all such orders 
 are capable ; they would not concede in time. Animated by 
 no one generous or patriotic feeling that can be mentioned, 
 they would not concede ; and they, and every thing that they 
 loved and honoured, were consequently buried in one common 
 destruction — But they saw not their danger — let others, then, 
 take warning. 
 
 The usual routine of the administration of public affairs in 
 France had now been violated in vain ; an assembly of Notables 
 had appeared, and yet no great salutary effect had been 
 produced. 
 
 This ought of itself to have been considered as a very serious 
 calamity by the monarch, and all those who wished well 
 to his authority. 
 
 The assembly and he parted in apparent good humour; 
 every thing had seemed to go on smoothly when the minister 
 was given up ; they appear even to have assented to many 
 of his proposals, and these proposals devolved as a sort of 
 legacy upon his successor (his real, not his more immediate 
 Accessor), the Bishop of Toulouse. 
 
 They were many of them of an important nature ; the second 
 of the six articles was the establishment of provincial assem- 
 blies for the equal collection of the imposts. To read the 
 summary of the labours of the assembly, with which the
 
 126 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 keeper of the seals, Lamoignon, put an end to their sittings, 
 one should suppose that a new era was now to commence, 
 that the most important improvements were to be reahzed, 
 and every thing from this moment to be regularity, peace, and 
 mutual satisfaction on the part of the king and his people ; 
 but by some strange fatality, some miserable want of capacity 
 in the new ministry, some melancholy want of character, it 
 must be confessed, in the king, no such happy alteration 
 of circumstances in the affairs of this great country is seen 
 to take place ; and one more precious year, the most precious 
 perhaps, and critical of all, is wretchedly thrown away and 
 lost. The edicts to which the Notables had agreed are neither 
 immediately brought to the parliament of Paris, nor acted 
 upon without its authority, as having received the sanction of 
 the Notables. Time is given to the parliament to recover, to 
 their members to confer with each other, to speculate upon 
 the interests of the kingdom, and in one way and another, 
 even to unite the people against the crown, while they are 
 thus maintaining; the ri2;hts and interests not in truth of the 
 people, but of the privileged orders. You will see in the 
 Annual Register, far better than in Lacretelle, a detail of the 
 contest that ensued between the parliament and the crown. 
 
 It is important ; for it was during these twelve months (parts 
 of the years 1786 and 1787), that reasonable efforts should 
 have been made for the restoration of the finances and the 
 happiness of the French people; but the parliaments did 
 nothing ; they entered into a contest with the crown, instead 
 of making the best of what had been done and been proposed 
 by the Notables. Observe what had been done, and recom- 
 mended, and approved by that assembly, and you will then 
 judge of the conduct of the parliament ; for instance, many of 
 the important proposals of Calonne had been sanctioned by 
 this assembly of the Notables ; they were the wish and desire 
 of the kins; : the abolition of the corvee, the removal of the 
 barriers between the different provinces, the abolition of inter- 
 nal taxes, duties and restrictions upon the transit of commo- 
 dities from one to another, a decree for laying open and 
 rendering free the commerce of grain throughout the kingdom, 
 a decree for the relief of protestants, the abolition of the 
 gabelle; all this was intended, and the king had pledged
 
 VI. 
 
 CALONNE. 127 
 
 himself to the last measure of the gabelle. The king's wish 
 to promote the ease, content, and happiness of his people, 
 was not a passion or secret disposition indulged only in specu- 
 lation, it was embodied and brought fully into action, it was 
 universally acknowledged. 
 
 Extraordinary adulations, continues the Annual Register, 
 marked the speeches in the assembly of the Notables on the 
 day of their rising. The mayor of Paris declared, that Louis 
 XVI. would have been the exemplar and model on which 
 Henry the Great would have formed himself, if the partial 
 destiny of the present generation of Frenchmen had not 
 reserved him to complete their happiness. 
 
 The Notables had indeed deserted Calonne and the king in 
 the grand measure of all, the territorial revenue or land tax, 
 which would have fallen upon the nobility and clergy, and 
 thereby removed, so far as it went, those exemptions which 
 had been so long considered as an intolerable grievance ; 
 here the patriotism of the assembly failed them, or they were 
 awed by the potent bodies, the parliaments and privileged 
 orders, whose interests, as well as their own, were concerned ; 
 still it is here to be observed, that the Notables were not 
 totally wanting to their country — the people, according to the 
 views and notions of the Notables, were evidently to be 
 relieved from a number of the most crying grievances. The 
 people had every rational ground to expect, that what was 
 already done by the Notables was only introductory to a 
 progressive course of measures for the melioration of the 
 constitution and the improvement of all the departments of 
 government, and nothing more was wanting, but an accom- 
 modating and conciliatory disposition in the parliament of 
 Paris, by filling up the sketch traced out by the Notables, to 
 have established eventually the prosperity of their country 
 and even the permanent improvement of its constitution, or 
 rather of its arbitrary monarchy. 
 
 For what was wanting to the community ? Some power of 
 criticism and control on the public expenditure ; some public 
 bodies of a representative nature. A power like this might 
 have been generated by means of the provincial assemblies. 
 These assembhes were themselves of a representative nature ; 
 they were the measures of Turgot and Necker, popular and
 
 128 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 acknowledged patriots ; they would have been a sacrifice on 
 the part of the crown ; it was fit that this sacrifice should 
 have been answered by a corresponding one on the part of 
 the privileged orders — an admission of the land tax. 
 
 What then could possibly be the meaning of the parlia- 
 ment and the privileged orders in thwarting every measure 
 that the king could propose, in doing every thing to offend 
 him, every thing to force him to a measure so unexampled 
 and so perilous, as the call of the States General ? You will 
 see the detail of these strange transactions, these revived 
 contests between the king and parliament of Paris, in La- 
 cretelle and in the Annual Register. The Duke of Orleans, 
 whose very name is infamy, is one of the heroes of these 
 scenes, and D'Espremesnil and others are united with him, 
 whose names on the contrary are never mentioned but with 
 honour. 
 
 At last you will see the parliament is animated with a 
 spirit of opposition, so determined, with an enthusiasm so 
 patriotic, that they even declare their own incompetency to 
 legalize the imposts of the crown. The words " States Ge- 
 neral" are pronounced, and no other authority is proclaimed 
 to be sufficient. And what then will become of us, (the 
 parliament,) it was observed to D'Espremesnil, when the 
 States General appear. " The States General will be grateful 
 to us," he replied, " for our magnanimity; and in the 
 interval of their sittings they will continue to delegate to us 
 their power." " Heaven will punish thee," replied one of 
 bis colleagues, " by listening to thy vows." This prediction 
 was but too speedily and too fatally accomplished. 
 
 As I have already said, you may easily see in the Annual 
 Register, the remonstrances of the parliament and the an- 
 swers of the king. The language and the sentiments are 
 sometimes of a querulous and wearisome, sometimes of an 
 elevated and patriotic cast, and fitted to remind you of 
 similar state papers that occur in the history of your own 
 country, during the contest between Charles and his parlia- 
 ments ; but there is one important difference which you 
 should never lose sight of; Charles was a prince who had 
 ruled illegally and even tyrannically, who had for eleven 
 years endeavoured to carry on his government without the
 
 VI. CALONNE. 129 
 
 representative assemblies of the country ; assemblies long 
 established, and that were a regular part of the constitution of 
 the government. In Louis, the parliaments and parhament 
 of Paris and its patriots had to do with a benevolent mo- 
 narch, who had no object so dear as the happiness of his 
 people ; to whose nature tyranny of every sort was abhorrent; 
 who had the prejudices, no doubt, of his birth and situation, 
 but who was only asking for measures that would have been 
 of permanent improvement to the country ; who would even 
 have admitted changes that would have made the constitution 
 of the country more free ; who was indeed surrounded by a 
 court and courtiers, that thought only of themselves, their 
 privileges and enjoyments, but who was himself of all men 
 the most removed, both as a king and as a man, from every 
 thing that was selfish, unreasonable, or harsh. 
 
 The parliaments, instead of lecturing the king in the tedi- 
 ous, not to say disrespectful manner in which they did, on 
 the virtue and necessity of economy, and on the faults of his 
 ministers, that is, his own, would have done better to have 
 schooled themselves and their privileged orders, on the duty 
 of equal justice to the community, — to have reduced the diffi- 
 culties of the case to some few and intelligible issues. On the 
 part of the community they must have been aware that what 
 was wanting, was, some constitutional power of criticising 
 and controlling the expenses of the government, and on the 
 part of the crown, some mode of providing for the disorders 
 in the finances ; that this was the whole that was to be 
 accomplished, at least first and mainly to be accomplished ; 
 that the first might be accomplished eventually, and to all 
 practical purposes, by a proper attention to the expedients 
 proposed by Turgot and Necker, by a proper modification of 
 the provincial assemblies; and the latter, by a proper ma- 
 nagement of the privileges of the nobility and clergy ; that 
 these were the lines of direction which their patriotism and 
 wisdom should have taken, and that by patience and proper 
 management they had every thing to expect from the real 
 interest which it was evident the king took in the happiness 
 of his people; that the minds of men were obviously in a 
 state of great ferment and agitation, and continually more 
 and more turned to the discussion of political subjects ; that 
 
 K
 
 130 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 the crown had hitherto failed in every attempt to restore the 
 finances, had even failed in the extraordinary measure of the 
 assembly of the Notables, and that it was high time for the 
 privileged orders and the monarch to proceed on a system of 
 accommodation and peace, and of mutual sacrifice and at- 
 tention to the interests and welfare at least, if not to the 
 rights, of the whole community. 
 
 But all this, it would have been said by the leading men 
 of the parliament, all this is what will be best effected, and 
 can alone be effected, by the measure we have proposed, the 
 only measure that can furnish a legal provision for the diffi- 
 culties of the state, a call of the States General — a call of the 
 States General ! And what good had been produced, in fact, 
 by a call of the Notables ? What good to be produced by 
 summoning large bodies of men, inexperienced in business 
 and unused to the possession of power, to discuss pubhc 
 grievances ? Would it not be wiser to let the States General 
 hereafter arise out of the provincial assemblies, when the 
 minds of men have been thus familiarized to the images of 
 representative power, when men of intelligence and conse- 
 quence in their different provinces have been accustomed to 
 the duties and the temptations of an authority so important? 
 But with how little effect would reasonings of this humble 
 and moderate nature have been addressed to D'Espremesnil, 
 or I'Abbe Sabathier, or to Fretau, or Duport, or other active 
 members of the parliament : or again, to the young, lively, 
 ingenious, sanguine, theatric men of talents in the capital of 
 Paris, or the great cities of the provinces. It was unhappily 
 more agreeable to the feelings of such men and even of the 
 parliament, and they considered it as far better wisdom, to 
 say to their monarch in July 1787, " that they wished to see 
 the whole nation assembled before they registered any new 
 impost ; that the nation alone thus assembled and instructed 
 in the true state of the finances might extirpate the great 
 abuses that are existing at present, and offer great resources 
 to obviate them in future ; that the monarch of France could 
 never be so great as when surrounded by his happy sub- 
 jects ; that he had really nothing to fear but the excess of 
 their attachment; that he had no other precaution to take 
 but to be upon his guard against issuing orders that may 
 be beyond their power to accomplish."
 
 VI. CALONNE. 131 
 
 Such was the conduct and such was the parting language 
 of the parliament in July 1787 ; and these are among the 
 lessons of this great event, this revolution in France, Men 
 are not to see, indifferent and unmoved, their country miser- 
 able ; the people depressed ; the privileged orders unjust and 
 profligate and unfeeling ; but they are not to let loose the 
 community upon the existing rulers of it : they are to proceed 
 step by step; they are not to depend upon vague, general, 
 sanguine estimates, like those I have just quoted, but to be 
 precise, cautious, and practical ; above all, to fly from every 
 thing that tends to revolution, because revolutions are not 
 favourable to civil freedom. It is quite a mistake to suppose, 
 as many noble minded and virtuous men do, and always have 
 done, that revolutions are the proper remedies of national 
 grievances ; that they naturally lead to the establishment of 
 the rights of mankind ; nothing can be further from the fact : 
 they break up society, and then the violent alone bear sway. 
 If the country has before been free, all this may end ulti- 
 mately in the revival and in some improvement of the former 
 state of freedom, as was the case (but most fortunately the 
 case) in our own country. 
 
 But it is only in cases of this kind that such salutary 
 changes can be at all expected from revolutions. Even in 
 such cases, civil fi'eedom will best be gained or rather gene- 
 rated by the long continued exertions of wise and good men ; 
 by the dexterous management of times and circumstances ; by 
 doing anything rather than run into the extremes of violence 
 and bloodshed. But will governors and governments, it will 
 be replied, ever make any concessions, ever part with any 
 power for the benefit of the people, unless they are terrified, 
 unless they are compelled to do so ? There is too much 
 truth, I must allow, and it is mournful to me to acknow- 
 ledge it, there is too much truth in this observation; and 
 when it is added to the observations I have already made, the 
 whole difficulty of the subject is then seen : — the merit of 
 those patriots who are not only generous and gallant and 
 noble-minded, but wise, that is, patient ; the merit of those 
 rulers who respect public opinion, and respect it in time. 
 
 In the instance before us, the instance of France, I must 
 contend that the patriotic leaders in the parliaments had 
 always before them the sj^ectacle of a most benevolent mo-
 
 132 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 narch, wlio, though affected by the prejudices of his birth, 
 never ceased to mean well. I must indeed admit, that they 
 had to do with a thoughtless, expensive court, with courtiers 
 of very arbitrary principles, and with privileged orders, (they 
 themselves most of them belonged to these privileged orders,) 
 that were unjust and unfeehng; but at the head of them, I 
 must again repeat, was a monarch unhappily not fitted to 
 rule them, but a sensible, virtuous, religious man, from whom 
 any thing and every thing might be expected, that his country 
 could require, if but managed with proper forbearance and 
 skill ; if due advantage was made of his good qualities, and 
 care taken not to give too much opportunity for the unhappy 
 influence of his defects and faihngs. 
 
 But the words " States General " had been pronounced — 
 pronounced by the parliament itself In France — in Paris — 
 the mode is every thing. The idea of the States General 
 became popular, became fashionable; every wise man and 
 every foolish man had now got a resting place for his thoughts, 
 and one at w^hich his speculations could arrive with confidence, 
 and in a moment ; every one could see that something ought 
 to be done, for neither people, king, court, nor privileged 
 orders were at ease ; and it was now evident forsooth to every 
 the meanest capacity, that it was only necessary to assemble 
 all the wisdom and consequence of the country together, to 
 unite them to the benevolent wishes of the good king, and 
 that then, to suppose any further doubt, or difficulty, or 
 impediment remaining to the happiness of the country, to 
 what was called " the regeneration of France," was perfectly 
 ridiculous. 
 
 You will see in Lacretelle, and more particularly in the 
 Annual Register, that a spirited and even able effort (though 
 ill managed) was made by the king and Lamoignon to 
 transact the business of the kingdom without the parliament 
 of Paris, and probably to preclude the necessity of calling the 
 States General. This was the institution of what was called 
 the " Cour Pleniere ;" but the people of rank and consequence, 
 both of the nobility and clergy, deserted their monarch 
 (such is the term used by the writer in the Annual Register) 
 on this critical occasion. The Dukes of Rochefoucault, De 
 Noailles, Luxembourg, and several others, rejected the king's
 
 VI. CALONNE. 133 
 
 nomination, and refused to sit in the Cour Plenic^re, this new 
 assembly that was to supersede the parliament. The kino- 
 was condemned, it is said by the same writer, to submit to 
 this public insult, and to retract all he had done. Thus was 
 the court sunk to the lowest ebb of degradation, while the 
 parliaments were raised to the pinnacle of triumph and 
 power. 
 
 I have in these few words given you the representation 
 rather of the respectable writer in the Annual Register, Dr. 
 Lawrence, than my own ; for I must observe that it was a 
 serious thing, and so it must have been thought by the dukes 
 of Rochefoucault and Luxembourg, to sweep away the par- 
 liaments, and substitute in their room merely a Cour Pleniere, 
 whilst the nobles were so attached or even dependent on the 
 court, and while the people were nothing, and certainly could 
 find in this court no proper representative ; finally, that the 
 same Cour Pleniere that might be valuable to the community 
 under Louis XVL might be only an instrument of tyranny 
 under his successors. I do not, therefore, know how to blame 
 these men of rank on this occasion ; but what are we to say 
 of the king and his advisers who were to commit themselves 
 on a measure like this, without having first felt their wav, or 
 ascertained the opinions and intentions of such distinguished 
 men as have just been mentioned ? 
 
 This measure, however, having failed, the king had no 
 resource, for he was neither fierce nor arbitrary, and he there- 
 fore dismissed his minister, the cardinal De Brienne, from a 
 post to which he ought never to have suffered him to be pro- 
 moted. He recalled Necker, and the States General were 
 promised for the May of the ensuing year. 
 
 I will now proceed to give you, before I conclude my 
 lecture, some general notion of what was thought of the situ- 
 ation of France by different observers at this particular 
 period. I do not necessarily adopt or require you to sub- 
 scribe to any sentiment that I shall thus exhibit before you ; 
 my meaning is, to put you in possession, as well as I can, of 
 the whole of the case, to give you an interest in the scene, 
 by enabling you the better to understand its bearings and 
 its circumstances, its unhappy difficulties and various perils. 
 I will first refer you to the representations of the Baron do
 
 134 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 Grimm, an eyewitness at the time. He is writing at the 
 very period now before us. 
 
 " Never was there a minister," says he, " who showed 
 such talents for throwing every thing into confusion, as 
 M. de Brienne (the cardinal). He has shaken to pieces the 
 whole political machine in the space of a few months ; thanks 
 to the happy ascendant of his genius, one may truly say, that 
 there is not a single public body in France that remains in 
 its place, or retains its natural movements. The parliament 
 has on a sudden adopted a system the most directly opposed 
 to its own interests, one that it has anathematized a hundred 
 and a hundred times; the nobility, the existence of which 
 seems the most intimately connected with the rights of the 
 throne, has an air of being disposed to separate itself. Even 
 the military spirit seems overpowered by some spirit, I know 
 not what, of patriotism, laudable in itself perhaps, but rather 
 difficult to reconcile with that character of subordination, 
 without which there can be neither discipline nor army ; the 
 clergy no longer preach obedience, the soldiers seem no 
 longer disposed to maintain it. What is still more remark- 
 able is, that this universal discontent has been preceded by 
 declarations from the king the most favourable to public 
 liberty. He has just been making more sacrifices of his 
 authority than any of his predecessors have ever ventured to 
 do. The parliaments have called aloud for the assistance of 
 that which of all other things they had most to fear, a meet- 
 ing of the States General, carried away by a man totally 
 without consideration among them, an Abbe de Sabathier; 
 all, as if actuated by some supernatural influence, have 
 demanded the convocation of the States General : makinp- as 
 it were ni this manner the amende honorable to the nation 
 ^, for having so long usurped the most capital of its rights." 
 
 " It was under these desperate circumstances," says the 
 Baron de Grimm, " that Necker was recalled." 
 
 Such was the general notion formed at the time of the 
 situation of France by the Baron de Grimm, an agent of an 
 arbitrary court (of Prussia), but a man of a very experienced, 
 improved, and penetrating mind. 
 
 I will next refer you to the views that were formed at the 
 time by men of the old regime in France itself. I will allude
 
 VI. CALONNE. 135 
 
 to the Memoirs of the Marquis de Bouille. He was the very 
 humane and respectable man who commanded the French 
 forces in the West Indies during the great American war, 
 and so conducted himself, that on his visiting Engkmd a 
 pubhc dinner was given to him by the planters and the West 
 India merchants ; and he was every where received, at court 
 and by the pubhc, in the most flattering manner. The opi- 
 nions and feehngs of a man like this (you must, as you read 
 the history, always refer to this memoir) are on every occa- 
 sion entitled to our consideration. 
 
 After some observations, he goes on to say — " The French 
 nation, in the corrupt state to which it had arrived, could no 
 longer be governed but by a firm and severe government, by 
 a sceptre like that of Louis XIV. ; and this was too weighty 
 for the hands of Louis XVI. His aged counsellor recom- 
 mended mildness instead of severity, and the king was easily 
 made to believe that the love of his people ought to be pre- 
 ferred to their fear." Here you see the soldier, the veteran 
 general, the man accustomed to the exercise of regular 
 authority, and who depends upon authority alone. He after- 
 wards admits, that the most numerous and most useful class 
 of the king's subjects, the labouring poor, were at that time 
 harassed and rendered unhappy by the avarice and rapacity, 
 not only of the courtiers, but of an immense crowd, some of 
 whom by intrigue, others sheltering themselves beneath the 
 privileges of their order or situation, threw the whole weight 
 of the public burden upon the inferior ranks of society. He 
 continues thus: — " His majesty suffered himself to be per- 
 suaded, and his ministers persuaded themselves, that the 
 enlightened (he must now mean to speak of the patrons of 
 the new opinions), but at the same time restless, jealous, in- 
 satiable, and corrupt description of men, who inhabited the 
 court, the capital, and the great cities, composed the mass of 
 the people. These, however, in reality, formed a very small 
 part of the nation, and that, the most depraved in its morals 
 and the most dangerous from the turbulent spirit with which 
 it was agitated. Thenceforth the opinion of th s part of the 
 public became the uncertain guide of government." The 
 marquis (I say) must here refer to those who had become 
 imbued with the new opinions ; he probably quite under-
 
 136 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 estimated their number and importance, and evein their respec- 
 tability. He goes on to refer every measure of the king, minis- 
 ters, and court, to their wish to propitiate this pubhc opinion ; 
 the recall of the parliaments, the exhausting of the treasury, 
 the dismissal of the officers and attendants of the monarch, 
 the assistance given to America; "in fine," says he, "so to- 
 tally was every principle of policy and of morality disregarded, 
 that the public mind was already democratical, while the mo- 
 narchy still existed ; the Notables could do no service, nor 
 could the States General ; the magistracy was ambitious, the 
 clergy jealous of their privileges, a spirit of innovation prevailed 
 among the nobility, whilst there was a total want of subordi- 
 nation in the army, particularly among the chiefs ; licentious- 
 ness and insolence pervaded the middle ranks of society, 
 whilst the lower class experienced the extreme of misery, 
 and the rich indulged themselves in the most unbounded 
 luxury." 
 
 This is a fearful picture, and the marquis does not attempt 
 to offer any remedy for these calamities of the state. An 
 assertion, however, of the rights of the old monarchy, of the 
 old regime, authority, force, a trial of the bayonet, would 
 have been probably his advice, his only resource ; no com- 
 position, no conciliation, no terms to be kept with the new 
 opinions, no escape from them, resistance to the utmost, war ; 
 at least such would have been his counsels certainly at any 
 time after the formation of the constituent assembly, and 
 probably at the period we are now alluding to, the year 1788. 
 Such are the men and such the opinions that must be con- 
 sidered as existing at the time, and as forming, I must repeat, 
 a part of the case. 
 
 For another specimen of this kind we may turn to the 
 annals of Bertrand de Moleville, another respectable sup- 
 porter of the old regime. I will allude to them for a moment, 
 and conclude. Speaking of this period, he says — " With 
 these important sacrifices made by the princes of the blood 
 and the nobility, the Tiers Etat ought to have been satisfied, 
 and grateful for them ; but they were sometimes represented 
 as acts of hypocrisy, which ought not to be relied on ; some- 
 times as indications of fear, which should encourage that 
 order to rise in their demands. By such perfidious insinua-
 
 VI. 
 
 CALONNE. 137 
 
 tions the factious kept alive the distrust and agitation of the 
 people, and disposed them to revolt. The most inflammatory 
 pamplilets against the clergy and the nobility were circulated 
 throuoh the whole kingdom without the least opposition ; the 
 most shameful caricatures, exposed to view in the squares, on 
 the quays, and at the print shops in Paris, excited the crowds 
 they collected to insult not only the ecclesiastics, but every 
 well-dressed man who happened to be passing. 
 
 " The letters for convoking the States General," he goes on 
 to say, " were issued at this crisis. The affectionate and truly 
 paternal sentiments expressed in them by the king ought to 
 have allayed all discontent, and dissipated all uneasiness ; 
 and no doubt they did produce that effect among the reason- 
 able, honest, and well-affected persons of the three orders; 
 but the turbulent and ambitious, the intriguing and the revo- 
 lutionary fanatics, did not relax the least on that account in 
 the project for overturning every thing, but continued pre- 
 paring the means for carrying it into execution." 
 
 Such were the views of Bertrand de Moleville, of the 
 Marquis de Bouille, and the Baron de Grimm: represent 
 now to your minds, as well as you can, the fermentation that 
 had long existed in the minds of the people of France, and 
 particularly of Paris; consider what the court and govern- 
 ment had been, and what the new opinions were, the oppor- 
 tunity that now appeared to offer itself for what was called 
 the regeneration of France, and combining thus the effect of 
 the old and new opinions, together with the particular cir- 
 cumstances of the monarchy, you will be able to form some 
 general notion, such at least as can now be formed, at this 
 happy distance of time and place, of the state of this dis- 
 tracted kinodom, when Necker was recalled to undertake 
 once more the office from which he had been. a few years 
 before most unfortunately and improperly dismissed.
 
 138 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 NECKER. 
 
 IN my last lecture I adverted to the administration of M. 
 De Calonne. 
 
 I described his efforts to restore the finances by a call of 
 the Notables. This was his expedient for procuring assist- 
 ance from the privileged orders. He had hoped that these 
 privileged orders might be induced, by the advice and autho- 
 rity of the Notables, to pay their share of the public burdens ; 
 but this advice the Notables would not give. They attended to 
 his recommendations, but with this most important exception. 
 
 He had been too sanguine, was disappointed, and obliged 
 to fly the country. 
 
 Even the measures which the Notables did approve and 
 recommended were not carried into execution, though they 
 would have been highly beneficial to France, and might have 
 somewhat allayed the storm. 
 
 I then alluded to the conduct of the parliament, who 
 crowned what has always appeared to me their prior very 
 unreasonable conduct, by calling for the States General. 
 
 I quoted a paragraph from the Baron de Grimm, giving 
 his opinion of the situation of the kingdom, and of the inju- 
 dicious administration of the Cardinal de Brienne. 
 
 I gave two quotations, one from M. de Bouille, and one 
 from M. de Moleville, to exhibit to you what were the senti- 
 ments of the patrons of the old regime, and then, reminding 
 you of what were in the mean time the disorder and 
 confusion of opinions and interests every where prevailing, 
 I concluded by stating that the meeting of the States General 
 had been promised by the king, and that in this crisis of the 
 state Necker was recalled. 
 
 My present lecture must be devoted to his administration ;
 
 vii. NECKER. 139 
 
 but I must first say a word of the Cardinal de Brienne. This 
 predecessor of Necker, the archbishop of Sens, was a man of 
 family, fortune, and influence, with all the penetration of an 
 experienced courtier, and great talents for intrigue. O wing- 
 to these circumstances, and his having taken a lead in the 
 opposition to Calonne, he acquired the great object of his 
 ambition, the post of prime minister; but it was a post of 
 which he was not at any period worthy, and one for which he 
 was peculiarly unfit at the particular period before us. His 
 administration, as you have already been given to understand 
 by the Baron de Grimm, was full of mistakes and inconsis- 
 tencies ; at a time, too, when they could not but be fatal to 
 the king he served. The last fault that it was in his power to 
 commit, he seems to have taken care to commit as he was 
 going out of oflfice : the States General were promised, and he 
 actually invited all the writers and philosophers in France, in 
 the king's name, to give their opinions on the proper mode of 
 assembling them ! 
 
 It must be confessed, therefore, that Necker returned to 
 power, in August 1788, under very unfavourable circum- 
 stances ; the critical year and a half of the archbishop's admi- 
 nistration was for ever lost; and the time that might have 
 been employed by a popular minister in saving the monarchy 
 from a revolution, had been only used in making a revolution 
 inevitable. 
 
 The loss of these fifteen months was deeply lamented by 
 M. Necker, and he considers himself as having been called 
 for too late. This lamentation of M. Necker is ridiculed by 
 M. de Bailleul, a democratic writer, the declared opponent of 
 the work of M^. de Stael, over the pages of Avhich he hopes to 
 pass, like a pestilential blast over a fair country, Avithering its 
 fruits and flowers as he goes along. He is a very odious, 
 though an able writer ; and thus to ridicule the natural senti- 
 ment of M. Necker, is to suppose that things are to be left to 
 take their course, that evils cannot be prevented, and that it 
 is of no consequence to a country, in very critical times, whe- 
 ther its counsels are guided by men of conciliatory disposi- 
 tions and intelligent minds, or the contrary ; and it is in this 
 strain that M. de Bailleul proceeds all through his work, as 
 do indeed the French historians Mionet and Thiers.
 
 140 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 When, however, M, Necker came into administration, he 
 appears to have himself committed all the faults that now 
 remained possible ; to have been quite overpowered by the 
 force of public opinion ; to have had no object but to ascer- 
 tain it, and then no plan but to submit to it. Woe to the 
 country, where ministers do not respect public opinion ; but 
 woe equally to the land, to the monarchy at least, whether 
 absolute or mixed, where the minister has no other master ! 
 As if to rival the incapable measure of his predecessor, M. 
 Necker in the first place, thought proper to summon the 
 Notables once more together, to deliberate, forsooth, as the 
 States General were to be now called, — 1st, how they were to 
 be composed ; 2dly, the form of convocation ; 3dly, the order 
 of the elections ; 4thly, the manner in which were to be held 
 the different assemblies, which were to give instructions to 
 their deputies to the states. As if the royal authority had not 
 been already sufficiently degraded and damaged by the irra- 
 tional conduct of his predecessor, he must now proceed to 
 abandon in this manner to the result of a public discussion, to 
 surrender up to others, formally, voluntarily, and without the 
 shghtest apparent utility, the regulation of all those important 
 points, which it was the natural office of the king to adjust 
 and decide himself. M. Necker may speak, as he pleases, of 
 the force of public opinion, as may his daughter, M^. de Stael ; 
 but the minister was unfit for his situation, at this extra- 
 ordinary juncture, who saw not that every thing had turned 
 against the crown; who saw not, that what authority was 
 still left it, must be turned to every purpose of its protection 
 and illustration of its dignity, and must, as much as possible, 
 be produced and exercised, that it might not expire and 
 appear voted out of the world by common consent. What I 
 now say of this measure of calling the Notables together, for 
 the purpose of consulting them, is still more to be applied to 
 the measures which he subsequently adopted. The Notables, 
 on this second occasion, seem to have been somewhat more 
 aware of their danger, than they were when called together 
 by Calonne. They were composed, as before, chiefly of the 
 privileged orders; and, with the exception of one bureau, 
 where, singularly enough, his present majesty of France, 
 Louis XVIII. then the king's brother, presided, the six were
 
 VII. NECKER. 141 
 
 chiefly of opinion that the number of the Tiers Etat in the 
 ensuing assembly should not equal the joint numbers of the 
 two other orders, the clergy and the nobility. This was 
 evidently the great question of all. On one side, that is, 
 against it, were this decided majority of the Notables, a great 
 part of the clergy and nobility, the noblesse of Britany, and 
 the magistrates. This opinion (against the double repre- 
 sentation) was likewise fortified by the inference to be drawn 
 from the example of the states of Britany, Burgundy, and 
 Artois, and by the support of most of the princes of the 
 blood. 
 
 On the other side were ranged (that is, in favour of the 
 double representation) this small minority of the notables, 
 the three orders of Dauphiny, the bureaux of the provincial 
 assemblies, supported by the inference to be drawn from the 
 ancient constitution of the states of Languedoc, and the 
 formation of the recent estates of Provence and Hainault, the 
 opinion of the publicists, of the parliament of Paris, of the 
 towns and commons of the realm, and public opinion in 
 general. Such was the state of things in December 1788, and 
 at the end of the month the ordinance or declaration of the 
 king appeared, determining that the number of the deputies 
 should be one thousand, be formed on a basis of population 
 and taxation, and that the number of the Tiers Etat should 
 equal that of the other two orders united. 
 
 This was in December 1788. A month after, in January 
 1789, the Marquis de Bouille mentions that he had a con- 
 versation with Necker. " I represented to him with force and 
 with truth the danger of assembling the States General in the 
 manner he intended. I told him that he was arming the 
 people against the first orders of the state, and that when 
 thus delivered up unarmed, they would soon feel the effect of 
 their vengeance, urged on by the two most active passions 
 of the human heart, interest and self-love. I entered into 
 particulars, but he coldly answered me, raising his eyes to 
 heaven, that it was necessary to rely on the moral virtues of 
 mankind. I replied that this was a fine romance, but he 
 would see a horrible and bloody tragedy, of which I advised 
 him to avoid the catastrophe. At this he smiled, and M". 
 Necker told me that my apprehensions were extravagant."
 
 142 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 I must enter a little more into the particulars of the 
 conduct of the minister at this critical period of the Revo- 
 lution. 
 
 It would have been very difficult for M. Necker to have 
 recovered the false step he had made in consulting the Nota- 
 bles, in calling upon them to decide questions which the 
 king should have himself decided in virtue of his own prero- 
 gative and as a matter of course. 
 
 The mind of the public had been thrown into a high state 
 of fermentation before the close of the year 1788, when this 
 second assembly of the Notables broke up. The current had 
 begun to set strongly in favour of new opinions ; still it is 
 understood that the monarch was respected, his authority, as 
 such, had never been called in question, and they who specu- 
 late upon this great subject of the French Revolution, who 
 can extend their sympathy to every class and description of 
 men in society, to the high as well as the low, and who shrink 
 with a just terror from any counsels or opinions that are likely 
 to lead to scenes of confusion and bloodshed, all such humane 
 and reasonable philosophers have never ceased to accuse 
 Necker of a great want of political courage on this most mo- 
 mentous occasion. They consider him as waiting to be 
 directed by the public opinion, instead of taking his ground 
 early, and directing it where to flow, and within what bounds 
 to confine itself. Every credit is given him for his inten- 
 tions and his integrity, that he meant to give security to the 
 crown, yet civil liberty to the country ; properly to limit the 
 powers of the monarch, but of the people also ; that he had 
 no selfish views, and sought neither rank nor riches, nor any 
 reward but that of honest fame and the consciousness of 
 doing good to others; still they consider him as accommo- 
 dating himself to the new opinions, at this particular crisis, in 
 a manner that proved in the event quite calamitous to the 
 country, and fatal to every object that could have animated 
 his benevolence or rewarded his ambition. 
 
 The two great points which should have been settled as of 
 course by Necker, and should have appeared in the king's 
 declaration, were, 1st, whether the number of the Tiers Etat 
 should equal the numbers of the two other orders conjointly ; 
 2dly, whether these orders were to vote in different houses or
 
 VII. NECKER. 143 
 
 in one, to be three assemblies or one, to vote by orders or by 
 head. 
 
 You will easily see the importance of these points and the 
 direction which the new and old opinions naturally took. 
 What chance for the Tiers Etat, if each of the other two 
 privileged orders was to have a negative on their measures ? 
 What chance on the other side for the king or for those very 
 orders, if all were to be assembled together, and every thing to 
 be decided by a majority of the whole ? More particularly if 
 the numbers of the Tiers Etat were to be equal to the 
 numbers of the other two conjointly. 
 
 When points of this nature were thrown among the public 
 for discussion in the improvident manner they were, by the 
 prior minister, the Archbishop of Sens, and even afterwards by 
 Necker himself, the fermentation that would be occasioned 
 in such a place as Paris, in such a country as France, at such 
 a period as the close of the year 1788, cannot possibly be 
 conceived. 
 
 M^. de Stael is obliged to allow her father's mistake in 
 calling this second assembly of the Notables ; she is willing to 
 defend him in every subsequent measure. But he has de- 
 fended himself very ably, very anxiously, and at considerable 
 length, I have already referred you to his book on the 
 French Revolution, and I have also mentioned to you his 
 work on his own administration, printed in 1791, which is 
 very interesting. The subject matter, with which we are now 
 concerned, was then fresh in his memory. He was a philo- 
 sopher, a patriot, and an actor in the scene. He has on 
 every account a perfect right to be heard. 
 
 I must remind you, as I have never ceased to remind you, 
 that it is when you are employed in considering points of this 
 nature, that you are best employed. It is here that you are 
 to meet your lessons of instruction, that you are to learn how 
 you are to manage the affairs of mankind. You are to find 
 the greatest interest in those points where a common reader 
 finds the least. The questions before you are of the following- 
 nature : Could Necker have prevented the revolution and yet 
 have allowed France to attain a rational system of liberty ? 
 or rather, perhaps, an intermediate situation that would 
 necessarily have led to one ? Did he make mistakes ? Were
 
 144 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 they important ? Such are the questions you are to consider, 
 I mean in the remainder of this lecture to occupy you with 
 the conduct of M. Necker. I shall do little more than make 
 quotations from his later work on the revolution, and this 
 may not be very interesting to you, unless you consider 
 attentively the nature of the subject before you. 
 
 You who have not exactly lived during the times of the 
 French revolution, cannot at all imagine how long and how 
 deeply it affected the thoughts, the feelings, and the interests 
 of every human being, without any exception, that then 
 existed in the civilized world ; the lives, the properties, the 
 affections, the daily anxieties of millions — but you must en- 
 deavour to conceive it ; and I cannot but believe, that with 
 a little reflection, you will be able to do so to a considerable 
 degree; to a degree sufficient, at least, to enable you to listen 
 to the detail of what passed in the mind of one of the most 
 important actors in the scene, M. Necker, at a moment when 
 the business of the scene was of the most critical nature. 
 
 Recollect what has been already intimated to you ; the 
 manner in which the affairs of the king-dom have been now 
 for some time journeying on to a state of the greatest diffi- 
 culty and danger ; figure to yourselves the court and the 
 patrons of the old regime on the one side, the patriots and the 
 patrons of the new opinions on the other ; the king and his 
 minister, Necker, between the two ; the convocation of an 
 assembly promised that was to be the image of the whole 
 nation, the assembly consisting of three orders ; of two that 
 would be naturally leagued with the old opinions; of one 
 that would be as naturally animated with all the ardour and 
 enthusiasm of the new ; and the questions to be determined 
 then are, whether the popular part was to equal in number 
 the other two, and whether the three orders were to meet in 
 three houses or in one ; that is, as you will easily see, whether 
 the new opinions were entirely to bear sway or not. This 
 consequence, at least, was pretty evident even then ; but to 
 us who live after the events, it is difficult to say, what conse- 
 quences, and what calamitous consequences, may not be 
 traced up to the manner in which, on whatever account, 
 these great questions were now determined ; and as this de- 
 termination seems to be the hin^e on which the revolution
 
 VII. NECKER. 145 
 
 may be said to have turned, you can surely think no time lost 
 that is employed in considering what were the views of M. 
 Necker, by what circumstances he was surrounded, if misled 
 and mistaken, how and why ; and whether any instruction 
 can be derived for ourselves from the conduct of all parties on 
 this occasion, the minister and those wiiom he undoubtedly 
 wished to serve. You will observe then, with respect to 
 Necker and his book, that nothing can be more reasonable or 
 manly, than all his preliminary observations and admissions. 
 He seeks not to withdraw himself from responsibility in any 
 part of the discussion. Add to this, he affirms, and no doubt 
 with perfect truth, that he never ceased to speak to the king 
 of the wants and unhappy situation of his people ; nor to the 
 people of the virtues and benevolent intentions of the king ; 
 that it was the object of all his efforts to defend the monar- 
 chy without concealing from the monarch how useful it was, 
 to have the constitution of a government properly balanced ; 
 and at every turn and on every occasion through the whole 
 of his administration, he insists, to use his own words, that 
 so far from accelerating, as has been supposed by his ac- 
 cusers, the descent of a car that was already running down 
 with such velocity, he did every thing he could to stop the 
 wheels of it, and never ceased, while by the side of it, to 
 call aloud for help. 
 
 In the first place, he says that the States General were 
 promised before he returned to power. He shows very satis- 
 factorily that it was then totally impossible to prevent their 
 assembling; that this fault, at least, he did not commit. 
 " I must declare too," he says, " to the honour of the prince, 
 that he never for a moment made it a question, whether he 
 was to keep an engagement so distinctly entered into." 
 
 " Great changes are always so hazardous," he says, *^ that 
 had not the States been promised, I should have made every 
 possible effort to serve France by means of the provincial 
 assemblies, and yet save her from disturbance and convulsion ; 
 and why should I disguise the truth ? Like the nation, I was 
 full of hope — hope that I then could not suppose vain —Alas ! 
 how can one now think, without tears, on the hopes and 
 expectations then every where felt by all good Frenchmen, by 
 every friend of humanity ?" He then goes on to describe how 
 
 L
 
 146 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 the new opinions were brought to bear in the most unfortu- 
 nate manner, on every existing principle, and institution, and 
 usage in the state ; on the confused and contradictory nature 
 of the different powers existing in the constitution ; how easy 
 were the improvements, it was thought, that must result 
 from the assembling of the representatives of the nation; 
 how beneficial and how certain, as it was supposed, the re- 
 generation of the whole system : and he thus arrives at the 
 consideration of his own particular case. 
 
 The States General, he says, were promised, no doubt; 
 nothing more ; but the same public opinion, he observes, that 
 had extorted from the kino; this meetino- of the States Ge- 
 neral, was sure to have its influence on their formation. 
 M. De Brienne, his predecessor, he says, requested opinions 
 on the subject from the municipalities, the provincial admi- 
 nistrations, and even the academies and the men of letters ; 
 and the nation, even if before not disposed to rest much on 
 the authority of its own opinion, was thus taught to refer to it 
 from the very doubts and apparent uncertainty of government 
 itself. 
 
 He perceived, he says, that the nation looked forward to 
 the States General not as a mere ceremony and spectacle. 
 He then shows that the forms and proceedings in the year 
 1614, to which the parliaments had referred, could have 
 afforded no proper precedent for the assembly that was to be 
 summoned in 1789; and that it was so necessary that the 
 States should not only be called, but called in some form and 
 manner that would be agreeable to the ideas of the public, 
 that, he says, his proposition of consulting the Notables was 
 considered as a fortunate expedient, as a sort of lucky thought 
 to have occurred to him. The labours of the Notables he 
 holds to have been eminently useful, and he considers them 
 as settling many things of an uncertain, yet important nature, 
 that could not have been well settled by the king's council 
 on their own authority. 
 
 This is a striking difference from the opinion of Necker's 
 critics, who conceive that the king in council should have 
 settled every thing, and even from M^. De Stael, who does 
 not defend this consulting of the Notables. 
 
 These Notables were divided into six bureaux, of twenty-
 
 VII. 
 
 NECKER. 147 
 
 four each, princes of the blood, archbisliops, &c. One of the 
 most important questions of the whole subject, the number of 
 the deputies to the States General, they did not touch upon ; 
 and on the still more important question, the relative num- 
 bers of the orders, the bureau in which Monsieur presided, 
 determined that the number of the Tiers Etats should be 
 double that of either of the other two orders ; but not so 
 the other five bureaux. Necker ultimately decided for the 
 double representation. How came then Necker, after calhng 
 the Notables and asking their advice, not to take it, when it 
 now appears it was most important to have followed it ? 
 
 You will see his reasons — that is, his defence against the 
 serious accusations that were brought against him. On the 
 whole they seem to resolve themselves into the following 
 propositions : 
 
 That if the ancient formulary of the convocation of the 
 States had been adhered to, such a liberty would have been 
 allowed, that the number of deputies returned by the Tiers 
 Etat under the existing circumstances of political fermen- 
 tation and enthusiasm, would have turned out to be far more 
 than double that of the other two ; that the writs that must 
 have been made use of by the crown, would have admitted an 
 almost indefinite latitude of election : this may be, and is a 
 sufiicient answer to those who would have had the election 
 form of 1614 adhered to. But again — that if the king and 
 council were obliged to take upon themselves to fix the 
 relative numbers of the orders, they were in truth obliged 
 also to conform themselves to the public wishes. They were 
 under a strict moral necessity to do so; they could not 
 venture to do otherwise. And their only part to take was to 
 be content with the double representation, and to proclaim 
 this as their measure as soon as possible, that the king might 
 have the credit of a popular measure, and the state escape 
 the confusion that would have resulted, if the council had left 
 the point undetermined by repeating the ancient forms of 
 convocation. 
 
 But this is for Necker to say, in other words, that he durst 
 not oppose the public opinion. 
 
 Reasoners on the case now will think, on the contrary, that 
 he ought, and that he might and ought, in the king's decla-
 
 148 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 ration to have settled this point, and the second point also, of 
 their mode of voting, which we have mentioned, in favour of 
 the crown, but he settled neither the one nor the other. He 
 announced in the king's declaration that the number of the 
 Tiers Etat should be double. He said nothing of the manner 
 in which they were to vote — in three houses or one; and 
 this point was to be determined by the states when they met; 
 and, as the number given to the Tiers Etat was double, it 
 could not but be determined like the other, sooner or later, 
 against the crown. We must, however, again hear his de- 
 fence. When I refer to it, I must observe that it is quite 
 impossible for me, on this occasion, to impress upon your 
 minds the full weight of his arguments. He is a very good 
 writer, and gives his reasonings, which are always respectable, 
 every advantage of style and manner. You must read this 
 part of his work very attentively; you will then see that I 
 could not possibly be so unjust as to leave his case entirely 
 to depend upon any imperfect description or unworthy 
 abridgement of his book, which I could myself make, and 
 that I have necessarily referred you to the work itself. It is 
 moreover, a very critical part of the whole subject; and one, 
 which I conceive you cannot be better occupied, than by 
 studying thoroughly. To make a revolution may be easy ; to 
 prevent one, and yet not be wanting to the great cause of 
 liberty, is indeed a labour worthy the ambition of the highest 
 faculties, and necessarily implying the exercise of the greatest 
 virtues; and this is the subject before you. 
 
 Some general notion of M. Necker's views I can give you, 
 but some general notion only; but before I give them you 
 wall observe that I consider them as reasons not sufficient to 
 justify him in the conduct he pursued, but rather as fitted to 
 show that he should have done what he did not do ; what we 
 have already mentioned, that he should have done ; that is, 
 decided every thing in the king's declaration, on the king's 
 own authority. In his work on the French Revolution, to 
 which I am all along referring, you will see him exhibit the 
 difficulties of the case. They were very great. You will then 
 see, that in the event, and after the states had met, he was 
 at last obliged to propose a system of conciliation and accom- 
 modation to all the parties, as a remedy for all these difficul-
 
 vir. 
 
 NECKER. 149 
 
 ties. Now, it would have been better, or rather, perhaps, it 
 would have been the only chance to have made this system, 
 which he had afterwards to propose, his measure from the 
 first, and to have announced it as the king's will in the decla- 
 ration, in the instrument, by which the king did the public the 
 favour of calling the states together at all. M. Necker's 
 representations are of the following nature : A long interval, 
 he observes, had elapsed since the last assembly of the States ; 
 and, from being veiled in a distant obscurity, they were em- 
 bellished by all the colours of the imagination. Almost all 
 the former assemblies had been convoked for the mere will 
 and purposes of the crown ; an ephemeral senate, which the 
 sovereign could dissolve at pleasure. Subsidies were de- 
 manded, and grievances brought forward, which might or 
 might not be afterwards attended to. 
 
 But times of this nature were passed, says M. Necker. 
 Louis XVI. had scarcely ten milhons of feudal revenue, and 
 it was for the entire sum of the public expenses, of the whole 
 interest to be provided for an immense debt, that he found 
 himself under the necessity of having recourse to the States ; 
 a necessity imposed upon him, not only by a resolution of the 
 sovereign courts, but even by the parliament of Paris, which 
 declared itself incompetent legally to register either impost or 
 loan anv lonoer. 
 
 What power, what authority would not naturally be ob- 
 tained, says M. Necker, by the deputies of the Tiers Etat, the 
 representatives of those who had chiefly to contribute, while 
 they were called to deliberate upon all the conditions and all 
 the reasons for which they were to make an annual sacrifice 
 of five hundred millions. 
 
 The clergy of France, he says, were at one time so situated, 
 that superstition combined with religion to elevate and sus- 
 tain their supremacy. The nobility were once aided by all the 
 consideration with which the feudal system had environed 
 them. But these two orders, even in all the splendour of 
 their former greatness, if they had been called to deliberate 
 with the Tiers Etat on the form and mode of collecting an 
 immense contribution of this kind, would have found it quite 
 impossible to maintain their ascendant; but what hope for 
 them, when the relative importance of the two orders, and of
 
 150 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 the third, had actually changed situations, and been trans- 
 ferred from the one to the other. But, here it may be replied 
 to M. Necker, if this was the case, as it certainly was, ought 
 not M. Necker to have foreseen what must be the event, if 
 the question of voting or any other material question was left 
 to be decided by the States, when met together? Was he not to 
 have tried to anticipate their decision by one from the king ? 
 Commerce alone, he continues, among other things, had 
 entirely changed the solid importance of the Tiers Etat in the 
 social system. It was to their talents and industry that the 
 existence of national wealth was owing ; that is, the existence, 
 as every day more and more proclaimed, of national power. 
 Education, admission to offices in the provincial assemblies, a 
 thousand causes had placed their intelligence and their know- 
 ledge in a rapid state of progress and improvement. There 
 was little resemblance between the Tiers Etat of 1789 and 
 those of former periods. Once more, too, with regard to the 
 other orders, M. Necker goes on to say, the prelates and 
 clergy naturally owed their influence in the first place to the 
 general respect that prevailed for religion itself; but this had 
 unhappily been weakened. Other causes had conspired to 
 diminish their authority. 
 
 Every thing contributed to engage them to support the 
 royal authority, but it was no longer in their power to afford 
 it any material assistance by their influence over the Tiers Etat 
 and the nation. 
 
 The nobility too, many circumstances (you will see them 
 mentioned by Necker), had contributed, he says, to rob, of all 
 its constitutional dignity and lustre, in the eyes of the nation. 
 There were those among them, no doubt, of historic name; 
 but the greater part consisted of those who had been ennobled 
 only in more modern times by the crown. The whole com- 
 position of the body was altered, the most ancient and most 
 honourable of distinctions had been made a subject of traffic ; 
 each sort of nobility had equally a right to vote ; at least one- 
 half the order consisted of families ennobled within the last two 
 centuries. This disposition of things might do very well for 
 Louis XIV. ; he had various court contrivances of ceremony, 
 indulgence, and decoration, by which he kept the two sorts 
 of nobility distinguished from each other : Louis XV. in like
 
 VII. NECKER. 151 
 
 manner : but all this was in vain when the whole body was to 
 rally round the throne, and affect, by its political considera- 
 tion, the Tiers Etat, and the nation. 
 
 "What a subject here for reflection," says Necker, "this 
 relative importance of the Tiers Etat and the other two orders, 
 to suppose that it could be balanced by any contrivance of 
 the respective numbers of the two orders !" But to this it 
 may be surely answered, that to suppose that there was no 
 contrivance by which it could be balanced, and no preparatory 
 measures to be adopted, is to surrender at discretion ; to give 
 up the cause of the crown (that is, the cause of peaceful or 
 temperate improvement) at once. It is in vain to dissemble, 
 he continues, that the power of the crown had attained its 
 height in the best days of Louis XIV., and had from that 
 period declined. Louis XV. himself, perhaps, had indulged 
 hut too imprudently, in a taste for popularity, Louis XVI. 
 and the queen, their love of the ease and the comforts of a 
 private station. The personal dignity of a crowned head can 
 never equal the conventional grandeur of a monarch. 
 
 These are not trifling considerations, he says ; the conduct 
 of the court was affected by the examples of the king and 
 queen, and the manners were changing. Great effects are pro- 
 duced by the union of an infinity of small causes. 
 
 A strange situation of things, says Necker : it might well be 
 doubted, whether even the re-establishment of the States 
 themselves could sufficiently provide for it. He then mentions a 
 notion entertained by himself and others at the time, that all 
 would have been well if something like the constitution of 
 England could have been proposed and accepted. Was it 
 unnatural for a statesman, he says, to cast his eyes on the 
 constitution of England ? The order of nobility in France, 
 mixed as it was, could no longer discharge its office in the 
 political system; but a House of Peers like the English 
 might. 
 
 There were difficulties, he continues, as France then stood, 
 with regard to the contributions of the Tiers Etat ; but there 
 was an end of them, by supposing the people of property (the 
 Peers excepted) represented in a House of Commons, as in 
 England. It was necessary that something should be done 
 for France immediately ; but what could be expected from the
 
 1 >2 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 discordant views and mutual disgusts of a leo'islature divided 
 into three orders ? Not so, if divided only into two, as in Eng- 
 land. " And why again should I dissemble," says Necker, "that 
 both my first and my last thoughts have leaned in favour of 
 a system of government like that of England, with which 
 neither states in three orders, nor any form of monarchy, can 
 be put in comparison. 
 
 " The king, unfortunately for any views I might have enter- 
 tained of this kind, had a prejudice against whatever might 
 resemble the usages and institutions of England. His opinion 
 afterwards altered, but it was then too late." 
 
 At the time that the Cour Pleniere was attempted by the 
 Archbishop of Sens, a Chamber of Peers and a House of Re- 
 presentatives would have been received from the king with 
 acclamations ; but it is vain to regret, says Necker, thoughts 
 of foresight, of prevention — the generality of people have 
 nothing to say to them ; the tocsin of events must sound 
 before they can be awakened or instructed. 
 
 There was nothing for it then, concludes Necker, but to 
 embark upon this sea of troubles ; to take the chances of these 
 states, thus called, and their three orders ; a scene of rivalry 
 that the dispositions of men had made so dangerous. An 
 exact line of conduct it was not possible to trace ; it was evi- 
 dent, however, that the two orders could not sufficiently sup- 
 port the crown ■ that the crown must get assistance from 
 public opinion; that great address would be necessary to 
 manage the general movement in the public mind ; that the 
 love of the people was to be sought to regain for the king 
 what royalty had on various accounts lost. 
 
 These are the representations of Necker, written in 1795, 
 and after the events. 
 
 Now, surely, under the circumstances thus described, it was 
 not the best chance, (and that is the turn of the whole ques- 
 tion,) it was not the best chance, as he seems to take for 
 granted, to let things take their course; to let the different 
 orders meet, and abide by the result. This was not the best 
 chance. This result could not possibly, even under his own 
 view of the case, be favourable to the crown. Surely any 
 other chance would have been more promising. Such, how- 
 ever, was the part taken ; the consequence was, what appears
 
 VII. NECKER. 153 
 
 to us now, a consequence, from the first, inevitable. A dispute 
 immediately arose. The Tiers Etat insisted that the whole 
 should form one assembly ; that the different orders should 
 deliberate and vote in common ; while the nobility and clergy 
 insisted that the orders should all vote separately, and in their 
 own houses. The public of course took the part of the Tiers 
 Etat. Some of the members of the two privileged orders 
 wavered and went over, and the monarch was at last obliged 
 to interpose his authority and invite the whole into one great 
 assembly, for the sake of the general tranquillity, and for the 
 sake of retaining for himself some share of the public affection 
 and respect. 
 
 The public, says M. Necker, took part with the Tiers Etat. 
 The whole meeting of the states, it was conceived by them, 
 would have become a mere pageant, unless the orders were 
 united and voted in common. It was thus that the deputies, 
 it was every where observed, did business together in the pro- 
 vincial assemblies with perfect harmony and success. Why 
 not in the States General ? The deputies from Dauphiny 
 appeared in the assembly so united, as of course, and the 
 place resounded with applauses. 
 
 The nation had expected, says Necker, every thing from 
 their deputies ; they had ordered them to settle the constitu- 
 tion before they granted the supplies. The most difficult of 
 entei'prises was thus to be attempted before the most urgent 
 of necessities was to be provided for. In the mean time 
 povernment itself could not be at ease if nothing- was done. 
 The exigencies of its situation were most pressing. 
 
 Some have held, continues Necker, that the king should 
 have opposed himself, before the meeting, to any deliberation 
 in common, and should have decided for the nobility and 
 clergy at once. Some, on the contrary, that he should have 
 ordered the union of the orders — certainly they have supposed 
 the first, and with great reason. All, alas, he says, was impos- 
 sible. Supposing the nobility and clergy disposed to unite 
 with the Tiers Etat, the king had no right to prevent them, 
 nor was it in his power. He might indeed have ordered them 
 to unite, for there the public would have been with him ; but 
 why was he to take away that merit from the two orders ? 
 
 Surely this is but loose reasoning in M. Necker. It is to
 
 154 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 suppose that the minister and the king had only to consider 
 what would be the wish of the popular party. 
 
 On the whole, then, we hold, that M. Necker made a 
 mistake in not having taken the best chance which the case 
 afforded, that of settling these disputable points in favour 
 of the crown, by the king's own authority, in the king's 
 declaration. 
 
 But one word more from M. Necker. He conceives that 
 the two privileged orders were in fault on the first meeting of 
 the States. These two orders, continues Necker, I must for 
 ever reproach, bitterly reproach, for not having seen the course 
 which reason, policy, and, above all perhaps, a just estimation 
 of the necessity of their situation, prescribed to them. Necker 
 seems to have wished that the two orders should immediately 
 and without making any further difficulties, have united with 
 the Tiers Etat. Had they but taken, he continues, the direc- 
 tion which government recommended to them, all would have 
 been well ; the minds of men would have been settled, and we 
 should not have seen what we have seen. The two superior 
 orders could perceive, observes Necker, as clearly as I could, 
 the changes of times and circumstances, they could see the 
 power of public opinion, the great effects it had produced, 
 the necessity of making an alliance with it ; that it had 
 concentrated its force to procure the meeting of the 
 States; that its hopes were entirely fixed on the assem- 
 bly, and that these hopes were not to perish blighted and 
 destroyed by the enemies of the public welfare ; that the 
 nation would receive with gratitude any sacrifices that were 
 made to it ; and it was for the privileged orders to have con- 
 tended with the Tiers Etat for the good opinion of thepubhc, 
 for their affection and their support, not leaving that popu- 
 larity, as they did, to fall entirely, (by a succession of improvi- 
 dent measures) into the possession of the Tiers Etat. They 
 ought themselves to have been the first to propose to unite 
 themselves to the Tiers Etat, and to deliberate in common 
 for the public good ; on the same account, to have surren- 
 dered their pecuniary privileges. They might have made pro- 
 per reservations with regard to their particular prerogatives 
 and rights. 
 
 It is not to be told, concludes Necker, what would have
 
 VII. NECKER. 155 
 
 been the sensation thus produced, the authority they would 
 have thus acquired, and the opportunity that would thus have 
 been afforded to so many of the Tiers Etat, to have rallied 
 round them in support of the general weal, to be accomplished, 
 by every rational and peaceable method ; and, after all, they 
 would but thus have anticipated the necessity they were 
 afterwards obliged to submit to : it was evident these privileges 
 would have to be sacrificed, and that the national concerns 
 could not at that particular period be treated of by three 
 separate assembhes. But circumstances, says Necker, often 
 are such, that the part of wisdom is not to wrestle with them, 
 but to leave them behind, and seize in advance some good 
 position. A wisdom indeed this, he says, of all the most rare. 
 The common course is to suppose one makes a sacrifice, when 
 one only submits to necessity ; and one loses one's opportunity 
 to negotiate, as it were, on free terms, while one is yet free 
 and competent to do so. 
 
 Such are the representations of Necker, and may be ad- 
 mitted. All this may be very true, but forms no proper 
 defence for M. Necker for his j^nor mistakes. He may indeed 
 show the subsequent want of policy or temper in the privileged 
 orders ; but this is a great question, and one that we arrive 
 at after we have determined the question of the prior and 
 preparatory conduct of M. Necker and not before. 
 
 There was no reconciling the respective pretensions, con- 
 tinues M. Necker, of the three orders ; the king became quite 
 uneasy ; he required them to send commissioners to discuss 
 them before him in council ; they did so : it was in vain; long 
 debates ensued. 
 
 I endeavoured to accommodate all difficulties, says Necker. 
 I submitted propositions to the commissioners for that pur- 
 pose ; there seemed to be no objection to them. The nobility 
 however made reserves and distinctions which were equivalent 
 to a refusal, and as such were seized upon by the Tiers Etat, 
 who then declared themselves the National Assembly. The 
 nobility afterwards wished to have recovered the false step 
 they had made, but it was too late. 
 
 No doubt the Tiers Etat, in voting themselves the National 
 Assembly, in affecting thus to supersede the necessity of the 
 concurrence of the other two orders, says M. Necker, were
 
 156 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 guilty of every fault that can belong to an usurping power; 
 but the two orders, at this period, particularly the nobility, 
 committed every error that could result from a want of policy, 
 circumspection, and foresight. 
 
 Such are the general representations of Necker ; and the 
 two orders may have conducted themselves with the want of 
 prudence, the Tiers Etat with the spirit of encroachment he 
 describes; but the question is, whether any of the parties 
 acted differently from what might have been expected ; and 
 whether their subsequent ill conduct forms any justification 
 of his prior imprudence. M. Necker made a distinct and a 
 reasonable effort afterwards to conciliate all parties. Now, 
 the question is, whether all the efforts he afterwards made 
 might not have found their place in the king's declaration 
 originally. Might he not have anticipated and provided some 
 measure to prevent the difficulties which he might have fore- 
 seen would otherwise arise ? And is not M. Necker to be 
 asked whether the king, by first, and originally, pronouncing 
 and determining what Necker afterwards proposed, would not 
 have taken his best course 1 Whether this would not have been 
 the best chance of preventing the collision, the exasperation, 
 that afterwards ensued, and that could not but ensue ; the 
 best chance of preventing the mistakes of the privileged 
 orders, the usurpations of the Tiers Etat, the unhappy dimi- 
 nution of that royal authority which it was so much the wish 
 of Necker, and of all wise and good Frenchmen at the time, 
 to defend from disrespect and violence ? 
 
 No doubt, it is easy for us, or for any one, to be wise after 
 the event ; but Necker, from the first, saw and felt the force 
 of public opinion ; no one more so ; indeed too much so : it 
 was his business, therefore, as soon as possible, to take some 
 position, such that he might either secure the best chance of 
 avoiding a contest with public opinion altogether, or, that 
 he might contend with the best advantage. 
 
 Circumstances are not easily appreciated at a distance of 
 time or place ; the precise influence and effect, that each or 
 any of them ought to have upon a reasonable mind, called to 
 decide at the moment ; but Necker seems to have been of a 
 temperament too sanguine. He had expected more wisdom, 
 more disinterestedness, from the parties than was reasonable ;
 
 VII. NECKER. 157 
 
 more, than they afterwards showed. As a man of sense and 
 humanity, he was desirous that something should be done for 
 France ; he must have supposed, that if the double represen- 
 tation was not conceded to the popular party, nothing would. 
 He therefore granted it. He had expected, no doubt, to influ- 
 ence afterwards all parties, by showing them, from time to 
 time, what it was just, and right, and wise to do ; but he 
 should have prescribed what was just, and right, and wise, by 
 the royal authority in the first declaration, and he should 
 have left nothing to be settled, that he could possibly avoid, 
 by the result of the general fermentation and the conflict of 
 the three orders. 
 
 I do not see that these general conclusions will be disturbed 
 by turning to the pages of M®. de Stael. She mentions the 
 sufferings of Necker during the seven years that intervened 
 between his first dismissal and first recall, betw^een 1781 and 
 1788; with what anxiety, with what melancholy, he saw the 
 precious years elapse, within which he thought a system of 
 political happiness might have been created for France ; ob- 
 serving every project of his own neglected or overthrown. 
 She shows that the times, views, and opinions of the three 
 orders and of society, when the States of 1614 assembled, to 
 which the aristocratic accusers of her father continually 
 appealed, were in every respect different from any that could 
 be supposed to exist in 1789 ; that, on the whole, neither the 
 assembling of the States themselves, nor the doubling of the 
 Tiers Etat, could have been avoided by Necker. The last 
 point she labours at great length. 
 
 " But," says IVP. de Stael, " the natural consequence of 
 the doubling of the Tiers Etat was, according to the notions 
 of Necker's accusers, the voting by head, not by order." 
 
 " No," she replies, " it was rather the voting in two cham- 
 bers, and to this there could be no objection, but the con- 
 trary. Why, then," she continues, " why, then, according to 
 the same accusers, did not M. Necker make the king pro- 
 nounce upon this point, when he granted the doubling of the 
 Tiers ?" 
 
 " He did not do this," she replies, " for he thought an 
 alteration like this ought to be concerted with the representa- 
 tives of the nation." Here I apprehend lay the whole mistake
 
 158 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 of M. Necker ; and it is in vain that M^ de Stael immediately 
 subjoins, " Two houses were recommended by M. Necker 
 afterwards, when the representatives had been assembled, as 
 above, but in vain;" and France was thus destroyed, she 
 thinks. 
 
 France may thus, as she supposes, have been destroyed, 
 with its aristocracy and monarch ; but it is not by such rea- 
 sonings and statements that M. Necker can be extricated 
 from the censures of his critics ; and if France was ruined by 
 any one mistake more than another, it was apparently by this 
 mistake of M. Necker. 
 
 I do not say that the king should have resolved to esta- 
 blish two chambers, and have altered the whole constitution 
 of France in this manner by his own authority, but that some 
 measure should have been well weighed beforehand, and then 
 converted into a part of the original declaration — the measure, 
 for instance, not of two houses, but those that Necker, on the 
 part of the king, afterwards proposed ; at all events, some 
 measure by which he and the royal authority were to stand 
 or fall. Fall they could not but do ultimately, if, without 
 ordaining from the first some measure of their own, they were 
 to abide by the result of a conflict between the Tiers Etat 
 and the two orders, in the existing state of Paris and the 
 kingdom. On the whole, and as a sort of explanation, it must 
 be remembered, that in the interval of his first and second 
 administration, Necker carried on a controversy with Calonne, 
 in which he was assisted and supported by his philosophical 
 friends and the adherents of the new opinions. This contro- 
 versy had no very good consequences, nor could have. It 
 exposed the evils of the existing system (not very necessary 
 this, at the time), and exposed also the indecisions and weak- 
 ness of the court. Those who were then of the court, and 
 were Necker's friends, must notwithstanding have thought 
 well of the measures of Calonne, and have become at length 
 indisposed to Necker. Necker was thus placed in a sort of 
 opposition to the court, got entangled in the new opinions, 
 and could not disengage himself from the influence of his 
 Paris coterie in the consideration of the questions which arose 
 on the assembling of the States. This was probably the real 
 fact. Influence arising from circumstances like these might
 
 VII. NECKER. 159 
 
 affect his mind without his being well aware of it. He had 
 also, as he himself confesses, his own too sanguine hopes and 
 aspirations, and he shared them with the generality of wise and 
 benevolent men at the time. It might not be that he wanted 
 decision, that he wanted foresight: these might not be the 
 only solutions of his conduct, when he left the questions open 
 which we contend he should have anticipated and decided. 
 It might be that his wishes and his opinions were, that they 
 should be decided on popular grounds, and the wishes and 
 opinions of the court being the contrary, a sort of tacit com- 
 promise took place in his mind, and he on the whole thought 
 it best that nothing should be settled, and therefore nothing 
 was settled. 
 
 Turning, however, from Necker, and casting, as I conclude, 
 one glance on the court during this period of French history, 
 surely the want of statesmanlike talents in the king and his 
 ministers, and ignorance of everything that it imported them 
 to know, were never so apparent. What are we to say to this 
 court and ministers, who could, but the year before, mix them- 
 selves with the politics of Holland, and even engage on the 
 popular side ; as if what they had experienced from a similar 
 conduct in the case of America could be no warning to them — 
 and again engage on the popular side, when from their own 
 embarrassments, and the state of public affairs at home, they 
 could not possibly engage with effect ; that is, fan the flame 
 of liberty, which at the very time they thought was ready to 
 consume themselves ; and, because their opponents around 
 them were not already sufficiently animated and enterprising, 
 make them still more contemptuous, powerful, and deter- 
 mined, by yielding the palm to England and tarnishing the 
 national glory in the face of Europe, and this, too, to the 
 illustration of their hated rival? All this time there were 
 Sieyes, and Target, and a hundred other writers, leading up 
 the public to the overthrow of the monarchy. But the truth 
 must be confessed : governments who thus deport themselves 
 in the midst of their difficulties and dangers, appear rather to 
 earn their destruction than to meet it.
 
 160 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 I 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 TIERS ETAT. 
 
 HAVE described in the last lecture the views of Necker 
 and his situation, referring myself in the main to his own 
 works and to his own statement of the case, as he drew it up 
 at a subsequent period, deliberately considering it in the 
 calmness of his retirement. It is difficult to judge of the con- 
 duct of statesmen, no doubt; for, in politics, existing circum- 
 stances are every thing. On the present occasion, however, 
 we judge not a little from the materials which he himself 
 submits to our consideration; and though no mistake was of 
 more importance to the world than his, if it was one, we may 
 determine, as I conceive, on the nature of it in this instance, 
 with rather more confidence than in most others. 
 
 In politics, I have just said, existing circumstances are 
 every thing. Not that the general rules of justice and right 
 are to be made light of or forgotten, but that wise and good 
 men must in politics look earnestly to discover the expe- 
 diency of the case, and that this can only be judged of by the 
 circumstances. Very painful struggles are sometimes occa- 
 sioned by the doubts that arise, which of two general rules of 
 obligation it is best, that is, it is ultimately most expedient 
 to prefer ; including in the word expedient, as must never be 
 forgotten, the importance and sanctity of all moral obli- 
 gations. But a statesman, above every other moralist, (he is 
 only a moralist on a larger scale,) is bound to mark well the 
 nature of every thing around him at the moment, and to 
 adapt well his means to his end. With him, above all others, 
 success is included in the idea of his merit : not only must his 
 objects be noble, but the expedients he uses to accomplish 
 them must be adequate to their purpose. He must not 
 injure his fellow creatures, however good his intentions ; it is
 
 viii. TIERS ETAT. 161 
 
 wisely ordained, as has been well shown by Adam Smith, in 
 his Moral Sentiments, a work which I must earnestly recom- 
 mend to you, that intentions are not sufficient, lest men 
 should rest satisfied with their good intentions. And if a 
 minister, an actor in the scene, is to be so affected by the 
 circumstances under which he is to act, so must you be, 
 when you are to judge of his conduct. The period now 
 before us in the history of the Revolution, is, of all others, 
 the most critical. After the preparatory lectures I have 
 given, I might now proceed at once to the opening of the 
 States General, in May, 1789 ; but the circumstances, as I 
 have said, are in politics every thing, and I must still endea- 
 vour to give you some fvu'ther specimens of those that were 
 connected with this memorable scene, that the scene itself 
 may be better understood. You must meditate these things 
 hereafter in the detail of the history, but in the mean time I 
 must provide you with any general notions of it I can, by any 
 slight sketch that it is in my power to make. 
 
 Before, therefore, I advert to the opening of the States 
 
 General, which I shall do before I finish this lecture, I shall 
 
 endeavour to afford you, in the first place, some view of the 
 
 situations and opinions of the different parties concerned, by 
 
 some quotations from the speeches or writings of those who 
 
 may be considered as the representatives of those leading 
 
 divisions of sentiment that then agitated this great kingdom. 
 
 After this is done, which may or may not be a little tedious, 
 
 I will proceed to the opening of the States. The three great 
 
 : classes, as you will easily comprehend, were first, the mode- 
 
 I rate men ; secondly, the supporters of the old regime ; and 
 
 I thirdly, the followers of the new opinions. 
 
 j To allude, therefore, to each : — Of the moderate men the 
 
 ! best example that I can produce is Mounier. He was 
 
 1 one of the most enlightened and virtuous members of the 
 
 i constituent assembly ; he has left some works behind him, 
 
 i and it is in these that you must look for such opinions and 
 
 i feehngs as may be said in general to have belonged to wise 
 
 I and good men at the time. Referring then to such matters 
 
 1 as we have been discussing, he seems clearly of opinion, that 
 
 \ the king had a right according to ancient usage, and might 
 
 I certainly, according to every principle of political expediency, 
 
 I M 
 
 I 
 
 I
 
 162 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 have prevented all the discussions and disputes that after- 
 wards took place, by settling himself the forms and consti- 
 tution of the States General. 
 
 Great mistakes he conceives to have been committed ; he 
 is far from blaming the intentions of the king's advisers, but 
 their mistakes, he thinks, were clear and very important. He 
 had been a considerable man in the states of Dauphiny; and 
 there, and afterwards in the Constituent Assembly, his object 
 had always been a hmited monarchy ; where the power of the 
 crown and the rights of the people should mutually support 
 and guarantee the existence of each other. 
 
 M. Necker must have depended on the number and 
 weight of the moderate men that were to be found in the 
 States General and in the nation. 
 
 Such men (there were many of them in the Constituent 
 Assembly) sympathized with the new opinions, but were not 
 out of reach of the old; they were willing to improve the 
 situation of France by an admixture of both ; to advance her 
 political situation, to secure her civil and religious liberties, 
 but not by violence, not by means of a revolution. 
 
 So much for the moderate men, of whom Mounier is the 
 best specimen ; Necker is another ; and you will see what 
 were their views by referring to their works. 
 
 I will now allude to those who sympathized with the old 
 opinions only, and afterwards to those who were the sup- 
 porters of the new. 
 
 About the time that Necker prevailed on the king and 
 council to adopt the double representation (in December, 
 1788), five princes of the blood addressed a memorial to the 
 king, which showed the views and feelings of that high aris- 
 tocratic party, which then and ever after existed in France ; 
 those who were destined to support, under all circumstances, 
 and at all hazards, the ancient forms and modes of proceed- 
 ing, and the ancient spirit, principles, and ranks of the mo- 
 narchy. 
 
 " Sire," they say to the king, " the state is in danger — 
 (this is in December, 1788, the States meet in the following 
 May of 1789) — the virtues of the monarch ensure him the 
 homage of the nation ; but, sire, a revolution is taking place 
 in the principles of the government, brought on by a ferment
 
 VIII. TIERS ETAT. 163 
 
 in the minds of the people : institutions held sacred, and by 
 which this monarchy has prospered for so many ages, are 
 made subjects of debate, and even decried as replete with 
 injustice. The writings which have appeared since the as- 
 sembly of the Notables has been sitting, and the memorials 
 which have been delivered to the undersigned princes, the 
 petitions drawn up by several provincial towns or societies, 
 the object and style of these petitions and memorials, all 
 proclaim and prove a digested system of disorder and con- 
 tempt for the laws of the state. Every author sets himself 
 up for a legislator. Eloquence and the art of writing, even 
 though destitute of study, knowledge, or experience, seem to 
 bestow a sufficient title to regulate the constitutions of 
 empires. Whoever advances a bold proposition, whoever 
 proposes a change of the laws, is sure to find readers and 
 partisans. Such is the unhappy progress of this effervescence," 
 continues this petition or remonstrance, " that opinions which 
 some time ago would have appeared entirely reprehensible, 
 are now thought just and reasonable ; and what good men 
 are now hurt at, will, in a short time, perhaps, pass as regular 
 and legal. Who can say where this rashness of opinion will 
 stop?" 
 
 They then advert to the subjects more particularly before 
 them, the double representation, &c. and at last observe : — 
 
 " Let the Tiers Etat then cease from attacking the rights 
 of the other two orders ; rights, which being as old as the 
 monarchy, ought to be as unalterable as the constitution of 
 it; and let them confine themselves to soliciting a decrease of 
 the taxes with which they may be surcharged ; then might 
 the two higher orders finding in the third, countrymen, who 
 are dear to them, generally renounce pecuniary privileges, 
 and consent to support the public burdens with the most 
 perfect equality." 
 
 Here, indeed, we have language from these princes of the 
 blood, which if but addressed to the sovereign a few years 
 before, might have saved them and the sovereign from des- 
 truction. 
 
 " Then might the two orders," they say, " finding in the 
 third countrymen who are dear to them, generally renounce 
 pecuniary privileges."
 
 164 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 And why could they not, before, find in the third estate 
 countrymen who were dear to them ? Why could they not 
 before do upon the general principles of humanity and bene- 
 volence, not to say of justice, what they were now, it seems, 
 ready to do, but only when they had just before pronounced 
 the words " Sire ! the state is in danger." 
 
 But the trial of the two privileged orders, their temptations 
 to abuse their power, was now past. They had failed ; that of 
 the Tiers Etat was now to begin, and they were destined to 
 fail also. It is but too often thus. " Let the Tiers Etat," 
 (these princes of the blood observe, these princes who had 
 now become monitors to others,) " let the Tiers Etat reflect 
 what in the end might be the consequence of invading the 
 rights of the clergy and nobility, and the result of the con- 
 fusion of the orders. The French monarchy must degenerate 
 into despotism or become a democracy ; two different kinds 
 of revolution, but both deplorable." This was but too true, 
 but what had been done by themselves to prevent it? The 
 peers of the realm, about the same time with these five 
 princes of the blood, addressed a letter to his majesty, in 
 which they supplicate him to receive their solemn wishes to 
 bear a just proportion of the taxes and public burdens ac- 
 cording to their fortunes, without any pecuniary privilege 
 whatever ; and they had no doubt, they said, that the same 
 sentiments would be unanimously expressed by the gentle- 
 men (that is the smaller nobility) of the kingdom, if assem- 
 bled. And so the event proved ; the same wishes being ex- 
 pressed in the instructions of the nobility of almost all the 
 bailiwicks of the kingdom, when they sent deputies to the 
 States General. All this wisdom was, alas, too late. Of this 
 tardy wisdom I will just give another specimen, that of the 
 parliament, and then proceed further to the views and opi- 
 nions of other patrons of the old regime. 
 
 The parliament during the general fermentation, at the 
 close of the year 1788, had ceased to occupy public attention; 
 but when the Notables broke up, on the 7th of December, 
 1788, its members made an effort to regain their popularity, 
 in a decree, which seems to include their general notions 
 on the principal points of French liberty. They contend for 
 the periodical return of the States General ; no subsidy to be
 
 VIII. TIERS ETAT. 165 
 
 allowed that was not granted by the States ; the responsibi- 
 lity of ministers ; the protection of personal liberty ; the 
 lawful freedom of the press; the suppression of all those 
 taxes which marked a distinction between the orders, and 
 that they should be replaced by common subsidies equally 
 imposed on all." 
 
 Here again in this last article we see the same tardy wis- 
 dom in the parliament that has been witnessed in the two 
 privileged orders ; an equal taxation in vain proposed at the 
 close of 1788, which, if conceded to the sovereign at the time 
 he required it, a few years before, might have prevented the 
 Revolution. 
 
 This Revolution was now approaching fast, and this cele- 
 brated parliament of Paris, that had for the sake of the 
 pubHc, resisted so often, (and in prior reigns more particularly, 
 though not in the reign of Louis XVI.) resisted so virtuously 
 the monarch and his ministers, and suffered so often exile 
 and imprisonment, was cast aside by the public (after their 
 manner) as an assembly now, without use or meaning, and 
 was never thought of more. But to return to the patrons of 
 the old regime. 
 
 In January, 1789, the Marquis de Bouille saw a terrible 
 storm, as he tells us, ready to burst upon the kingdom, and 
 dreaded the consequences; troubles appeared to him inevi- 
 table ; he was apprehensive of a civil war. Speaking of the 
 States General, he considers Necker as having made no 
 proper exertion for its composition. 
 
 He mentions facts that are important. The ecclesiastical 
 members, he says, were principally chosen from among the 
 inferior clergy, without livings or property ; among the repre- 
 sentatives of the nobihty were many subtle, daring, and 
 intriguing men, who meant but to corrupt and divide the 
 order; and the third estate, he says, was laid open to a 
 I description of men, numerous and dangerous in France, those 
 I who lived by their talents, their literary abilities, and their 
 ' industiy; lawyers, principally of the lowest class ; physicians, 
 ! artists, writers of httle or no eminence, and men without 
 I either rank or property. Of three hundred members who 
 ! represented the clergy, two hundred and eight were possessed 
 I of no ecclesiastical dignity. Of six hundred who represented
 
 166 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 the Tiers Etat, three hundred and seventy-four were professors 
 of the law. These were important facts no doubt, and of 
 awful augury. ' Indeed it appears," he says, " that however 
 the clergy and nobility had been summoned, much of their 
 relative importance had been lost since the former periods of 
 their sittinos. 
 
 " In the order of the clergy, the dignities of the profession 
 had not been, as formerly, the reward of virtue, piety, and an 
 active discharge of duty ; the higher clergy were composed 
 of the young nobility of the court and provinces. The order, 
 therefore, had lost much of its consideration, especially as the 
 respect for religion itself had been gradually weakened." 
 
 His representations go on in the following manner: — 
 " The nobility had lost much of its ancient splendour. There 
 were in France nearly thirty thousand noble famihes. Four 
 thousand civil offices either gave or transmitted nobility. 
 The king granted patents of noblesse. There were about one 
 thousand families whose origin was lost in the remote periods 
 of the French monarchy : of these, scarcely two or three 
 hundred had escaped indigence and misfortune. There were 
 two hundred famihes whose names existed in history. If 
 honorary titles were borne by some old and illustrious fami- 
 lies, they were likewise shared by a multitude of new nobles, 
 who by their riches had acquired the right of assuming them. 
 The nobility had nothing to distinguish them but the favours 
 of the court and exemption from taxes. Much of what the 
 nobility and clergy had lost of their riches, power, and im- 
 portance, had been gained, according to the marquis, " by 
 the third estate." Commerce had enriched the third order, not 
 the nobility, who would not engage in trade. Many of this 
 part of society had become superior to the nobility in wealth, 
 and talents, and personal merit, yet they were excluded from 
 rank in the army, from high ecclesiastical preferments in the 
 church, and even from the higher class of the magistracy ; 
 the major part of the sovereign courts admitting only the 
 nobility into their bodies. The States General of 1789 were 
 thus, says the marquis, " opened under very unfavourable 
 circumstances. The people had become inclined to intrigue 
 and licentiousness ; in all their ranks was remarked an aver- 
 sion to the established authorities, and a contempt for the
 
 VIII. 
 
 TIERS ETAT. 167 
 
 persons of those who exercised them ;" and finally and on the 
 whole, the marquis conceives, " that it would have required 
 the greatest energy and address, not merely to guide their 
 labours to useful objects, but even to prevent them from over- 
 turning every thing from the foundation." 
 
 The same general conclusions that are thus presented to 
 you by the Marquis de Bouille, you will see also in the Me- 
 moirs and Annals of Bertrand de Moleville. All these works 
 are extremely interesting and valuable. They exhibit to you 
 the notions of the court and the privileged orders ; and at the 
 same time show the unhappy case, that by the folly of their 
 prejudices and the injustice of an ill-digested system of 
 government had at length arisen. 
 
 But while, in the manner you have seen, the princes of the 
 blood and the privileged orders were now desirous only to 
 support the ancient system of the monarchy, veiy different 
 were the notions that had circulated through society, and got 
 possession of the minds of the most intelligent part of the 
 country, had from them descended to the multitude, and be- 
 come the conversation of statesmen of every description ; the 
 young and the old, the low and the high, the ignorant and 
 the well-informed. I will, therefore, now introduce you to the 
 advocates of the new opinions. 
 
 I have mentioned tw^o w^orks, the History of the Revolution, 
 par Deux Amis de la Liberte, and the Precis, by Rabaud de 
 St. Etienne. You will be able, by turning to their pages, to 
 form some idea, though probably a most faint one, of the 
 general fermentation that then existed. As a specimen, I will 
 allude to the work of Rabaud de St. Etienne. He writes in 
 1791, immediately after the close of the Constituent Assembly, 
 and produces the sentiments and opinions which he must 
 have entertained from the first, or rather such as he still 
 entertained, notwithstanding all the intermediate events, 
 since May 1789. Observe the general tone of what I 
 quote. 
 
 " The French nation," says he, " has for ages been sub- 
 mitted to arbitrary laws. The people, that is every thing in 
 free countries, and nothing in those that are despotic, with 
 us, has been subjected to a number of tyrannies, so great, 
 that the best part of its substance has been dissipated in im-
 
 168 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 posts, levied by force or fraud, by superstition, or under the 
 pretence of privilege. 
 
 " The sovereign has raised more than most of the great 
 princes of Europe together. The clergy has drawn one-fifth 
 of the net produce of the territorial revenues of the kingdom ; 
 the nobles, by their feudal rights, have in reality levied taxes, 
 yet have paid nothing themselves. A crowd, in like manner, 
 of those that have been privileged, and those that have been 
 ennobled, have acquired by purchase a right of exemption 
 from the public expenses. 
 
 '' Wars, which kings," continues St. Etienne, " seem never 
 to have been able to do without, have furnished a pretext for 
 levying soldiers, and then soldiers have in their turn been the 
 pretext and means of new wars. See a regular army, and 
 you may say, There goes a tyrant, or one who will soon be- 
 come so. In a vast extended monarchy like ours, kings could 
 only see by their ministers; and this has ended in the minis- 
 ters being the government, with all their apparatus of lettres 
 de cachet, sinecure offices for the support of their creatures, 
 &c. &c. 
 
 " Never has nation been depressed in so insulting a manner 
 as ours, from the time of Richelieu to the States General of 
 1789." 
 
 He then gives the history, passing through the times of 
 Louis XIV. and XV. " And thus," says he, "journeyed on, 
 to its total decline and fall, one of the greatest kingdoms of 
 Europe. The national character has been effaced ; and it is 
 to write the history of the Revolution, to trace the steps by 
 which the public mind had advanced at last to complete 
 annihilation." He then describes the labours and the merits 
 of those who had broken the fetters of tyranny — Voltaire, the 
 philosophers of England, the Encyclopedic, Montesquieu, 
 Rousseau, and Raynal. Every tribute is then paid to the 
 good intentions of the king, and he describes his successive 
 ministers ; " but reform," he says, " was impossible. It was 
 above the powers of Necker, or any single man. It was for 
 the nation alone to attempt it ; and one has seen, in attempt- 
 ing it, to what perils have been exposed the Constituent 
 Assembly and the public welfare." Rabaud was a member, 
 and wrote in 1791. " What an immense coalition," he says,
 
 VIII. TIERS ETAT. 169 
 
 " had indeed a minister, or even the king himself, to assist 
 him, when he was contending with others — sixty thousand 
 men, nobles or ennobled, them and their dependents ; the 
 military men, noble or pretending to be so; one hundred 
 thousand privileged persons, who are not to pay taxes, it 
 seems ; two hundred thousand priests, sixty thousand reli- 
 gious; the farmers general, and all the agents of the revenue, 
 with their army, fifty thousand strong, and the multitude of 
 those who had offices, extended even into the smallest towns ; 
 finally, the men of the robe, the parliaments, the superior 
 courts, the inferior, and all the people of business, who in 
 one way or another thus lived upon the nation, and became 
 an impost which it would be terrifying to the imagination to 
 calculate. Such was the formidable mass of people that had 
 got possession of France, that held it down by a thousand 
 chains, and that formed the nation, while the rest were sup- 
 posed to be mere people. This was that mass," says St. 
 Etienne, " that one has seen afterwards unite its voice and 
 its clamours against the National Assembly, because with a 
 spirit and a courage unexampled the Assembly suppressed all 
 the abuses on which it depended for its existence. 
 
 " From the moment," he afterwards observes, " that the 
 word ' the States General ' was once pronounced, that they 
 were demanded by the parliament, and promised by the 
 king, events rushed on, one after another, so as scarcely to be 
 distinguishable. While the nation was only occupied with 
 the delightful thought of some approaching regeneration, that 
 should for ever remove it out of the reach of tyranny, those 
 who then held the mastery of the nation were only occupied 
 with the means of retaining their empire. But the imposing 
 colossus of the majesty of the people found, every hour, its 
 growth advancing, and trampled under its feet successfully 
 every fantastic authority by which it had been so long subju- 
 gated. 
 
 " The provinces, in the mean time, abandoned themselves to 
 all that excitation of mind that naturally arose from a sense 
 of all the evils to which France was exposed, all the indig- 
 nities and the outrages which it had suffered, and the hope of 
 a better order of things. Dauphiny led the way. Innume- 
 rable writers," he says, " recalled the Tiers Etat to a sense of
 
 170 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 their rights. Some mounted up to the origin of the monarchy, 
 and traced, in characters of fire, the progress of despotism, 
 the absolute power of twenty tyrants, and the consequent 
 degradation of the nation. Others found, in the history of the 
 States General, the proofs of the national authority, and that 
 it was the nation that was the sovereign. Others mounted 
 still higher to the original and imprescriptible rights of every 
 people. 
 
 " Paris became the very concentration of intelligence and 
 light. Societies, correspondencies, were formed. The press 
 was in fact free. Publications were every where dispersed 
 adapted to the comprehension of the lowest orders. 
 
 " The government was without resource, and could only 
 leave every thing to be either said or written without further 
 stay or molestation." 
 
 These passages, written by an active, able, and respected 
 member of the Constituent Assembly, even so late as about 
 the time of its termination, will give you some slight notion 
 of the situation of Paris and of France in the months that 
 more immediately preceded and that followed the meeting of 
 the States General in 1789 ; some notion also of the general 
 views which had been formed by the more ardent and leading 
 members of the Constituent Assembly. 
 
 When these general views of Rabaud de St. Etienne had 
 been but too successful, he retired, and was soon dragged from 
 his retreat to perish under the guillotine. 
 
 In the history of the Two Friends of Liberty, the sentiments 
 and opinions are of a nature so similar, that I do not occupy 
 your time with producing them; it is one of the histories 
 which you should read. 
 
 But the extracts I have given from Rabaud de St. Etienne, 
 and even the perusal of both these histories, will give you but 
 a very inadequate notion, I am satisfied, of the spirit in which 
 the new opinions were conceived, and the ardour and sweeping 
 fury with which they were at this period eveiy where in France 
 circulated and maintained. 
 
 It was under these ominous circumstances that the meeting 
 of the States General took place in May, 1789. To this memo- 
 rable meeting we will now advert. And to give you a sort of 
 general picture of the first and ceremonial part of it, I will
 
 VIII. TIERS ETAT. 171 
 
 quote a few paragraphs from a writer, the most beautiful of 
 all, M*. de Stael ; one who, from the liveliness of her imagina- 
 tion and the quickness of her feehngs, could sympathize with 
 whatever was reasonable or affecting in the opinions or situa- 
 tion of every party, and therefore appears to belong to every 
 party in its turn ; but who was in truth most deeply and most 
 honourably attached to the principles of civil and religious 
 liberty and to their cause in France, but could not do other- 
 wise than be disappointed and grieve over the failure of her 
 father, and mourn over the calamities of her country. 
 
 " I shall never forgot the moment," says M^. de Stael, 
 " when I saw the one thousand two hundred deputies of 
 France, moving on in procession to hear mass, the evening 
 before the opening of the States General. A striking spectacle 
 for the French, and one unexampled. 
 
 " All the inhabitants of Versailles and people of curiosity 
 from Paris assembled to see it. A new sort of authority thus 
 arisen in the state, of which one knew not either the nature 
 or the force, quite amazed the generality of those who had not 
 reflected on the rights of nations. 
 
 " The high clergy had lost something of their consideration, 
 for many of the prelates had not been sufficiently regular in 
 their conduct. 
 
 " A long peace had left the nobles little or no opportunity, 
 however desirous they might have been, to recall the memory 
 of their ancestors. Those of the second order (of the nobles) 
 had been equally without opportunities of distinguishing 
 themselves, for no career was open to them but that of arms. 
 Those who were ennobled, and who were seen marching in 
 great number in the ranks of the nobility, seemed to carry 
 with but little grace their plume of feathers and their sword ; 
 and one asked oneself why they were to be thus placed in the 
 first order of the state, merely because they had hoitght the 
 right of not contributing their part to the public imposts. 
 
 " But whatever was lost to the nobility and the clergy was 
 added to the importance of the Tiers Etat. Their habits and 
 black cloaks, their fixed looks, and their imposing number, 
 drew every eye upon them. 
 
 " Men of letters, merchants, and a great number of law- 
 yers, composed this third order. Some nobles had got made
 
 172 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 deputies, and among these was above all to be remarked the 
 Count de Mirabeau. The opinion that one entertained of his 
 powers of mind was singularly increased by the terror inspired 
 by his licentiousness ; yet was it that very licentiousness that 
 diminished the influence which his astonishing faculties were 
 fitted to procure him. It was difficult to take one's eyes 
 away, when one had once seen him. His immense head of 
 hair distinguished him ; one should have supposed that, like 
 Samson, his strength depended on it. The countenance of 
 the man borrowed expression from its very ugliness, and the 
 whole appearance of him gave me an idea of some great irre- 
 gular force and power, in short, such as one should expect to 
 find in a tribune of the people. 
 
 " I was in a window," she continues, " by the side of M^. 
 de Montmorin, wife of the minister of foreign afiairs, and I 
 abandoned myself I confess to the most lively hope and ex- 
 ultation at seeing, for the first time in France, the representa- 
 tives of the nation. M''. de Montmorin, in whose mind and 
 talents there was nothing at all remarkable, observed to me 
 in a decided tone, which afterwards impressed me much, 
 ' You are quite wrong to be in such spirits on this occasion ; 
 great calamities will be the result of all this to France and 
 to us.' 
 
 " This unhappy lady," continues M^. de Stael, " perished 
 on a scaffold with one of her sons, another drowned himself, 
 her husband was massacred on the 2d September, her eldest 
 daughter perished in the hospital of one of the prisons, her 
 youngest before thirty, borne down with her afflictions. The 
 family of Niobe herself suffered not more. She must have had 
 a presentiment, one would have said." 
 
 M^. de Montmorin was probably a woman of ordinary 
 good sense, whose judgment was not disturbed by any irre- 
 gular impressions of the feelings or wanderings of the ima- 
 gination, like that of M^. de Stael ; and such women, by a sort 
 of general tact, which operates like instinct, the result of mere 
 commerce with the world, and the common feelings and 
 vulgar interests which form the history of it, are generally 
 able to form a far more accurate opinion on any practical 
 case before them, than women of genius like M*^. de Stael ; 
 and the same observation may be extended to the men of
 
 VIII. TIERS ETAT. 173 
 
 talents at this period, not only in France, but all over Europe. 
 In proportion to the intelligence and the powers of each in- 
 dividual mind, with one illustrious exception (Mr. Burke), 
 w^as the enthusiasm, the hope, and the expectation, entertained 
 of the future liberties of France, and the cause of liberty there 
 and throuphout the world. 
 
 The States General assembled, therefore, as you see, on the 
 whole, under unfavourable circumstances — the king inde- 
 cisive, the minister too sanguine, the court bigoted to the old 
 opinions, the Tiers Etat unreasonably inflamed with the new, 
 the populace tumultuous and ferocious. 
 
 A riot had just occurred ; the house of an innocent and 
 respectable man had been, in consequence of some idle report, 
 attacked and pillaged, and as the first party of soldiers was 
 too weak, it had been found necessary to order out a large 
 party of the French and Swiss guards, with two pieces of 
 artillery, to quell the insurgents. Above one hundred had 
 been killed, some also of the military ; a considerable number 
 wounded. This specimen of the populace had just been wit- 
 nessed. Again, the evening before the opening of the Assem- 
 bly, the bishop of Nancy, in his sermon, had alluded in some 
 strange manner to the salt tax, and applauses resounded from 
 every part of the church, as if it had been a theatre. The 
 sensibihty of the public to the political grievances was, there- 
 fore, clearly shown to be of the most intemperate nature. 
 
 Nothing, however, could be more august than the opening 
 of the Assembly. You will see, in such books as I have 
 mentioned, a description of the scene. All, however, was 
 false and hollow. The Tiers Etat were determined that the 
 public business should be conducted on one system, the court 
 and the privileged orders on another; and on the first pos- 
 sible opportunity this original cause of dissension was sure to 
 appear, and the most alarming consequences ensue. 
 
 In the mean time you will observe the speech of the amiable 
 and unfortunate king, the expressions he uses in his address 
 to the collected wisdom of his people. 
 
 "The convocation of this Assembly has fallen into disuse, 
 but I have not hesitated to re-establish a custom from which 
 the kingdom may derive new force, and which may open to 
 the nation a new source of happiness.
 
 174 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 " I have already ordered considerable retrenchments in the 
 expenditure. I shall direct the exact state of the finances to 
 be laid before you. 
 
 " The public mind is agitated, but an assembly of the repre- 
 sentatives of the nation will without doubt only listen to the 
 counsels of wisdom and prudence. You must yourselves have 
 felt that these counsels have been swerved from on many 
 recent occasions ; but the reigning spirit of your deliberations 
 will correspond with the true sentiments of a generous nation, 
 whose love for its king has ever been its most distinouishino- 
 characteristic. I discard every other recollection. All that 
 can be expected from the tenderest interest in the public wel- 
 fare, all that can be asked of a sovereign, the firm friend of 
 his people, you may and ought to hope for from me. That a 
 happy harmony may reign in this Assembly, and that this 
 epoch may become ever memorable for the happiness and 
 prosperity of the kingdom, is the wish of my heart, the most 
 ardent of my vows ; it is, in short, the prize that I expect from 
 the rectitude of my own intentions and my love for my 
 people." 
 
 Such was the general tenor of the king's address ; a very 
 favourable impression, it seems, was made upon the audience ; 
 the simple dignity of the king, the air, the tone, the cordial 
 expression with which he delivered his speech, were not with- 
 out their effect on a people ever quick to feel, could they but 
 be steady enough to retain, the sentiments that do them 
 honour ; but nothing was pronounced by the king on the real 
 subject of difficulty, the mode of voting. 
 
 The keeper of the seals followed, but with a feeble voice, ill- 
 heard, and what reference he did make to the great point at 
 issue might have been better spared, " that the king left it to 
 the States to consider of the best manner of collecting the 
 votes, though the mode by head appeared, by giving one 
 general result, to evidence better the general wish." 
 
 Necker followed, but seems to have disappointed every 
 one. His discourse was considered as tedious, declamatory, 
 and academical ; above all, as contributing nothing to the 
 instruction of the Assembly on political subjects ; as deciding 
 nothing with regard to the real difficulty, the mode of voting. 
 This point, the mode of voting, whether by order or by head,
 
 VIII. TIERS ETAT. 175 
 
 it might still appear to have been (legally at least) within the 
 competence of the king to have determined ; the different 
 orders of the Assembly had not yet verified their powers ; they 
 had as yet obtained no legal existence ; the king was as yet 
 the only constituted authority in the state : but the state was 
 now distempered in the extreme ; the opportunity, if it ever 
 existed, was lost by Necker, lost, most unhappily, and for 
 ever. 
 
 The democratic leaders of the Tiers Etat made haste to 
 strike the first blow; they sent a civil message to the two 
 orders, inviting them, as if it had been a matter of course, to 
 unite with them in order to verify in common their writs of 
 return. 
 
 Nothing could be more assuming and improper; such I 
 confess it appears to me, but it may not to others. The 
 natural course was, for the members of each order to lay their 
 writs of return on their own table, and for commissioners of 
 their own to report upon their validity to their own separate 
 house. Why were the other two bodies to exhibit themselves 
 before the Tiers Etat? It was not the Tiers Etat that had 
 called the Assembly together ; who had made the Tiers Etat 
 a ruler and a judge? Indeed, strictly speaking, the verifi- 
 cation should have taken place before the king in council, 
 since none of the deputies was competent, before the verifi- 
 cation of his own powers, to verify those of others : and if 
 this mode was objectionable, as giving opportunity to the 
 king and court dishonestly to reject particular deputies, the 
 only alternative seemed to be the mode we have mentioned ; 
 indeed, had the king even on the day of opening observed in 
 his speech, that the verification of the powers was a necessary 
 preliminary to all deliberation in the States General, and had 
 he directed that the deputies should declare their titles to the 
 keeper of the seals, in order to be verified by committees of 
 the council, it is possible that no one would have questioned 
 the regularity of such an order, and it might have been 
 executed, perhaps, as of course and without opposition — all 
 this is, however, doubtful. The public had been long in a 
 high state of fermentation, were evidently animated in the 
 extreme with the expectations that had been held out to them 
 by popular writers ; and the nature of the new opinions was
 
 176 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 now tp be exhibited. The democratic leaders were determined 
 that nothing in the shape of public business should begin to 
 exist, but upon the system which they thought conducive to 
 the public welfare, the system of voting by head ; they con- 
 cluded, that if each assembly once assumed a legal and sepa- 
 rate existence, the three could never afterwards be made to 
 vote in common ; they conceived that nothing would be done 
 for the public if the deliberation was to be carried on by 
 orders. The public were with them ; so was upon the whole 
 the minister Necker. The nobles were not unanimous, still 
 less the clergy; and not only the rash and enterprising 
 patriots, but even the men of sense and good intentions 
 among the Tiers Etat appear all to have concurred in these 
 violent proceedings, in the measures of unjustifiable preten- 
 sion and usurpation that now took place. 
 
 The nobility saw the crisis in which they were placed, and 
 made every effort to preserve their consequence ; but with the 
 community they were in no favour ; the king and his ministers 
 had imposed upon them a contest from which they ought to 
 have saved them, and which they should have undertaken 
 themselves ; and of the order of the clergy, a large part con- 
 sisted of those of an inferior rank, the cures, little inclined to 
 be favourable to the interests or even the particular rights of 
 their superiors. This distracted state of things existed for 
 some weeks, and this suspense, by giving opportunity to the 
 public mind to get inflamed, was of the most fatal conse- 
 quence ; and at last the ministers seem to have been alarmed. 
 M. Necker, on June the 4th, came forward with a conci- 
 liatory plan, the sum and substance of which was. 
 
 That the three orders should trust each other with regard 
 to the verification of those writs on which no difficulties had 
 arisen, and that if any should arise, they should be carried 
 before a commission chosen out of all the orders, and finally, 
 if necessary, the dispute should be referred to the king. 
 
 This scheme, which would have satisfied all parties if the 
 dispute had been sincere, entirely failed ; and the Tiers Etat, 
 at last, proceeded to declare, that the names of the clergy 
 and nobility should be called over as well as their own, that 
 they would then constitute themselves an active assembly, 
 and proceed to public business with or without them.
 
 VIII. TIERS ETAT. 177 
 
 It would not have been now easy to have contrived a safe 
 measure for the couit, or a prudent one for the nobility and 
 clergy. 
 
 In the event, when the Tiers Etat called over the members, 
 as tliey had announced their intention of doing, three curates 
 appeared; they were, of course, received with the loudest 
 acclamations, embraced and hailed as the saviours of France. 
 
 The Tiers Etat were sure that the example of these three 
 cures would be soon followed, and that ultimately, both the 
 clergy and the nobles would be left, those that resisted, in an 
 insignificant minority, and obliged to submit to whatever 
 terms might be imposed on them. 
 
 Five weeks had now elapsed, no public business done, no 
 effort made for the happiness of France ; it was the obstinacy 
 of the nobles that was supposed in fault by an impatient 
 public ; little attention was paid to the unjustifiable nature of 
 the pretensions of the commons, who now not only required 
 the nobles to submit the verification of their powers to them, 
 but that they should sit (the real point to be attained) in the 
 same house with them. More of the clergy now joined the 
 Tiers Etat, and the Tiers Etat at last proceeded to drop 
 entirely the notion, that they were only one part of the great 
 assembly of the States General, and they actually assumed to 
 themselves the character of the whole concentrated wisdom 
 and representative consequence of the kingdom ; they resolved 
 to call themselves at once "the National Assembly;" the 
 vote, their own vote, was carried by a large majority, and the 
 air resounded with the cry of " Long live the King, long live 
 the National Assembly !" 
 
 One thing more remained, not only to assume, but to exer- 
 cise the power of sovereignty ; the power of sovereignty, or 
 what was in effect under the circumstances of the case, a very 
 near approach to it ; and to this they proceeded. 
 
 They issued what they called a decree to the following 
 effect : " that inasmuch as the contributions now levied in 
 the kingdom, not having been consented to by the nation, 
 were all illegal, and consequently null ; the National Assembly 
 declared that they consented provisorily for the nation, that 
 the taxes and contributions, though illegally established and 
 levied, should continue to be levied till the day of the sepa- 
 
 N
 
 178 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 ration of the Assembly, after which they were to cease if not 
 regranted by the Assembly." 
 
 By these acts of supremacy, made without the concurrence of 
 the other two orders, and without waiting for the approbation 
 of the king, they not only decided the two former questions 
 about the mode of voting, but they acted as a sort of legisla- 
 ture, as a complete assembly authorized of themselves and 
 alone to reform the old government, in fact to form a new 
 government — certainly to present themselves as such — the 
 government of the National Assembly. 
 
 Now certainly to me, I confess, who turn to look on this 
 scene as a matter of history, nothing can appear more unjus- 
 tifiable than the whole of a conduct like this ; but it may not 
 to others ; what had the king done, or even the court, to make 
 it necessary ? Why was the king to be made so soon to repent 
 of his calling the States together for his own and the public 
 advantage ? What indifference had he shown to the public 
 welfare ? What measure had he rejected ? What effect could 
 usurpation on their part produce, but irritation and hostility 
 on his, and rage and violence on the part of the court? What 
 benefit could hence accrue to the community l Was peace no 
 object ? Was not order, and regularity, and a system of con- 
 ciliation and mutual sacrifices, the best and indeed the only 
 chance for the permanent improvement of the constitution? 
 It seems indeed to have been taken for granted, that unless 
 the states were to vote by poll, no benefit could result from 
 their meeting ; but this was an assumption, and in truth a 
 very violent assumption. The Tiers Etat seem quite to have 
 overlooked the most important circumstances of the case : the 
 progress of the new opinions; the ferment of the public mind; 
 the influence of public opinion ; the intensity of the expec- 
 tation of the community ; the difficulties that the king and 
 court would be under if they ventured often or very materially 
 to disappoint that expectation. It might have been asked 
 them, what measure of clear importance and benefit to the 
 state, if pressed for by the Tiers Etat, could long have been 
 withheld by the king and the other two orders. Suppose the 
 privileged orders had been made to contribute equally to the 
 public taxes, and suppose provision had been made for the 
 future meeting of the States General, would not even this
 
 VIII. TIERS ETAT. 179 
 
 have been sufficient to secure eventually, in the existing state 
 of the world, a complete though gradual amelioration of the 
 whole system of the government ? Why was the Assembly to 
 rush forward in this manner, and assume to themselves the 
 office of what they called the reg-eneration of France ; to set 
 aside all the existing authorities, the king included, or only to 
 consider them as subservient to themselves, as only useful or 
 estimable as they would contribute to forward their own par- 
 ticular views of political expediency ; as they would or would 
 not assist them in new organizing society, or in giving, as 
 they termed it, a new constitution to France ? 
 
 There is no doubt that the majority of the Tiers Etat meant 
 well, there is no doubt that very wise and very good men 
 concurred in these proceedings, there is no doubt that the 
 greatest blessing that can be procured for a nation is civil 
 liberty, that just allowance must be made for men who step 
 forward in a cause so noble and so animating, but it is on 
 these very accounts the more necessary for history to criticise 
 such men ; because the mistakes of bad men and arbitrary 
 rulers do not necessarily lead to liberty, while those of good 
 men and virtuous patriots inevitably do to the loss of it. 
 
 These are, I confess, the opinions that I have found myself 
 oblioed, with whatever hesitation and indeed with some sur- 
 prise, at last to form ; but I am well aware, that other views 
 may be taken of these proceedings by the friends of liberty, 
 and I shall endeavour to put you in possession of the whole of 
 the case by adverting to them in my lecture of to-morrow.
 
 180 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 TWENTY-THIRD OF JUNE. 
 
 AT the close of my lecture of yesterday, I referred to the 
 first proceedings of the Constituent Assembly, and I 
 submitted to your consideration the reasons why I thought 
 them so objectionable; they were objectionable, in a word, 
 because they were more or less violent and assuming at a 
 time, when every thing depended upon the moderation of the 
 parties ; and as the Assembly were on this occasion the first 
 to quit the path of peace, it is they who are to be most visited 
 with censure, because in all disputes they, who are first wrong, 
 are most wrong-. But to such observations as I have made in 
 my last lecture, it will be replied by those who, though friends 
 to liberty, are as deeply impressed with the necessity of peace 
 and order as I can be, or as any one can be, that the nature 
 and situation of the French people, of the king and court, of 
 the patriots themselves, the time, the occasion, the circum- 
 stances, and all the exigencies of the case must be considered ; 
 and that then, such animadversions as I have made on the 
 conduct of the assembly, must be materially modified if not 
 entirely abandoned. 
 
 It will contribute, I think, to the clear understanding of 
 this, by far the most difficult discussion and the most impor- 
 tant that the history of this Revolution affords, if the different 
 measures which I have presumed to blame are separated 
 from each other and surveyed apart, and if we proceed step by 
 step. 
 
 The first and great point was, in truth, the mode of voting, 
 whether by orders or by head, whether in one Assembly or in 
 three Chambers. 
 
 This was the first and great point; the dangers and diffi- 
 culties on each side of the question were always sufficiently
 
 IX. TWENTY-THIRD OF JUNE. 181 
 
 apparent, and they have been already exhibited to you. But 
 in defence of the strong measures just adopted by the As- 
 sembly, it will be observed, that the States General had now 
 met ; the Tiers Etat been assembled ; the members of it now 
 brought into contact with each other mutually to explain their 
 grievances and expectations ; that the prior and existing fer- 
 mentation of the public was very great; and that in this 
 situation of things, the doubling of the Tiers Etat in the 
 original formation of the Assembly was considered a virtual 
 concession of the right of voting by head ; that Necker and 
 his friends so understood it; that they considered it as a 
 popular concession, and meant the crown to have the credit of 
 it; but why popular if it had no popular object, and no 
 distinct object ? The Tiers Etat followed up this virtual con- 
 cession by assuming at once that the three estates should act 
 together ; and how are they to be blamed t What other 
 chance in the known temper of the court for any reform in 
 the administration of the government? What other chance 
 for tranquillity amid the general hopes and fears and impa- 
 tience of the public ? A majority in any one house obtained 
 against them, what probability of any reform ? 
 
 In return rather than in answer to this reasoning, it must 
 be first remarked, that it is here we find the accusation of 
 Necker, it is here that his fault appears. If Necker left these 
 points open, it was but too probable that the leaders of the 
 Tiers Etat would reason thus; it was impossible that the 
 public should not sympathize with them ; it was impossible 
 that a ferment should not arise, which the king and the court 
 were little fitted, either by gentle means or by force, to en- 
 counter and subdue. 
 
 But when all this has been allowed, may not then the 
 observations I have made be suffered to find their place ? Are 
 the patriots of a country, are the more wise and enlightened 
 leaders of the public emotion, to rise superior to the tempta- 
 tions of their situation, or not ? They are to be praised, highly 
 praised, if they do ; but are they not to be blamed, if they do 
 not ? What is ever human virtue but some elevation of the 
 character more or less of this description ? What chance for 
 the public weal but in the prudence of the court on the 
 one side, and the moderation of the Tiers Etat on the other ?
 
 182 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 But what moderation did the Tiers Etat exhibit in thus re- 
 quiring the king and the two privileged orders to abandon 
 all their inherited notions and feelings ? What moderation in 
 requiring them to take the chance of one great assembly in 
 which all ranks and orders were to be confounded ; an as- 
 sembly where every thing was to abide the decision of a ma- 
 jority ; an assembly where the Tiers Etat already constituted 
 one half? Why was the first step of the Tiers Etat to be that 
 of relatively annihilating the personal consideration, the legal 
 and long established dignity of every individual in the country 
 but themselves ? Why were they to suppose that no one had 
 any interest in the pubhc good but themselves? What 
 measure, calculated to promote the public good, had been as 
 yet rejected by the king ? What opposition as yet made to 
 the reasonable wishes of the public ? Why was it to be taken 
 for granted by the Tiers Etat that all wisdom and benevo- 
 lence were monopolized by themselves ? What was hereafter 
 to be expected from them if this was to be the first specimen 
 of their views and character ? What respect for the nobiUty 
 and clergy of the land ? What safety for the monarch ? What 
 peace for the people ? What was meant, or what could be 
 meant, by all this ferment in the public mind, this cry for 
 the regeneration of France? Was it or was it not meant, 
 that nothing at the time established should eventually exist ; 
 and was it then the scheme of the Tiers Etat to merge all the 
 dignity and authority of the country in one Assembly, and 
 that, their own ? And was this the first measure for the pur- 
 pose or not? Would language of this kind then, let it be 
 asked on the whole of the case, would language of this kind 
 have been unnatural or even exaggerated, or materially un- 
 just, if held by any of the members of the two higher orders 
 at the time? And if so, is not the charge of violence, of 
 want of reasonableness, of want of moderation in the Tiers 
 Etat, made out ; and if this charge be made out, has not 
 blame been incurred ? 
 
 The subject must be here left, I conceive, to the decision 
 of every man for himself There seems to have been little 
 doubt among the members of the Tiers Etat upon these 
 questions at the time, but the lesson of instruction for after 
 ages, I must still think, is what I have presumed to draw,
 
 IX. TWENTY-THIRD OF JUNE. 183 
 
 and only the more necessary to be drawn on that very ac- 
 count. The next question is, what was to be done by the 
 court and the privileged orders ? That is, supposing that the 
 Tiers Etat were unreasonable in their expectations, and 
 insisted on the voting by head, what was then the best 
 policy, the proper conduct of the privileged orders ? 
 
 Necker bitterly complains that these points were not given 
 up, and the union, which the Tiers Etat required, made with 
 a good grace and at once. 
 
 It is possible, it may, I think, on the whole be allowed, 
 tliat in the situation in which Necker had placed them, or 
 suffered them to be placed, the best measure with a view to 
 the public good and their own safety, was the union which he 
 wished. It was a most fearful measure to be obhged to take, 
 but on the whole it was the least objectionable. In the state 
 of general irritation that prevailed, the public expectation was 
 to be gratified within any tolerable bounds, as quickly as 
 possible. If the Tiers Etat were to be resisted, some better 
 point was to be taken than one, which would appear to the 
 public only a point of form ; whether it involved an impor- 
 tant principle or not (it certainly did one most important), 
 still it would not be so considered by the public, and would 
 be thought by them to have no effect or meaning, but that of 
 paralyzing all public business ; of indicating, perhaps, the 
 resolution of the king and court to escape from all measures 
 of reform whatever. The Tiers Etat were not likely to give 
 up the point without a protracted struggle ; and in civil con- 
 tentions delay is sure to be fatal to the party which is the 
 least popular : it was therefore clear, that the point must be 
 conceded eventually, and therefore the sooner the better. 
 
 The chance of resistance to the Tiers Etat was to be taken 
 on some other occasion, when the strong passions, that were 
 evidently ready to burst their holds, had been first soothed, 
 and a large portion of the Tiers Etat and of the moderate 
 men in the two orders, had been conciliated by such prompt 
 measures for the removal of public grievances and the ameli- 
 oration of the constitution, as would have shown a real sym- 
 pathy with the public wishes and opinions ; and in short, 
 whatever was the chance of the three orders meeting in one 
 Assembly, whether unpromising or not (it was most unpro-
 
 184 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 mising), there was now no other, unless an open rupture; a 
 dissolution of the States and a civil war was on the whole 
 preferred. 
 
 But they who at all admit the remarks I have made on the 
 first point, the voting by head or by order, in one house or 
 three, will readily concur with the same train of reasoning, 
 when applied to the succeeding point, the vote by which the 
 Tiers Etat constituted themselves the National Assembly: 
 this vote was carried by a majority of four hundred and 
 eighty to eighty-nine, or something more than five to one ; an 
 immense majority this, on a question that was to set every 
 thing aside in the state but themselves, to propose to the 
 public no other object on which they were to look with 
 respect or expectation. The vote for independence in America 
 was not carried till a war with Great Britain had been for 
 some time raging ; in the instance before us, on the con- 
 trary, a vote is carried in the popular Assembly of France for 
 an independence of all the other established authorities of the 
 state, after a contest only of a month, not of violence and 
 arms and bloodshed, but of pamphlets and disputation ; 
 not a single act of harsh authority yet exercised, not a rea- 
 sonable cause of offence yet given. Indecision and perplexity 
 and disunion are indeed very sufficiently evidenced in the 
 conduct of their political opponents ; folly, if you please, 
 nothing more ; a vain and helpless unwillingness to relin- 
 quish in time the constitutional privileges of their birth, and 
 supposed rights of their condition in society ; but were these 
 sufhcient reasons for a vote, like this, from the Assembly ; for 
 standing on no terms with them any longer ? Was the sym- 
 pathy of the public, which they found continually increasing, 
 and rendering them every hour more and more powerful, to 
 be turned to no better purpose than this ; to no better 
 purpose than that of rendering the sincere co-operation of the 
 king and court in their designs for the public good, from that 
 moment, impossible ? Wise and good men concurred in this 
 vote at the time ; this must be admitted : but whatever 
 explanation I may see of it, I confess, I see no proper de- 
 fence. 
 
 This lecture was written many years ago, but in the work 
 lately published, the posthumous work of M. Dumont, it
 
 IX. TWENTY-THIRD OF JUNE. 185 
 
 appears that Mirabeau said to him, when dying, " Oh, my 
 friend, how right we were when we endeavoured at the first 
 to prevent the Commons fi'om declaring themselves the 
 National Assembly ! It is this that has been the source of all 
 our evils. From the moment they carried that victory, they 
 have never ceased to show themselves unworthy of it." 
 
 The next point is their decree relative to the levying of 
 taxes; they evidently voted that they were illegal, without 
 consent of the National Assembly. 
 
 No one will deny that this was a very strong measure, 
 scarcely justifiable, as appearing too like an assumption of the 
 legislative functions, by one only of the three estates. Still it 
 will be contended, that it is going too far to consider it as an 
 act of sovereignty. The States, it will be observed, were met, 
 among other objects, for the purpose of consenting to taxes. 
 They assumed, that whenever former States General had met, 
 they had consented to taxes and given subsidies ; and, al- 
 though the crown had exercised this power for centuries with- 
 out control, the States might with propriety contend, that the 
 right had now been recognised anew. The king had himself 
 lately declined any further attempts to raise new taxes on his 
 own authority ; the decree therefore only went to declare, as 
 a constitutional principle, what had already been virtually 
 acknowledoed. Such will be the view that will be taken of 
 this subject by many of the friends of freedom. It will be 
 asked, at the same time, who could tell whether the king 
 might not, any day, change his ministry and dissolve the 
 States. What greater calamity for France ; what calamity 
 which it more imported the patriots to provide against ? How 
 could they better provide, than by making it difficult for the 
 king to raise money without their consent ? 
 
 It is probable that reasonings of this kind were very current 
 with the most distinguished members of the Assembly at the 
 time ; but if so, they afford a memorable instance of the un- 
 happy nature of civil contentions, how readily men of the 
 first intelligence become inflamed amid a general ferment, 
 and how easily they overlook tlie most obvious distinctions of 
 propriety and right. Taxes and subsidies, as every one knew, 
 were voted by the States General, not by the Tiers Etat— 
 by all the three orders, not by one of them, acting for and
 
 186 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 assuming the authority of the whole. But the Tiei'S Etat had 
 not yet been joined by the nobility and clergy. The more the 
 origin and nature of these general assemblies were inquired into, 
 when the times of Tacitus and the Germans were once left be- 
 hind, the less important would appear the Tiers Etat, that now 
 called themselves, single as they stood, the National Assembly, 
 and arrogated the office and functions of the whole legislature 
 of the state. The king might decline the exercise of the 
 powers which his ancestors had so long usurped, but surely 
 never meant to devolve it on the Tiers Etat. The king might 
 any day change his minister, and dissolve the States, but the 
 proper defence against such a contingency, when any defence 
 really became necessary, was a resolution, not a decree — a 
 resolution by the Tiers Etat declaratory of the nature of this 
 constitutional power, explaining, asserting, and recording it, 
 where it lay, and by whom it could be exercised ; not a de- 
 cree, assuming to themselves all the legislative authority that 
 belonged in fact to the States General. A disrelish of the 
 new opinions, an indisposition to any new order of things, 
 might be suspected by the patriots in the court and the privi- 
 leQ:ed orders : a chano;e of counsels in the king, and some 
 arbitrary measure to dissolve them, might be thought possible 
 by the Tiers Etat ; but were they, therefore, thus to provoke 
 it and to justify it ? Were they to be the first to set an ex- 
 ample of violence and usurpation? Were they to keep no 
 terms with the sovereign, and to leave him no sentiment but 
 that of regret and that of terror at having summoned them 
 to his assistance at all ? Certainly the very eminent men who 
 were now leaders in this Assembly must have totally dis- 
 trusted the court and the privileged orders, must have 
 strangely over-estimated the power of their opponents, must 
 have thought it their duty, not only to make a revolution, 
 but their policy to take the whole management of it instantly 
 into their own hands, lest nothing should be done for the 
 country — to avail themselves of their popularity as soon as 
 possible, and at once ; to keep alive their popularity, and to 
 paralyze all opposition by the energy or rather violence of their 
 proceedings. And the welfare of their country, the noble 
 objects which they meant to accomplish, must have justified 
 in their own minds the irregular means they were using. 
 
 1
 
 IX. TWENTY-THIRD OF JUNE. 187 
 
 Such must be the explanation of their conduct, but, as I 
 have aheady ventured to say, it is not, I think, their defence. 
 
 To return to the history. 
 
 The Tiers Etat having now, so early as the 17th of June, 
 voted themselves the National Assembly, and assumed, or 
 so nearly assumed, the sovereign power of the state, it was 
 high time for some measure on the part of the king. Even 
 Necker himself must have been ill at ease. It never could 
 have been his intention or his wish (whatever might be his 
 popular feelings) that the monarchy should be endangered, 
 or all the power of the state be merged in that of the Tiers 
 Etat. It was therefore resolved that the king should hold a 
 sitting on the 23rd. 
 
 This sitting of the 23rd is the next great step in the Revo- 
 lution. You must observe it well. You are in this sitting to 
 see the terms offered by the king and the court to the popular 
 party. 
 
 But some unhappy fatality seems to have over-ruled the 
 destinies of this great kingdom ; not only to have made her 
 patriots intemperate, but her ministers or the court thought- 
 less and imprudent to a degree exceeding all behef; and 
 many circumstances left no fair chance for this reasonable 
 measure, this royal sitting of the 23rd. The hall in which the 
 Commons assembled was the place, on account of its size, 
 where the kins; met and haranoued the States. Workmen 
 were therefore sent in, to erect a throne ; a party of guards 
 took possession pf the place for the king ; the royal sitting 
 was formally proclaimed, (through the streets of Versailles 
 indeed,) by the heralds, but unfortunately no proper notice 
 had been given, no formal communication made, to the 
 Assembly or the president, of what was intended ; and M. 
 Bailly, the president, with other members of the Commons, 
 when they repaired, as of course, to hold their sitting in their 
 own hall, were repulsed without ceremony from their own door. 
 The Commons very naturally conceived, not that terms were 
 to be offered to them, but that an immediate dissolution was 
 in fact intended : they must have been consciovis that their 
 own proceedings had been irregular and violent, and they 
 must reasonably have expected some violent measure in 
 return from the king and the court ; they therefore hurried
 
 188 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 away, through a severe storm of rain, to a tennis-court, 
 where with proper spirit and firmness, though in something 
 of a theatric manner, they bound themselves with a solemn 
 oath never to part until the constitution was completed : even 
 on this occasion, it must be confessed, by the nature of their 
 oath, plainly showing the unlimited extent of their views. 
 They seemed to proclaim that France had no constitution, 
 and that they were determined to create one, and to proceed 
 to lengths which had certainly not been in the contemplation 
 of the king when he called them together, nor of those whom 
 they represented. Still, as they were now at issue with the 
 court (whether by their own fault or not it was in vain to 
 inquire), and as all seemed lost if they ceased to exist, no 
 other expedient was left them but some resolution of this 
 kind; some vote or decree that should intimate that they 
 were superior to fear, and would not desert what had become 
 the cause of their country. M. Mounier, one of the most 
 virtuous men in the Assembly, was the proposer and framer 
 of the oath ; but it was his measure to prevent an adjourn- 
 ment to Paris and more violent proceedings. All these were 
 circumstances that very much indisposed them to hsten to 
 the king with any proper temper or moderation when he 
 addressed them, a few days after, at the royal sitting, and 
 brought forward his intended measure. 
 
 The next day, immediately after this day of the tennis- 
 court, was signalized by a most important event, the union of 
 a body of the clergy with the Tiers Etat. The nobility had 
 not yet given way. It does not appear very intelligible why 
 the clergy should have fixed upon this particular moment for 
 their junction, when the king was evidently at issue with the 
 Tiers Etat, and when the royal sitting was expected in two 
 days. It was probably from the feeling excited by the scene 
 in the tennis-court and a measure of sympathy. They were 
 received with fraternal embraces, and loaded with praises as a 
 band of patriots who had come in a moment of imminent 
 danger to save their country. 
 
 How far the Assembly afterwards remembered, with proper 
 gratitude, the service that was now rendered them by the 
 clergy, you will have occasion in due time to observe. 
 
 This union of the clergy naturally made the Tiers Etat
 
 IX. TWENTY-THIRD OF JUNE. 189 
 
 more confident that they should, ere long, be joined by the 
 nobility ; and this persuasion could not but tend to make them 
 less ready to receive the offers of the king, though it should 
 have made them more so. Again, besides the shutting up of 
 their hall, to which we have alluded, other marks of neglect 
 were shown to the Tiers Etat ; and on the day of the royal 
 sitting, they were kept waiting till the other two orders had 
 arranged themselves in their proper places — waiting in the 
 rain with little shelter, while they not only saw the osten- 
 tatious procession of the court, the embroidered heralds, and 
 an unusual display of the pompous carriages and gaudy 
 liveries of the noblesse, but military detachments patrolling 
 the streets of Versailles, and even posted around the very 
 hall of the Assembly, where they were at last admitted, appa- 
 rently to receive their orders. 
 
 All these unhappy circumstances are for ever to be deplored, 
 and those by whom they might or ought to have been pre- 
 vented (the king could have had nothing to say to them), are 
 never to be forgiven. For this measure of the sitting of the 
 23rd you will see fail, and, as I conceive, most fatally for 
 France. Men will be men. Allowance must be made for 
 the irritations to which the members of the Tiers Etat were 
 thus exposed. 
 
 In the course of this lecture, my humble censure, such as it 
 is, must fall on the members of the Constituent Assembly ; 
 but the student must never suppose me insensible to the merit 
 of all expressions of patriotism, if they be but sincere — of all 
 generous exertions in the cause of civil liberty, if they be but 
 well-meant — of all resistance to unworthy indignities and to 
 oppression, if but honest. It is my province, however, to 
 draw lessons from history — to make patriotism prudent, a 
 love of civil liberty wise, and a resistance to authority, of 
 whatever kind, careful, circumspect, and fiitted for the nature 
 of man and of society. 
 
 The royal sitting was held on the 23rd. The king ascended 
 the throne, and produced the plan of a new constitution or 
 system of government ; it was read to the assembled orders, 
 and was a piece of considerable length. You must consider 
 it with great attention, for it is a most important document in 
 the history of the Revolution.
 
 190 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 It was, on the whole, a great outline of a system of govern- 
 ment ; it was, in short, an offer from the king and court to 
 the patriots — the extent of the concessions that could be 
 admitted by the retainers of the old opinions to the patrons 
 of the new. 
 
 The question, therefore, is, what should the patriots have 
 done ? To me it appears that this was an offer with which 
 the patriots should have instantly closed. 
 
 Whatever objections, deficiencies, or imperfections were to 
 be found in the system proposed, there were none that might 
 not hereafter have been provided for. The main points were 
 secured, and the dictatorial style which was too often assumed 
 by the king might have been overlooked, as the ancient form 
 of expression, and pardoned, from a spirit of forbearance and 
 conciliation, for the sake of the peace of the community, and 
 the great advantages that were evidently on the point of 
 being for ever estabhshed. 
 
 It was observed, however, that M. Necker was not in his 
 place. The fact was, that the plan had been originally drawn 
 up by that minister, but having been altered, materially 
 altered, and made, in his judgment, less fitted for its purpose, 
 he had thought it improper to sanction it by his presence. 
 This was the most unfortunate circumstance of all. He was 
 very popular at the time, and no plan was likely to succeed 
 with the Assembly, or rather with the public, which he did 
 not countenance ; and it was a grievous mistake on the part 
 of the court not to have taken his advice in the perilous 
 situation in which they stood, at least not to have come to 
 some understanding on the conduct which he meant to 
 pursue. Better to have given up their measure, than left 
 him to remain in visible opposition to them. 
 
 It is probable that no system of government founded essen- 
 tially on old opinions would have satisfied the majority of the 
 Assembly, who were heated with the new opinions, and who 
 longed for some great experiment for what they believed the 
 happiness of France and of mankind. Still it must be remem- 
 bered that Mirabeau was in the Assembly. He never seems 
 to have meant to destroy the monarchy ; a limited monarchy 
 and a representative assembly seems to have been his notion 
 of civil liberty.
 
 IX. TWENTY-THIRD OF JUNE. 191 
 
 It is possible that great assistance might have been derived 
 from him, if Necker's original plan had been produced, and 
 if Mirabeau had been in time consulted and propitiated, as 
 he might have been. All the w^ise and moderate patriots of 
 the Revolution, Mounier and others, were then in the Assem- 
 bly, and still in possession of the public favour, and might 
 have been consulted and conciliated also ; but there was no 
 prudence in the court nor attention to their situation, and 
 every thing turned out unfortunately, as has always been the 
 case when the civil liberties of this great country were at 
 issue. In England it has often been the reverse. Setting out 
 from nearly the same beginnings, I have repeatedly had to 
 observe to you how different were the points at which the 
 constitutions of the two kingdoms from time to time arrived. 
 
 I consider this royal sitting of the 23rd of June as so im- 
 portant an event in the history of the French Revolution, that 
 I particularly wish to direct your attention to it, and must 
 exhibit it to you a little more distinctly. 
 
 M. Necker has dedicated his fourth section of his first 
 volume of the French Revolution to the consideration of it. 
 He explains the notions which he himself had formed of the 
 situation of the monarchy and the kingdom, and nothing can 
 appear more reasonable. 
 
 His object was to assert and support, as much as possible, 
 the rights and consequence of the monarch, which he saw 
 were visibly and really sinking fast ; he therefore drew up a 
 declaration for the king to produce at the royal sitting, and, 
 with the ministers that acted in concert with him and the 
 king in council, his success had been complete ; in fact, the 
 council was just on the point of breaking up, every thing set- 
 tled and agreed to, when an officer came to the king, and, 
 having whispered him, the king immediately got up, and de- 
 siring the ministers to await his return, left them sitting, and 
 went out. 
 
 " This can only be a message from the queen," said M. de 
 Montmorin to Necker; " the princes of the blood have got 
 her to interfere, and persuade the king to adjourn his de- 
 cision." 
 
 So it turned out. The king, after being absent half an hour, 
 returned, and, in spite of every consideration that could be
 
 192 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 suggested to him, adjourned the debate to the next council. 
 It was not held till two days after, and two princes of the 
 blood and four magistrates were added, new to the subject, 
 which had now to be discussed entirely afresh. 
 
 It was soon evident to Necker that his original measure 
 was not to be carried. He was desired to confer confidentially 
 with some of the new counsellors. He made what conces- 
 sions he could, as he thought, with effect ; but no : the whole 
 plan was in the event, as he thought, so materially changed, 
 as to be no longer one which he could intimate his approval 
 of by personally appearing at the sitting. He resisted to the 
 utmost, protested against the whole measure, and announced 
 his intention of resigning. His brother ministers, even M. de 
 Montmorin, seem to have agreed with him. 
 
 He does not give the original declaration as he had intended 
 it to stand ; the MS. was burnt during the subsequent terrors 
 of the Revolution ; and though he points out some of the 
 alterations that were made by the court, he might, on this 
 part of the subject, have entered more into detail, with some 
 advantage to his reader and to his own character, as he was 
 accused by the court of unreasonable pertinacity, of perversely, 
 of factiously absenting himself from the sitting, and as it was 
 his object to show that all such accusations were unfeeling 
 and unjust. But, fortunately, in the appendix to Bertrand de 
 Moleville's Memoir, the declaration and the articles are given. 
 
 B. de Moleville is very loud and decided in his censures of 
 the conduct of Necker, and you will find no difficulty in 
 judging of the plan as Necker originally proposed it, and as 
 it was subsequently altered and read by the king. I must 
 repeat to you, that this is quite a crisis in the history of the 
 Revolution. 
 
 You will see, I think, that it was a plan to which, even as 
 it was at last left to stand, the Tiers Etat should have ac- 
 ceded ; but that it was altered so essentially that Necker had 
 a right to say it was no longer his measure, and that he 
 would not be responsible for it as minister of the king. Still 
 you will see, I think, that it was a plan to which the patriots 
 should have acceded. It was essentially altered, for the very 
 first article in the declaration, as really delivered by the king, 
 annulled the decree of the Tiers Etat by which they voted
 
 IX. TWENTY-THIRD OF JUNE. 193 
 
 themselves the National Assembly, with all the resolutions 
 that followed, as illegal and unconstitutional. Necker had 
 thought it best (as it certainly was) to be silent, and to de- 
 clare nothing- of the kind ; and it was but too evident (to all 
 but the court) that the king had no longer the power to con- 
 trol the Assembly in any manner like this. 
 
 Necker observes, that the king, in his own proposed decla- 
 ration, had enjoined the tliree orders to unite in common w^hen 
 deliberating on affairs of a common interest; that in the 
 altered declaration, the first two orders only were addressed, 
 and only exhorted, not enjoined. And again, that at the end 
 of the declaration, the three orders very unwisely, and, as it 
 turned out, very fatally, were ordered to separate, and to repair 
 to their own halls to renew their sittings the next day. 
 
 Necker, in his plan, had made the king reserve to himself 
 the power of sanctioning any future scheme of the States 
 General with respect to their future constitution, declaring, 
 however, that the Assembly must be composed of at least 
 two chambers ; but in the altered plan, the king was made to 
 resei-ve to himself the adjustment of the future form that was 
 to be given to the States General. 
 
 The alterations were evidently all on the side of the crown, 
 all tending to make the whole measure less likely to succeed 
 with the Tiers Etat. And as Necker contends, and very 
 justly, that he had ventured upon certain articles in favour of 
 the crown (he mentions those which were sufficiently im- 
 portant and unpopular), the alterations must be considered as 
 on the whole very injudicious, and such as Necker could not 
 possibly admit. 
 
 Now all these are points which deserve the attention of the 
 student. Whatever shows the wisdom of Necker shows the 
 folly of the court, and becoming one of the reasons why the 
 Revolution did not succeed, becomes in fact one of the lessons 
 of history. 
 
 For the student must not forget, that it was a great cala- 
 mity to mankind that the Revolution did not succeed— that 
 the cause of liberty, the noblest of all causes, was thus on the 
 whole lost. 
 
 But it was lost, I conceive, because the Tiers Etat did not 
 on this occasion consent to close with the king, and proceed, 
 
 o
 
 194 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 on the terms and in the spirit of the declaration, to the settle- 
 ment of the kingdom. 
 
 The points of the subject are, then, first, that the court 
 most improperly and unpardonably altered the declaration, 
 and made it more irritating to the Tiers Etat than M. Necker 
 had thought wise ; more than this, that they had made it of 
 such a nature that he thought it could not succeed with them, 
 and that he, therefore, declined appearing as the author of it 
 on the day of the royal sitting. 
 
 2dly. That though this might be the case, still there were 
 left in the measure such common grounds for the king and 
 the Assembly to have stood upon, that the leaders of the 
 popular party should have received the measure in a spirit of 
 kindness and conciliation, and proceeded upon it immediately, 
 to the establishment of proper provisions for the present and 
 future happiness of their country, the danger to the state 
 being so very great on every other supposition. 
 
 This they did not. The most dreadful consequences ensued, 
 and were sure to ensue, fatal to the monarch, to France, to 
 the great experiment in the cause of liberty which they were 
 themselves attempting to make, and therefore very injurious 
 to the best interests of Europe and of mankind, perhaps for 
 ages. 
 
 This last point as well as the first you will consider. What- 
 ever caused or contributed to the event, is a lesson of his- 
 tory. 
 
 Observe what were some of the articles of the king's decla- 
 ration, as they were finally suffered to stand by the queen and 
 her advisers. I mention them as reasons which should have 
 induced the patriots to have acceded to the declaration. No 
 new tax was to be levied, no old one prolonged beyond the 
 time fixed by the laws, without the consent of the representa- 
 tives of the nation. Such as existed were only to remain in 
 force till the next meeting of the States. Consider how much 
 was contained in these concessions. When the right of the 
 purse was yielded up, and a new meeting of the States was 
 thus secured, what further concession was necessary ? Every 
 further improvement and security would gradually have been 
 obtained, as in England, by this power of the purse. 
 
 No new loans were to be made without the consent of the
 
 IX. TWENTY-THIRD OF JUNE. 195 
 
 o 
 
 States General, with a particular exception, reasonable in 
 itself, which was mentioned. 
 
 The public finances, the revenues, the expenses, were all to 
 be submitted to the examination of the States. Every con- 
 cession in matters of this nature was offered. 
 
 The clergy and the nobility were to be sanctioned by the 
 king in that renunciation of their pecuniary privileges which 
 they had already promised. The taille was to be abolished. 
 
 Every thing that could be said, according to the existing 
 notions of France and the real difficulty of the case, really 
 was said, on the subject of lettres de cachet. 
 
 A very reasonable declaration was made on the delicate 
 subject of the liberty of the press. 
 
 Provincial assemblies were promised — assemblies that, 
 apparently, would have created a respectable magistracy 
 throuohout the kinodom. 
 
 Upon a variety of other articles, some of great importance, 
 — the king's demesnes, for instance, the internal custom- 
 houses, the tax on salt, &c. &c. — nothing could be more rea- 
 sonable and benevolent than the articles of the declaration. 
 
 The corvees, the capitinaries, were to be abolished. 
 
 The value of these articles of the declaration will be seen 
 by the student, if he will look into one of the chapters in 
 Yovuig's Tour in France ; a work, several parts of which will 
 be found entertaining, instructive, and very much to our pur- 
 pose, the concluding chapters more especially. 
 
 The declaration, no doubt, laid down the sacred nature of 
 all property, tithes and feudal rents included. 
 
 The king also willed that the ancient distinction of the 
 three orders should be preserved entire, as essentially con- 
 nected with the constitution, and declared null the delibera- 
 tions taken by the Deputies of the Third Estate on the 1 7th of 
 the month, as well as all others that might have followed it, 
 as illegal and unconstitutional. 
 
 This was, you are aware, the decree of the Tiers Etat voting 
 themselves the National Assembly, assuming the right of 
 taxation, and in fact the sovereign power. Upon these acts 
 of usurpation Necker had thought it best to say nothing. He 
 seems rather to have hoped hereafter, by a proper adjustment 
 of the powers of the crown and the Assembly, to render them
 
 196 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 null and void in effect, avoiding, in the mean time, a subject 
 of certain controversy and irritation ; but this was a wisdom 
 which the court could not reach. 
 
 The fifteenth article was unhappily but of too much im- 
 portance. " A proper regard to good order," says the article, 
 " to decency, to the very freedom of the Assembly, all require 
 that his majesty should prohibit, as he expressly does, that 
 any persons, except the members of the three orders com- 
 posing the States General, should be present at their delibe- 
 rations, whether held in common or in their separate houses." 
 
 The student will have abundant occasion hereafter to re- 
 mark the influence of the galleries on the events of the Revo- 
 lution. It had been already shown but too strongly when this 
 article appeared. 
 
 The galleries, however, were the means which the Tiers 
 Etat made use of to awe and control the court, and most 
 unfortunately the popular leaders could neither do with them 
 nor without them. 
 
 This was certainly, during these more early periods of the 
 Revolution, the great difficulty. The difl[iculty was not pro- 
 perly disposed of by this article of the declaration, but it was 
 clear that the interference of the galleries was, at all events, 
 to be prevented, if not their presence. 
 
 The concluding article was, that having called together the 
 States to effect, in concert with him, the great objects of 
 public utility, he was obliged to say expressly that he reserved 
 to himself the army, the police, the military power, such as it 
 had always been exercised and enjoyed by the monarchs of 
 France. 
 
 He had before, in the first part of the declaration, observed, 
 that he wished to lay before the States the different benefits 
 " that he intended to concede to his people ; that he wished not 
 to circumscribe their zeal within any limits which he might 
 trace out ; that he should adopt with pleasure any views of 
 the public advantage which should be pointed out to him by 
 the States ; that he might say, he thought, without flattering 
 himself, that never had monarch done more for any nation, 
 but that no nation had ever better deserved it from a monarch, 
 than the French nation ; that he had no fear of saying this, 
 but that they who, by exaggerated pretensions, by unseason-
 
 IX. TWENTY-THIRD OF JUNE. 197 
 
 able difficulties, still retarded the effect of his benevolent in- 
 tentions, were no longer worthy the name of Frenchmen." 
 
 These were his expressions in the opening of his declara- 
 tion, and he ended the whole by saying,— 
 
 " You now see the result of my wishes and my views ; they 
 are agreeable to the lively anxiety I feel to effect the public 
 good ; and if, by a fatality which is the furthest from my ex- 
 pectations, you abandon me in so noble an enterprise, I will 
 myself accomplish the welfare of my people — I will consider 
 myself as their true representative ; and, knowing as I do the 
 instructions you have received, and the conformity that exists 
 between the wishes of the nation and my own intentions, I 
 shall derive every confidence that is the necessary result of 
 such a harmony between us, and I shall proceed forward to 
 effect an end so desirable with all the courage and firmness by 
 which I ought to be inspired. 
 
 " You will consider that none of your projects or dispositions 
 can have the force of law without my special approbation. It 
 is thus that I am the natural guarantee of your respective 
 rights. 
 
 " All orders of the state may repose upon my equitable 
 impartiality ; any distrust on your part would be to me the 
 highest injustice. It is I who have hitherto been doing every 
 thing for the welfare of my people, and it is very rare that 
 the only ambition of a sovereign has been, to obtain from his 
 subjects a disposition in them to receive his benefits." 
 
 It was in this sort of dignified, and on the whole not unbe- 
 coming, though somewhat impolitic manner, all circumstances 
 considered, that the monarch of the French people concluded 
 the declaration of his sentiments, views, and intentions, on 
 this great occasion. It would have been happy for them- 
 selves and for the world if the National Assembly had been in 
 a temper sufficiently composed, and of a wisdom sufficiently 
 prospective and steady, to have borne this representation of 
 the hitherto acknowledged rights and natural expectations of 
 their monarch ; if they had made due allowance for what they 
 might have supposed the prejudices of his education and the 
 temptations of his situation ; and if at all events they had 
 taken care to provide for the public peace, by proceeding on a 
 system of conciliation, without which conciliation they with
 
 198 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 their galleries, and the court with its army, were not hkely to 
 do much for the cause of liberty, in any rational sense of the 
 word, then or eventually. 
 
 But all such modest expectations, such moderate views, 
 that may even now, to many friends of the liberties of man- 
 kind, appear ill suited to the occasion, were considered, by 
 the leaders of the popular party at the time, as totally un- 
 worthy, or rather were never considered at all. 
 
 Some years after I had written what you have now heard, 
 I had the satisfaction of finding that the same view of the 
 case was taken, even at the time, by Mr. Jefferson, who was 
 then the American ambassador, and who says in his Memoirs, 
 that he remonstrated with the French patriots, and advised 
 them by all means to close with the proposals of the court. 
 
 The measure of the royal sitting totally failed : the king's 
 address was received with a cold and ominous silence; the 
 concessions not duly estimated ; the situation of the king 
 not considered ; the acknowledged rights of the sovereign 
 overlooked ; and the usual tone and language of all addresses 
 from the throne totally forgotten. Very different, indeed, are 
 the feelings and opinions with which we now read this part of 
 the history, from the feelings and opinions which then ani- 
 mated the great patriotic leaders, and indeed the more intel- 
 ligent men, not only of France but of Europe. On this last 
 point you may refer to the violent notice taken of this royal 
 sitting in the Vindicise Gallicse ; the author, the late Sir James 
 Mackintosh ; who then meant to be, what he has ever since 
 been, an enlightened upholder of the rights and happiness of 
 his fellow creatures. 
 
 To us who live at the present period, however sincerely we 
 may feel the love of civil liberty, the difficulty of procuring it 
 by violence and revolution is sufficiently apparent; the sort of 
 hope and confidence with which we speak on such subjects is 
 very different from what it was, on the breaking out of the 
 French Revolution. The value of all concessions from power, 
 of all steps to improvement, of all progressive advances to 
 amelioration, are, by this time, duly estimated (I speak of men 
 of sense and experience). We no longer talk of organizing 
 a community afresh, of regenerating a kingdom, of giving a 
 constitution to a great people, with all the ease and dispatch
 
 IX. TWENTY-THIRD OF JUNE. 199 
 
 which at the breaking out of the French Revolution was 
 thought possible. The wisest men and the best, at that 
 period were, no doubt, dazzled and made confident by the 
 delusive and irrelevant example of America; and nothing was 
 thought of but the original rights of the people, the imper- 
 fections of society as it then existed, and the dignity and the 
 happiness to which a people might be exalted ; exalted by no 
 more difficult process, it was understood, than their own 
 wishes. It was a favourite maxim, that a people had only to 
 will to be free and to be so. Doctrines like these may be so 
 modified and veiled as to be reducible to salutary practice; 
 they may be, in secret, the principle of vitality to the free 
 constitution of a great people ; but it was a little too much to 
 expect, that they should be the maxims which should prompt 
 the feelings and colour the language of a monarch of France, 
 when now only for the first time addressing the States Ge- 
 neral of his kinodom. 
 
 This is the unreasonableness, this is the intolerance for all 
 old opinions, that distinguished, at that time, the holders of 
 the new. Bristling with their logic, and confident in the 
 superiority of their reason, every thing, they thought, (for 
 they w^re generally young men,) might be safely intrusted 
 to the prevalence of reason among mankind ; and as this will 
 ever be the case on all such occasions, and with all such men 
 who are also on such occasions the most effective part of the 
 community, this becomes one of the lessons of history. 
 
 Again, and on the contrary side of the question, little less 
 intolerance of the new opinions, it must be observed, was felt 
 by the court and the holders of the old opinions ; either now 
 or at any subsequent period ; " all or nothing" was always 
 their maxim, and this is also the lesson of this history. But 
 on the present occasion, on the occasion of this royal sitting, 
 it should be considered, that concessions many and important 
 had been made ; they afforded a sufficient ground on which 
 to have proceeded to the settlement of the kingdom, and the 
 main blame must rest with the Tiers Etat, after deducting 
 the blame that rests with the court — for great blame certainly 
 does rest with the court ; and out of common justice to the 
 leaders of the Constituent Assembly it must be remembered : 
 on occasions of this kind, imprudence is fault.
 
 200 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 You must observe then, that the concessions made by the 
 king, considered with reference to the state of the government 
 de facto for some centuries past, were, no doubt, very great, 
 and as such, should have been felt and acknowledged and acted 
 upon ; but whether they were so, with reference to the state of 
 opinion and the public expectations at the time, is more 
 doubtful. The royal prerogative was now so injured in general 
 estimation, and the many experiments made with a view of avoid- 
 ing the present necessity had been so unsuccessful, and had so 
 damaged the government, that it was hardly considered to be in 
 a situation to propose terms, still less to determine the extent of 
 the concessions to be made. There was no longer a disposition 
 to accept a constitution as a boon. The popular writers all 
 agree in representing this measure as one of the most doubt- 
 ful expediency; and the circumstances by which it was 
 attended, as well as the declaration of the king respecting the 
 voting of the orders separately, and the rights of the privileged 
 orders, completed its unpopularity. Until this sitting of the 
 23rd of June, Mirabeau seems to have hesitated, and to have 
 kept his eye upon the court. He had been against the mea- 
 sure of the Tiers Etat constituting itself a National Assembly, 
 but from the moment of the sitting of the 23rd, from the 
 moment that he saw the folly of the court, he seems to have 
 thought there was no chance for them, and threw himself 
 headlong into popular measures. I apprehend that Mounier 
 and other moderate men felt their influence decline from this 
 period, and that a most unfortunate weight was thus thrown 
 into the scale of the violent party, headed by Sieyes, Chape- 
 lier. Target, and others. Unless Necker could have obtained 
 the concurrence of the moderate men, the measure of a royal 
 sitting should never have been resorted to. And again, who 
 could conceive it possible, that the king should have been 
 advised by any one, or should have himself consented to come 
 down to an Assembly, already exasperated and strong in 
 popular opinion, with a scheme that had not been discussed 
 with some of the principal leaders among them ? Who could 
 dream at that time of keeping the three orders separate, 
 merely by a royal direction ; the clergy in fact gone over, 
 and the noblesse divided ? What can we say of a king who 
 could turn away from Necker, the only person near him
 
 IX. TWENTY-THIRD OF JUNE. 201 
 
 capable of forming an estimate of all the circumstances by 
 which he was surrounded, and who could even suffer the 
 violent people of his court so to alter the minister's measure, 
 that the minister could not even appear in his place lest he 
 should seem to approve it ? Surely it must be allowed, that a 
 king and a government so unmindful of the temper and cir- 
 cumstances of the time, and of all the plain dictates of the 
 most obvious common sense that belonged to the case, could 
 not possibly avoid their ruin, and by many will be thought 
 even to have deserved it. But it is ever thus : a court and its 
 more immediate supporters can never see either wisdom or 
 virtue in the feelings and opinions of moderate men, and a 
 king but too naturally listens to those who echo his own 
 sentiments. Such, however, is not the lesson of this Revo- 
 lution. 
 
 I turn with pain to mention to you in a few words the 
 scene that immediately followed the delivery of the king's 
 declaration. The preparatory circumstances of this royal 
 sitting had been such, that the popular leaders and the public 
 had been induced to think that a dissolution of the National 
 Assembly by force was intended by the court. The king had 
 himself intimated in his speech, that if they would not concur 
 with him in his wishes and intentions, he would himself 
 attempt to effect the happiness of France alone. 
 
 This seemed, no doubt, a threat of dissolution ; and troops 
 and artillery had been coming up in a very unusual and there- 
 fore alarming manner ; four thousand guards were under arms 
 all the day of the session, and seven or eight regiments were 
 assembled in the neighbourhood of Versailles. 
 
 The speech of the king had been heard with gloomy silence, 
 and it ended, most unfortunately, with ordering the three 
 orders to separate, and to repair to their appropriate cham- 
 bers ; there, the next day, to resume their sittings. But this 
 was apparently to carry into practice that part (the most of- 
 fensive) of the declaration of the king, by which he had just 
 annulled the decree of the Tiers Etat, constituting themselves 
 the National Assembly. 
 
 It was a veiy unskilful conclusion of the speech, unless the 
 strongest measures were, if necessary, resolved upon. 
 
 The king left the hall ; almost all the bishops, some priests,
 
 202 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 and the greater part of the nobility, retired in obedience to his 
 commands. 
 
 The rest of the deputies remained in their places, appa- 
 rently at a loss what part to take. According to Bertrand de 
 Moleville, all might have been well, though this is totally 
 improbable, and the means of conciliation announced by his 
 majesty accepted, when Mirabeau arose and in an instant 
 changed the disposition of the Assembly by a speech to which 
 I will just allude for a moment, where the new opinions, as 
 usual, appear, and more particularly the leading notion which 
 so inflamed all France and Europe at the time, " that the 
 states were to make immediately a new constitution for 
 France." " I confess," said Mirabeau, '' that what you have 
 just heard might be for the welfare of the country, if the gifts 
 of despotism were not always dangerous. Why this dictato- 
 rial language, this train of arms, this violation of the Na- 
 tional Temple, to command you to be happy ? Who gives you 
 the command ? Your vicegerent. Who makes imperious laws 
 for you ? Your vicegerent .' Your vicegerent ! he who should 
 receive them from you ; from us, gentlemen, who are invested 
 with a political and inviolable supremacy ; from us, to whom 
 alone twenty-five millions of men are looking for certain hap- 
 piness, as it must be granted, given, and received by all. But 
 the freedom of your debates is fettered; a military force 
 encircles the States. Where are the enemies of the nation ? 
 Is Catiline at our gates ? I insist that, arming yourselves with 
 your dignity and legislative authority, you recollect the reli- 
 gious force of your oath, an oath that does not suffer you to 
 separate until you have estabhshed the constitution." 
 
 This harangue is represented by Bertrand de Moleville as 
 having had great eifect on the deputies ; they were warmed 
 and irritated as if the king had really dissolved the Assembly. 
 He certainly had endeavoured to reduce the National Assem- 
 bly to its former situation and office, as a part only of a 
 whole, as the Tiers Etat only, of the States General, but not 
 more. The Assembly, however, did not retire ; the master of 
 the ceremonies, therefore, advanced into the middle of the 
 hall, and observed to them, " that they had heard the king's 
 intentions." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Mirabeau, " we have heard the intentions
 
 IX. TWENTY-THIRD OF JUNE. 203 
 
 of the king ; and you who cannot be his agent at the States 
 General, you who have here neither seat, nor voice, nor a 
 right to speak, are not the person to remind us of his speech. 
 Go tell your master that we are here by the power of the 
 people, and that nothing but the power of the bayonet shall 
 expel us." 
 
 " Yes, yes," said a great number of the deputies, " nothing 
 but force can drive us hence, the Assembly are determined." 
 
 The Marquis de Breze appeared to refer to the president, 
 who told him that " the Assembly resolved yesterday that 
 they would continue to sit after the royal session, and that he 
 could make no change in that resolution — that it must be 
 discussed by the Assembly." 
 
 " Am I to carry that answer to the king?" said the mar- 
 quis. " Yes, sir," replied the president. The marquis de- 
 parted. 
 
 The Assembly, therefore, and the king, were now in a state 
 of direct opposition. 
 
 The king had proposed a limited and modified monarchy 
 built upon the ancient system. 
 
 The Assembly had turned away from his declaration and 
 resisted his commands ; they had renewed their name of 
 National Assembly, and they had clearly shown that they 
 meant to persist in the exercise of the sovereignty they had 
 assumed : their support too, it was clear, they meant to be the 
 public ; under this term by no means excluding the populace, 
 to whom their galleries were now thrown open.
 
 204 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 FOURTEENTH OF JULY. THE BASTILE. 
 
 IT was now but too clearly shown, that no composition 
 could be made between the old opinions and the new. 
 
 The Tiers Etat had not even entertained the question ; 
 they had not even received or noticed the proposals of the 
 king : no doubt he had resisted their assumption of power, 
 and in a manner most unskilful ; but they had made no re- 
 presentation ; they had offered no address nor remonstrance 
 complaining of any measure or any conduct of his to which 
 they objected ; they had shown no disposition to come to 
 any terms. The country, it seems, was to be regenerated ; 
 the views he had taken were inconsistent with theirs ; his ideas 
 of the prosperity of France not the same ; nor his notions of 
 the claims of the monarch or the duties of the subject. 
 
 The king and the court, more especially the king, were 
 now, therefore, thrown into a most perplexing situation ; to 
 do nothing, was to surrender themselves to the Assembly; 
 and yet to take any effective measure that led not to violence 
 and bloodshed, was, to all appearance, impossible. The 
 humanity of the king shrunk from every expedient that was 
 to be supported by military execution ; while to the favourers 
 of the old opinions, no option but the dissolution of the 
 Assembly appeared to remain. 
 
 This seems to have been thought by Bertrand de Moleville 
 the only measure left. He declares it to be so in his Annals, 
 and describes the manner in which he would have had it 
 carried into effect. 
 
 Properly softened down, and more accommodated to the 
 difficult circumstances of the case than Moleville thought 
 necessary, it was, perhaps, one of the expedients, however 
 doubtful, which the king might now have adopted.
 
 X. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 205 
 
 For instance, he might have dissolved the existing States 
 General, calling, at the same time, another meeting of them ; 
 remarking upon the assumption of the sovereign power by 
 the present Assembly, and publishing the declarations he had 
 made, and the scheme of government he had proposed on the 
 sitting of the 23rd ; promising to adhere to it, and to listen to 
 any further proposals for the benefit of the community. 
 
 After some manner of this kind he might have justified his 
 measure, and called upon all good Frenchmen to come for- 
 ward in his support. 
 
 No doubt the difficulty was, the opposition that would have 
 been made by the more violent leaders of the Assembly and 
 their partisans out of doors ; and the consideration, that new 
 Assemblies, returned on occasions like these, are in general 
 even more refractory than those dissolved. 
 
 Still it seems to have been one of the measures left. The 
 provinces were not as yet raised to that state of irritation and 
 enthusiasm, in which were, at this period, Versailles and the 
 metropolis. The clergy and the nobility had not as yet stood 
 in any direct opposition to the crown, and they, and all men 
 capable of sober thinking, at the time, might have seen, I am 
 far from saying that they really did see, but they might have 
 seen, on comparing the decrees of the Tiers Etat with the 
 declarations of the king, that the monarchy was in the 
 greatest danger, and that the peace of the kingdom was not 
 likely to be long maintained, unless the parties at issue were 
 brought to some immediate agreement ; and, on the whole, 
 unless the crown was supported. 
 
 Thus far, at least, the conclusions of eveiy thinking man 
 might have been expected, might have been fairly hoped by 
 the king and his advisers, to have gone along with the court ; 
 and the experiment properly introduced, explained, and 
 limited, would, on the whole, have been a reasonable one, at 
 least a possible one. 
 
 What was attempted by the king, however, though in a 
 spirit of conciliation, was an experiment of a directly opposite 
 nature ; the only other alternative. For instance, a large 
 body of the clergy, one hundred and forty-nine (making up 
 now a majority of the whole), and two or three of the nobility, 
 had joined the Tiers Etat in the Church of St. Louis, even 
 before the sitting of the 23rd.
 
 206 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 But the remaining body of the clergy were pretty equally 
 divided, though on the 24th, half even of the remainder joined 
 the Assembly ; the nobility were more firm and attached to 
 what they thought the interests of their order and the safety 
 of the monarchy; forty-four members, indeed, out of three 
 hundred, the Duke of Orleans at their head (but some of 
 them men of the first estimation for talents and virtue), 
 joined on the 25th, but the main body of the nobility ap- 
 peared inflexible. 
 
 What, however, they did, was to wait upon the king, and 
 after expressing themselves in the most dutiful manner to him 
 in every respect, particularly with regard to his late decla- 
 ration on the 23rd, to pray him to convene the nobility of the 
 bailiwicks, that they might receive fresh instructions from 
 their constituents. 
 
 The king, therefore, now interfered for the sake of the 
 peace of the community. He desired the Duke of Luxem- 
 bourg to tell the nobility, that he entreated them to join the 
 other two orders ; if that was not enough, that he commanded 
 them to do it, as their king ; that it was his will. 
 
 Afterwards he wrote letters to his " loyal nobility," and to 
 " his faithful clergy," urging them to join the other orders 
 without delay, to accelerate the accomplishment of his pa- 
 ternal intentions, making their compliance a sort of personal 
 favour. 
 
 But still the order of the nobility was divided ; more than 
 eighty of them thought the union of the three orders would 
 be fatal to the king and to the state, and they seem only at 
 last to have acquiesced from an apprehension that the life of 
 the king might be endangered by their longer resistance. 
 
 Thus was, at length, effected the complete triumph of the 
 patriotic leaders. 
 
 The nobility and clergy were all merged in the Tiers Etat ; 
 the title of National Assembly, the assumption of sovereign 
 power, had been resisted by the king and the privileged 
 orders in vain ; and if, indeed, it was necessary for the 
 future prosperity and the civil and religious liberties of 
 France, that the new opinions should entirely prevail, and 
 some great experiment be made to exemplify and estabhsh 
 them, then must the more distinguished members of the
 
 X. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 207 
 
 Tiers Etat be considered as having deserved well of their 
 country, and of mankind, by the boldness, the perseverance, 
 and the fortitude with which they had obtained their victory. 
 But it is only, I conceive, on this supposition, and whether 
 this supposition ought or ought not to be admitted, this neces- 
 sity of the entire establishment of the new ojnnions to the 
 exclusion of the old, seems to be one of the leading questions 
 on which the student will be called to exercise his judgment, 
 and to give or withhold his praise accordingly. My own 
 opinion, such as it is, that no such necessity existed, you have 
 already received. 
 
 But, with whatever hesitation, the student may or may not 
 form his own, he can surely have no difficulty in determining 
 with regard to another point, that the conduct of the court 
 during all this period was most unskilful, and entirely to be 
 lamented. 
 
 In times of difficulty, the governing powers are always, as 
 on this occasion, too late with their concessions. 
 
 The wishes and intentions of the king in favour of the 
 people, as seen in the declaration of the 23rd of June, should 
 have been produced long before ; before the Tiers Etat had 
 committed themselves, before they had voted themselves the 
 National Assembly, taken the oath in the Tennis Court, and 
 even before they had raised the question of voting by orders 
 or by head. 
 
 Neither the king nor his secret advisers can be excused for 
 not showing that timely wasdom, or at least that reasonable 
 decision, which provides for events, and which may, therefore, 
 be said, to a certain degree, to control them; above all, 
 which makes concessions at the proper moment, when they 
 can be offered with dignity and received with gratitude. 
 
 We may now, I think, consider ourselves as having arrived 
 at a very particular epoch in the histoiy of this Revolution. 
 We may now, I think, pause, and retrace, in some general 
 manner, the scenes through which we have passed. Such 
 occasional reviews, I conceive, to be useful; and a work 
 occurs to me, which will enable us to do this, and even more ; 
 it is the Journal of Arthur Young. He travelled over France 
 as a speculative farmer, in the important years of 1787 and 
 1789; but being very active and intelligent, he could not fail
 
 208 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 to be struck with the pohtical situation of this great king- 
 dom. 
 
 The great instruction of history, as I have often observed to 
 you, hes in the comparison of existing notions with subse- 
 quent events; this instruction we may here derive, while, at 
 the same time, we may revive the memory of the leading facts 
 of the history, and the conclusions to which they gave rise. 
 
 I shall produce for you then some extracts from this book, 
 and you may compare what occurred to him at the moment, 
 with the events that afterwards took place; and this is to be 
 your instruction. 
 
 Some years afterwards Arthur Young became what was 
 termed a great alarmist ; he did not succeed in his farming, 
 was not affluent, and was at last considered as no very great 
 friend to liberty. 
 
 I know not with what reason : it is sufficient for me to say, 
 that he certainly was, when he wrote the work to which I 
 shall now refer. Indeed, there is one of his notes, which 
 shows him to have been very violent and revolutionary in the 
 views which he sometimes took, at least at this period, on 
 political subjects. He was, indeed, a critic, and a sort of 
 discerner of mistakes and faults by profession. The note I 
 allude to would not be unfitted for one of our demao-os'ues 
 
 11- oof 
 
 addressnig from a stage the populace of one of our manu- 
 facturing towns in some unhappy season of their distress ; it 
 is in page 556 of his first quarto vol. of his Tour to France. 
 He is insisting, that experiment is as necessary a means of 
 knowledge in relation to government, as in agriculture or in 
 any other branch of natural philosophy ; and he concludes 
 thus : — " The British government has been experimented, 
 with what result ? Let a debt of two hundred and forty mil- 
 lions, let severe wars, let Bengal and Gibraltar, let thirty 
 millions sterling of national burdens, taxes, rates, tithes, and 
 monopolies, let these answer." 
 
 To refer, therefore, to his work, as coming from one suffi- 
 ciently inclined to popular feelings at the time he wrote, in 
 the year 1787, two years before the Revolution. He speaks 
 thus : — 
 
 " One opinion pervaded the whole company, that they are 
 on the eve of some great revolution in the government ; that
 
 X. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 209 
 
 every thing- points to it : tlie confusion in the finances great ; 
 with a deficit impossible to provide for without the States 
 General of the kingdom, yet no ideas formed of what would 
 be the consequence of their meeting: no minister existing, or 
 to be looked to, in or out of power, with such decisive talents 
 as to promise any other remedy, than palliative ones : a prince 
 on the throne, with excellent dispositions, but without the 
 resources of a mind that could govern in such a moment; 
 without ministers ; a court buried in pleasure and dissipation, 
 and adding to the distress, instead of endeavouring to be 
 placed in a more independent situation: a great ferment 
 amongst all ranks of men, who are eager for some change, 
 without knowing what to look to, or to hope for : and a strong- 
 leaven of liberty, increasing- every hour since the American 
 revolution ; these, altogether, form a combination of circum- 
 stances, that promise, ere long, to ferment into motion, if 
 some master hand, of very superior talents, and inflexible 
 courage, is not found at the helm to guide events, instead of 
 being driven by them. It is very remarkable, that such con- 
 versation never occurs, but a bankruptcy is a topic : the 
 curious question on which is, would a hankruptcy occasion a 
 civil war, and a total overthrow of the government? The 
 answers that I have received to this question, appear to be 
 just : such a measure, conducted by a man of abilities, vigour, 
 and firmness, would certainly not occasion either one or the 
 other. But the same measure, attempted by a man of a different 
 character, might possibly do both. All agree, that the states 
 of the kingdom cannot assemble without more liberty being 
 the consequence ; but I meet with so few men that have any 
 just ideas of freedom, that I question much the species of this 
 new liberty that is to arise. They know not how to value the 
 privileges of the people : as to the nobility and the clergy, if 
 a revolution added any thing to their scale, I think it would 
 do more mischief than o;ood." 
 
 This was in 1787. You will now observe in what manner 
 Arthur Young writes from Paris, on June 9th, 1789 ; a most 
 critical month : the royal sitting, you may remember, was on 
 the 23rd. 
 
 " The business going forward at present in the pamphlet 
 shops of Paris is incredible. I went to the Palais Royal to 
 
 p
 
 210 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 see what new things were pubhshed, and to procure a cata- 
 logue of all. Every hour produces something new. Thirteen 
 came out to-day, sixteen yesterday, and ninety-two last week. 
 We think sometimes that Debrett's or Stockdale's shops in 
 London are crowded, but they are mere deserts, compared to 
 Desein's, and some others here, in which one can scarcely 
 squeeze from the door to the counter. The price of printing 
 two years ago was from 27 liv. to 30 liv. per sheet, but now it 
 is from 60 liv. to 80 liv. This spirit of reading political tracts, 
 they say, spreads into the provinces, so that all the presses of 
 France are equally employed. Nineteen-twentieths of these 
 productions are in favour of liberty, and commonly violent 
 against the clergy and nobihty; I have to-day bespoken 
 many of this description, that have reputation ; but inquiring 
 for such as had appeared on the other side of the question, to 
 my astonishment I find there are but two or three that have 
 merit enough to be known. Is it not wonderful, that while 
 the press teems with the most levelling and even seditious 
 principles, that if put in execution would overturn the monar- 
 chy, nothing in reply appears, and not the least step is taken 
 by the court to restrain this extreme licentiousness of publica- 
 tion. It is easy to conceive the spirit that must thus be 
 raised among the people. But the coffee-houses in the Palais 
 Royal present yet more singular and astonishing spectacles ; 
 they are not only crowded within, but other expectant crowds 
 are at the doors and windows, listening a gorge deployee to 
 certain orators, who from chairs or tables harangue each his 
 little audience : the eagerness with which they are heard, and 
 the thunder of applause they receive for every sentiment of 
 more than common hardiness or violence against the present 
 government, cannot easily be imagined. I am all amazement 
 at the ministry permitting such nests and hotbeds of sedition 
 and revolt, which disseminate amongst the people, every hour, 
 principles that by and by must be opposed with vigour, and 
 therefore it seems little short of madness to allow the propa- 
 gation at present." 
 
 This is but a description, as you will see, drawn from the 
 life, of what is meant by the progress of new opinions ; of the 
 public opinion having taken a turn against the government of 
 the country ; of the current setting strong and furiously : a
 
 X. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 211 
 
 very fit subject of consternation in any unhappy country to 
 all who mean well. 
 
 Again, on June 11th, he writes thus: — " In these most 
 interesting discussions, I find a general ignorance of the 
 principles of gpvernment ; a strange and unaccountable ap- 
 peal, on one side, to ideal and visionary rights of nature ; and, 
 on the other, no settled plan that shall give security to the 
 people for being in future in a much better situation than 
 hitherto ; a security absolutely necessary. But the nobility, 
 with the principles of great lords, that I converse with, are 
 most disgustingly tenacious of all old rights, however hard 
 they may bear on the people ; they will not hear of giving 
 way in the least to the spirit of liberty, beyond the point of 
 paying equal land-taxes ; which they hold to be all that can 
 with reason be demanded. The popular party, on the other 
 hand, seem to consider all liberty as depending on the privi- 
 leged classes being lost and outvoted in the order of the 
 commons, at least for making the new constitution ; and when I 
 urge the great probability, that should they once unite, there 
 will remain no power of ever separating them ; and that in 
 such case, they will have a very questionable constitution, 
 perhaps a very bad one; I am always told, that the first 
 object must be for the people to get the power of doing good ; 
 and that it is no argument against such a conduct to urge 
 that an ill use may be made of it. But among such men, 
 the common idea is, that any thing tending towards a sepa- 
 rate order, like our house of lords, is absolutely inconsistent 
 with liberty; all which seems perfectly wild and unfounded." 
 
 Here we have the picture so constantly presented to us. 
 
 " On one side," he says, " a strange and unaccountable 
 appeal to ideas and visionary rights of nature." 
 
 But this will ever be the case in disorderly times, but more 
 particularly when on the other side, as he says, " the privi- 
 leoed orders are most disgustingly tenacious of all old rights, 
 however hard they may bear on the people." 
 
 " They will not hear," he says, " of giving way to the spirit 
 of hberty, beyond the point of paying equal land-taxes." 
 
 It was only very late, and when too late, that they reached 
 even this point ; and they who have power never are in time 
 with their concessions.
 
 212 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 A few days after, on the 13th of June, it seems to have been 
 discovered by the public, that all w^as not harmony in the 
 cabinet. Youno- vv^rites thus : — 
 
 " All this day I hear nothing but anxiety of expectation for 
 what the crisis in the States will produce. The embarrass- 
 ment of the moment is extreme. Every one agrees that there 
 is no ministry : the queen is closely connecting herself with 
 the party of the princes, with the Count d'Artois at their 
 head; who are all so adverse to M. Necker that every thing 
 is in confusion : but the king, who is personally the honestest 
 man in the world, has but one wish, which is to do right; 
 yet, being without those decisive parts that enable a man to 
 foresee difficulties and to avoid them, finds himself in a 
 moment of such extreme perplexity, that he knows not what 
 council to take refuge in." 
 
 This was on June 13th ; ten days after, on the 23rd, the 
 king came forward with his seance royale ; with his views of 
 the state of the country, and the proper remedies of it ; or 
 rather with Necker's, but so unfortunately modified, that, as 
 you may remember, Necker would not sanction them by his 
 appearance. Before, however, this meeting of the 23rd, 
 Arthur Young makes a few observations on the hall of the 
 Assembly, the manner of debating, &c. ; important points. 
 
 " We went immediately," he says, " to the hall of the 
 States to secure good seats in the gallery ; we found some 
 deputies already there, and a pretty numerous audience 
 collected. The room is too large ; none but Stentorian lungs, 
 or the finest, clearest voices can be heard (and Young might 
 have added, none but violent men). However, the very size 
 of the apartment, which admits two thousand people, gave a 
 dignity to the scene. It was indeed an interesting one. The 
 spectacle of the representatives of twenty-five millions of 
 people, just merging from the evils of two hundred years of 
 arbitrary power, and rising to the blessings of a freer consti- 
 tution, assembled with open doors under the eye of the public, 
 was framed to call into animated feelings every latent spark, 
 every emotion of a liberal bosom. To banish whatever ideas 
 might intrude of their being a people too often hostile to my 
 own country, and to dwell with pleasure on the glorious idea 
 of happiness to a great nation — of felicity to millions yet un- 
 born."
 
 X. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 213 
 
 Again, on June 15th :—" In regard to their general method 
 of proceeding, there are two circumstances in which they are 
 very deficient : the spectators in the galleries are allowed to 
 interfere in the debates by clapping their hands, and other 
 noisy expressions of approbation : this is grossly indecent ; it 
 is also dangerous ; for, if they are permitted to express appro- 
 bation, they are, by parity of reason, allowed expressions of 
 dissent ; and they may hiss as well as clap ; which, it is said, 
 they have sometimes done: this would be, to overrule the 
 debate, and influence the deliberations. Another circum- 
 stance is, the want of order among themselves ; more than 
 once to-day there were a hundred members on their legs at a 
 time, and M. Bailly absolutely without power to keep order." 
 
 The importance of these remarks was in the event but too 
 unhappily shown. 
 
 At last he alludes to the sitting of the 23rd of June, which 
 I have just represented to you as one of the important turns 
 of the whole history ; nor do I see that his opinion, when on 
 the spot and at the time, is different from my own, writing 
 thirty years afterwards, with all the intervening instruction of 
 events. 
 
 He says, " The important day is over : in the morning 
 Versailles seemed filled with troops : the streets, about ten 
 o'clock, were lined with the French guards, and some Swiss 
 regiments, &c. : the hall of the States was surrounded, and 
 sentinels fixed in all the passages, and at the doors ; and none 
 but deputies admitted. This mihtary preparation was ill 
 judged, for it seemed admitting the impropriety and unpopu- 
 larity of the intended measure, and the expectation, perhaps 
 fear, of popular commotions. They pronounced, before the 
 king left the chateau, that his plan was adverse to the people, 
 from the military parade with which it was ushered in. The 
 contrary, however, proved to be the fact ; the propositions are 
 known to all the world : the plan was a good one ; much was 
 granted to the people in great and essential points ; and as it 
 was granted before they had provided for those public neces- 
 sities of finance, which occasioned the States being called 
 together, and consequently left them at full power, in future, 
 to procure for the people all that opportunity might present, 
 they apparently ought to accept them, provided some secu-
 
 214 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 rity is given for the future meetings of the States, without 
 which all the rest would be insecure ; but as a little nego- 
 tiation may easily secure this, I apprehend the deputies will 
 accept them conditionally: the use of soldiers, and some 
 imprudences in the manner of forcing the king's system, 
 relative to the interior constitution, and assembling of the 
 deputies, as well as the ill blood which had time to brood for 
 three days past in their minds, prevented the commons from 
 receiving the king with any expressions of applause ; the 
 clergy, and some of the nobility, cried Vive le Roi ! but treble 
 the number of mouths being silent look off all effect." 
 
 " The plan, you see," Arthur Young says, " was a good 
 one ; much was granted to the people in great and essential 
 points." 
 
 " I apprehend," he says, " the deputies will accept them 
 conditionally." 
 
 Arthur Young seems here to have expected too much from 
 the reasonableness of the Assembly. I venture to say reason- 
 ableness, for I have always considered the conduct of the 
 great leaders of the Assembly, on that occasion, for they cer- 
 tainly meant well, as exhibiting the most fatal mistake which 
 they committed. 
 
 The next day, the 24th, he writes thus :— " The ferment at 
 Paris is beyond conception; ten thousand people have been 
 all this day in the Palais Royal ; a full detail of yesterday's 
 proceedings was brought this morning, and read by many 
 apparent readers of little parties, with comments, to the 
 people. To my surprise, the king's propositions are received 
 with universal disgust. He said nothing explicit on the peri- 
 odical meeting of the States ; he declared all the old feudal 
 rights to be retained as property. These, and the change in 
 the balance of representation in the Provincial Assemblies, 
 are the articles that give the greatest offence. But, instead of 
 looking to, or hoping for further concessions on these points, 
 in order to make them more consonant to the general wishes, 
 the people seem, with a sort of phrensy, to reject all idea of 
 compromise, and to insist on the necessity of the orders 
 uniting, that full power may consequently reside in the com- 
 mons, to effect what they call the regeneration of the king- 
 dom ; a favourite term, to which they affix no precise idea.
 
 X. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 215 
 
 but add the indefinite explanation of the general reform of all 
 abuses. They are also full of suspicions at M. Necker's 
 offering to resign, to which circumstance they seem to look 
 more than to much more essential points. It is plain to me, 
 from many conversations and harangues I have been witness 
 to, that the constant meetings at the Palais Royal, which are 
 carried to a degfee of licentiousness and fuiy of liberty, that 
 is scarcely credible, united with the innumerable inflamma- 
 tory publications that have been hourly appearing since the 
 assembly of the States, have so heated the people's expecta- 
 tions, and given them the idea of such total changes, that 
 nothing the king or court could do, would now satisfy them." 
 
 Again, 24th June : — " If, on the side of the people it is 
 urged; that the vices of the old government make a new sys- 
 tem necessary, and that it can only be by the firmest mea- 
 sures that the people can be put in possession of the blessings 
 of a free government ; it is to be replied, on the other hand, 
 that the personal character of the king is a just foundation 
 for relying, that no measures of actual violence can be seri- 
 ously feared : that the state of the finances, under any pos- 
 sible regimen, whether of faith or bankruptcy, must secure 
 their existence, at least for time sufficient to secure by nego- 
 tiation, what may be hazarded by violence : that by driving 
 things to extremities, they (the patriots) risk an union between 
 all the other orders of the state, with the parliaments, army, 
 and a great body even of the people, who must disapprove of 
 all extremities ; and when to this is added the possibility of 
 involving the kingdom in a civil war, now so familiarly talked 
 of, that it is upon the lips of all the world, we must confess, that 
 the commons, if they steadily refuse what is now held out to 
 them, put immense and certain benefits to the chance of for- 
 tune, to that hazard which may make posterity curse instead 
 of bless their memories as real patriots, who had nothing in 
 view but the happiness of their countiy." This appears to 
 me a remarkable paragraph. 
 
 Two days after, on the 26th, he writes thus : — " Every hour 
 that passes seems to give the people fresh spirit : the meetings 
 at the Palais Royal are more numerous, more violent, and 
 more assured ; and in the Assembly of Electors, chosen for 
 the purpose of sending a deputation to the National Assem-
 
 216 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 bly, the language that was talked, by all ranks of people, 
 was nothing less than a revolution in the government, and the 
 establishment of a free constitution : what they mean by a 
 free constitution is easily understood — a republic; for the 
 doctrine of the times runs every day more and more to that 
 point ; yet they profess that the kingdom ought to be a mo- 
 narchy too, or, at least, that there ought to be a king. In 
 the streets one is stunned by the hawkers of seditious pamph- 
 lets, and descriptions of pretended events, that all tend to 
 keep the people equally ignorant and alarmed. The supine- 
 ness, and even stupidity of the court, is without example : 
 the moment demands the greatest decision; and yesterday, 
 while it was actually a question whether he should be a doge 
 of Venice or a king of France, the king went a-hunting !" 
 
 Such were the views and observations that occurred to 
 Arthur Young, while only a visiter in the country, and before 
 the unfortunate events that afterwards occurred. They appear 
 to me very creditable to his sagacity and good sense, and 
 very creditable to the country he had left, and the constitution 
 of England under which he had lived — a constitution that 
 had evidently taught him the value of civil liberty, but taught 
 him also the dangers to which it is exposed, and the mistakes 
 that may be committed by its friends and assertors. 
 
 We will now return to the history. The royal sitting of the 
 23d has been held ; it has failed : the Assembly and the court 
 are entirely at issue ; and the king, turning away apparently 
 from all counsels of violence, adopts other resolutions, and 
 personally interferes in procuring the immediate union of the 
 two privileged orders with the Tiers Etat in one great As- 
 sembly. 
 
 The student might expect, therefore, that nothing would 
 now remain for him to witness, but the labours of this Na- 
 tional Assembly for the regeneration of France ; that no 
 further interruption would be given by the king and court to 
 their wishes or their plans ; that a civil war had been happily 
 avoided by the concessions of the king ; and that some experi- 
 ment of the new opinions, some union and mixture of the 
 claims of the monarch with those of the people, would now 
 be accomplished. 
 
 " How honourable," said Mirabeau, "will it be for France,
 
 X. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 217 
 
 that this great Revolution has cost humanity neither offences 
 nor crimes." After referring to England and America, their 
 struggles and their sufferings, — " We, on the contrary, have 
 the happiness," he said, " to see a revolution of the same 
 nature brought about by the mere union of enlightened 
 minds with patriotic intentions ; our battles are mere discus- 
 sions; our enemies are only prejudices, that may, indeed, be 
 pardoned; our victories, our triumphs, so far from being 
 cruel, will be blessed by the very conquered themselves. 
 
 " History, too, often records actions which are worthy only 
 of the most ferocious animals ; among whom, at long inter- 
 vals, we can sometimes distinguish heroes : there is now 
 reason to hope that we have begun the history of man, the 
 history of brothers, who, born for mutual happiness, agree 
 even when they vary, since their objects are the same, and 
 their means only are different." 
 
 Such were the observations of Mirabeau, such his views, 
 and such might be also the views of the reader of the history, 
 if he could be ignorant of what followed. 
 
 But on a sudden a new scene opens, and one that cannot 
 be explained except in a very general manner, no particular 
 account having as yet reached the public ; it is no other than 
 this : troops are brought up and made to approach nearer and 
 nearer Paris and Versailles, Marshal Broglio is appointed to 
 the command of them, and there is every appearance that 
 violence is intended, that the Assembly at Versailles is to be 
 dissolved by force, and that in some way or other, and to 
 some extent or other, the military are to be called in, and the 
 cause of the monarchy of France and of the old opinions to 
 be by their means asserted. 
 
 Nothing short of all this can well be supposed from all the 
 circumstances that now took place. There is, however, 
 another solution of all these phenomena, to which I shall 
 hereafter allude ; it is this : that the court meant only to 
 maintain the peace of the metropohs and the community; 
 but in the mean time observe the facts, and consent to pro- 
 ceed with me, for the present, on a different, and, as I con- 
 ceive, more reasonable supposition. 
 
 Necker, who, after the 23rd, had become the great idol of 
 the public, intended to have resigned, and was indeed to have
 
 218 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 been dismissed, but he was so beset and affected by the 
 entreaties of the people, that he complied with their wishes 
 and those of the king, and remained in his situation of 
 minister. While this was the case, the public considered 
 themselves in a state of security, Necker himself seems not 
 at all to have participated in this new and extraordinary 
 change in the counsels of the king. He declares positively 
 that he knew nothing of these military movements till it was 
 impossible that they could be concealed from any one. " The 
 war minister," he says, "talked of necessary precaution, in 
 consequence of the late seditious appearances at Paris and 
 Versailles, and the explication was natural enough ; but 
 could no longer be admitted when Marshal Broglio was 
 called to court. I could never ascertain," he adds, " to 
 what lengths their projects really went. There were secrets 
 upon secrets; and I believe that even the king himself was 
 far from being acquainted with all of them. What was in- 
 tended was probably to draw the monarch on, as circum- 
 stances admitted, to measures, of which they durst not at 
 first have spoken to him. Time," he continues, " can alone 
 unveil the mystery ; with me, above all others, a reserve was 
 maintained, and reasonably, for my indisposition to every 
 thing of the kind was decided." 
 
 Such is Necker's account. The mystery seems to have 
 been, that the court could not bear the assumption of autho- 
 rity which the National Assembly had displayed, and that 
 when they saw that the two orders had united themselves to 
 the Tiers Etat, they conceived that an assembly like this 
 would trample down the monarch and all the privileged orders 
 without hesitation or delay, and that, therefore, in self-defence, 
 they must try to dissolve the Assembly by military force. 
 
 But neither can the court be excused in making this expe- 
 riment, nor the king in suffering it to be made. The oppor- 
 tunity of trying force had been lost. After the king had 
 desired and commanded the nobility and clergy to join the 
 Tiers Etat, the National Assembly had a right to suppose 
 that their legal existence was acknowledged, and the mea- 
 sures they had adopted forgiven, at least admitted ; that it 
 was only by their subsequent conduct they could forfeit the 
 good will of the king ; that, in short, all was now to be a
 
 i X. FOURTEENTH OF JULY, 219 
 
 1 
 
 I system of harmony and peace. Nothing could appear more 
 
 I treacherous, nothing more unjust, than for the king, in this 
 
 ; situation of things, to bring up troops from all quarters, as if 
 
 he had before meant only to lull them into security, the more 
 
 easily to dissolve the Assembly, and perhaps seize, banish, 
 
 confine, or even execute for treason, some of their most 
 
 I obnoxious leaders. 
 
 It is difficult to understand how the king, a man of integrity 
 i and virtue, could be so blind to the very objectionable nature 
 of the course of measures which he saw himself gradually 
 adopting. He must have really supposed, as the court pre- 
 tended, that they were necessary to secure the tranquillity of 
 Paris, and the peace and order of the community. What, 
 1 however, was the reasoning of the court ? How could they 
 I possibly suppose that the king would not fail them when the 
 i moment of trial came ? They knew that it w^as his great 
 1 maxim that the blood of Frenchmen was not to be shed in 
 
 ■ 
 
 [ what he called his quarrel; how could they expect such a 
 1 prince to run the chance of a civil war ? But what more cruel 
 I injury could they do to the monarch and the privileged orders, 
 i than, under such circumstances, to try, or rather to apijear to 
 j try, the experiment of military force ? 
 
 Another consideration still remained behind : were they 
 sure of the soldiery ? Unhappy is the government, and at its 
 last gasp, when the military are to be set apart from the com- 
 munity, and the rulers are to depend on the one to subdue the 
 other. There was nothing, on this occasion, to encourage the 
 court to suppose that they could with safety venture upon 
 this fearful appeal. The public had been long in the highest 
 state of inflammation ; nothing was expected from the old 
 opinions, every thing from the new ; the monarchy had be- 
 come nothing, the National Assembly every thing; it was 
 from them and from them only, no longer from the king or 
 the privileged orders, that laws, liberty, prosperity, national 
 grandeur, were expected ; the three orders had now united ; 
 the Assembly seemed just, as it were, on the point of begin- 
 ning their great work of the regeneration, as they called it, of 
 France ; all eyes were turned upon them, all hearts partici- 
 pated in their feelings of every kind : and this was the mo- 
 ment which the court fixed upon to call out the soldiery to
 
 220 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 disperse and put them down by force, and all the time to 
 expect that such a metropolis as Paris, in its existing state of 
 excitement, was to look quietly on and submit in silence, 
 while they saw their representatives dismissed, the image of 
 their national greatness dishonoured, and all their cherished 
 dreams of happiness and glory dissipated, at once and for 
 ever, by the rude assault, for such it would have appeared to 
 them, of mere brutal and unenlightened power. 
 
 Certainly never was a time so ill chosen for an experiment 
 like this, a prince so ill fitted, a soldiery so unpromising; 
 and, as in judging of all political measures, the probability of 
 success must be carefully and fully taken into account (what- 
 ever may be the right), nothing can appear more unpardon- 
 able than the conduct of the court on this most critical 
 occasion. 
 
 These general reflections will be entirely confirmed by an 
 appeal to the history, into the detail of which I cannot enter. 
 You will see an account given in all the writers to which I 
 have directed your attention. The most full is given in the 
 modern publication of Dulaure. 
 
 It will be found that the most common provisions of pru- 
 dence were neglected : the soldiery suffered to approach 
 Paris, to mingle with the inhabitants ; no decision, no 
 alertness of movement; nothing secured from the popu- 
 lace, — the Bastille, the depots of arms ; nothing arranged or 
 managed as if any measures of hostility or force were to be 
 adopted. 
 
 Yet was sufficient warning given to the court, that neither 
 were the Assembly asleep, nor its partisans in the metropolis, 
 nor the daring and bad men that are always afloat and pre- 
 pared for mischief in every great metropolis. 
 
 In the first place, the soldiery, by mixing with the populace 
 of Paris, had become so disorderly, that it had been necessary 
 to confine them in their barracks ; at last eleven of them were 
 picked out and sent to the prison of the Abbaye, till they 
 could be tried by a court-martial. But you will see in the 
 history that the gates were broken open by the populace, and 
 these victims of their patriotism, so they voted themselves, 
 were rescued. In their return from the prison the mob was 
 met by a troop of dragoons and another of hussars, who in
 
 X. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 221 
 
 short at last joined the crowd in their cry of Vive la 
 nation ! 
 
 It was then determined to send a deputation to the National 
 Assembly in favour of the prisoners. 
 
 This was done ; an address was presented to the king; and 
 the soldiers, having been first returned to the prison as a 
 necessary formahty, were by his order set at liberty. 
 
 This was but an ominous specimen of the soldiery and of 
 the populace to those who were intending to overpower the 
 one by means of the other. 
 
 Other particulars of this kind you will see in the history. 
 
 With respect to the Assembly, on the 8th of July (this 
 affair of the eleven soldiers had taken place about the 1st) 
 they were addressed by Mirabeau in one of his most cele- 
 brated speeches, and this speech was followed by a sort of 
 remonstrance addressed to the king on the subject of the 
 troops that had been brought around them ; and both of 
 these documents you will read with great attention, not only 
 as specimens of the powers of this extraordinary man, on a 
 very difficult and important occasion, but as forming a sort of 
 epoch in the history of this great event. 
 
 " Nevertheless," said Mirabeau, in the course of his 
 speech, " what hath been the issue of those declarations and 
 of our respectful behaviour ? Already are we surrounded by 
 a multitude of soldiers ; more are arrived, are arriving every 
 day ; they are hastening hither from all quarters ; thirty-five 
 thousand men are already cantoned in Paris and Versailles, 
 twenty thousand more are expected ; they are followed by 
 trains of artillery ; spots are marked out for batteries ; every 
 communication is secured, every pass is blocked up ; our 
 streets, our bridges, our public walks, are converted into 
 military stations ; events of public notoriety, concealed facts, 
 secret orders, precipitate counter-orders — in a word, prepara- 
 tions for war, strike every eye, and fill every heart with indig- 
 nation." 
 
 The speech grows more and more violent as it proceeds, and 
 was followed by the celebrated address to the king for the 
 removal of the troops, which you will of course read with 
 attention. A few sentences from it may serve to give you, 
 for the present, a slight idea of it, sufficient for my purpose.
 
 222 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 " In the emotions of your own heart, sire, we look for the 
 true safety of the French. When troops advance from every 
 quarter, when camps are forming around us, when the capital 
 is besieged, we ask one another with astonishment. Hath the 
 king distrusted the fidelity of his people ? What mean these 
 menacing preparations ? Where are the enemies of the state 
 
 and of the king that are to be subdued ? The sway 
 
 of Louis IX., of Louis XII., of Henry IV., is the only sway 
 worthy of you. 
 
 " We should deceive you, sire, if, forced as we are by cir- 
 cumstances, we neglected to add, that such a sway is the 
 only one which at the present day it is possible to exer- 
 cise in France Where, then, our enemies will 
 
 affect to say, is the danger to be apprehended from the sol- 
 diery ? 
 
 " The danger, sire, is urgent, is universal, is beyond all the 
 calculations of human prudence. 
 
 " The danger is for the provinces. Should they once be 
 alarmed for our liberty, we should no longer have it in our 
 power to restrain their impetuosity," &c. &c. 
 
 " The danger is for the capital. With what sensations will 
 the people, in their state of indigence, and tortured with the 
 keenest anguish, see the reUcs of its subsistence disputed for 
 by a throng of threatening soldiers," &:c. &c. 
 
 " The danger is for the troops. They may forget that the 
 ceremony of enlisting made them soldiers, and recollect that 
 nature made them men. 
 
 " The danger, sire, menaces those labours which are our 
 primary duty, and which will only obtain their full success 
 and a real permanency as long as the people considers the 
 Assembly as altogether free. 
 
 " The danger, sire, is yet more terrible; and judge of its 
 extent, by the alarms which bring us before you. Mighty 
 revolutions have arisen from causes far less striking 
 
 " Sire ! we conjure you in the name of our country, in the 
 name of your own happiness and your own glory, to send 
 back your soldiers to the posts from which your counsellors 
 have drawn them — send back that artillery," &c. &:c. 
 
 These few extracts may be sufficient to afford you, for 
 the present, some general notion of what you will here-
 
 X. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 223 
 
 after read ; as may the following extracts of the answer of 
 the king : — 
 
 " No person is ignorant," replied the king, " of the dis- 
 orders and the scandalous scenes which have been acted and 
 repeated at Paris and Versailles, before my eyes and before 
 the eyes of the States General ; it is necessary that I should 
 make use of the means which are in my power to restore and 
 maintain order in the capital and tlie environs ; it is one of 
 my principal duties to watch over the public safety : these 
 were the motives which determined me to assemble the troops 
 round Paris," &:c. &c. 
 
 " If, however, the needful presence of the troops in the 
 neighbourhood of Paris still gives umbrage, I am ready, at 
 the desire of the Assembly, to transfer the States General to 
 Noyon or to Soissons, and shall then repair to Compiegne, in 
 order to maintain the communication which ought to subsist 
 between the Assembly and myself." 
 
 This answer met with some applause, but not with the 
 applause of Mirabeau. 
 
 " The king's answer," he said, "is a downright refusal." 
 
 " We have requested the dismissal of the troops ; we have 
 not asked leave to run away from the troops, but merely de- 
 sired that the troops should be at a distance from the capi- 
 tal," &.C. Sec. 
 
 The king's answer was given on the 11th; on that day 
 M. Necker was dismissed. On the 12tli the new ministers, 
 Breteuil, Brogho, &;c., took their seats in the council ; but on 
 the 13th the Assembly decreed that Necker and the dismissed 
 ministers were regretted by the Assembly ; that the advisers 
 of his majesty, of what rank and station soever, were person- 
 ally responsible for the troubles then existing, and for all 
 those which might ensue. 
 
 On the 14th the Bastille was taken, and on the 15th the 
 Assembly at Versailles, which had been sitting night and day 
 since the morning of the 13th, and had already sent two 
 deputations to the king, on the subject of the troops, in vain, 
 were prevented from sending a third by the appearance of the 
 king himself, to announce to them that he had just ordered 
 the troops to remove from Paris and Versailles, and that all 
 was to be now a system of confidence and peace.
 
 224 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 So rapid was the course of these most memorable events. 
 I must allude to them a little longer, that you may bear 
 away from the lecture a distinct imjjression of them. 
 
 The dismissal of Necker happened on the 11th, and this 
 was followed by the immediate appointment of a new admi- 
 nistration, at the head of which were M. de Breteuil and 
 Marshal Broolio. This was the first event. 
 
 It was impossible that this should not cause the greatest 
 alarm and indignation. 
 
 Paris was filled with consternation. The busts of Necker 
 and the Duke of Orleans were paraded through the city, 
 covered with crape, A party of dragoons was ordered to 
 attack the multitude. The Prince de Lambesc was at the 
 head of a body of foreign cavalry ; stones were thrown, a 
 charge made, people wounded, the populace cried " to arms," 
 the alarm-bells were sounded, the armourers' shops broken 
 open ; but, above all, many of the French guards left their 
 barracks to join the people, and the foreign cavalry were 
 obliged to give way; and, on the whole, it appeared, judging 
 from this first experiment, that the Parisian populace were 
 not likely to be much restrained or kept down by the military 
 force of the crown. 
 
 This was the second event ; but it gave occasion, in con- 
 junction with the increasing terrors and expectation of an 
 attack from Broglio, for a third; and the most important 
 event of all, which was no other than the sudden rise and 
 appearance of forty-eight thousand men in arms, the citizens 
 of Paris, followed immediately afterwards in the provinces by 
 similar bodies of volunteers, so that on a sudden all the 
 regular forces of the crown seemed surrounded, kept in 
 check, and in fact taken prisoners, by the whole effective 
 population of this great kingdom ; and all the real power of 
 the monarch, the power, at least, by which he was to defend 
 the prerogatives of his crown and the claims of the privileged 
 orders, in opposition to the will of the National Assembly, at 
 once annihilated. <*t 
 
 This was the great result. You will see the particulars in 
 the histories. 
 
 The insurrectionary movements of the populace in Paris, 
 the forcing of the Hospital of Invalids, where thirty thousand 
 
 I
 
 X. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 225 
 
 muskets were found ; the assault and even destruction of the 
 fortress of the Bastile ; the disgusting outrages, the bloody 
 exhibitions that ensued : all this happened at Paris on the 
 14th; while, on the morning of the 15th, the Assembly at 
 Versailles were still drawing up representations to the king, 
 who seems, from some lamentable want of character, or from 
 the effect of that system of deception and flattery which is so 
 practised in the courts and chambers of princes, never actu- 
 ally to have known the dangerous situation in which his 
 crown and dignity were placed, and the astonishing scenes of 
 popular violence, still more the decisive exertions of public 
 spirit, which his capital had exhibited. 
 
 One honourable man, one faithful friend to the monarchy 
 and to the liberties of the country, was at last found, the 
 Due de Liancourt. In the middle of the night of the 14th 
 he made his way into the king's chamber, and disclosed at 
 once all the melancholy truths which had come to his own 
 knowledge, and in a total ignorance of which the king slum- 
 bered on, as if he was ever to know repose again. 
 
 " It is a revolt," said the king. " It is a revolution, sire !" 
 said the duke. 
 
 It was indeed a revolution, to which now no further oppo- 
 sition could be made ; and the measure adopted by the king 
 was the only one that could be now advised. 
 
 He repaired in the morning to the Assembly, which, as I 
 
 have mentioned, had been sitting two days and two nights ; 
 
 repaired to them without pomp, almost without attendants, 
 
 and in the plainest dress : standing, and uncovered, he ad- 
 
 I dressed them in the most conciliatory terms ; professed his 
 
 j sorrow for the disorders at Paris, his regard for the Assembly, 
 
 I and ended by declaring that he had ordered the troops to 
 
 I remove from the neighbourhood of the capital. 
 
 ; It must be mentioned, to the honour of the Assembly, that 
 
 I this effort of the king to regain the affection of his people was 
 
 I not made in vain. This Assembly was, after all, an Assembly, 
 
 i where men of character, and rank, and education, and feehng, 
 
 j were to be found, — far removed above the level of those As- 
 
 j semblies that succeeded. 
 
 I The hall resounded with shouts of applause. As he with- 
 I drew, they surrounded him in a respectful manner, attended 
 * Q
 
 226 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 him to his palace, and a deputation of eighty-four of the most 
 distinguished of them were sent to Paris to concihate the 
 minds of the citizens, to place the conduct of the king in the 
 least unfavourable point of view, and to assure them of his 
 wishes for the happiness of the people. From the Hotel de 
 Ville thfe deputies were conducted to the church of Notre 
 Dame, and Te Deum was performed for the happy agreement 
 between the king and the national representatives, and for 
 the public prosperity which was expected to be the conse- 
 quence. 
 
 More still remained. You will see, in the history, that 
 the offensive ministry is dismissed, Necker recalled, and 
 contrary to the wish, and to the great terror of the queen and 
 court, the king actually repairs to the town house of Paris, 
 and appears with the national cockade in his hat, to render 
 his reconciliation with its inhabitants and his acceptance of 
 the Revolution more public and more complete. 
 
 Such was the end of the great monarchy of France, and 
 such is, I conceive, in a few Words, a fair general account of . 
 this astonishing Revolution, this appalling spectacle of the 
 instability of every thing human. 
 
 But it is necessary, before I conclude, that I should remind 
 you of what I have already mentioned, that there are two 
 different accounts or explanations given of these memorable 
 events, and that you are not to accede to the representation I 
 have just given without due examination of one of a totally 
 opposite nature. 
 
 Some assert, not what I have stated, that an unseasonable, 
 ill-conducted, and on the whole unjust attempt, was made by 
 the court to put down the National Assembly, to control the 
 new opinions by military force, and to destroy ultimately the 
 liberties of France ; but, on the contrary, that the court in- 
 tended nothing of the kind, that the court only wished to 
 assert the proper authority of the king as guardian of the 
 pubHc peace, to repress the hcentiousness of Paris, to coun- 
 teract the factious or even republican designs of furious and 
 bad men, and to save the National Assembly itself from being 
 overawed by the populace ; that this populace, amid the real 
 miseries of a scarcity, were exposed without bread to all the 
 inflammatory representations of the orators of the Palais
 
 X. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 227 
 
 Royal — orators that were never for a moment quiet, im- 
 puting all the evils that were suil'ered to the fault of the 
 government, to the court, to foreigners, to foreign troops, 
 and to those they called by the general name of traitors in 
 and out of the walls of Paris. 
 
 This is the great question before the student, at this most 
 important part of the histoiy of the Revolution. My own view 
 of it is what I have given, fortified by the direct evidence of 
 Necker, and supported, as I conceive, by all the probabilities 
 of the case in its different stages. 
 
 But you must judge for yourselves ; and, in my next lec- 
 ture, I will endeavour to exhibit to you w'hat may be con- 
 sidered as the case of the court.
 
 228 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 LECTURE XI. 
 
 FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 
 
 IN the course of my last lecture I alluded to the great 
 crisis in the history of this Revolution, the production of 
 military force by the court — the production rather than the 
 employment of it ; the astonishing effects by which this 
 menace was almost instantly followed, the sudden rise of a 
 citizen army in Paris, the taking of the Bastile on the 14th, 
 the visit of the king to the National Assembly, afterwards to 
 Paris, and his public and avowed adoption of the Revolution 
 in the presence of his people. 
 
 I then mentioned the different explanations that have been 
 given of this sort of appeal on the part of the king and court 
 to military force : the two explanations are quite at variance 
 with each other ; and having adopted one of them myself, and 
 proposed it to your consideration, I told you, at the close of 
 my lecture, that it was fitting I should exhibit to you the 
 other, and that this I would do to-day, by laying before you 
 various passages from different authors, those who think well 
 of the intentions of the court. 
 
 I will just mention, before I refer to these books (as the ex- 
 tracts are desultory, and not always sufficiently distinct), that 
 the court party contend, in opposition to such views of the 
 case as I have hitherto described to you, that it was necessary 
 to produce the troops to awe and to restrain the disorderly 
 and mutinous populace of Paris, and that no counter-revo- 
 lution was intended. 
 
 You will observe, however, that in Paris the interpretation 
 of this approach of the troops was, that the city was to be 
 besieged and starved into submission, and even, if necessary, 
 given up to military execution; and that it was under the 
 terror of such calamities that the demagogues raised an in-
 
 xr. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 229 
 
 surrection of the populace and stormed the Bastile ; and tliat 
 the more regular inhabitants formed themselves into a com- 
 pany of volunteers, forty thousand strong, to defend them- 
 selves and the capital from Marshal Broglio and his troops. 
 
 These are the terrors and alarms on each side, and these 
 the transactions that occasioned all the confusion and uncer- 
 tainty of mind and purpose in the parties, which you will see 
 alluded to in the extracts which I shall bring; forward from 
 different writers : the National Assembly, who were sittino- at 
 Versailles, never knowing what was passing at Paris, nor 
 they at Paris what was doing in the Assembly and the 
 palace. 
 
 But to proceed. The first author I shall allude to is Mar- 
 montel. Marmontel was a man of letters, who resided in 
 Paris at this period ; a successful writer, and of an amiable 
 and elegant mind. His Memoirs have been published : they 
 were much read and admired when they first came out, and 
 in the latter part of them you will find an account of the 
 whole Revolution, rapid and concise, but perfectly entitled to 
 your consideration. 
 
 He was for some time an eyewitness, and even took a part 
 in it. He was at length happy to retire and to die in silence 
 and obscurity. Having, in the course of his Memoirs, pro- 
 ceeded through the earlier stages of the Revolution, he at last 
 arrives at the scenes that took place in Paris, such as I have 
 slightly described, immediately after the royal sitting of 
 the 23rd. 
 
 And then more immediately, in allusion to our present 
 subject, he says, p. 158 : — " The adventure of the two soldiers 
 of the guards, the spirit of insubordination with which the 
 people inspired them, the audacity of this people, the tone it 
 had assumed, &c. &c., had been forcibly seized upon in the 
 council, as means to persuade the king, that the greatest of 
 evils, both for the state and for himself, would be, to suffer 
 the authority which he held in his hands to be despised, and 
 that it would infallibly be despised, if it were seen disarmed. 
 It was represented to the king, according to Marmontel — and 
 this is very probable — that the multitude must tremble, or it 
 would make all tremble ; that it would have been desirable, 
 without doubt, that the sessions of the States should have
 
 230 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 passed in complete security, without having around them any 
 display of mihtary force ; but that so long as the people came 
 to mix insult and menace with the deliberations of the States 
 General, public force had a right to arm itself in order to 
 repress it." 
 
 " There are those," it was observed to the king, " who 
 think they can appease the populace as easily as they irritate 
 it. After they have made it serve their purpose of subverting 
 the whole kingdom, they will want to bring the tiger back to 
 his cage, but it will be too late ; the ferocious beast will have 
 felt his own force and the weakness of his chains : above all, 
 what will he be, if he has tasted blood ? Teach this people 
 then, that in your hands it has still justice to dread. 
 
 " If the members of the National Association had all your 
 loyalty, sire, they would all unite to demand, around the 
 sanctuary of legislation, some impenetrable barrier, inacces- 
 sible to the troops on one side and to the people on the other, 
 and then all would be equal. But no ; it is in order to leave 
 to this populace full licence and complete impunity, that they 
 wish the troops to be withdrawn 
 
 *' It is by the people that they seek to reign : the name of 
 liberty, which for the populace means only licence, has 
 resounded like a general signal of insurrection and anarchy. 
 
 " Independence, and contempt for every species of autho- 
 rity, this is what the face of the kingdom presents; and it 
 is on the ruins of the monarchy, and with its wrecks, that the 
 revolutionary faction boasts of creating a democratic empire. 
 It is a vile mass of vagabonds, without morals, without 
 employment, without home, that is called the sovereign 
 people 
 
 " No, sire, it is no longer in the name of the clergy or of the 
 nobility, it is in the name of a good people, of which you are 
 the father, that we conjure you not to abandon it to the most 
 cruel of tyrannies — to that of the populace and of its perfidious 
 leaders." 
 
 " It is thus," says Marmontel, *' that the king was per- 
 suaded, that in displaying to the people a military power, he 
 should only repress force by force, and should leave public 
 liberty protected and uninjured." 
 
 And here we may observe, that it is very probable, that it
 
 XI. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 231 
 
 is very certain, that the king was addressed in the manner 
 Marmontel describes. Many questions, however, and diffi- 
 culties remain, both of prudence and honour, such as I have 
 endeavoured to submit to your consideration, with respect to 
 the advice itself and the acceptance of it ; the time, the occa- 
 sion, the circumstances, under which the king was placed, 
 the quantity of the force produced, the style and manner of it, 
 the natural interpretation of it in the community. 
 
 Marmontel opens the next book with a statement of the 
 incapacity of the ministers. " The king then," he says, 
 " ordered some troops to advance ; but in forming a vigorous 
 resolution, the ministers should have foreseen its consequences, 
 the difficulties, the dangers. 
 
 " But they calculated nothing, they provided for nothing ; 
 they did not even think of securing the troops from the 
 
 corruption of the populace of Paris And in the Faux- 
 
 bourgs of Paris, the only imposing post, the Bastile, was 
 neither furnished with a sufficient garrison, nor with provisions 
 to support the few soldiers who were there 
 
 " To this species of stupor into which the court and council 
 had fallen, the adverse party opposed," he continues, " a 
 measured, progressive, and constant march, proceeding from 
 post to post towards dominion, without ever losing a moment 
 or retrograding a step. Resolved to suffer no collection of 
 troops, either around Paris or Versailles, this party determined 
 on an address to the king," &c. &;c. 
 
 He then goes on to describe Mirabeau's address to the 
 king, Mirabeau himself, the king's answer, the necessity of a 
 new system, and the consequent necessity of the dismissal of 
 Necker, and the scenes that followed — the scenes that I have 
 already described to you. 
 
 " Thus Paris," he at last observes, " without courts of 
 justice, without police, without a guard, at the mercy of 
 one hundred thousand men, who were wandering wildly in 
 the middle of the night, and for the most part wanting bread, 
 believed itself on the point of being besieged from without 
 and pillaged from within ; believed that twenty-five thousand 
 soldiers were posted around to blockade it and cut off all 
 supplies of provisions, and that it would be a prey to a 
 starving populace."
 
 232 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 " Such was the terrible picture which, in the night between 
 the 12th and 13th of July, was present to every fancy." 
 
 Marniontel then goes on to describe the events that fol- 
 lowed in a manner very animated and striking, " If the 
 National Assembly," he at last observes, " could have had 
 any presentiment of the evils with which the kingdom was 
 threatened by this dreadful anarchy ; if it had foreseen how 
 impotent its own efforts would be, to force back into the 
 bonds of legitimate authority this ferocious beast which it 
 was eager to unchain ; if those who flattered it had thought 
 that they themselves might perhaps one day be its prey, they 
 would have shuddered with a salutary fear. But to procure 
 for themselves a reigning authority, they only thought of 
 disarming that which alone could have saved all." 
 
 Again, — " A blockade," he says, " a siege, a famine, a 
 masacre, were the black phantoms which had been employed 
 to frighten the Parisians ; and in seeing the troops retire, 
 that were supposed to be charged with the commission of 
 these crimes, Paris thought it had nothing more to fear. 
 It was under the eyes of six Swiss battalions and of eight 
 hundred horse, all motionless in their camp, that the Hotel 
 des Invalides was opened to the people — a very positive 
 proof, as Bezenval, who was in command at the moment, has 
 since affirmed it to be, that the troops were forbidden to fire 
 on the citizens; and there,^^ says Marmontel, '^ was the great 
 advantage of the people ; they knew tliat the king would only 
 suffer them to be curbed, without ever consenting that they 
 should either be treated as enemies or rebels." 
 
 " It is true," says Marmontel, " that if the governor of the 
 Bastile had made use of his artillery, he would have struck 
 Paris with awe." He recollected, without doubt, that he 
 served a good king, and among the people every man knew it 
 as well as he. All Paris had hastened toward the Bastile. 
 Sexes and ages, all were confounded around those ramparts 
 that were loaded with cannon ; what is it then that heartened 
 them ? *' The king consents that his people should be 
 threatened, but not that his people should be crushed." 
 
 These sentences, and sometimes half sentences, which I 
 have extracted from Marmontel, will give you some general 
 notion of the view he took of these extraordinary scenes. He
 
 xr. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 233 
 
 was, as I have already mentioned, a distinguished man of 
 letters, lived at the time, and you will of course read what he 
 has written, with curiosity, as I hope, and with care. 
 
 His Memoirs, he says, are not a history of the Revolution ; 
 they are addressed to his children, and they are rather meant 
 to give a history of himself; but as he concludes, he observes, 
 " The events which I have just recalled to my memory have 
 so occupied my fancy, that amid so many public calamities I 
 have almost forgotten myself; the impression which this mass 
 of misery made on me was, indeed, so lively and so deep, that 
 it was very natural, that what only concerned myself should 
 have been very often forgotten." 
 
 " If the life of man," he says, " be a journey, can I 
 recount mine, without telling through what events and by 
 what torrents, what abysses, what wilds, peopled by tigers 
 and by serpents, it has passed ? It is thus that I retrace to 
 myself our ten years of misfortunes, almost doubting whether 
 it be not a violent and fatal dream." He died on the 31st of 
 December, 1799. 
 
 It is probable, that in these memoirs of Marmontel may be 
 seen such sentiments and opinions as would have passed 
 through the student's own mind, if of gentle nature, and if 
 intelligent, and an eyewitness at the time ; and this must 
 constitute the interest and value of the perusal of them. I 
 will now refer to the memoirs of Bertrand de Moleville ; they 
 must be attentively perused by the student, who cannot be 
 better employed, than in comparing the opposite represen- 
 tations of men of different characters and views, and in endea- 
 vouring to form a right judgment on the whole. Such oppo- 
 site accounts become, after the events, a sort of representation 
 of what was the real scene actually in existence, amidst the 
 contending passions and opinions of which, the student would 
 have had to decide, if he had been a statesman or a man of 
 influence himself at the time. And similar collisions he will 
 always have to witness, when large masses of mankind are 
 put into a state of agitation ; and it is in the midst of the 
 embarrassments of such perplexing and contradictory circum- 
 stances and representations, that men of education are to 
 learn to judge of any scene that may hereafter be placed 
 before them in real life, and may thus be enabled, by the
 
 234 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 remembrance of what history has shown them, and by the 
 exercise of their good feelings, and good sense, and superior 
 information, to influence the conduct of those around them at 
 the hour of need, and do good to their fellow creatures on 
 occasions the most difficult and important. 
 
 The view that Bertrand de Moleville takes of the transac- 
 tions we have been adverting to is much the same ; that the 
 metropolis had become disorderly and seditious, and that it 
 was necessary to march up troops from all quarters to pre- 
 serve the peace of the community. That the attempt was not 
 on the part of the court to destroy the Assembly, but on the 
 part of the democratic leaders in and out of the Assembly, by 
 means of the populace, to overthrow all the legitimate autho- 
 rity of the king, at the same time with an intention to make 
 the Duke of Orleans lieutenant governor of the kingdom. 
 
 I must observe to you, before I proceed further to allude to 
 the opinions of Bertrand de Moleville, either now or at any 
 other time, thiat I give them to you as opinions that were held 
 by the patrons of the old regime, not as necessarily true. 
 Bertrand writes in 1799, from his lodgings in London, and 
 describes what he had himself seen and known, and what he 
 had understood from those on whom he was confident he 
 could depend. He was a man of character and veracity, and 
 a man of ability : his facts, however, are one thing, and his 
 opinions another ; the former may be (insensibly to the writer 
 himself) affected by the other ; still more so, whenever they 
 are given, not on his own authority, but on the authority of 
 others. He was called to the ministry, not because he was a 
 friend to moderate opinions, and a friend to a mixed and con- 
 stitutional government, but because he was a man of daring 
 character, and of considerable resource in all those minor 
 expedients, by which the court were at the time endeavouring 
 to tide the torrent. His counter police, of which you will see 
 an account in his Memoirs, cost very large sums, and an- 
 swered, probably, little or no purpose. He was a man that 
 would have brought back the old regime without the slightest 
 compunction; nor would he have hesitated, if necessary, to 
 adopt measures of the most arbitrary character. No one 
 cared less for constitutional principles. Still, as a man of 
 character and ability, and of eminence at the time, his senti-
 
 XI. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 235 
 
 merits and opinions must be considered. He is one of a class; 
 they form part of the general case ; a part that at every period 
 must be duly estimated. 
 
 I will now allude to his view of the scenes, and the crisis 
 before us. 
 
 After a variety of details and observations, which you will 
 attentively read, he reaches the subject of the dismissal of 
 Necker. This is, evidently, a very curious part of it ; and, as 
 I conceive, in itself and alone, decisive of the whole question 
 of the intentions of the court. 
 
 With regard, then, to Necker, he observes : " It is certain, 
 that all the parties labouring to subvert the monarchy, or at 
 least to change the nature of it, depended upon the support 
 or on the indulgence of that minister, and that the staunch 
 royalists had no reliance upon him. These motives at length 
 determined the king to remove him." 
 
 This is his explanation, short and clear, but surely not 
 satisfactory. He then gives a description of the effect pro- 
 duced in Paris by this certainly very alarming measure. 
 His picture of the state of that capital on the 12th of July 
 is most appalling : it was on that day that M. Necker's 
 departure was known. He describes the manner in which 
 Camille Desmouhns, one of the demagogues, mounting upon 
 a table in the Palais Royal, cried out, " Citizens, there is not 
 a moment to be lost; M. Necker is dismissed ; this dismission 
 is the alarm bell for another St. Bartholomew of patriots. 
 To-nioht all the Swiss and German battalions will come from 
 the Champ de Mars and cut our throats," &c. &c. 
 
 The parading of the busts of the Duke of Orleans and 
 M. Necker is then described by Moleville; the affair of the 
 Prince de Lambesc. " It would be difficult," he goes on to 
 say, " to paint the disorder, fermentation, and alarm, that 
 prevailed in the capital during this dreadful day : a city taken 
 by storm and delivered up to the soldiers' fury, could not pre- 
 sent a more dreadful picture. Imagine detachments of ca- 
 valry and dragoons making their way through different parts 
 of the town at full gallop to the posts assigned them ; trains 
 of artillery rolling over the pavement with a monstrous noise ; 
 bands of ill armed ruffians, and women, drunk with brandy, 
 running through the streets like furies, breaking the shops
 
 236 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 open, and spreading terror every where by their howUngs, 
 mingled with frequent reports from guns or pistols fired in 
 the air; all the barriers on fire; thousands of smugglers 
 taking advantage of the tumult to hurry in their goods ; the 
 alarm bell ringing in almost all the churches ; a great part of 
 the citizens shutting themselves up at home, loading their 
 guns, and burying their money, papers, and valuable effects in 
 cellars and gardens ; and, during the night, the town paraded 
 by numerous patrols of citizens of every class, and even of 
 both sexes ; for many women were seen with muskets or 
 pikes upon their shoulders." 
 
 " Such," he says, *' is the exact picture of the state of 
 Paris on the 12th of July." 
 
 " At Versailles," he says, " the new ministry were busily 
 debating sometimes in the council, sometimes in committees, 
 without knowing what resolution to take ; the general officers 
 were constantly going for orders, were made to wait long, and 
 received none at last," &c. 
 
 " The king," he observes, " could not have dismissed M. 
 Necker at a more critical juncture, than that in which the 
 people, alarmed with famine, fixed all their hopes on the 
 attentions of that minister, and on the credit and resources 
 they attributed to him." 
 
 " The Revolution," he says, '* though in its cradle at the 
 time, assumed one of its distinguishing characters ; the Pa- 
 risians in arming the populace and ruffians, in order to oppose 
 them to the troops of the line, were anxious to anticipate a 
 danger with which they were not threatened, and thought 
 nothing of that, arising from putting the public force into the 
 hands of those, who, on the contrary, should always be awed 
 by it. The consequence was, that the next day, July 13th, 
 at three in the morning, an immense crowd armed with clubs, 
 bludgeons, and pikes, under pretence of the dearth of pro- 
 visions, attacked the Convent of St. Lazarus, crying out, 
 '* Bread, bread !" They then demanded arms," &c. 
 
 He afterwards describes the manner in which the populace 
 forced the doors of the garde meuhle, carrying off" all the rich 
 and curious arms there deposited ; then the forcing of the 
 prisons of La Force, and the inaction of the minister, M. de 
 Bezenval, who had troops at his disposal without once em-
 
 XI. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 237 
 
 ploying them while all these enormities were committing ; 
 and then at last the manner in which a Parisian bourgeois 
 militia was formed, provisionally settled at forty-eight thou- 
 sand men. 
 
 " The promptness," he obsenes, " with which the Parisians 
 organized at once this provisional magistracy, the bourgeois 
 militia, and the sixty district assemblies, has been made too 
 much a wonder. To M. Necker's imprudence belongs the 
 honour of this melancholy miracle, without which, the city of 
 Paris would have been under the necessity of submitting to 
 the king's authority, and of imploring his protection against 
 the plunderers. It was the innovating genius of that minister 
 which engendered that electoral assembly, and that division 
 of the capital into sixty districts or rounds for the appointment 
 of their respective electors ; without reflecting, that in so im- 
 mense a city as Paris, where the populace is too numerous 
 not to be turbulent, it is always very dangerous to establish or 
 point out to the people a settled place of assembhng in each 
 quarter; it is removing the greatest obstacle to a general 
 insurrection. It w^as thus that this modern patchwork of an 
 electoral assembly, and assemblies of districts, devised for 
 the appointment of deputies to the States General, became the 
 corner stone of the Revolution." 
 
 Bertrand goes on to describe the exertions made by the 
 populace, to provide themselves with arms ; the attack on the 
 Bastile, of which he gives a more intelligible detail than 
 will be easily found elsewhere. He enumerates the terrible 
 atrocities that followed, nor can on this subject his natural 
 indignation be too great. 
 
 He next turns to the king and the National Assembly. 
 " It was late at night, on the 14th of July, before the Assembly 
 were informed of a part of the outrages committed at Paris. 
 .... The king was not better informed." .... He then 
 describes the deputations of the Assembly, and the answers of 
 the king on the subject of the troops. 
 
 " Can it be conceived," he at last observes, " that, during 
 an insurrection, in which the people armed and constantly 
 committing acts of violence, were every where but feebly 
 resisted by the troops, the removal of these could have 
 been considered and solicited by the Assembly, as the only
 
 238 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 means of suppressing the insurrection and preventing new 
 ones?" 
 
 " But it was too clear," says he, "that they neither wished 
 to suppress the insurrection nor prevent new ones, but to 
 ensure the triumph of the rebels." 
 
 " The night of the 14th of July," he says, " was another 
 night of anxiety and horror for the Parisians. Terrified at 
 the enormity of their crimes, and particularly dreading the 
 exemplary punishment they deserved, they firmly believed all 
 the projects of vengeance with which the king was charged, 
 and were in constant expectation of the bombardment of the 
 capital or the arrival of squadrons upon squadrons of hus- 
 sars," &c. 
 
 " When it was known that nothing had passed at Versailles, 
 and that the Assembly continued to hold their sittings unmo- 
 lested, it was rumoured that the project of the ministers had 
 failed, because the cannoniers, commanded by M. Broglio, 
 had refused to obey him. The fact was, that M. Broglio had 
 proposed to escort the king and royal family safely to Metz 
 with the army, and that his majesty, instead of adopting this 
 measure, which might have saved every thing, had determined, 
 from the representations and entreaties of the Duke of Lian- 
 court, to throw himself confidently upon the Assembly, and to 
 consent to all they asked." 
 
 He then describes what passed between the Assembly and 
 the king, and concludes this part of his subject in the follow- 
 ing manner : — 
 
 " Thus terminated that memorable sitting, in which Louis 
 XVL, ever impelled by his fatal reliance on the love and alle- 
 giance of the French, voluntarily stripped himself of all the 
 means of supporting his authority, at a moment when the 
 most powerful would scarcely have been sufficient to preserve 
 it. He chose rather to leave his throne, without support, to 
 the mercy of all the factious, who wished to overthrow it; 
 and his own person, without defence, to the discretion of a 
 people, armed and delirious, than to shed the blood of any 
 one of his subjects." 
 
 Such are the representations of Bertrand de Moleville, at 
 every point different from what I conceive to be reasonable 
 and fair, except his account of the feelings of the king.
 
 XI. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 239 
 
 The want of character in the kin" was, no doubt, in itself 
 fatal to all the views of the followers of the old reo-ime : but 
 this want of character was known, and should have been 
 taken into their calculation, and materially influenced their 
 measures. 
 
 That their measures would have been a trial of force and a 
 dissolution of the Assembly seems sufficiently clear, even 
 from the general tone of these passages, taken from Bertrand 
 de Moleville, but from what is now known of Paris, and the 
 prevalence of the new opinions, the result must have been a 
 civil war ; nor do I deny, but rather I contend, that these 
 sentiments in the court and its adherents, and the probable 
 chance of a civil war, were the natural consequences of the 
 first strong measures of the patriotic party on the opening of 
 the States. They certainly were ; and they constitute, what I 
 conceive, and what I have represented to be, the very objec- 
 tionable nature of their proceedings. 
 
 But to return to the subject before us. 
 
 You see what were the representations of Bertrand de 
 Moleville. 
 
 I will now allude to what were the sentiments at the time 
 of Mirabeau. In this, as in the former case, the sentiments 
 given are not necessarily just. Mirabeau is an orator, a 
 rhetorician, not a philosopher or an historian ; but he too is 
 a sort of representative of a class. His address of the 16th of 
 July, to which I shall now allude, was applauded by the 
 National Assembly, and was to have been presented to the 
 king. It is quite clear what were the real opinions of the 
 more eminent and efficient leaders of the Constituent Assem- 
 bly at the time, and their opinions must be considered as of 
 great weight at such a moment — eyewitnesses and actors 
 in the scene. " It is a matter of certainty," says the address, 
 " that only for those perfidious counsels, the troops, which 
 your majesty has condescended to dismiss, would never have 
 been summoned hither. 
 
 " Sire ! whither did they pretend to lead you ? What was 
 the object of that fatal plan which they had the audacity to 
 meditate ? There is not one of us who can doubt that they 
 proposed to disperse the National Assembly, and even lay 
 their sacrilegious hands on the representatives of the nation," 
 &c. &c.
 
 240 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 After many strong observations, he concluded — " We pre- 
 tend not to dictate to you the choice of your ministers : they 
 ought to be such as please you ; but, sire, when you come to 
 consider the fatal course into which your advisers would have 
 seduced you ; when you reflect on the discontent of the capi- 
 tal, which they besieged, and would have starved — on the 
 blood with which they drenched it — on the horrors, which 
 can be imputed to themselves alone — all Europe will think 
 you clement if you deign to pardon them." 
 
 Such are passages in the address. Mirabeau afterwards, in 
 one of his letters to his constituents (the 19th), speaking of 
 the scenes to which we have alluded, thus expresses him- 
 self:— 
 
 " So many extraordinary changes," he says, — " the capital 
 passing from despotism to liberty ; from the most extreme 
 terror to a state of the most perfect tranquillity; a militia 
 of citizens established ; the Bastile taken by assault ; a con- 
 spiracy averted ; perverse counsellors dissipated and dis- 
 persed ; a powerful faction obliged to fly ; ministers that were 
 clandestinely exiled, recalled in triumph; their successors 
 preventing their ignominy by a sudden retirement ; the king, 
 whom they had deceived, restoring to us his confidence, and 
 demanding a return of ours ; coming to show himself to his 
 people, to collect the public interests, and to assure us that 
 he is entirely ours; — all these events, astonishing in them- 
 selves, and, from their rapidity, almost incredible, will never 
 remain barren or without producing effects, and those effects 
 are not to be calculated." 
 
 In an earlier part of the same letter, alluding to the ex- 
 cesses of the populace, " How many," says he, " were the 
 causes that prepared the materials of this explosion ! Minis- 
 ters, that were dear to the people, exiled ; those that were 
 marked by the public scorn, brought forward to replace 
 them ; the sanctuary of the laws profaned ; the National As- 
 sembly menaced; foreign troops; artillery; the capital be- 
 sieged or invaded ; the preparations of a civil war — what did 
 I say? — of a horrible butchery, where all the friends of the 
 people, known or supposed, were to fall, surprised and with- 
 out arms, under the swords of the soldiery; and two centu- 
 ries, in short, of oppression, public and private, political and
 
 xr. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 241 
 
 fiscal, feudal and judicial, were to be crowned by the most 
 horrible conspiracy which the annals of the world have ever 
 displayed. Such are the provocations of the people. Terrible 
 indeed is the rage of the people ; but the cold-bloodedness of 
 despotism is atrocious, and its systematic cruelties make more 
 men miserable in a single day, than are destroyed by the 
 vengeance of popular insurrections in years." 
 
 Such were the different views that were taken of these 
 memorable scenes at the time by those who were eye-wit- 
 nesses and actors in them. 
 
 I will now allude to a publication that appeared about this 
 time, under the name of Groenvelt. 
 
 1 was struck with the good sense of the author. He writes 
 as an eye-witness. I always suspected that he was some 
 Eno-lishman then at Paris, and from information I have sub- 
 sequently received, I believe that he was one, afterwards 
 much distinguished and admired among our pubhc men.* 
 
 After alluding to the affair of the imprisoned soldiers, &c. 
 &c., he proceeds thus, writing on the 7th of July : — " This 
 town of Versailles wears in every part a military appearance, 
 and one cannot stir a step without being struck with the 
 idea, how ill these preparations of war can be reconciled with 
 free debate ; but what alarms men still more is the nomination 
 of Marshal Broglio," &c. &c. 
 
 But Groenvelt then adds — " It is impossible for any one in 
 his senses to believe, that the slight tumults at Paris and 
 Versailles are the real cause, though they may be the pretext, 
 for drawing together so great an army ; those insurrections 
 were completely quelled before these preparations were made," 
 &c. &c. 
 
 " Indeed I cannot but suspect that some great event is at 
 hand, and that the king will not abandon the declarations 
 which he made at the royal session (of the 23rd) without some 
 attempt to enforce them. 
 
 " The disposition of the army, however, appears every day 
 more favourable to the people," (fee. &c. 
 
 * Not so : Sir S. Romilly was only the translator of the 
 work ; the author was Dumont. 
 
 R
 
 242 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 This he writes on the 7th of July, a week before the Revo- 
 lution of the 14th. 
 
 On the Saturday afterwards, on the 11th of July, " I 
 went," he says, " to Paris, where I found, to my astonish- 
 ment, that though the troops were collecting on every side, 
 the king's answer had produced such a degree of security 
 in people's minds, as had at least banished all idea of any 
 immediate danger; every body looked up to the National 
 Assembly ; and if no danger was apprehended there, none, it 
 was supposed, ought to be apprehended. 
 
 " The next day news arrived at the Palais Royal, that 
 
 Necker was out of office The people were extremely 
 
 agitated; at length grief and indignation became universal. 
 
 .... All the theatres were immediately shut The 
 
 bust of Necker was carried about the streets, covered with a 
 crape. 
 
 " The Prince de Lambesc, at the head of a troop of foreign 
 soldiers, galloped amidst a multitude in the garden of the 
 Tuileries." .... "A general alarm was given, the bells 
 rung. The inhabitants, who had been, as usual on a Sunday, 
 amusing themselves in the environs of the city, hurried home ; 
 others armed themselves, crying out that the city was to be 
 sacked with fire and sword that very night. The night (the 
 night of the 12th) was terrible," &c. &c. 
 
 " On the Monday (the 13th) the appearance of the capital 
 seemed perfectly miraculous. In a single day a municipal 
 commonwealth was estabhshed, and an army set on foot. 
 One would have thought that the six hundred thousand in- 
 habitants of Paris had been all animated with one soul. All 
 passions were absorbed in one, the love of liberty ; all objects 
 were neglected but the public safety." .... " In a single 
 day more than forty thousand men had enlisted themselves," 
 &c. &c. 
 
 These extracts will enable you to judge of the general man- 
 ner of Groenvelt. 
 
 " Not foreseeing," he says, " all that was to happen at 
 Paris, I hastened back to Versailles on the evening of Mon- 
 day, that I might observe the unequal contest that was to 
 take place between the dark and insidious policy of a court 
 faction, and the frank and ingenuous courage of a popular 
 assembly.
 
 XI. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 243 
 
 He then goes on to describe the addresses and rephes that 
 passed between the king and the Assembly on the subject of 
 the troops ; the ignorance in which the king was kept of the 
 real state of Paris ; his imperious and inauspicious answer 
 (such it appeared to Groenvelt) ; and the consequent resolu- 
 tions voted by the Assembly, " that Necker was regretted, 
 the present ministers responsible," &c. &:c. 
 
 " In this alarming situation," he proceeds to say, " the 
 Assembly resolved not to adjourn during the night. They 
 dreaded every moment receiving the news that an attack was 
 made on Paris by the army, and they were apprehensive that 
 some of their own members might be carried away clan- 
 destinely. A report was circulated to that effect ; the Abbe 
 Sieyes, Mirabeau, &:c. were named. No business was pro- 
 ceeded on during the night, but the Assembly sat, prepared 
 for whatever mioht be the event. 
 
 "The next day, the 14th of July (a day ever memorable), 
 the Assembly resumed its proceedings, but in a state of the 
 most perplexing anxiety. The more imminent the danger 
 which threatened the intended constitution, the more im- 
 portant did it seem to proceed to its establishment." .... 
 They appointed a committee to draw up and report to them 
 without delay the plan of a constitution. 
 
 " But it was in the evening that the spectacle exhibited by 
 the Assembly was truly sublime. I shall not attempt to de- 
 scribe to you," he continues, " the various emotions of joy, 
 grief, and terror, which at different moments agitated those 
 who were merely spectators and strangers in the Assembly. 
 But the expression is improper : we were none of us stran- 
 gers. For myself, I felt as a Frenchman, because I felt as a 
 man ; I waited for the catastrophe in the same state of mind 
 as I should wait for a sentence on which my own life de- 
 pended. Nothing could be more distracting than our uncer- 
 tainty concerning the state of Paris, from whence no person 
 was suffered to stir. The Viscount de Noailles, after repeated 
 interruptions, had contrived at last to get away ; but the intel- 
 ligence which he brought served only to quicken our impa- 
 tience and increase our alarms. He knew that a multitude 
 of people in search of arms had forced their way into the 
 Hospital for Military Invalids ; that the Bastile was be- 
 sieged ; that there had been already much bloodshed ; that
 
 244 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 the troops encamped in the Champ de Mars were expected 
 every moment to march to the rehef of that fortress, which 
 could not be effected without deluging all Paris in blood. At 
 this dreadful news the Assembly was penetrated with horror. 
 A number of the members started from their seats by a kind 
 of involuntary impulse, as if determined to hasten to the 
 defence of their fellow citizens ; others were for bursting im- 
 mediately into the king's presence, to remonstrate with him 
 on what had happened — to tell him, ' Behold the fruits of 
 your counsels ; hear the cries of your victims ; see the de- 
 struction which is about to overwhelm your capital ; say, are 
 you the king or the murderer of your people?' But these 
 tumultuous emotions gave place to the more temperate mea- 
 sure of sending a numerous deputation to the king, to repre- 
 sent to him the calamities that threatened Paris, and again to 
 conjure him to remove the army. 
 
 " A long time elapsed," says Groenvelt, " and the deputa- 
 tion did not return; no one could account for the delay. 
 In the mean time there came a message, that two deputies 
 from the body of electors at Paris desired admittance. They 
 were instantly ordered in ; not a breath was heard ; every ear 
 was attentive, every eye was strained, every mind was upon 
 the rack. From some unaccountable mistake, it was a long 
 time before the deputies entered. Never was impatience 
 wrought up to a higher pitch ; the interval was dreadful : at 
 last the deputies appeared at the bar. * Having been de- 
 puted,' they said, * by the body of electors of Paris to the 
 Bastile, they had been fired on, and had seen several of their 
 fellow citizens murdered by their side, while a flag of truce 
 was displayed, and they were negotiating with the governor.' 
 .... The whole assembly was filled with indignation. A 
 confused cry was heard, * Revenge,' * No, justice,' * Justice 
 
 on the guilty,' resounded in different parts of the hall 
 
 The king's answer arrived : it was less imperious, but less 
 clear than the former .... 
 
 " A third deputation was immediately sent This 
 
 new solicitation was as ineffectual as the former, &c. &c. 
 
 " This inconceivable perseverance," says Groenvelt, " in so 
 fatal a resolution, convinced many men, that no means of 
 resistance to the faction of the court remained but force, and
 
 XI. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 245 
 
 several deputies, whom I talked with during the night, con- 
 sidered a civil war as inevitable." 
 
 Groenvelt then proceeds to describe, which he does in a 
 very animated manner, the scenes that followed : the deputa- 
 tion to the king that was once more proposed, the speech of 
 Mirabeau— and at last the turn of the whole— the appearance 
 of the king in the assembly, &c. &c., the speech, the ap- 
 plauses, &c. &c. 
 
 " I have heard it observed," he afterwards says, " that the 
 king deserved all this enthusiastic popularity at a moment 
 when he came to save the nation. He did save it, it is true, 
 but from whom ? Who had brought it into danger ? Who 
 was the enemy that threatened it ? Was it not in the king's 
 own council, or perhaps in his own heart, that the plot was 
 formed? Who but his own favourites, his own» ministers, 
 and his own family, were the conspirators? And was he 
 not, till the very moment when he found his own person in 
 danger, inexorable to the prayers and entreaties of the 
 nation?" 
 
 This is very unjust to the king; but allowance must be 
 made for the excited feeUngs of a spectator of the scene. 
 
 " I regret very much," he says, " that I was prevented 
 going to Paris on the 15th, when the eighty delegates from 
 the National Assembly arrived there. I should have been 
 very glad to have been present at their reception, to have 
 followed them to the Town House, to the Bastile, and the 
 Cathedral; to have enjoyed the lively emotions of the people, 
 to have sympathized in their happiness, to have caught their 
 enthusiasm, and to have adored the first rays of their rising 
 liberty. I think I should not have had to reproach myself 
 with being a cold or indifferent spectator, or with hearing 
 unmoved, amidst the conquerors of the Bastile, and under 
 their torn banners, that sublime Te Deum which drew tears 
 from the eyes of the whole congregation. A more glorious 
 spectacle surely cannot be conceived, than that of a nation, 
 which has just thrown off its bondage, beginning a new 
 existence, and becoming an example to all the enslaved 
 nations of the earth. It would seem, indeed, that it is at 
 this period that the history of mankind is to commence." 
 
 I have produced these passages from Groenvelt for your
 
 246 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 consideration. The feelings and opinions of an eyewitness 
 (probably some Englishman) are here before you, and I 
 leave you to convert them, by reflecting upon them, to your 
 own instruction. My own opinions I consider of no import- 
 ance, and I rather wish to furnish you with the means of 
 forming opinions for yourselves. 
 
 " I was impatient," says the same writer, " to see the 
 Bastile, to walk over it, and to enjoy my liberty in its cells 
 
 and in its dungeons When we arrived there we 
 
 found a great crowd of spectators before it, gazing at the 
 towers, examining the batteries, contemplating the depth of 
 the ditches, and inquiring about the circumstances of the 
 
 siecre. 
 
 " I could not help shuddering, as I passed over the draw- 
 bridges which used to be let down to receive the prisoners, 
 and drawn up the moment they had passed. We proceeded 
 into the interior court, which is so narrow, and surrounded 
 by such high walls, that I doubt whether the rays of the sun 
 ever entered it. The whole prison, its dark staircases, its 
 mysterious passages, its triple doors plated with iron and 
 fastened by enormous bolts, its cells, which resembled graves, 
 prepared for the reception of living bodies ; its dungeons, 
 gloomy, damp, and unwholesome, with walls eight feet in 
 thickness ; the great stone in the midst of each, which served 
 the double purpose of a bed and a chair; the chain in the 
 middle of the stone, which from its thickness seemed intended 
 to bind a wild beast, and not a man ; in short, every object 
 that met our eyes inspired us with sentiments of dread and 
 horror. We saw many instruments of torture, the names 
 and the uses of which were entirely unknown to us. Among 
 others, we observed an iron suit of armour, made to press 
 upon all the joints, and to seize, as it were, with one gripe, 
 the knees, the hips, the stomach, the arms, and the neck, of 
 the wretch on whom it was fixed. It may be considered as 
 a precious relic of tyranny. I know that it is a long time 
 since these abominable engines have been used, but they 
 were once used ; and it is not uninstructive to remember what 
 torments have been invented by slaves to revenge themselves 
 on those who refused to share their slavery, and disdained to 
 partake of the infamy of their honours."
 
 XI. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 247 
 
 Such is the description, and such the sentiments of Groen- 
 velt. 
 
 I produce them, not to excite in you any crude, irrational, 
 and vague hostiUty against authority, but because it is not 
 uninstructive to see, how cruel man has been and may be ; 
 to note the progress of society ; to consider what in free 
 countries he now is ; to reflect on what are the sources of this 
 improvement ; the virtue of those who, though in possession of 
 power, do not abuse it; the merit of those who resist oppres- 
 sion, and who make sacrifices, of whatever kind, for the 
 happiness and advancement of their fellow creatures. 
 
 The conquest of this fortress was not, it seems, the result 
 of any preconcerted design, but was achieved by enthusiastic 
 ardour, favoured by accidental good fortune. Some account 
 of this conquest is given by Groenvelt, and some of those 
 particulars mentioned, which may be expected to occur, when 
 the varying passions of the populace are so tremendously 
 excited. A capitulation had been proposed and agreed to, 
 but it was impossible from the confusion to make the capitu- 
 lation publicly known ; at least, it was impossible to stop the 
 multitude, who rushed forward thirsting for victims, whose 
 blood might atone for what had been already shed. The 
 leaders did all they could to disarm the fury of the people, 
 but in vain. 
 
 De Launay, the governor, was immediately murdered, and 
 not far from him the major of the Bastile, De Losme Solbay, 
 a man who was worthy of a better fate, for he had proved 
 himself a friend to the unfortunate, while himself in a situa- 
 tion (an officer in the Bastile) not favourable to the milder 
 virtues of the human character. A young man was seen 
 exerting himself in defence of this unfortunate officer, with a 
 degree of strength and courage which seemed perfectly 
 miraculous — miraculous to those who know not the strength 
 and courage that are inspired by the consciousness of a 
 generous cause — though repeatedly struck to the ground, he 
 rose again with redoubled vigour and rushed upon the assas- 
 sins, but in vain. 
 
 This youthful hero, this hero of gratitude and humanity, 
 was the Marquis de Pelleport, who, during an imprisonment 
 of five years, had experienced the kindness of Solbay, and
 
 248 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 had come to the attack of the Bastile for the purpose, if 
 possible, of protecting the hfe of his benefactor. 
 
 Other victims were sacrificed : the barbarous cry was, " No 
 forgiveness for traitors." 
 
 Flesselles, the first municipal magistrate in Paris, was shot 
 by a pistol, and his bleeding body torn into pieces by a mob 
 who appeared no longer to deserve the common attributes of 
 our nature. The soldiers of the Bastile were with difficulty 
 saved by the French guards, and the bleeding heads of those 
 who had suffered were placed by their murderers on poles. 
 And this was, alas ! the triumph that was now to proceed 
 along the streets of the most splendid city of the most 
 civilized portion of the globe. 
 
 Some incidents occurred that afford the mind a passing 
 relief amid such scenes of horror. 
 
 A young man, by his courage and contrivances, saved the 
 life of his father, then an invalid, and one of those who 
 defended the fortress. 
 
 Again, — In the midst of the assault, a young girl was 
 observed in one of the courts. The assailants, who mistook 
 her for the daughter of the governor, were brutal enough to 
 call aloud that they would murder her if the governor did not 
 surrender. Her real father was a witness from' the ramparts 
 of this abominable scene, saw that it was his daughter, heard 
 the words of her executioners, and was rushing forward to 
 speak to them and to save her, when he was killed by a 
 musket ball. At this moment, for the honour of human 
 nature, thus debased and fallen, one of the citizens pressed 
 forward, beat down the wretches who had seized on the girl, 
 bore her away in his arms amid the shouts and applauses of 
 many of the spectators, conveyed her to a place of safety, 
 and then returned to the charge. 
 
 During all these days of tumult and disorder, none of the 
 people appear to have been actuated by the desire of plunder. 
 Those few who did so appear, were instantly tried, convicted, 
 and hanged by their companions. Money, plate, and jewels, 
 were brought to the Town House by men covered with rags, 
 and the same men seemed at successive moments, now to be 
 debased by the most savage, and now to be elevated by the 
 most disinterested passions of our nature.
 
 XI. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 249 
 
 Groenvelt afterwards describes the visit of the king to 
 Paris ; the waving forest of pikes and bayonets, stretching out 
 for the space of four or five miles, through which he had to pass ; 
 the order which every where prevailed ; the regular army 
 that, from amidst the citizens of Paris, had started up, as it 
 were, in a single day ; the grave and solemn manner in which 
 he was received ; the free and spirited harangues at the Town 
 House ; the national cockade ; the people, to all appearance, 
 unanimously demanding new laws and a new constitution. 
 
 " Thus every thing," he at last concludes, " is awed, sub- 
 missive, and humbled before the nation. The whole diffi- 
 culty," he says, "which the Assembly can now experience, is 
 in stopping the ravages which may be caused by the over- 
 flowing of popular power. That species of difficulty, how- 
 ever," he says, " is neither so great nor so dangerous as those 
 which must have arisen in a perpetual struggle with the 
 faction of the court, in the compromises that must have been 
 made with the existing powers, and in the necessity of only 
 correcting what ought to be totally abolished, and of merely 
 reforming, where every thing was to be created anew." 
 
 This opinion pronounced by Groenvelt, was shared at the 
 time by all the friends of freedom ; but it is the great question 
 of the whole subject, and this decision must now, I conceive, 
 be considered as wrong. To stop the overflowings of popular 
 power, when the power is really popular, and once trium- 
 phant, must now be thought the most invincible of all 
 difficulties. Timely compromises with existing powers, to 
 correct, not totally abolish, to reform, not create anew, must 
 now be deemed the only practical wisdom. 
 
 From the day of the royal session (June 23), it is the 
 opinion of Groenvelt, that the court was wholly bent on 
 maintaining the system which it had there avowed. Necker 
 was to be dismissed, and a new ministry named entirely 
 devoted to the court. Breteuil was consulted, it is said; 
 and it was supposed that, with an army of fifty thousand 
 men, it would be an easy thing to overawe Paris, and to 
 govern or dissolve the National Assembly. 
 
 " As to the intended siege of Paris, the devoting the city 
 to plunder and conflagration, and a proscription of the mem- 
 bers of the Assembly, I consider them," he says, " merely as
 
 250 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 the dreams of fear; but at the same time it must be con- 
 fessed, that the most violent measures, though they had not 
 been coolly premeditated, were not absolutely rejected from 
 the plan which the court adopted ; they were thought worth 
 risking in the dreadful hazard that was to be encountered. 
 Such indeed is the common course of human affairs. Nothing 
 more than an extraordinary exertion of authority is at first 
 intended, but the maintenance of that authority, and the 
 necessity of advancing in order not to recede, leads insensibly 
 to the most bloody proscriptions. 
 
 " All the measures of the court," he then affirms, " have 
 been false, ill-concerted, ill executed, and marked in every 
 instance with weakness, levity, and infatuation. 
 
 " Breteuil and Broglio," he says, " found the king too 
 virtuous, or too feeble, for the execution of their bold designs. 
 If they could have ventured openly to advise him to quit 
 Versailles, to retire to Metz, there to put himself at the head 
 of his army, to have called to his aid religion, the nobility 
 and the parliament, and to have convoked another assembly 
 according to the ancient form, a civil war would have 
 ensued. 
 
 "But what," he continues, "would have been the event 
 of it ? From the temper of Paris we may judge of the rest of 
 France. The whole nation would have united under the 
 auspices of the Assembly in the common cause of liberty, 
 which would certainly in the end have proved victorious, but 
 not perhaps till after such a series of calamities, as might 
 make it doubtful whether even liberty be worth so great a 
 price." 
 
 Such are the opinions and representations of Groenvelt of 
 all he saw and heard, and you have now had those of other 
 writers and eyewitnesses laid before you, in that sort of brief 
 and general manner which I can alone attempt in lectures 
 like these; and when you come to consider these materials 
 for your reflection more attentively, you must judge for your- 
 selves. 
 
 You will in the mean time observe, that the National 
 Assembly were quite clear and decided in their sentiments on 
 this occasion, and they certainly considered the court as 
 bringing up the troops, not to maintain the tranquillity of
 
 XI. FOURTEENTH OF JULY. 251 
 
 Paris and the cause of good government, but to dissolve them 
 by force, and to put an end to the Revolution by violence. 
 
 On the whole it appears to me, that thei'e can be no doubt 
 that a great design had been formed by the court for the 
 dissolution of the National Assembly, and the assertion of the 
 power of the crown. That military force was to have been 
 produced, and according to the measure of its success would 
 in all probability have been the depression of the spirit of 
 liberty, even of rational liberty, then existing in France. 
 
 Less than this cannot well be supposed, much more may 
 be believed. 
 
 And such was the notion every where entertained of the 
 arbitrary nature of the old government of France ; such were 
 the expectations formed of the National Assembly ; such was 
 the fermentation produced in the minds of benevolent and 
 intelligent men, by the example of America and the capti- 
 vating nature of the new opinions, that such sentiments as I 
 have quoted, even from Mirabeau, were those that prevailed 
 over Europe: and in this country at least, and in all free 
 countries, the fall of the Bastile, and the arming of the 
 French people, with the disappearance of the regular soldiery, 
 were every where celebrated by poets and orators, and con- 
 sidered by all those who loved liberty, and knew its value, as 
 the astonishing but virtuous insurrection of a great people, 
 in assertion of every thing that could do honour to human 
 nature, or give a promise of happiness to succeeding gene- 
 rations.
 
 252 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 
 BAILLY. 
 
 YOU have been now conducted to a striking point in this 
 great subject of the French Revolution. You have 
 passed through a series of events, that at last transferred the 
 old monarchy of France into the hands of the National As- 
 sembly ; the old monarchy of France, and even the fate of the 
 monarch himself. Many reasonings and opinions have been 
 proposed to your consideration while you were journeying on 
 to a result like this. I have already mentioned to you several 
 books and memoirs to which you may apply for information. 
 There are other writers, besides those I have referred to, 
 that deserve your attention ; writers that give their opinions 
 on many of the subjects which have now passed in review 
 before you. On these subjects you cannot be too well in- 
 formed ; it is the first stages of this great Revolution that are 
 more particularly instructive. Men are not to be indifferent to 
 one of the noblest of all causes, the cause of liberty ; but they 
 are to be very careful how they proceed in the assertion of it. 
 Those who naturally take a part are the young, the high- 
 spirited, the fearless, and the presumptuous. I add the 
 presumptuous, for those who deserve this last epithet will 
 assuredly be mixed, at least, with those of generous and 
 patriotic feelings ; nay more, be likely, sooner or later, to take 
 a lead among them ; and it is therefore the duty of a lecturer 
 on history to exhibit, if possible, the first reasonings and views 
 of those who interfered in the earlier scenes of a Revolution 
 like this, that every chance may be taken of giving instruc- 
 tion to all who mean well ; whether those of the privileged 
 orders, who are to give way for the sake of the common good, 
 or those who are, as patriots, to bring forward their schemes 
 of improvement.
 
 XII. 
 
 BAILLY. 253 
 
 I shall therefore still further direct your attention to the 
 testimonies of those who were actors in the scene ; and, at the 
 hazard of appearing tedious to you, I shall proceed to the 
 memoirs of two more, who were members of the Constituent 
 Assembly; they sat on opposite sides, M. Bailly and the 
 Marquis de Ferrieres, and they are on that account of more 
 value to us. I must suppose you now sufficiently familiar 
 with the leading topics, and I shall allude to such passages in 
 their works as I think most worthy of observation. 
 
 M, Bailly was one of the most celebrated men of his 
 time. He was a philosopher well known for his writings all 
 over Europe ; a person of unblemished character, and of the 
 best intentions ; and he saw his country, after he had taken a 
 leading part in her concerns, brought to a state of anarchy 
 and confusion, while he w^as himself led out to perish on a 
 scaffold. There can be no want of interest in the opinions 
 and views of a man like this. He had been member of the 
 Academy of Sciences, of the Academy of Belles Lettres, of the 
 French Academy ; he was member and president of the first 
 National Assembly, and twice mayor of Paris ; he was, at the 
 time, in the full maturity and vigour of his intellectual powers : 
 he was put to death at the end of the year 1793, and was 
 then at the age of fifty-seven. 
 
 His Memoirs were written in 1792, and he intended to have 
 given the whole of his political life, a period of thirty-one 
 months; but his account terminates in October, 1789, and 
 comprises, therefore, only an interval of about five months 
 and a half; but it is a most memorable interval. He was too 
 good a man to have been admitted to all the secrets of the 
 Revolution, but his book will on that account be only more 
 instructive to all good men like himself. He intends but a 
 journal, and his reader, he says, shall see his heart, and the 
 thoughts of it (such as they were), exhibited before him in all 
 their naked simplicity and truth. 
 
 It was on the 29th of December, 1786, when he was dining 
 with the Marechal de Beauvan, that he first heard the news 
 of the calling together of the Notables. He was struck with 
 it, he says ; he thought it a great event ; that it would lead to 
 changes, and changes even in the form of government ; but 
 certainly he foresaw no Revolution such as afterwards took
 
 254 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 place, nor does he conceive (and he is very right) that any- 
 one at that time did (December, 1786); but the deplorable 
 state of the finances sufficiently, he thought, justified him in 
 such conjectures as those he made. He then gives a short 
 general view of what passed before the winter of 1788, and 
 he observes : " It was thus, and with arms like these, that 
 men prepared themselves for the States General, and for the 
 recovery of the rights of the nation, and of the Tiers Etat. 
 But if these rights," he adds, '' have been recovered, we must 
 not forget, that it is to Necker and to the king that this is 
 owing, — to the minister who proposed, and to the king who 
 consented : both the one and the other have given the means 
 of the regeneration of the empire, a point this that has been 
 sometimes too much forgotten. Despotism is what never 
 entered into the character of the king ; he never had any wish 
 but the happiness of his people, and this was the only consi- 
 deration that could be ever employed as a means of influ- 
 encing him ; and if any acts of authority were to be resorted 
 to, he was never to be persuaded, but by showing him that 
 some good was to be thus attained, or some evil to be avoided ; 
 some relief for the nation was to be held out in prospect 
 before him, or the prosperity of the empire, and the happiness 
 of all. I am convinced," continues M. Bailly, " that his 
 authority was never considered by him, nor did he wish to 
 maintain it, but as the best means of supporting and securing 
 the tranquillity and peace of the community. As we are now 
 speaking of the causes," says he, *' that produced this rege- 
 neration of the country, let us state the first to be the 
 character of Louis XVI. ; a king less of a good man, and 
 ministers more adroit, and we should have had no Revolu- 
 tion." 
 
 This is a very full, strong, and (coming from M. Bailly) 
 unobjectionable testimony to the merits of the king ; to his 
 patriotism, at least, and good intentions ; to his moral if not 
 political merits. 
 
 At the first sittings of the Assembly of the Electors of Paris, 
 M. Bailly was made, very unexpectedly to himself, deputy to 
 the States General. He was not fit for it, he says : without 
 facility in speaking, and timid to an excess. 
 
 " The men of letters," he observes, " did not act a promi-
 
 XII. BAILLY. 255 
 
 nent part, but the advocates did; the men connected with 
 the law; distinguished every where by their numbers and 
 their opinions, in the capital, in the bailHages, in the Electoral 
 Assemblies, in the legislative body and the constituent : it is 
 to them that the success of the Revolution is to be attributed." 
 By the success I fear M. Bailly must mean the progTess. 
 
 You may remember that the lawyers took the same distin- 
 guished part in the revolution in America; this on many 
 accounts was to be expected. 
 
 " The men of letters," says Bailly, " were far from being 
 popular in the National Assembly. I may say so, for I 
 speak with the exception of myself; and yet men of letters 
 are of all the most enlightened, if not on particular subjects, 
 on subjects in general ; they have more exercised their facul- 
 ties, and know best how to apply them ; but they were not 
 numerous enough to make their part good ; the trading inter- 
 est and the advocates were the prevailing descriptions in the 
 Assembly. But there had always been a rivalry between the 
 men of letters and the advocates, though they of all others 
 should have been most united. Power had never been able 
 to shut the mouth of a courageous advocate, and power had 
 always stood in awe of the enlightened minds, and free and 
 fierce language, of distinguished men of letters. Exile and 
 lettres de cachet had often been their reward ; how was it 
 then that so few of the men of letters took the lead in the 
 Revolution ? I must not dissemble, that many of them mixed 
 a little worldly prudence in their politics, and chose to see the 
 side that was likely to prevail. These were, indeed, but the 
 poor creatures of this particular class, but in others of the 
 class the same hesitation may be traced to causes of a more 
 dignified nature. For instance, the philosopher loves liberty, 
 he knows the dignity of man, but he first, and above all, asks 
 for peace. Let the light, he says, expand around him ; let 
 humanity recover its rights ; but by degrees and without 
 effort. He is in terror of concussions and violent revolutions. 
 The reason is simple : he compares the purchase with the 
 price to be paid. Efforts can only accelerate things ; when 
 they are ripened and come to maturity, their very necessity 
 inevitably produces them. If a great people once thinks ot 
 liberty, at liberty they must arrive. The time when, the
 
 256 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 natural epoch, the philosopher thinks, and wisely thinks, 
 must not be precipitated ; his calculations turn only on the 
 more and the less. He would have less rather than more, if 
 that more is to be purchased by public calamities and the 
 shedding of blood. However the men of loftier minds, who 
 vote themselves the only children of liberty, may look down 
 upon, as spurious, those who condescend to consider and 
 calculate ; they cannot but allow that such calculations are 
 not altogether unreasonable ; and I have always thought, and 
 I think still, that a little more of this sort of philosophic rea- 
 soning would have done us no harm in the Constituent 
 Assembly." 
 
 Now I must recommend this paragraph that I have quoted 
 to your recollection. You will see, hereafter, that M. Bailly 
 was an assertor of the new opinions, voted and acted with 
 La Fayette and his friends, yet he seems here to have been 
 aware, perhaps too late, that the march of reformers should 
 be slow. Those who love liberty, and who have ardour and 
 talents enough to obtain an audience in their country, should 
 be warned by passages like these, coming from a man like 
 this, of the most undeniable benevolence, and of intelligence 
 the most acknowledged. Principles like those which M. 
 Bailly has here laid down, might have saved the National 
 Assembly and the state. But Bailly immediately subjoins : 
 " Such were my principles ; my conduct, indeed, has been that 
 of my duties ; my first law was the national will ; when the 
 nation was once assembled, I had no other law but that 
 sovereign will." 
 
 Principles like these last, on the contrary, which M. 
 Bailly has thus expressed, ruined all. To vote that no 
 question was to be asked beyond the sovereign will of the 
 people, was to leave every thing to the disposal, first, of san- 
 guine, intemperate, and therefore dangerous men, and ulti- 
 mately of bad, designing men, and of furious and ferocious 
 men. Nothing can be so base in itself, and so fatal to the state, 
 as to act in subserviency to the popular will, when it is felt to 
 be wrong. 
 
 The great points of interest when the States met, were 
 such as I have already proposed to your consideration, the 
 verification of the powers, the early votes of the Assembly,
 
 XII. 
 
 BAILLY. 2 
 
 o« 
 
 the struggle and the result, as far as we have yet proceeded 
 in the history. It will be curious to observe, what such a 
 man as Bailly has to say on such important subjects. I will, 
 immediately, endeavour to give you some notion of whut 
 seems to have occurred to him, but I will first allude to a few 
 particulars which I think are of a preliminary nature. For 
 instance, Bailly lays down the propriety and necessity of a 
 particular dress for people in public situations. He laments 
 that the costume appropriated to each order in the National 
 Assembly w^as at last abandoned. One of the notions (a very . 
 convenient one at the time) to which the French Revolution 
 gave currency, was, that every thing ought to be rested 
 entirely on its own merit ; tliat a magistrate or a king was 
 but a man, and was, therefore, only to appear as such. This is 
 very much the tone and language of all republics ; directly 
 opposed to that of monarchies and courts : each carries its 
 notions to an extreme. But Bailly 's testimony is clearly 
 against the republican extreme, and is somewhat remarkable, 
 considering the times in which he lived, and that he was by 
 profession himself a philosopher. He had every temptation 
 to be wrong ; but being president of the National Assembly 
 he probably discovered, that there were other things which 
 affected large masses of mankind besides merit, and that the 
 natural associations of the mind and feelings of the heart 
 should be made available to the great cause of peace and 
 order and law. 
 
 Aoain, — One of the main causes of the failure of the Revo- 
 lution was, the liberty which the people in the tribunes 
 assumed of expressing their applause or censure of what was 
 going on in the Assembly. It is curious, therefore, to observe 
 the first approaches of a power so fatal, and the reasonings 
 which led to its introduction. 
 
 The line taken by our own House of Commons seems the 
 right one ; that strangers, as they are called, should be ad- 
 mitted (for advantages quite inestimable result from the pub- 
 hcity of their debates), but that any member should have a 
 power of ordering them instantly to withdraw, which secures, 
 and can alone secure, their non-interference : a point that is 
 on one side quite as indispensable, as is the pubhcity of the 
 debates on the other, and even nioie so.
 
 258 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 " Just as we were going to deliberate," says Bailly, " a de- 
 puty demanded that the strangers should withdraw ; the pro- 
 position was rejected. It was settled, that there could be no 
 discussion that ought not to have the greatest publicity, for 
 there could be none that had not for its object the interest of 
 every citizen. The strangers were, therefore, only given to 
 understand, that they were not to seat themselves among the 
 members, and carefully to abstain from all expressions of cen- 
 sure or approbation;" — "an engagement," says Bailly, 
 " made with the public, which the public has not always 
 observed." They were sure not to observe it, it may be 
 replied ; and the deputy's motion should have been carried, 
 and the rule made what it is with us. There was, no doubt, 
 a difficulty in the case of the National Assembly, who thought 
 themselves in need of the constant sympathy and support of 
 the public ; but it was not so necessary as they supposed, and 
 they bought it too dearly. In a subsequent part of his Me- 
 moirs, you will find many curious particulars on this very 
 important subject ; Bailly was always aware of the fatal, at 
 least very dangerous, consequences of the interference of the 
 galleries. 
 
 You will find, too, observations on the first rise of the clubs, 
 and of their objectionable nature ; the Assembly seem not at 
 first to have admired them. 
 
 I will now proceed to the main subjects on which the 
 notions of Bailly should be observed. 
 
 You must remark, as I read, the tone and manner of his 
 reasonings : they must have been those of wise and good 
 patriots, like himself, at the time ; they are specimens of the 
 effect of the new opinions. I produce them as a sort of pic- 
 ture of the Revolution ; and you must not be repelled by the 
 dry and tedious nature of exhibitions like these, now or at any 
 other time, for I conceive them to be the best chance of your 
 instruction. 
 
 The National Assembly had been sitting some time before 
 Bailly and the deputies for Paris had joined them. 
 
 The great question of the verification of the powers was 
 now in full agitation. Bailly discusses and gives the history 
 of it, but seems not to have seen the dangers that were to be 
 apprehended from the vote by head, instead of by order, which
 
 XII. BAILLY. 259 
 
 was the question really at issue ; and an issue which was to 
 determine another point of still more importance, whether the 
 Revolution was to go on step by step, and with due modera- 
 tion and delay, or to proceed with a rapidity that even Bailly 
 might have seen at the time would be very dangerous. On 
 the contrary, his apprehensions seem to have taken no other 
 but an opposite direction ; and this, I conceive, to be one of 
 the lessons of his work. " To divide and rule," says he (80), 
 " has been always the maxim of governments, (he alludes to 
 the wish of the court for the vote by orders,) and the applica- 
 tion of it seems to be thought useful, even in such new cir- 
 cumstances as ours ; and at the moment, when it has become 
 prejudicial to the public weal, and dangerous to those who so 
 make use of it. It is on the contrary," says he, " quite 
 necessary that every power should be united to make the 
 constitution ; and above all things, that the constitution, as it 
 proceeds, should trample down all difficulties and resistance." 
 This is not very agreeable to Bailly's earher and more sound 
 mode of reasoning, such as I have quoted at the opening of 
 the lecture. 
 
 But to proceed. You will see still further in the passages 
 I shall now quote, how distinctly the new opinions appear in 
 the views and reasonings of this eminent philosopher ; a phi- 
 losopher of some standing, but a somewhat newly made 
 statesman. 
 
 " The nobles," he says, " decreed, that the deliberation by 
 order, and the power of each order to put a veto on the pro- 
 ceedings of the other two, were part of the very constitution 
 of the monarchy, and that they must maintain them as the 
 defenders of the throne and of freedom." 
 
 " What a strange decree !" says Bailly; " the representa- 
 tives of about two hundred thousand individuals or more, 
 who are noble, take upon themselves to decide, and in their 
 own favour, a question that concerns twenty-five millions of 
 men. They assume for themselves the right of the veto ; 
 they declare the powers and the principles of the consti- 
 tution ; and who are they, more than others, who thus de- 
 clare?" M. Bailly, a calm and most intelligent philoso- 
 pher, appears thus, at this particular period — such was the 
 effect of the new opinions — to have seen nothing in an order of
 
 260 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 nobility but a collection of so many individuals : a most 
 vulgar and miserable misconception. But Bailly was not 
 merely a man of science ; he had even lived in Paris, and was 
 at the time enjoying a pension from the crown as a man of 
 letters : so strong had set the current of public opinion 
 against privileged orders, even so early in the Revolution as 
 May, 1789. He seems never for a moment to have seen or to 
 have regarded the importance of their body, as a body ; the 
 propriety of their argument, even with reference to the safety 
 of the monarchy. 
 
 Again, on the 5th of June, probably for the first time, the 
 language of democracy was sounded in the Palace of Ver- 
 sailles. A deputation of the Tiers Etat was to wait upon the 
 king. Bailly was the president; he had to adjust the cere- 
 monies with the keepers of the seals. " It is not," said the 
 keeper of the seals, " that one would insist upon any ancient 
 custom (the going down upon the knee), any that would hurt 
 the Tiers Etat, or that the king has any intention of exacting 
 any observance of this kind ; yet still, as this custom has 
 existed from time immemorial, and if the king should will 
 it — " " But if twenty-five millions of men should not will 
 it," interrupted Bailly, " where would be the means of forcing 
 them?" This, to be sure, was a question not hitherto asked 
 at Versailles, in the palace of Louis XIV., and shows in 
 Bailly's mind the inroad of the new opinions. 
 
 With respect to the struggle that ensued between the Tiers 
 Etat and the privileged orders, M. Bailly describes it much in 
 the way you will see it given by others. 
 
 At last the Tiers Etat, it seems, having first dropped that 
 name, and called themselves " the Commons," voted them- 
 selves " the National Assembly." 
 
 " There was some little awkwardness," says Bailly,— (un- 
 doubtedly there was,)—" in thus declaring ourselves to be the 
 nation. In the first place, it was not exactly true," says he, 
 " while there was assembled at the time a Chamber of the 
 Clergy, and a Chamber also of the Noblesse, with a right to 
 be so assembled ; and yet it was certain that the French in 
 mass (the clergy and nobility excluded) were such a majority, 
 that they might be considered as the whole nation. Usage 
 was on one side," says he, "reason on the other: usage.
 
 XII. BAILLY. 261 
 
 which divided the nation into three portions, one immense, 
 and two very diminutive ; reason, that wished to unite them 
 all, or that thought the one larger should absorb the two 
 small ones." Now here I must observe, on this passage of 
 M. Bailly, that this is revolutionary language; that it is 
 by reasonings of this kind that men on all these occasions 
 colour their usurpations, deceive others and themselves. Men 
 are to be numbered by the head ; things are to be reduced to 
 their first elements; what is called reason is to be brought 
 forward to put aside all usage and custom ; that is, to put 
 aside all existing feelings and associations ; and the nation is 
 to take the chance of a new set, better or worse (as it may 
 happen), to be formed with difficulty, and, after a collision, a 
 conflict with the old, ending probably in a civil war. 
 
 Acts of usurpation should be also, on another account, 
 most carefully avoided, not only from the justice of the case, 
 from the possible inexpediency of the proceeding, but from 
 the impossibihty of receding, when a public body has once 
 committed itself. An accidental circumstance is here to be 
 remarked. It was one misfortune among others, that the 
 Tiers Etat had got into the great hall, where the States 
 General would naturally assemble : there they were ; and it 
 appeared more in course for the other orders to be found there 
 too, that is, to come to them, than the contrary ; that is, the 
 Tiers Etat were themselves profiting by the very associations 
 which they were calling on reason to destroy. 
 
 But this act of usurpation was, in fact, not proposed in the 
 assembly of the Tiers Etat without exciting the greatest sensa- 
 tion ; not without tumult and noise the most frightful and 
 overpowering; and this is a very curious circumstance. M. 
 Bailly evidently gives himself the greatest credit for the 
 calmness and the sort of vis inertice that he displayed. He 
 was president. Three or four hundred members among them, 
 " the brave Bretons," as he calls them, stood bawling for the 
 question before him ; behind him, about one hundred endea- 
 vouring to cause an adjournment, by making, if possible, a 
 still greater uproar, that all business might be impracticable; 
 the great table that stretched along the hall and divided the 
 parties, alone prevented them from coming to blows : a scene 
 this, which might have taught M. Bailly and the patriots
 
 262 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 how much more easy it was for men to feel than to think, 
 and that the reason to which he and they were referring every 
 thing was only one element among others in the composition 
 of human nature. 
 
 I cannot but think this portion of M. Bailly's account 
 somewhat edifying. It is my office to denounce to you all 
 acts of usui'pation whenever they appear, whether committed 
 by the friends of liberty or its enemies. Acts of usurpation are 
 violence ; violence must be followed by violence, by hatred, 
 dissension, bloodshed, by individual and national calamity. 
 It is natural for me to turn my own eyes, and to wish to 
 direct yours, to the beginnings of these things : when the 
 flood-gate is once opened, it is in vain to lament the rushing 
 out of the torrent. 
 
 But to proceed. After a more orderly sitting the next day, 
 the following resolutions were decreed, and were the first con- 
 stitutional acts of the Assembly, by a majority of four hun- 
 dred and ninety-one to ninety ; something more than five to 
 one. Observe now the nature of the resolutions of the As- 
 sembly, and of Bailly's reasonings while considering these 
 resolutions. The point to be eifected was, to show how and 
 why the Assembly were to be every thing, and every other 
 authority in the state nothing. Observe, then, I repeat, the 
 revolutionary, special pleading of the Assembly in the first 
 instance, and of their commentator, the philosopher, in the 
 second. 
 
 " The Assembly," says the first paragraph of these reso- 
 lutions, " the Assembly, deliberating after the verification of 
 its powers, perceives that it is already composed of representa- 
 tives sent directly by ninety-six hundredths, at least, of the 
 whole nation." Very well : " Nothing," says Bailly, " can 
 be more exact than this assertion." 
 
 Again: " Such a mass of deputation," continues the reso- 
 lution of this Assembly, " cannot remain inactive on account 
 of the absence of the deputies of some particular baillages, or 
 of some classes of citizens ; for the absent, who have been 
 summoned, cannot prevent those who are present from the 
 full exercise of their rights, particularly when the exercise of 
 those rights is a duty imperious and pressing." 
 
 " Nothing," says Bailly, " can be more regular than this ;
 
 XII. BAILLY. 263 
 
 there the principle, here the consequence : quite unanswer- 
 able. The four-hundredths that are absent, but duly sum- 
 moned, cannot impede the ninety-six-hundredths that are 
 present. Certainly not. To show the contrary, one has only 
 indeed," says Bailly, "to cite usage, custom; but reason," 
 he replies, " that has now awaked, stifles all murmurs of this 
 kind about usage and custom;" and reason having thus done 
 its office, M. Bailly can proceed, as can the resolution of the 
 Assembly, to the desired point, and that, after the following 
 manner : — 
 
 " Moreover, as it belongs to those representatives only, 
 who are verified, to concur with the national will, and as all 
 the representatives verified must be in this Assembly, it fol- 
 lows indispensably that it belongs to this Assembly, and to 
 this Assembly only, to interpret and to produce the general 
 will of the nation." All rioht a"ain, it seems, accordino- to 
 Bailly : " The principle," says he, " that all the representa- 
 tions should be verified, is incontestable ; that the repre- 
 sentatives ought all to find themselves in the Assembly, in- 
 contestable also (it can be contested only by the two orders). 
 And this last principle admitted, the assertion that it belongs 
 to the Assembly, and to the Assembly only, to declare the 
 will of the nation, has in it nothing rash, and nothing that is 
 not perfectly well founded ;" that is, in other words, according 
 to M. Bailly, for the king's will, which was formerly the 
 term, the national will was to be substituted ; and by the 
 national will was meant the will of the Assembly ; and so it 
 comes out (according to this reasoning at least) that the 
 States General had been called together by the king, that a 
 part of them, the Tiers Etat, might be made king instead of 
 him. Certainly usage and custom was against all this, but 
 reason was then adequate, according to M. Bailly, to settle 
 every thing. 
 
 Particularly it seems, as the Assembly went on to decree 
 that " there could exist between the throne and the Assembly 
 no veto, no negative power ;' ' and as the Assembly declared 
 further, " that the common work of the national restoration 
 could and ought to begin without further delay by the 
 deputies present, and that they ought to pursue it, as with- 
 out interruption so also without obstacle." Further, " That
 
 264 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 the name of National Assembly is the only one that befits the 
 Assembly in the present state of things ; as well because the 
 members who compose it are the only representatives lawfully 
 and publicly known and verified, as because also they are sent 
 by almost the whole of the nation ; and because, finally, the 
 representation being one and indivisible, no one of the deputies 
 (for whatever order or class they may be chosen) can have 
 the right of exercising their functions separately from this 
 Assembly. 
 
 " Here," says Bailly (still proud of the reasoning and wis- 
 dom of the Assembly), " here, then, we finish by a principle 
 which confirms and legitimatizes all the rest, the unity of the 
 national representation. What sort of a state," says he, " is 
 that, where the nation has three voices ? and what then is to 
 be the result of these three voices ? Is it the majority of the 
 three that is to decide ? Would it not then be of course, that 
 the nobles and the clergy, four in the hvmdred, would in the 
 event be the majority over the remaining ninety-six? But 
 who then will at last have to decide between the two orders 
 and the Tiers Etat ? The king. But then the nation has no 
 longer a will. Be the following truths, then, agreed to : — No 
 more orders in the representation of the nation ; deliberation 
 in common; unity in the representation. Let me admire," 
 says he, " the wise and firm march of the Assembly;" and 
 the movements of this march are then by him again recapitu- 
 lated. 
 
 Something, however, of civility, of haughty civility, that 
 must have been more offensive than the usurpation itself, was 
 to bring up the rear of this column of reasoning. 
 
 " The Assembly," said the last clause of the whole reso- 
 lution, " will never lose the hope of uniting in its bosom all 
 the deputies that are now absent; will never cease to call 
 upon them to fulfil the obligation that has been imposed upon 
 them of concurrino: with the sitting of the States General. At 
 whatever moment the absent deputies may present them- 
 selves in the session about to open, the Assembly declares 
 beforehand that it will hasten to receive them, to share with 
 them, after the verification of their powers, the continuance of 
 the great labours which cannot but procure the regeneration 
 of France."
 
 XII. BAILLY. 265 
 
 After these resolutions, it seems the Assembly voted what 
 they and M. Bailly considered a respectful address to the 
 king, to apprize him what the resolutions were ; that is, to 
 apprize him that he was to descend from his throne and to 
 seat himself by the president : this, or something very like it ; 
 and then the hall resounded with reiterated shouts of Vive 
 le Hoi ! 
 
 Such is the account given by M. Bailly of the revolu- 
 tionary logic that was used, and of the proceedings that fol- 
 lowed. I know not how to give you a better idea of the 
 situation of France at the time, than that such logic should 
 be tolerated and such proceedings ensue. M. Bailly was, 
 as I must again and again repeat, an amiable and sensible 
 man, a calm and distinguished philosopher, a disinterested 
 patriot; yet could M. Bailly not perceive, that while the 
 Assembly w^ere thus usurping in fact the whole power of the 
 state, the king in the mean time had done nothing to justify 
 them in thus setting him aside, and all the rules, and maxims, 
 and orders of the ancient monarchy aside also; that they 
 were standing away full sail from the shore, and embarking 
 on an untried ocean, with no star to o'uide them but their 
 reason, as they termed it ; or rather, perhaps, with no other 
 light but the flashes that might issue from the thunder-storms 
 of the multitude. The injustice, the rashness, the folly of all 
 this, seems never for a moment to have reached the appre- 
 hension of this most respectable member of the Assembly. 
 The regeneration of his country was his object; the sovereign 
 will of the people his means. 
 
 Such w'as M. Bailly ; such were thousands of intelhgent 
 men around him. What could be expected, what could be 
 hoped, from the majority of a nation, when such were the 
 most distinguished of the wise ? But such is the instruction 
 of those who consider themselves as the wise also, now or 
 hereafter. 
 
 The next act of the Assembly was in course. M. Bailly, 
 and no doubt the members themselves, were conscious that 
 the act by which they had thus constituted the Tiers Etat the 
 National Assembly, comprehended in its meaning and opera- 
 tion the destruction of the two privileged orders. " In 
 establishing," says he, " that we could do without them, we
 
 266 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 showed their inability and their abuse. Government," he 
 says, " could not but see that this act seized upon that 
 authority which had, till that time, been exclusively royal, to 
 throw it into the hands of the nation and its legitimate repre- 
 sentatives." And now, you will observe, as one usurpation 
 was to be followed up by another (and this is always one of 
 the great objections to any thing that bears the very appear- 
 ance of usurpation), it became necessary to the Assembly, as 
 acquiescence in their proceedings could not possibly be ex- 
 pected from the court, to provide for the permanence of their 
 sitting, lest their dissolution should be attempted, and their 
 leading members seized and imprisoned ; and they, therefore, 
 proceeded next to vote, that the existing taxes not having 
 been consented to by the nation, were illegal ; but that they 
 consented to them provisorily, and legalized them, till the 
 day of their dissolution, after which none were to be legal 
 which they had not expressly made so. 
 
 Now here it may surely be asked, was this the manner in 
 which the king was to be treated, or even the two privileged 
 orders ? These two privileged orders had formally (however 
 late) given up their immunity from taxation. Is there not 
 always in the affairs of mankind, as in the action of bodies, a 
 reaction to be expected ? Is it to be wondered at that the 
 court should urge the king to bring up the army to dissolve 
 the Assembly? — that the king should consent to it? It is 
 very true, that if things had been left to take their natural 
 course, the Tiers Etat might have found great opposition from 
 the other two bodies, voting by order, not by head ; their 
 Revolution would not have proceeded at the rate they wished : 
 but was this a reason for their putting every thing to issue; 
 for their making their terms so hard to the king and the 
 patrons of the old regime; for their running the chance of 
 a civil war ? 
 
 But such, it will be said, was the nature of the times. Then 
 such, I reply, is the lesson of the times, and as such I propose 
 it, along with the antecedent selfishness and folly of the 
 privileged orders, to your most careful consideration. There 
 is selfishness on the one side, rashness on the other. 
 
 But I have gone more into this subject before, and ex- 
 plained myself more calmly. It is difficult to be calm when
 
 XII. 
 
 BAILLY. 267 
 
 the very reasonings that have led to fatal consequences are, 
 as in the Memoirs of Bailly, exhibited to our more immediate 
 view ; when their dangerous pretensions, their shuffling so- 
 phistry, their triumphant injustice, can be seen through. 
 
 Soon after, you will remark, new circumstances appearing, 
 the votes were printed and published ; the members of the 
 Assembly, the clergy particularly, were, therefore, hooted or 
 applauded by the populace. M. Bailly, it is true, makes 
 here the proper observations ; but it should have taught him, 
 and have taught others, to take care that such statesmen as 
 these, the populace of Paris, did not interfere in the debates 
 of the Assembly. M. Bailly notes this as the commence- 
 ment of that war that was afterwards waged by the Sans- 
 culottes and hired armies of Paris; that is, it was the com- 
 mencement of the destruction of the cause of liberty and of 
 M. Bailly and his fellow patriots. 
 
 iVnd now you will observe that the lesson is to alter, and 
 you are to be called upon to remark an extraordinary want of 
 skill and circumspection in the conduct of the king and 
 the court. 
 
 Some opposition was of course to be made to these pro- 
 ceedings of the Assembly, and, as you may remember, a royal 
 sitting was determined upon (the sitting of the 23rd of June); 
 that is, the king was to occupy the hall of the Assembly, 
 while he summoned to his presence and addressed there the 
 three orders of the States General. 
 
 Instead, therefore, of notifying his intention in an official 
 manner, as he would have done to the parliaments, M. 
 Bailly, the president, received no proper official notice, and he 
 and the members of the Assembly had to say to themselves 
 and to each other, " Is it decent that the members of the 
 National Assembly, or even the deputies of the Commons, as 
 you may still please to consider them, is it decent that they 
 should thus be apprized of the intentions of the king, of the 
 suspension of their own sittings, and of the shutting up of 
 their hall, only by public criers, and by notices posted on the 
 wall, as the inhabitants of a town would be made acquainted 
 with the shutting up of a theatre ?" 
 
 These are the words of M. Bailly, and are but too rea- 
 sonable ; and the conclusions that were drawn by him and
 
 268 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 others were but too natural — that what the court intended 
 was to prevent the Assembly from sitting- at all ; to prevent 
 any more resolutions like those we have just alluded to, of 
 the 17th, till some great blow should be struck (probably at 
 the sitting of the 23rd) ; to prevent the union of the clergy at 
 all events ; and to allow no time to the Assembly to take mea- 
 sures in opposition to the royal sitting. These seem to have 
 been the notions of M. Bailly, and no doubt of the rest of 
 the Assembly ; and it must be confessed that they were very 
 fair conclusions for them to draw, and that they afterwards 
 under these impressions defended themselves from the court, 
 and supported their late usurpation of the powers of the state, 
 with great firmness and spirit. 
 
 The facts as related by Bailly himself, one of the principal 
 persons concerned, are the same that have been given you by 
 other writers, and you are already acquainted with them. 
 The deputies of the Tiers Etat were shut out from their hall, 
 when they came to renew their sitting agreeably to their 
 adjournment; they therefore assembled in a tennis court, 
 and the opportunity was taken to declare, and indeed, under 
 the circumstance of the case, it was necessary to declare, that 
 wherever its members could meet, there was the National 
 Assembly, and to enter into a solemn engagement never to 
 separate ; an oath with uplifted hands was the form adopted, 
 after the theatric manner of the nation ; it was pronounced 
 aloud by the president, heard outside the doors, re-echoed in 
 all the streets, and all around accompanied and followed up 
 (one cannot immediately see why) by universal shouts of 
 Vive le Roi ! 
 
 The revolutionary language, however, in which the decree 
 sets out is remarkable. " The National Assembly," (the words 
 are,) " considering, that called upon to fix the constitution of 
 the kingdom, and to effect the regeneration of public order," 
 it is then added indeed, " and to maintain the true principles 
 of the monarchy, resolves," &c. On these last words M. 
 Bailly seems to rest his thoughts with some complacency. 
 '' The Assembly," says he, " took proper precautions against 
 the ministry, and armed itself against its despotism, but was 
 heart and soul with the king, and had no intention to do any 
 thing in opposition to his lawful authority ; and it was against
 
 XII. BAILLY. 269 
 
 despotism, not against the monarchy, that its proceedings 
 were directed. 
 
 No doubt these were the views of Bailly and the majority 
 of the Tiers Etat ; but their new opinions, tlieir contempt for 
 precedent, for experience, and the estabhshed forms and no- 
 tions of the monarchy, assisted by the original perverseness, 
 the bhndness, the stupidity I had almost called it, of the 
 court, and the lamentable want of character in the kino-, soon 
 rendered their good intentions vain, soon threw every thing 
 into a state of difficulty, from which no wisdom of theirs 
 could ever afterwards extricate the unhappy country they had 
 wished to serve ; but had endeavoured to serve by such rash 
 and dangerous proceedings. 
 
 " What has inevitably brought on and hastened the Revo- 
 lution," says M. Bailly, "is, that the ministers would never 
 see that the state of things was every where changed. 
 
 " Time was, when one led the people with ease ; for cabi- 
 nets were then so superior in intelligence ; but this superiority 
 has been lost, and has at last even changed places, and a new 
 manner of governing must now be adopted ; a truth which 
 ministers have not yet felt the force of." 
 
 On the whole, therefore, it turned out that the expected 
 royal sitting was considered as a bed of justice. Troops, too, 
 were perceived to be approaching ; the sitting was put oif 
 from the 22nd to the 23rd. In the middle of the nioht Baillv 
 was called up, and privately informed that Necker disap- 
 proved of the measm^es adopted, that he would not attend 
 the sitting, and would probably be dismissed. It had been 
 settled between Bailly and the Assembly that no reply should 
 be made to the king, whatever he might say to them ; it was 
 afterwards intimated to Bailly by the king that he wished no 
 reply to be made ; and under these most unfortunate circum- 
 stances the royal sitting opened on the morning of the 23rd. 
 
 I have already mentioned to you that I consider this sitting 
 of the 23rd as one of the most important turns in the history 
 of the Revolution. The patriots, I conceive, should have 
 been content with the king's proposals then delivered, but 
 they seem to have had no notion of the kind; and it becomes 
 a point of curiosity to see what occurred to a man like Bailly 
 at the time.
 
 270 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 The detail which he gives is what is given by others, and 
 what you know. The most deplorable want of contrivance 
 was shown by the ministers even in so insignificant a matter 
 as the admission of the Tiers Etat into the hall : they were 
 kept waiting, as you are aware, and in the rain, till the other 
 two orders were seated ; apparently lest they should mix them- 
 selves along with them. The majority of the clergy had joined 
 them the day before. 
 
 " One was astonished," says Bailly, " to observe that the 
 king had been made to use the old phrases, * the king wills,' 
 * the king understands,' kc. ; that he had been made to nul- 
 lify the resolutions of the Assembly, when as the chief head, 
 the hereditary representative of the nation, he could only 
 have a veto. Many deputies observed upon such expressions 
 as ' the benefits which the king has granted to his people,' 
 &c. &c. The king sole master, indeed, and sole legislator in 
 the absence of the nation, can he thus speak to the nation 
 assembled in the form of its States General !" Here we see 
 new opinions. " The Commons," he continues, " during the 
 reading of the king's declarations, remained in a silence the 
 most profound. Not so the majority of the noblesse and the 
 majority of the clergy, who accompanied and followed these 
 two declarations with the most frequent bursts of applause. 
 Well they might, indeed, for they were partly their work." 
 
 " Unhappy prince !" says Bailly, commenting on the con- 
 clusion of the king's speech (the spirited part of it), ''unhappy 
 prince ! to what have they pledged you, and how have they 
 deceived you !" 
 
 He then gives the minute particulars of what passed, all of 
 which, on such an occasion, are important. He told the 
 master of the ceremonies, he says, that the Assembly, having 
 adjourned till after the royal sitting, could not separate with- 
 out first deliberating, and that it was not (as had been re- 
 ported) to the master of the ceremonies, M. de Brize, but to 
 those around him, that he added, " I conceive that the nation 
 assembled can receive no orders." 
 
 " I respected," says Bailly, " the king too much, and knew 
 too well what was due to the Assembly, to send any such 
 message without their direction. 
 
 " It was, in truth," he continues, " it was Mirabeau that
 
 XII. BAILLY. 271 
 
 took upon liimself to be angiy with M. de Brize, and he said 
 pretty nearly what has been reported : * Go tell those who 
 sent you, that the force of bayonets is of no avail against the 
 will of the nation.' 
 
 "This has been praised," says Bailly, " as an answer; but 
 it is no answer, it is a sort of apostrophe, which he was under 
 no necessity of making ; which he had no right to make, for 
 it was the president alone who was called upon to speak. No 
 one had said a word to us of bayonets ; no force had been 
 announced to us ; no menace had issued from the mouth of 
 M. de Brizj : nothing of the kind. He had reminded us, as 
 it was his duty, of the order of the king ; had the king a right 
 to give that order? The Assembly, by continuing its sitting, 
 had decreed — no ; and I," says Bailly, " in declaring that the 
 Assembly could not be separated till it had deliberated on the 
 point, had maintained its rights and its dignity, and had kept 
 within that sort of limit and restraint which an assembly and 
 its president should never fail to observe." These are the 
 words of Bailly. 
 
 I had long, I confess, before I read these remarks of Bailly, 
 considered the address of Mirabeau (as reported) to the 
 master of the ceremonies as entirely uncalled for, and as a 
 very ostentatious flourish, which the Assembly should not 
 have appeared to adopt ; and it is agreeable to perceive that 
 a reasonable man like Bailly, however patriotic, however a 
 disciple of the new opinions and an actor in the scene (though 
 the actor interfered with), so considered it. Violent sallies, 
 such as catch the applause of public assemblies at the time, 
 are always very suspicious in point of wisdom, sometimes in 
 point of principle, and are upon the whole to be avoided, and 
 neither to be produced nor applauded by those who mean 
 well. 
 
 There was then a pitiful attempt made by the court to 
 disturb the Assembly by workmen, and make them quit the 
 hall. The result of the whole was, that the Assembly unani- 
 mously declared, that it persisted in its former resolutions ; 
 and as those had been in the royal sitting formally annulled 
 by the king, the royal authority and that of the Assembly 
 were thus placed entirely at issue ; and Bailly observes, that 
 the Assembly was never so great as at that moment ; ren-
 
 272 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect; 
 
 dered so, by a declaration so simple, so precise, and all cir- 
 cumstances considered, so firm. What the ministers gained, 
 says he, by this strange sitting, so he terms it, was only to 
 make the nation exhibit a new act of sovereignty, and by a 
 solemn act to decide, and in favour of the nation, the conflict 
 that then existed between the powers of the nation and the 
 king. The Assembly concluded by declaring their persons 
 inviolable. 
 
 Four pages now follow in M. Bailly, which will show 
 the student very distinctly the views that were taken of this 
 singular crisis, probably by the most intelhgent and patriotic 
 men of France, at this particular period. 
 
 I have already announced to you that the Assembly should, 
 I conceive, have closed with the proposals of the king, and 
 saved their country from the storm that evidently was im- 
 pending; but this is the great question, and you must well 
 observe what are the sentiments and expressions of such a 
 man as Bailly at the time. 
 
 In the first place, he begins with representing the conduct 
 of the Assembly, as * above all Grecian and all Roman fame.' 
 " Nothing in antiquity," says he, " can be opposed to these re- 
 solutions in point of wisdom, and nothing to the firmness of 
 those by whom they were adopted. But at the close of this 
 discussion, while endeavouring to show the injudicious con- 
 duct of the ministers, where, says he, was their force to carry 
 their measures ? were they sure of the soldiers ? The event 
 proved, not. Could they believe in their numbers, &c. ; this 
 was the cause of the people, but the soldiers are people ; what 
 then could they have attempted 1 Imprisonment — but impri- 
 sonments are to have some term or other; they durst not have 
 done it. But besides, however they might have deceived the 
 king with regard to measures, of which he saw not the pro- 
 bable result, measures of rigour were foreign to his heart, 
 and such, I am sure, he would have revolted from. But 
 here it may be observed, in answer to M. Bailly, where was 
 then this Roman firmness in the Assembly if they had no 
 enemy to fear ; and with respect to their wisdom, if such was 
 the king, it might have surely been asked M. Bailly, why 
 was the Assembly thus to erect their power upon the ruins 
 of his ? Why were they to force on this tremendous issue of a
 
 XII. 
 
 BAILLY. 273 
 
 distinct struggle between their king and the Assembly ? They 
 saw the ministers and the military force ranged around the 
 king: behind themselves were placed the people of Versailles 
 and Paris, who were to be taught, at all hazards, the doctrines 
 of insurrection. These were the parties, this their situation, 
 this the field of battle — and what an issue ! Suppose the sol- 
 diers were to stand by the monarch while he maintained his 
 late declarations, what was to become of the Assembly and 
 eventually of the cause of freedom ? Suppose, on the con- 
 trary, the soldiers were to side with the Assembly and the 
 people, what was then to become of the royal authority? 
 What various chances here of confusion and bloodshed ! and 
 on what account ? Because France, upon a system of mode- 
 ration and conciliation with the king and court, was then not 
 to be regenerated, as it was called ; because all that had been 
 expected by the followers of the new opinions was then not to 
 be realized ; because the whole was then to proceed on a 
 system of mutual tolerance, mutual concessions, checks, and 
 balances; and because the old opinions were then not to be 
 entirely scoffed and hooted out of the world by the new. 
 Such were the calamities to ensue. Now w^as this wisdom in 
 the Assembly? Was this the conduct of statesmen ? Our own 
 ancestors had a very different case before them, while acting 
 in the long parliament. Charles I. had shown that his prin- 
 ciples and feehngs were perfectly arbitrary: far from calling 
 together the free assemblies of the country, he had en- 
 deavoured for eleven years together to rule without them. 
 Louis XVI., on the contrary, was a prince acknowledged, by 
 the most furious of the assertors of these new opinions, to be 
 peaceful, benevolent, patriotic, to be any thing but a tyrant. 
 I am not now arguing the question with revolutionary, daring- 
 men, who enjoy disorder, and whose dreadful talents and 
 propensities are called into full triumph and display, on such 
 occasions, to the gratification of their personal pride or self- 
 ishness; but I speak to those who mean well, who deserve 
 the venerable name of patriot, but who get enamoured of 
 their own notions of political right ; who are strong, as they 
 suppose, in their powers of reason; who become, by sym- 
 pathy, warm and heated ; and who, by turning away from 
 counsels of expediency, and of moderation, by not being
 
 274 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 reasonable in time, by not striking balances, by not being 
 content with what is practicable, without further experiment 
 or hazard ; in short, by despising every thing of this sane 
 and necessary kind, become, in truth, political enthusiasts, 
 and mere enthusiasts, dangerous to themselves, and enemies 
 to the best interests of their country. 
 
 Now I apprehend this to be one, at least, of the great 
 lessons of the French Revolution. 
 
 The first lesson, no doubt, is the restiveness of the privi- 
 leo-ed orders, who will never give way at all, and never, even 
 if they do, concede in time. But the next is the possibihty 
 and danger of political enthusiasm, enthusiasm in support of 
 a theory, in support of some supposed intuitions of the under- 
 standing, rights of human nature, dictates of common sense ; 
 and these two opposite lessons I have taken, and shall con- 
 tinue to take every opportunity of holding up to your obser- 
 vation, (and this even at the chance of wearying you,) on 
 account of what I conceive to be their supereminent impor- 
 tance. 
 
 Observe the confession of M. Bailly himself. " In the 
 second declaration of the 23rd," he says, " where the inten- 
 tions of the king are manifested, it must be admitted, many 
 things are settled by the king in a manner perfectly paternal; 
 many which must have come within the view of the States 
 General. There was to be no impost, for instance, without 
 the consent of the representatives of the nation, none was to 
 last beyond a session," says he. " All this was very good, but 
 was this to be the form, when the nation, when the enlight- 
 ened nation was present? ' Why are you not satisfied?' " he 
 continues, " said one of his ministers to me ; * had the king 
 made a declaration like this ten years ago, would it not have 
 been received with enthusiasm?' 'Oh, yes,' I replied, ' no 
 doubt, ten years ago.' ' Why, what then does the Assem- 
 bly want or wish to do?' ' Every thing itself,' I replied, 
 ' not for you to do it.'" 
 
 Now this conduct in M. Bailly and in the Assembly, I consi- 
 der first, as following but too surely in the natural progress of 
 political collision at all times ; but secondly as the folly, the 
 enthusiasm of new opinions, and such folly as new opinions 
 will, on every occasion, display.
 
 XII. 
 
 BAILLY. 275 
 
 Matters now began to look very ominous. You remember 
 the affair of the eleven soldiers. Bailly consulted Necker 
 what was to be done, for in this case they had but one wnsh 
 and sentiment. 
 
 Necker recommended the course that was afterwards 
 adopted, but advised a city guard, as M. Bonneville had done, 
 at an assembly of the electors a few days before j a scheme 
 that was afterwards executed in an instant, and carried to an 
 extent that overthrew all the existing executive authority in 
 the kinoxlom, in the extraordinary manner vou have seen, 
 during the crisis of the 14th of July; but it is curious to 
 observe, the first hints and origin of great events hke these. 
 
 We have next appearances still more gloomy ; the troops, 
 the artillery every where drawing round Versailles, and Mira- 
 beau's spirited speeches and addresses to the king. Bailly 
 seems to have talked with some of the ministers, and remon- 
 strated with them. They told him that the troops were only 
 meant to maintain peace and order in Paris. The philoso- 
 pher, however, set himself to work, and from the visible 
 appearances and known facts, seems to have reasoned out 
 (what I conceive to have been) the real state of the case and 
 the views of the court, with sufficient success. 
 
 He seems afterwards to have been very much captivated 
 with Mirabeau's celebrated address to the king for the re- 
 moval of the troops. He refers particularly to that part of it 
 where it is said, " We should but deceive you, Sire, if we 
 were not to add, under the impulse of our present circum- 
 stances, that this empire of peace and order is the only one 
 which it is now possible to exercise in France." 
 
 " It is not to be dissembled," says Bailly, " that Mirabeau 
 was in the Assembly, its principle of force. Nothing could be 
 more grand, more firm, more worthy of the occasion than this 
 address to the king ; with every proper form of respect, it is 
 agreeable to the resolution of the 23rd, where the Assembly 
 declares that it will persist ; here, then, it tells the king him- 
 self the same. The great quahty of Mirabeau was boldness; 
 it was this that fortified his talents, directed him in the ma- 
 nagement of them, and developed their force. Whatever 
 might be his moral character, when he was once elevated by 
 circumstances, he assumed a grandeur and a purity, and was
 
 276 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 exalted by his genius to the full height of courage and of 
 virtue." 
 
 The remainder of the first volume of Bailly is chiefly occupied 
 with the crisis of aftairs that immediately took place, and 
 which was terminated by the taking of the Bastile, the sudden 
 appearance of an armed national force, or rather of an armed 
 nation resisting the court and adopting the measures of the 
 Assembly, and taking the chance of what was called the re- 
 generation of France. M. Bailly seems not to have been 
 in the secret of affairs, but he describes much in the way 
 you have already seen, the anxiety of the National Assembly, 
 and at the same time his own — the anxiety and terror of a 
 good man, during a crisis so tremendous. 
 
 Nothing was wanting but the visible acquiescence of the 
 king, which was given, and given with every appearance of 
 sincerity and good will. The particulars are described by 
 Bailly in the beginning of his second volume. 
 
 The king seems, according to Bailly's representation, never 
 to have had any pleasure greater than that of being considered 
 the father and benefactor of his people. He orders the troops 
 to withdraw; gives up all idea of force, and without cere- 
 mony, and accompanied only by his brothers, repairs to the 
 Assembly to make his peace with them. Expressions in his 
 speech so move the Assembly, that they surround and attend 
 him in his return to his palace. Nothing is heard but the 
 sounds of " Vive le Roi." The trees, the gates, the walls, 
 the statues, are all covered with spectators ; the air is fine, 
 the day brilliant ; the people tell the king that he has need of 
 no other guards. M. Villeroi answers, that he may resign his 
 oflSce, as the nation has taken his duty upon itself. " The 
 walk is fatiguing to your majesty," said an attendant to him ; 
 " Not at all, not at all fatiguing," replied the king, pointing 
 to the delighted crowd that escorted him. " These acclama- 
 tions render homage to your character, Sire," said another. 
 "How could they ever have misconceived me?" answered the 
 king. The music sounded as they approached the palace. 
 The air was that of the song, " How can you be so well as in 
 the midst of your children?" The queen was seen waiting 
 in the balcony with the Dauphin in her arms to be presented 
 to the spectators ; and the king, the court, the Assembly, and
 
 XII. BAILLY. 277 
 
 the people, dissolve in an universal sentiment of peace, and 
 tenderness, and joy. And thus far, at least, historians seem 
 agreed. 
 
 Alas ! the contrast between scenes like these and those that 
 were so soon to succeed them ; between these amiable effu- 
 sions of a generous, loyal, I had almost said forgiving people, 
 and the dark suspicions, the unreasonable clamours, the tu- 
 multuous inroad of a ferocious and bloody populace ; the 
 queen flying through her palace from assassins, and the king 
 conducted captive to the metropolis !
 
 278 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 FERRIERES. 
 
 IN my last lecture I endeavoured to introduce to your ob- 
 servation the views and reasonings of the philosophic 
 Bailly in the earlier stages of the Revolution. I must continue 
 a little longer this species of lecture : the leading and more 
 critical points will thus be revived in your memories; the 
 instruction belonging to them ; different portraits of the Re- 
 volution will be offered you in their own fresh and natural 
 colours ; you will not have to receive my representations ; you 
 will see the materials upon which my own judgment, such as 
 it is, has been formed. 
 
 To-day I shall therefore produce specimens of the views 
 and reasonings of the Marquis de Ferrieres, a deputy of the 
 Nobility, a patron of the old opinions, and who, an eye- 
 witness of the scene, and apparently one of the most respect- 
 able of men, has every right to be heard. 
 
 The Marquis de Ferrieres was born at Poictiers in 1741, was 
 a member of the Constituent Assembly, and was at the time 
 about the age of fifty, and in the full vigour of his faculties. 
 
 He relates, he says, the facts that he witnessed, or that 
 were reported to him by those on whom he could depend, and 
 he neglected no written accounts that seemed likely to afford 
 him information ; he hopes to furnish materials for future 
 historians. 
 
 He had early retired to the country, where he lived occupied 
 with his duties and his studies. Of a religious turn of mind, 
 he had written in defence of the best interests of mankind 
 against the philosophers who had improved, as they supposed, 
 on the doctrines of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau ; 
 and when sent, therefore, by the universal respect of the 
 nobility of his bailliage, as their deputy to the States General,
 
 XIII. FERRIERES. 279 
 
 his birth, his education, his rehgious habits of thought, all 
 concurred to render him the defender of the old opinions, and 
 to seat him on the opposition side of the Assembly, where he 
 always voted, with the majority of the nobility, against the 
 union of the orders, in concurrence with them on all the prin- 
 cipal questions, and finally, against the great work of the 
 Assembly, the Constitution of 1791. 
 
 He was not a speaker, but he was occasionally a writer, 
 and, fortunately for us, he wrote on the subject of the French 
 Revolution, or rather of the Constituent Assembly, and he 
 seems to exhibit to us very faithfully the different impressions 
 he received from what he saw and heard. 
 
 It is agreeable to find, that a respectable and good man 
 like this was allowed to return to his tranquil pleasures and 
 duties, and to die in peace, a few years afterwards, in 1804. 
 
 He opens his narrative by observing, that he was chosen 
 deputy very unexpectedly to himself, but " I could soon dis- 
 cover," says he, " all the selfish interests that were actuating 
 all the great bodies of the kingdom : the parliaments hoped 
 to receive all that the States General could take away from 
 the king ; the high nobility to shake off the ministerial yoke, 
 which had been imposed upon them by Cardinal Richelieu ; 
 the capitalists and the renters to pledge the state for the debt 
 due by the king ; and the Commons affected only to wish for 
 a reform of abuses, while the double representation, which 
 would have been null if the orders were to vote separately, 
 showed plainly, that they meant to vote by head, and to 
 make themselves masters of the deliberations that were to 
 follow. 
 
 " The nobles in the provinces would have nothing to say to 
 the great lords ; their interests, they thought, would be sacri- 
 ficed. My situation, which rendered me indifferent to all views 
 of ambition, fixed their choice, and still more my principles, 
 which were well known, but very far removed from any 
 tendency to despotism ; in me they believed they had found 
 the mean, between abandoning every thing and conceding 
 nothing : as I was not one that was bound to the court, what 
 I was likely to retrench from the monarch would be all gain 
 to the nation. Such is the histoiy of my elevation ; or it may 
 be, that the Almighty, to punish my foolish pride, chose to
 
 280 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 show me, that all my supposed virtues, all my vain science, 
 upon which I so plumed myself, that all were of no avail in 
 the great affairs of the world ; that out of the confined circle 
 in which his fatherly goodness had traced out for me, they 
 could be of no use either to myself or my country, and that I 
 might thus be taught to bless that compassionate wisdom 
 which I had so often but little understood ; for often has it 
 happened to me in thoughtless moments, to murmur in secret 
 at being limited to the exercise of the mere good qualities of 
 a private individual, and removed from those employments 
 which would have furnished me with an opportunity of 
 exhibiting the talents and the virtues of a public man. 
 
 " I confess, that having participated in no intrigue to pro- 
 cure my deputation, it was with much secret congratulation 
 that I saw myself now about to produce the fruits of twenty 
 years of thought and study, and that I was now to be useful 
 to my country. I was soon cruelly undeceived. 
 
 " But if I have not laboured for my cotemporaries, I have, 
 for posterity at least. I now place before their eyes a faithful 
 picture of the Constituent Assembly. It may be, that the 
 experience of those who go before will not always be useless 
 to those who follow. 
 
 " I write," says he, " not the history of the French Revolu- 
 tion, but of the Constituent Assembly. I mean to exhibit the 
 speakers and actors just as they spoke and acted, and at the 
 moment, and on the spot. It is of no consequence what they 
 would say or do now ; let them only ask themselves, did they 
 or did they not so speak and act at the time. 
 
 " No sooner," says he, " had the deputies arrived at Paris, 
 than they all seemed to give vent at once to their particular 
 feelings ; a general restlessness seemed to have got possession 
 of all their understandings, a vague desire of change. The 
 French, confined till that moment by a vigilant and severe 
 police, which watched and controlled their every movement, 
 their every thought, were totally unacquainted with all notions 
 of the social compact, the rights of the nation, the rights of 
 the monarch, those of individuals, those of different classes of 
 citizens ; and they hurried every thing into a state of exagge- 
 ration, every thing — even truth itself, to which they would 
 have preferred error, as far more imposing and grand ; they
 
 XIII. FERRIERES. 281 
 
 abandoned themselves to the utmost intemperance of senti- 
 ments and lanouao'e, as if, issuins; from some lono; enchant- 
 ment, they had now recovered the faculty of speaking and 
 thinking. It was in the coffee-houses of the Palais Royal 
 that was shown in its true colours this new development of 
 the national character; every thing was to be understood, 
 every thing was to be known, every thing was to be commu- 
 nicated, and therefore every day was there assembled a crowd 
 of people. Here came one with a draught of a constitu- 
 tion in his hand, which he assured every one, in the most 
 confident manner, must necessarily occupy the labours of 
 the States General; then came another with a composition, 
 which he read aloud with all his might, drawn up to suit the 
 circumstances of the particular case of the nation ; a third 
 thundered away against the ministers, the nobles, the priests, 
 thus clearing away the stage for what he also had to propose ; 
 while a fourth had climbed upon a table, and was discussing 
 the great question of voting by head, or proposing chimerical 
 plans of government of his own ; each had his auditory, more 
 or less numerous, that listened to him, and approved or 
 censured." Such is the lively and I have no doubt very 
 faithful picture given by the marquis. 
 
 Ferrieres takes the earliest opportunity of speaking of the 
 Duke of Orleans (Bailly, you may observe, says little of 
 him) ; but Ferrieres represents him as becoming, from a chain 
 of circumstances, the idol of the people, and the chief of a 
 party composed of nobles discontented with the court ; philo- 
 sophers greedy of honours and the good things of this world ; 
 men mortified at being nothing, when this was not the case 
 with others; adventurers and bankrupts, who immediately 
 after the meeting of the States General, and the rapid march 
 of pubhc opinion, indulged themselves in all possible hopes 
 and expectations. " The duke," says he, " was himself 
 without talents, and debased by a life of drunkenness ; greedy 
 of money to a degree that would have been perfectly repre- 
 hensible in a private man, but which was disgraceful and 
 degrading in a prince ; he had every vice which can make 
 crime odious, and none of the brilliant qualities by which it 
 can be in some degree illustrated in the eyes of posterity. 
 The dead feelings of the duke," he says, " it was necessary
 
 282 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 to animate, in some way or other, that he might appear to 
 have a wish for something, and so they held out to him the 
 supreme power, under the title of lieutenant-general of the 
 kingdom; all the public money at his disposal, and, in the 
 events which it was for him to hasten, the crown for his 
 children, and himself thus made the commencement of a new 
 dynasty." 
 
 This is the account of Ferrieres ; and something of this kind 
 must be supposed, the concurrence of opinion, reaching to 
 similar conclusions, is so very great. There is a passage even 
 in Bailly which seems to look the same way ; but this part of 
 the secret history of the Revolution has never yet been 
 brought to light, and there is some difference of opinion on 
 the subject. Mirabeau, you may remember, has been always 
 suspected of having for some time connected himself with 
 this desperate faction. 
 
 Ferrieres seems to have thought very unjustly of Necker 
 on every occasion, his talents, his intentions ; this you will 
 see at the commencement of his work ; he even supposes him 
 to have been connected with the Duke of Orleans. With 
 more reason, he represents the philosophers, the authors, the 
 journalists, as turning against the parliament when the States 
 General, a body more adapted to their purposes, had once 
 been called for and granted by the king. 
 
 The meeting of the States General seems extremely to have 
 affected the Marquis de Ferrieres, as indeed it did others. 
 He saw the procession and the ceremonies of this great event, 
 with all the pious emotions of a religious man, and all the 
 hopes and fears of a patriot : his description of what he saw 
 and what he felt is striking ; and you have placed before you 
 in this part of his work, the man whose opinions and obser- 
 vations you are going to read. 
 
 He makes such observations on what passed at the opening 
 of the States, and afterwards on the Tiers Etat, as you might 
 expect, but seems to think that great want of skill and 
 capacity was shown by those who had the management, 
 particularly Necker. 
 
 The description that he gives of the different people and 
 parties that appeared around him is not very favourable ; and 
 a well meaning man, he at length observes, like himself.
 
 XIII. FERRIERES. 283 
 
 insulated and left alone in the midst of such a multitude as 
 this, knew not where to repose his confidence. One trait of 
 the general picture, not being as much insisted upon by 
 others as it deserves, I will give you ; more concisely, but as 
 much as possible in his own words. All through this lecture, 
 you will observe, I make a sort of running translation of his 
 work. 
 
 He is speaking of the part taken by the women in the 
 Revolution, particularly those about court, of whom he is no 
 great admirer. " A great wish," says he, " to be of con- 
 sequence, to be busy; little jealousies and animosities, and 
 attachments still more trifling ; spleen, weariness, &:c. ; hearts 
 emptied of all the natural affections; all these things con- 
 curred to throw most of the women about court into the 
 popular party. With that eternal frivolity which marked 
 their character, a Revolution, which was to decide the fate of 
 France, was treated by them as would have been an intrigue 
 that was to displace a minister, or advance a lover. Seated 
 at their toilettes, or lost in all the soft luxuriance of their 
 boudoirs, ' What a charming thing,' they cried, ' is a revolu- 
 tion !' — Gallantry is the great means on which the sex have to 
 depend ; this was always so, and it was thus that they were 
 enabled to play a distinguished part in the wars of the League 
 and of the Fronde. This means of influence was not neglected 
 now ; their lovers were members of the minority of the no- 
 blesse, and that was already much in their favour. But the 
 harsh, yet firm and vigorous rudeness of the deputies of the 
 Commons frightened them not ; a new sort of language and 
 of people had at least the merit of exciting curiosity. But 
 what a triumph to decide a vote by their influence in one of 
 the houses ; to animate by a gesture, by a look, a patriot while 
 pouring out from the tribune the flaming language of liberty ! 
 and again, how delightful to be eternally in motion, coming 
 here and going there, to have mysterious conferences at one's 
 house, to have the great interests of twenty-four millions of 
 people discussed there ; a people, too, that were regenerating 
 themselves ; to have cards at Paris, to harangue about con- 
 stitutions, and to assure every one that one hated despotism 
 and all its agents ! 
 
 " Madame de Stael, the daughter of Necker, became one
 
 284 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 of the most zealous propagators of democracy. Born with 
 great powers of mind, very active faculties, a lively imagina- 
 tion, and a passion for celebrity, secret interviews, morning 
 billets, evening meetings, parties of pleasure, intrigues, she 
 was equal to every thing ; at one and the same time, was she 
 to be found at Paris, at Versailles, in the saloon, in the 
 boudoir, always at work, and perfectly indefatigable. M^. de 
 Luines, d'Aiguillon, de Castelane, de Tesse, de Coigni, each 
 had their post, gave dinners, assisted regularly at the sittings 
 of the Assembly, cajoled the patriot deputies, got them to write 
 pamphlets, animated the weary, and supported the failing; 
 politics took the place of topics of gallantry, and anecdotes of 
 scandal ; liberty was in every mouth, a love of rule in every 
 heart; society became an arena that exhibited an universal 
 combat, a combat marked, indeed, with rudeness and impro- 
 priety ; difference of opinion furnished those who hated each 
 other in secret, a pretext to hate each other openly, — all their 
 affectations of sensibility, virtue, benevolence, and religion 
 disappeared ; down went the masks, and in some of these 
 women all their moral deformity was shown in open day, and 
 they seemed perfect monsters." 
 
 There is some spleen and ill-humour probably in this 
 description, but no doubt a great deal of truth, and of im- 
 portant truth. The marquis, a grave studious man from one 
 of the provinces, was not likely to be a very favourable critic 
 of these ladies, or to be very favourably criticised in return. 
 
 Necker himself does not fare better with the marquis than 
 his daughter. " This man," says he, " citizen of a small 
 republic, ignorant of our manners, of our history, or having 
 read it very superficially, having no clear idea of what is 
 called a monarchy, had persuaded himself that the word king 
 brought along with it the exercise of a power unlimited, and 
 that all the opposition he had to fear to his ministerial specu- 
 lations was to arise from the nobility and the clergy. At the 
 house of Necker every thing was considered and decided ; this 
 minister-banker had conceived, it was said, vast projects ; and 
 what were they ? Three successive loans of twenty-four millions, 
 an augmentation of the leases of the farms, an extension of 
 the imposts, a consolidation of the public debt, that new loans 
 might be effected ; and these were the objects called by his
 
 xiii. FERRIERES. 285 
 
 hirelings the restoration, the regeneration of the state ; and it 
 was for these objects (he sought no more) that he contributed, 
 without knowing it, without suspecting it, to the overthrow of 
 the laws and of the ancient constitution." 
 
 But the marquis proceeds further than this. *' The minority 
 of the noblesse," he continues, " entered into the views of 
 Necker; they met every day at his house; but Necker and 
 the greatest part of these members of the minority were but 
 mere instruments in the hands of others, men with designs 
 far more extensive and profound. There existed a secret 
 committee, where all the leading chiefs of the Revolution 
 united ; deputies of the three orders were there indifferently 
 received, there was no difficulty made in the selection. This 
 committee exercised a great influence over the deliberations of 
 the three chambers; there were events prepared, there were 
 concerted the manoeuvres that were to be employed in the 
 provinces to inflame the minds of the people, and to produce 
 insurrections : every where it was in the mean time circulated 
 in Paris, that there could be no States General but by an 
 union of the three orders, that a bankruptcy was the necessary 
 consequence of their separation. A crowd of Parisians came 
 to the Assemblies of the third estate ; there they heard pro- 
 nounced with emphasis, I should rather say hurled out with 
 fury, the vague terms of liberty, patriotism, and sovereignty 
 of the people. From the Assembly they issued quite intoxicated 
 with what they had heard, and breathing nothing but hatred 
 and vengeance against the noblesse ; a profusion of incendiary 
 libels, hawked about in Paris, and transmitted to the pro- 
 vinces, diffused every where sentiments of the same kind, and 
 the language was, and it was even heard aloud, that the 
 horrors of St. Bartholomew were to be renewed, that the very 
 race of aristocrats and tyrants was to be swept away from the 
 earth." 
 
 The secret committee, that the marquis here talks of, if it 
 existed at all, must have consisted of those who espoused the 
 new opinions ; but the marquis is very indistinct on such sub- 
 jects, and this is the greatest fault that can be objected to 
 him. He confounds together all those who espoused the new 
 opinions in a very improper and perplexing manner. But 
 in other respects, I do not conceive that the account of the
 
 286 FRENCH REVOLUTION. i.ect. 
 
 marquis is at all exaggerated, and I do not believe that any 
 adequate idea can now be formed, even from his work or from 
 any work, of the fermentation that existed in every class of 
 society, in Paris and Versailles, soon after the meeting of the 
 States General. 
 
 I do not see any thing very particular in the account which 
 the marquis gives of the transactions that took place during 
 the struggle between the orders, except, indeed, the most 
 unfair and unfavourable turn given to every motive and mea- 
 sure of the minister Necker. The most important point to be 
 observed in the account of the marquis is, that he does not at 
 all conceal the intentions of the court, as other writers with 
 his opinions have done, and I shall, therefore, quote largely 
 from him, translating, as I go along, in the sort of general 
 and running manner that I have announced to you : and you 
 must listen patiently ; for it is often difficult to judge, amidst 
 the different representations that are given by different 
 writers ; and here we have a man of character, rank, and intel- 
 ligence, himself an actor in the scene, and describing what 
 passed and the views and conduct of all concerned, appa- 
 rently, in the most impartial and fearless manner. 
 
 " The court," says he, " unable any longer to hide from 
 themselves the real truth, that all their petty expedients to 
 separate the orders served only to bring on their union, 
 resolved to dissolve the States General. It was necessary to 
 remove the king from Versailles ; to get Necker and the mi- 
 nisters attached to him out of the way ; a journey to Marli 
 was arranged; the pretext was the death of the dauphin. 
 The mind of the king was successfully worked upon ; he was 
 told it was high time to stop the unheard of enterprises 
 of the third estate ; that he would soon have only the name of 
 king. The Cardinal Rochefoucault and the Archbishop of 
 Paris threw themselves at the feet of the king, and suppli- 
 cated him to save the clergy and protect religion. The par- 
 hament sent a secret deputation, proposing a scheme for 
 getting rid of the States General. The keeper of the seals, 
 the Comte D'Artois, the queen, all united. They persuaded 
 the king that to satisfy the people was easy ; that all that was 
 wanted was a declaration accommodated to the wishes of the 
 cahiers, that the noblesse and high clergy would accept it
 
 xiii. FERRIERES. 287 
 
 with gratitude. All was therefore settled ; and an order from 
 the king announced a royal sitting, and suspended the States 
 under a pretence of making arrangements in the hall." 
 
 Now deliberations of this kind may, as the marquis describes 
 them, have taken place ; they were very natural, when the 
 Assembly had ventured upon such acts of encroachment and 
 usurpation as they very early did ; and it is indeed clear 
 that they took place, from that interference of the court, which 
 Necker afterwards experienced : but the measure of the seaiice 
 royale was the minister's own; and if the proposals, which the 
 king was to have made to the National Assembly, had been 
 left what he made them, the measure might have saved 
 France, or at least the popular party would have been then 
 placed in the wrong. 
 
 But nothing could be more unskilful than appeared even to 
 the Marquis de Ferrieres, the manner and every circumstance 
 that was suffered to accompany this last critical effort of the 
 king and court, this seance I'oyale. " It had the semblance," 
 says the marquis, " of a bed of justice. The hall was sur- 
 rounded by soldiers and by guards ; every thing about the 
 throne was silent and melancholy ; the declaration itself 
 satisfied no one ; and the king spoke rather like a despot w ho 
 commanded, than a monarch who discussed with the repre- 
 sentatives of his people the interests of a great nation," 
 
 This testimony is very strong coming from the marquis, 
 and what followed is related by him as you have received it 
 from others. 
 
 Every where you must observe, however, that the marquis 
 expresses the most unfavourable opinion of Necker during all 
 these transactions, while, it is quite certain, that mixed with a 
 little personal vanity, the most sincere wish for the happiness 
 of France and the happiness of mankind was the ruling motive 
 wdth Necker. He is, however, considered by the marquis as 
 thinking only of his place, in the most vulgar and wretched 
 manner; in short, I consider the marquis as singularly unjust 
 to Necker. But his great fault is always not to make suffi- 
 cient distinction between one man and another. 
 
 We will now advert to what he says of his own order. 
 You may remember that it was very late, and only by the 
 interference of the king, that they could be persuaded to join
 
 •288 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 the Tiers Etat. What passed was, according to the marquis, 
 as follows. " In the chamber of the nobles, in the mean time, 
 the most violent dissensions prevailed. * Let us join the 
 Tiers Etat,' said Lally Tollendal, * as the king has recom- 
 mended us to do ; there is a force of circumstances which is 
 above every consideration of place and power, a great Revolu- 
 tion has begun, nothing can prevent it, it only remains for 
 the nobility to concur with it, and to assign for themselves an 
 honourable place.' ' You understand then at last,' said 
 D'Espremenil, (the D'Espremenil you have before heard of,) 
 * you understand then that a great Revolution is begun; and 
 is it even in this chamber of the nobility that there are found 
 those who can dare to pronounce such a sound, that we are 
 to be invited even to join it ? No, gentlemen, no ; our duty is 
 to preserve the monarchy ; the monarchy which the factious 
 are going to destroy.' " 
 
 Every thing was agitation through the whole of this as- 
 sembly of the nobles. Hostile passions, hostile interests 
 appeared in the words, the gestures, the animated expressions 
 of every one. (Ferrieres, who gives this account, was himself 
 a member.) 
 
 " It was now a grievous mortification and affliction to the 
 nobility to join the third estate. The Vicomte de Noailles 
 assured the nobles, that the union would be but temporary ; 
 that the troops were coming up, and that in fifteen days every 
 thing would be changed. The king sent a second letter, 
 assuring the nobles that the safety of the state and his own 
 personal security depended upon the union. ' Let us hasten 
 to the palace,' said the Marquis de St. Simon, * and make a 
 rampart of our bodies round him.' It was with the greatest 
 earnestness that the Due de Luxembourg had to oppose him- 
 self to the general enthusiasm, to represent the embarrassing 
 situation into which the king would thus be thrown. ' We 
 can no longer deliberate,' said the duke, ' we must save the 
 king, we must save the country ; the person of the king is in 
 danger. Who can hesitate ? Who can venture to hesitate for 
 a moment?' The assembly rose in a tumultuous manner, 
 they were joined by the minority of the clergy, and entered," 
 says the marquis, " in silence the hall of the Tiers Etat." 
 
 This step had no sooner been taken, in comphance with the
 
 XIII. FERRIERES. 289 
 
 wishes of the court, than the court repented of it; and the 
 description which the marquis now gives of the state of 
 affairs is veiy candid, and entitled to the perfect confidence of 
 the reader. Observe the freedom with which he speaks of all 
 parties and persons. I shall use his words for some time. 
 " The court, recovered from its terror," says he, " repented of 
 it ; they saw the intentions of the Commons ; what they had 
 already done sufficiently announced it. The new constitution, 
 supported by general opinion, by the unanimous wish of the 
 public, was now acquiring," says he, " a force which was 
 likely to sweep away every abuse : the court knew that the 
 nobility and high clergy would seize with eagerness any 
 opportunity of dissolving these States General that intended 
 their ruin. But a military force was necessary to keep down 
 Paris, to break up the Assembly, and to enforce the accept- 
 ance of the declaration of the 23rd of June. Many of the 
 nobles would have quitted the Assembly, but a partial seces- 
 sion would have done nothing : they were assured that the 
 troops were coming up ; were praised for their honourable 
 feelings, for the resistance they had already made ; that they 
 must dissemble a little longer. And indeed," says the mar- 
 quis, " thirty regiments were now marching upon Paris. The 
 pretext was the public tranquillity; the real object, the dis- 
 solution of the Assembly. Difficulties without end kept 
 retarding their march; provisions were not furnished them, 
 money very sparingly. The Marshal de Broglio took the 
 command, estabhshed himself at the palace of Versailles, 
 surrounded by a brilliant staff; every thing was at his dis- 
 posal. In the mean time, a part of the majority of the no- 
 bility continued to assemble at the Duke of Luxembourg's ; 
 protests were there entered into against the union with the 
 Tiers ; their mandates from their constituents were appealed 
 to ; the decrees of the National Assembly were declared to be 
 null and void. Pretexts were discovered for its approaching 
 dissolution ; and their manoeuvres, which were soon every 
 where divulged, every where united all other descriptions of 
 men to the National Assembly. The hall of the Assembly 
 became, to all Frenchmen, their common country (I am all 
 along giving the important representations of the marquis, 
 and shall continue to translate his paragraphs). The Assembly 
 
 u
 
 290 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 was made acquainted with every movement and every thought; 
 and the absohite monarchy of France, betrayed by the very 
 persons who drew from it all their consequence and all their 
 support, remained alone and unassisted, though placed in the 
 middle of its own people and agents. The queen, the Comte 
 d'Artois, the princes, the courtiers, the ministers, the bishops, 
 the nobles, were all surrounded by spies, by treacherous 
 domestics, pursued by them into the most intimate recesses of 
 their retirement, the very repose of the night : and they ex- 
 pressed not a sentiment, made not a gesture, that was not 
 reported ; and thus was generated that violent antipathy that 
 took place against the nobles and the clergy. The Commons 
 perceived, that these two bodies attached to despotism, as the 
 true aliment on which they lived, would reject liberty, and 
 would insist upon having in preference a brilliant servitude ; 
 and they therefore said to themselves, * It is for us then, for us 
 alone to make the Revolution.' And as they resolved that 
 nothing should resist them, the destruction of the nobility was 
 resolved. 
 
 " The Assembly, in the mean time, while these intrigues were 
 going on at court, represented in reality the sovereignty of 
 the people. It took its own measures, formed thirty com- 
 mittees for the dispatch of business, and France saw with joy 
 that it was at last going to set about that regeneration of the 
 state that had been so long desired and so long expected. 
 
 " The National Assembly," says the marquis, " sought in 
 the people a support against the court ; secret embassies, 
 spread over every quarter of Paris, denounced the projects of 
 the ministry. ' France,' they said, ' is going to become the prey 
 of courtiers, nobles, and priests. This yoke, now imposed 
 again upon us by force, will be more intolerable than ever. 
 The monarch, disengaged from his promises, and entering 
 again, by the dissolution of the Assembly, upon the full pleni- 
 tude of his power, will know no other limit to his will but 
 such as the most unlimited whims and fantasies may pre- 
 scribe.' 
 
 " The capitalists," he continues, " the rent-holders, terrified 
 at the prospect of a general bankruptcy, united themselves to 
 the Assembly as to a common and only hope ; they employed 
 in the support of it the powerful means that were afforded
 
 XIII. FERRIERES. 291 
 
 them by money, by credit, by very extended connexiont^. 
 Paris, agitated by every possible passion, by every possible 
 interest, peopled by men who had every thing to hope and 
 nothing to fear from a Revolution, was the central point 
 from which every movement issued. The court, accustomed 
 to see Paris kept in awe by a lieutenant of police and a guard 
 of eight hundred horse, little thought of any resistance, fore- 
 saw nothing, calculated nothing ; did not even take care to 
 assure itself of the very soldiers that were to be the instru- 
 ments of its designs. The French guards were lost by giving 
 the command to M. de Chalelet. The Assembly, in the mean 
 time, neglected not the provinces ; their correspondencies 
 were multiplied, their agents every where inflaming the minds 
 of the people, concerting insurrections, painting the projects 
 of the court in the blackest colours, representing the nobility 
 and the clergy as resisting the reform of those abuses by which 
 they themselves so profited, as refusing to take their share 
 in the public burdens, refusing to abandon their odious and 
 unjust privileges, as secretly plotting the dissolution of the 
 States General. Innumerable addresses and assurances of 
 attachment were the consequence; and this unanimous con- 
 cert and co-operation of every part of the kingdom, elevated 
 the courage of the Commons, gave them an energy like that 
 of the senate of Rome in the trying moments of the republic ; 
 and France, animated by a similar spirit, seemed a sort of 
 immense forum, where the great questions of government 
 were discussed in the presence of twenty-five millions of citi- 
 zens. 
 
 " In this state of things," continues the marquis, " the 
 Comte de Mirabeau made his celebrated address in the 
 Assembly (the address for the removal of the troops)." And 
 you will observe, that the marquis having admitted all the 
 ciixamstances of the case that I have now laid before you, 
 while I have thus been translating from his pages, admits 
 finally the insincerity of the court in the king's answer, for, 
 says he, " The Assembly easily saw through the snare that 
 was spread for them ; they would have lost all their hold if 
 they had once removed themselves from the security which 
 the vicinity of Paris afforded. Enclosed between the two 
 camps, they would have found themselves at the mercy of 
 the court."
 
 292 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 These are the words of the marquis. I have called them 
 his admissions, but it is an improper word. He seems to me 
 a fair historian, giving his account fully and honestly (as far 
 as public matters are concerned, though he is unfair to indi- 
 viduals,) without favour, or affection, or any wish of his own 
 to gratify, but the honourable love of truth. 
 
 In addition to what I have already quoted, the marquis 
 seems clearly to suppose, that what is called the Orleans 
 Faction existed in Paris, filling the minds of the populace 
 with the most dreadful apprehensions ; that the citizens were 
 to be massacred, the Palais Royal abandoned to the pillage of 
 the army, chiefly composed, it was observed, of foreign regi- 
 ments ; that a bankruptcy was then to be declared : and the 
 marquis proceeds to suppose, that Mirabeau was in reality at 
 the head of this faction, and meant to have transferred the 
 royal authority to the Duke of Orleans. All this has been 
 both confidently asserted and much questioned. But the 
 great misfortune was, that during all this period a scarcity 
 existed in Paris, and under such circumstances there was no 
 event, however outrageous, that might not possibly happen. 
 Bailly mentions in his Memoirs, that while mayor, he was 
 repeatedly uncertain one day whether Paris would have a 
 sufficient supply of bread the next. And there was some- 
 thing singularly defective (and unintelligibly so) in the man- 
 agement of this article of prime necessity. 
 
 The Memoirs of the marquis now become particularly 
 interesting, not only because he was a member of the Con- 
 stituent Assembly at the time, but because he was apartisan 
 of the old opinions and a lover of the monarchy ; and yet the 
 account he gives is not materially different from what has 
 been delivered by men of opposite principles : and this is the 
 great point which I must urge upon your attention. Nothing 
 can be more interesting than the situation of Paris, of Ver- 
 sailles, and of France, of the popular party, of the Assembly, 
 of the court, of the king, and finally of the army, during those 
 three or four days and nights that preceded and followed the 
 memorable 14th of July. In the first place it was clear, to 
 the popular party, that the army was to be brought to act, and 
 the Assembly to be put down. The approach of the troops 
 and the appearance of Marshal Broglio left no doubt re-
 
 XIII. FERRIERES. 293 
 
 maining on that head. The Marquis de Ferrieres first de- 
 scribes the manner in which an insurrection of the populace 
 was begun by Camille Desmouhns, in the Palais Royal. " He 
 mounted upon a table," says the marquis; " * Citizens !' he 
 cried, ' I am just come from Versailles; there is not a moment 
 to be lost. M. Necker is dismissed, his dismissal is the 
 tocsin that sounds a St. Bartholomew to all patriots. This 
 very evening the Swiss and German battalions are to come 
 from the Champ de Mars to butcher us. To arms ! to arms ! 
 We have no other resource.'" 
 
 What followed you will easily conceive, and conceive it as 
 Ferrieres describes it to have taken place. The orator, with 
 a pistol in each hand, rushes out into the streets, followed by 
 his audience ; they pass through the most populous streets ; 
 the crowd gathers ; the barriers of the city are set on fire ; 
 the public spectacles closed ; and all is alarm, confusion, and 
 uproar. The insurrection is made more and more furious, and 
 rendered triumphant, by the rencontre with the Prince of 
 Lambesc, at the head of a detachment of his German troops. 
 The night comes on ; the tocsins keep sounding ; armed men 
 with lighted torches, continually passing, give the city the ap- 
 pearance of a place sacked by an enemy ; and every thing is 
 thus prepared for the alarmists to organize their insurrection 
 by means of a regular committee communicating with, the 
 rest of the citizens. 
 
 In the mean time, nothing, according to the same account 
 of Ferrieres, nothing could exceed the disquietude of the 
 Assembly at Versailles. Many of the members met in the 
 hall on Sunday, the 12th, but having been adjourned to the 
 13th, it was early on that day, the 13th, that a regular 
 meeting took place. The members seemed differently affected. 
 The revolutionists, in groups and in different parts of the 
 hall, seemed considering what was to be done, terrifying each 
 other or inflamino; each other ao;ainst the ministers. "The 
 better part of the Assembly," he says, " strangers to all the 
 intrigues that might be going forward, was filled with alarm 
 at the sad reports that were circulating, and terrified at the 
 designs of the court, which they were assured went to the 
 seizing of Paris, the dissolution of the Assembly, and the 
 massacre of the citizens. These members preserved a mourn-
 
 294 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 fill and thoughtful silence, while the greatest part of the 
 Assembly were evidently in the greatest agitation; on their 
 countenances were painted anxiety, fierceness, fury, notwith- 
 standing- all their efforts to disguise their emotions. In the 
 mean time the partisans of the court concealed their joy under 
 an appearance of indifference. They came to the sitting to 
 see what turn the dehberations would take, to enjoy their tri- 
 umph and the humiliation of the Assembly. The Assembly 
 they looked upon as annihilated ; they had no doubt that it 
 would have to accept the declaration of the 23rd of June, the 
 States be separated, and things then be left to take their 
 ancient course. 
 
 '' Such," says the marquis, "was the blind folly and infatu- 
 ation of these people." 
 
 He then goes on to describe the debate that followed : the 
 speech of Mounier, recommending an address to the king in 
 support of Necker and the disgraced ministers, followed by a 
 beautiful defence of him by his friend Lally ToUendal, and 
 the whole closed by a spirited harangue from the Comte de 
 Virien; who described, in the most glowing colours, what 
 had probably been passing during the night at Paris, and the 
 necessity there was for all the members of the Assembly to 
 pledge themselves to the country and to each other to stand 
 by the noble resolutions they had already voted, and never to 
 separate till they had discharged the great duties imposed 
 upon them. An oath was immediately taken to this effect by 
 all the members present; an address and a deputation sent 
 to the king. 
 
 " The court had hitherto," says the marquis, " remained 
 tranquil spectators of the movements in Paris. The troops 
 posted at the Champ de Mars, at St. Denis, at Sevres, at St. 
 Cloud, remained in a state of inaction. One would have said 
 that the new ministers, assured of success, left the insurrection 
 to go on, and authorize at last those measures of rigour which 
 they were resolved to employ; that they looked upon the 
 situation of Paris as merely arising from a sort of passing 
 insurrection ; that they had no doubt that at the approach of 
 the troops the people would disperse, and their terrified 
 leaders come to solicit the clemency of the king. 
 
 " In the mean time, however, the tocsins kept every where
 
 XIII. FERRIERES. 295 
 
 sounding- ; the shops," he says, " were shut up ; the streets 
 crowded with armed men, some running from house to house, 
 talking of murder, and fire, and pillage ; others marching 
 with tambours and trumpets, with the soldiers of the regi- 
 ment of French guards at their head ; others forcing open the 
 prisons of La Force and Du Chatelet, and announcing their 
 intention of pillaging the great hotels and the houses of all 
 the people of affluence." 
 
 This led, as you have already understood, to the seizing of 
 the great depot at the Hotel des Invalides. The National 
 Assembly, in the mean time, supported by what they could 
 hear of the spirit of resistance that had now broken out in 
 the metropolis, continued to debate and to address the king, 
 who kept returning them civil and respectful, but by no 
 means satisfactory answers ; nothing that indicated that the 
 troops would not be employed, the real point at issue. An 
 account of what had passed at Paris, of the rise and progress 
 of the insurrection, had reached the Assembly; had been 
 highly grateful to some, and had elevated the courage of the 
 most timid, " Every floating opinion," says the marquis, 
 " was at last united, and the famous resolution was unani- 
 mously carried, ' That the exiled ministers had the confidence 
 of the nation, that the Assembly would not cease to insist on 
 the removal of the troops, and that it persisted in its former 
 resolutions;' a resolution this," he continues, "which, under 
 existing circumstances, was in fact a declaration of war. 
 These vigorous resolutions," says he, " astonished the court, 
 but did not induce them to abandon their plan : it was only 
 put off to the next day; but there was no longer now a 
 time," he continues ; " the fate of France was from this mo- 
 ment irrevocably united to the fate of the Assembly; and 
 no choice was left to the people but that of liberty or the 
 most overwhelming despotism." 
 
 This is a very striking account, and these are very striking 
 expressions from such a man as the Marquis de Ferrieres. 
 " The greater part of the deputies," he goes on to say, 
 " passed the night in the hall of the Assembly, less with the 
 view of deliberating there or continuing the sitting, than with 
 the hope of putting themselves into a state of security from 
 the enterprises of the court. Many had received secret inti-
 
 296 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 mation that they were to be arrested. They thought with 
 reason that the sanctuary of the national representation 
 would be to them an asylum, and that the court would not 
 dare so openly to violate the majesty and the liberty of the 
 French people." 
 
 Through all this part of his Memoirs, the marquis, a deputy 
 from the noblesse, and on every account removed from all 
 popular prejudices, leads his reader to suppose, that the 
 Assembly, and the popular leaders, and the city of Paris, were 
 entirely on the defensive. I shall continue to give you his 
 representation of these momentous transactions. 
 
 " The insurrection," he says, " was at last regularly or- 
 ganized by means of the committee of the districts into which 
 Paris had been divided ; every preparation was made to resist 
 the expected attack of the Marshal de Broglio ; and at last, 
 as the Bastile might have been made use of against the city 
 by the marshal, it was voted, that this fortress should be 
 taken possession of, at least surrendered into the hands of 
 the magistrates of the city of Paris." 
 
 The tumultuous siege, and the sudden and most unexpected 
 capture of it was the consequence, and such atrocities as you 
 have already been made acquainted with. 
 
 " After these atrocities all Paris," says the marquis, "men, 
 women, children, priests, and those connected with religious 
 houses, all united to put the city into a state of defence : 
 ditches were dug, the pavement taken up, pikes fabricated, 
 and a deputation sent to the National Assembly." 
 
 The paragraph that now follows, coming from the marquis, 
 is very remarkable. "The court," he says, "were resolved 
 to act that very night ,• the foreign regiments were ordered to 
 be under arms, the hussars were stationed at the palace, the 
 guards in the courts, and in the midst of these menacing pre- 
 parations, the court had an air of festivity that added insult 
 to cruelty. The Comte d'Artois, the Polignacs, and M^. d'Ar- 
 tois appeared on the terrace of the orangerie ; the music of 
 the two regiments was made to play ; the soldiers, on whom 
 wine had not been spared, formed dances ; a sort of insolent 
 and brutal joy resounded on every side, and applauses from 
 all the abandoned women and men that surveyed so strange 
 a spectacle with delight. Such was the frivolity, or rather
 
 XIII. FERRIERES. 297 
 
 the wickedness of those beings, that assured, as they supposed, 
 of success, ah'eady indulged themselves in the most insulting 
 triumph. Very different was, in the mean time, the aspect of 
 the Assembly : a majestic calmness, a firm countenance, a 
 wise but quiet activity, all announced the great interests with 
 which they were occupied, and the dangerous situation of 
 public affairs. There was no ignorance of the designs of the 
 court : the Assembly knew very well, that at the moment of 
 the attack of Paris, the foreign regiments were to surround 
 their hall, carry off their most distinguished members, and in 
 case of resistance, employ force ; they knew very well, that 
 the king was on the morrow to come and make them accept 
 the declaration of the 23rd, and dissolve the Assembly ; that 
 already more than forty thousand copies had been sent to the 
 intendants and their inferior officers, to be published and 
 posted up in every place and corner of the kingdom. The 
 Assembly, however, was resolved to brave every outrage 
 rather than consent to any illegal proceeding like this, or 
 betray the confidence of the people in sacrificing its rights to 
 their own personal security. Nor were the Assembly," says 
 the marquis, " without resources ; the slightest attack upon 
 them would have been the signal of a massacre, which would 
 have involved in it the king himself, and all the royal family : 
 a numerous populace,i n a sort of dark and fierce silence, and 
 a suppressed feeling, that could in an instant have been con- 
 verted into fury, surrounded the hall of the States, uneasy at 
 the movements that it saw every where around, and waiting 
 but a word to be transported into all the violences and extre- 
 mities of despair. 
 
 " We had a confused notion," says he, " of what was 
 going on in Paris. The posts were guarded, and the commu- 
 nication stopped ; but every now and then a courier reached 
 us, satisfying first the impatient curiosity of the multitude, 
 and then reporting to us in our hall. We sent deputations to 
 the king : the composed and severe air of the deputies showed 
 the imperturbable courage of the Assembly. The people made 
 way for them in the most respectful manner. On their return 
 their looks and sorrowful air showed the people that their 
 mission had been fruitless. 
 
 " To the first deputation the answer of the king had been,
 
 298 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 though not harsh and determined, evasive; to the second, in 
 his agitation, hs had replied, ' You tear me to pieces by the 
 recital you give me, of what has passed in Paris ; it is not 
 possible that the orders I have given can be the cause.' 
 Proper answers were now sent to Paris by the Assembly, and 
 Clermont Tonnerre prevailed upon the Assembly to pause, 
 and not send a third deputation to the king till the next day. 
 
 " At eight the next morning, on the 15th, the day after the 
 taking of the Bastile, various addresses were proposed in the 
 Assembly, till the reading of them was on a sudden inter- 
 rupted by Mirabeau, who, unable to contain himself any 
 longer, burst forth into a furious invective against the court, 
 and what he said he insisted should be made into a message 
 to the king; and the deputation was moving away for the 
 purpose, when the Due de Liancourt appeared and announced 
 to the Assembly that the king was on his way to them. 
 
 " The fact was," says the marquis, " that the night had 
 passed at the palace in the utmost agitation and indecision ; 
 council after council was held ; the ministers insisted that the 
 troops should act; but, besides the unhappy consequences 
 that it was possible might ensue from so violent a measure, of 
 which the success was very uncertain, Louis XVI. had an 
 invincible repugnance to every measure that could give occa- 
 sion to the shedding of the blood of Frenchmen. 
 
 " The Due de Liancourt had availed himself of his oppor- 
 tunities to address the king in the sincerity of his heart ; and 
 the king, moved by his arguments, by the concurring opinion 
 of Monsieur his brother, and the tenderness of his own nature, 
 had given way, and consented to repair to the Assembly. 
 
 " The arrival of the king," says the marquis, " produced 
 different effects on the different parties ; the first impression 
 was a general one of surprise, then sentiments followed that 
 were more the result of a little reflection. Well-meaning 
 men, relieved from their terrors, abandoned themselves to 
 their emotions of love and gratitude to the king. 
 
 " The Orleanists, mute and motionless, seemed struck with 
 stupid astonishment ; the Duke, Sieyes, Latouche, retired into 
 a corner of the hall, and seemed to reproach each other for 
 not having foreseen all this, and prevented it by some decisive 
 measure of their own ; every look, gesture, and movement
 
 XIII. 
 
 FERRIERES. 299 
 
 appeared to paint their vexation and their uncertainty what 
 to do. The members of the old regime revolted from a con- 
 descension of the king, which they thought weakness, and 
 considered themselves as deserted. Many members of the 
 commons, whose pride and jealousy were not yet satisfied, 
 notwithstanding this brilliant triumph, appeared quite out of 
 humour, that they could not push still further the humilia- 
 tion of the throne." 
 
 Of the remainder of the scene, what passed in the Assembly, 
 and on the return of the king to the palace, the Marquis de 
 Ferrieres afterwards gives the same account that you have 
 seen given by Bailly and others. But he does not give the 
 same account that Bailly does of the subsequent visit to 
 Paris. This visit he considers as brought about by the parti- 
 sans of the Revolution ; that Louis might thus authorize, in a 
 public manner, all that had been done, and in fact the new 
 form of government that had just been given to the capital, 
 the organization of the national force, an organization that 
 was to be extended to every part of the kingdom. Louis was 
 told that this step alone could quiet Paris, and give confidence 
 in the sincerity of his intentions. 
 
 " A thousand fears, in the mean time," says he, " distracted 
 the palace; the Parisians might seize and detain the king; 
 some hired wretch might assassinate him ; but Louis was 
 resolved. Accepting the offer of a numerous deputation to 
 accompany him from the Assembly, he set off, surrounded by 
 the new militia of Versailles, that armed in haste, with any 
 weapon that occurred, and clothed in rags, seemed rather a 
 troop of vagabonds, collected together for the purposes of 
 pillage, than an escort for the king of a great nation. The 
 avenue of Paris was filled with a crowd of spectators: all 
 in thoughtful silence, but with very different feehngs, gazed 
 upon Louis XVL as he passed by. Yet this procession 
 of the greatest monarch of Europe," continues the marquis, 
 " could not but inspire the most melancholy reflections on the 
 instabihty of all human grandeur. Li the carriage with the 
 king were the Dukes of Villeroi and de Villequiers ; the marks 
 of anxiety and chagrin were visibly painted on his counte- 
 nance, a little dissipated for the moment by some appear- 
 ances of interest shown him by the deputies and inhabitants 
 of Versailles.
 
 300 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 " His body-guards were at the barrier of Passy, and intended 
 to have formed his cortege ; but they were left at the gates of 
 the city, and four only allowed to enter. 
 
 " Bailly, at the head of the municipal corps, presented the 
 keys of the city to the king, with this singular expression : — 
 ' These are the keys which were presented to Henry IV. 
 He made a conquest of his people ; to-day it is the people that 
 make a conquest of their king.' 
 
 " In truth, every thing announced a victory. One hundred 
 and fifty thousand men armed with scythes, pick-axes, pikes, 
 muskets, offered a spectacle majestic at the same time, and 
 terrible : cannons on the bridges, and at the entrance of the 
 streets through which Louis had to pass, seemed to say but 
 too clearly, It is a great captive, and not a king, that is 
 now coming into his capital, into the midst of his subjects, 
 
 " An immense mass of people, like a great and troubled 
 ocean, smoothness, indeed, on its surface, but hollow murmur- 
 ing in its depths, gave a mournful air to this vast and imposing 
 spectacle. Every countenance seemed sombre, every look 
 seemed cold, and every heart seemed closed against all the 
 sentiments that once used to animate the hearts of Frenchmen 
 for their king. The carriage moved on, surrounded by a 
 numerous troop of people on horseback and on foot; the 
 French guards with their artillery at the head of the column ; 
 a confused sound of musketry. The cries were a thousand 
 times repeated of ' Vive la nation !' Not a word of the 
 king ; the most offensive silence ; every where the humiliating 
 haughtiness that proclaimed a triumph." 
 
 The marquis then makes the terms of his narrative concise. 
 " Louis," he says, " got out at the Hotel de Ville ; walked 
 under the arms and pikes that were crossed over his head. 
 He was placed on a throne that was prepared for him in the 
 great hall. Some natural tears, it seems, he dropped; he 
 attempted to speak ; a sudden oppression seized him ; he could 
 only say, ' My people may always depend upon my affec- 
 tion.' 
 
 "Bailly presented to Louis XVI. the national cockade; and 
 the national cockade was taken by Louis XVI. and placed 
 in his hat : he appeared in it at the window ; and this act of 
 condescension excited numerous applauses.
 
 XIII. FERRIERES. 301 
 
 " Louis XVI. confirmed the nomination of Bailly, of La 
 Fayette, and retired. The Paris militia, no longer maintain- 
 ing its menacing appearance, reversed its arms in token 
 of peace. The same cortege reconducted Louis XVL to the 
 harrier of Passy, where he found his body-guards, who brought 
 him back to Versailles." 
 
 This is the sort of melancholy account given by the marquis 
 of the visit to the capital ; a visit which, it must be allowed by 
 every one, showed but too plainly that the old regime and the 
 ancient monarchy of France had passed away, and that the 
 authority of the state was transferred from the monarch at 
 Versailles to the National Assembly and the commune of 
 Paris. This inference was instantly drawn by those more 
 immediately about the court. The Comte d'Artois, the 
 ministers, Marshal Broglio, disappeared ; and the king must 
 be now considered as left alone in his magnificent palace, 
 that told of the grandeur of his ancestors, no longer of his 
 own, terrified by the past, and uncertain of the future ; without 
 confidence in himself, with little hope from the counsels of 
 others, and with no consolation or support but the affection of 
 his family, and that last appeal which is not denied even 
 in this world to those who, however unfortunate, have meant 
 well.
 
 302 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 NECESSITY OF EXECUTIVE POWER. 
 
 I HAVE already observed to you how desirable it is that 
 you should attend well to the opening scenes of this great 
 Revolution. It is here that your instruction will best be 
 found. I have also remarked to you, that it is not always 
 easy to form just opinions on these momentous transactions, 
 and that you may not as yet be exactly aware of the value of 
 such just opinions, when they can be attained. I can have no 
 wish that you should adopt what are delivered by me, any 
 further than they are reasonable ; and I am naturally anxious 
 to fortify them by any testimonies that are within my reach. 
 
 I must therefore now mention to you a particular circum- 
 stance. 
 
 You will have remarked, that though I represent myself as 
 deeply interested in the great cause of the liberties of man- 
 kind, still that I have distinctly protested against the conduct 
 of the patriots of France during these earlier sittings of the 
 Assembly, of the Tiers Etat ; and above all, I have rested 
 much on a particular crisis — on the declaration of the king on 
 the 23rd of June. All through these lectures I have taken 
 upon me to assert that it behoved the patriots to have closed 
 with the king and the court on this occasion, and however 
 altered and impaired the original measure of M. Necker might 
 be, still to have accepted what was offered, and on such 
 ground as was thus made solid under them, to have stood 
 firm, and to have been satisfied with their success. 
 
 In these views, assertions, and final decision on the whole 
 of the case, I have always considered myself as adopting an 
 opinion at the hazard, or rather the certainty, of censure from 
 those who think otherwise; and it was therefore with consider- 
 able satisfaction, that long after my lectures were written,
 
 XIV. NECESSITY OF EXECUTIVE POWER. 303 
 
 I met with a passage in the Memoirs of Jefferson, from which 
 it appears that he actually came to the same decision on this 
 important crisis of the 23rd of June that I myself had done, 
 when himself in Paris at the time, in the situation of ambas- 
 sador from America. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson, as it is well known, was a person of very 
 warm, not to say violent temperament, and of opinions entirely 
 democratic. 
 
 After describing events much in the way you have understood 
 them from me, he proceeds thus : — " M. Necker's draught 
 of a declaration was entirely broken up, and that of the Comte 
 d'Artois inserted into it. Himself and Montmorin offered 
 their resignation, which was refused, the Comte d'Artois saying 
 to M. Necker, ' No, sir, you must be kept as the hostage ; we 
 hold you responsible for all the ill which shall happen.' 
 This change of plan was immediately whispered without doors. 
 The noblesse were in triumph, the people in consternation. 
 I was quite alarmed at this state of things. The soldiery 
 had not yet indicated which side they should take ; and that 
 which they should support would be sure to prevail. I con- 
 sidered a successful reformation of government in France as 
 ensuring a general reformation through Europe, and the 
 resurrection, to a new life, of their people, now ground to dust 
 by the abuses of the governing powers. I was much ac- 
 quainted with the leading patriots of the Assembly. Being 
 from a country which had successfully passed through a 
 similar reformation, they were disposed to my acquaintance, 
 and had some confidence in me. I urged most strenuously 
 an immediate compromise, to secure what the government was 
 now ready to yield, and trust to future occasions for what 
 might still be wanting. It was well understood that the king 
 would grant at this time, — first, freedom of the person by 
 Habeas Corpus ; secondly, freedom of conscience ; thirdly, 
 freedom of the press ; fourthly, trial by jury ; fifthly, a repre- 
 sentative legislature ; sixthly, annual meetings ; seventhly, the 
 origination of laws ; eighthly, the exclusive right of taxation 
 and appropriation ; and, ninthly, the responsibility of minis- 
 ters ; and, with the exercise of these powers they could obtain 
 in future whatever might be further necessary to improve and 
 preserve their constitution. They thought otherwise, however,
 
 304 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 and events have proved their lamentable error ; for, after thirty 
 years of war, foreign and domestic, the loss of millions of 
 lives, the prostration of private happiness, and the foreign 
 subjugation of their own country for a time, they have obtained 
 no more, nor even that securely." 
 
 I must mention, too, that long after these lectures were 
 written, I have found such objections as are made in them to 
 the proceedings of the National Assembly abundantly con- 
 firmed by the publication of M. Dumont, the friend and 
 assistant of Mirabeau, a very able and enlightened man, at 
 the time deeply interested in the liberties of France, and the 
 fortunes of mankind. 
 
 But to proceed to my lecture. 
 
 The first events that occurred after the king had adopted 
 the Revolution promised ill ; Foulon and Berthier were mas- 
 sacred in the streets of Paris by the multitude ; and every 
 where through the interior of the kingdom the people of 
 condition saw their country-seats burnt and pillaged, and 
 themselves and their families exposed to the most dreadful 
 outrages. Popular victories in the Assembly seem never 
 to have had any effect on the ferocious passions of the people. 
 It is no light matter to withdraw a community from the 
 influence of established authority ; it is never easy, it may not 
 be possible, to substitute for some time any new system of 
 control. In the interval the lower orders are ready for any 
 enormity that their own passions or the passions of designing 
 or bad men may propose to them. It is very true that patriots 
 must expose the faults of their rulers and the vices of their 
 government, or they can hope for no reform in either; but 
 every distinction should be always made, that can possibly be 
 made, between governors and government itself; the selfish, 
 unfeeling, odious vices of the rulers are to be resisted, but care 
 must be taken not to pander to the base and brutal passions 
 of the multitude. To do this, however, it will be replied, is 
 pretty nearly to effect impossibilities. It may be so ; yet such is 
 the task to be held up to the virtuous ambition of brave and 
 good men ; and such men, the patriots of a country, must 
 endeavour to accomplish it according to the varying opportu- 
 nities of the case, and the qualities of mind and body with 
 which they have been intrusted. Much of this task was
 
 XIV. NECESSITY OF EXECUTIVE POWER. 305 
 
 accomplished by the patriots of America in the great revolu- 
 tion that separated them from this country ; a favourable one, 
 totally unlike that of France or of any European country ; 
 cases with which it is so often confounded : and you may 
 remember, even in this case of America, the confusion, the 
 shame, the anguish with which the mind of Washington was 
 but too often overwhelmed by the indisposition of his country- 
 men to the necessary restraint of regular authority, and the 
 proper machinery of executive government. 
 
 The difficulty, you will remember, is, and it is most intelli- 
 gible, how to restrain the selfish passions of mankind, how to 
 procure any attention to the common obligations of law and 
 justice, when the former ministers of law and justice have 
 been displaced and lost their authority. 
 
 To return to the instance of America. One of my lectures 
 on the American Revolution was chiefly intended to show 
 you, how much Washington suffered, how much the best 
 interests, present and future, of the great continent of America 
 were endangered from that absence of executive power, which 
 necessarily took place, when the contest with Great Britain 
 was terminated. The difficulty will always occur. In the case 
 before us, the patriots of the French Revolution had talked of 
 the sovereign will of the people, and had made such large 
 references to their wisdom and their power, that the multitude 
 seem to have taken them at their word, and to have con- 
 cluded that every thing, that was agreeable to them, must 
 necessarily be right. All government is instituted for the 
 happiness of the people ; this is the first step, and one of 
 which there can be no doubt; but the second is, that of 
 this happiness they can be themselves the only and the best 
 judges ; a position totally different, and which requires many 
 limitations, distinctions, and explanations, and which, when 
 thrown out to the multitude, as it continually was, by the 
 patriotic leaders in the most unqualified manner, could lead 
 only to those unhappy excesses, which it is the grief of every 
 friend to the liberties of mankind to read and hear of, and 
 which constitute so much of the history of the French Revo- 
 lution. 
 
 I have now made three distinct accusations. I have ac- 
 cused the people of Paris (the multitude at least) of taking 
 
 X
 
 306 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 the law into their own hands, and in defiance of what autho- 
 rity yet remained, of massacring those who had offended them 
 in the pubhc streets. I have accused the common people all 
 over France, when the authority of the old government was 
 removed, of committing the most disgraceful and cruel outrages 
 on the property and persons of the aristocracy of the country. 
 I have accused the leaders of the Revolution of addressing 
 such language to the people (that of their sovereignty and 
 their sovereign will) as could only be fatal to the people and 
 to themselves ; such as was unworthy of them as statesmen ; 
 such as could never have been necessary, if they had acted 
 during the first weeks of the Revolution in a spirit of temper 
 and moderation and made the best of their case with the 
 king, who was, according to the limits of his views and 
 feelings, as patriotic as themselves. 
 
 Now, these are accusations which you must consider in the 
 detail of the history, as you read it for yourselves. Of the 
 two first there can be no doubt ; of the last there may, and 
 it will require your best attention. But even of this last 
 position, that the leaders used fatal language to the people, 
 the truth is sufficiently apparent ; and after the first lessons 
 that are given to rulers, the next are, those that are afforded 
 to all who love freedom, and more particularly those who are 
 ready to resist, or even overturn, a government for the sake of 
 bettering the condition of their country. Patriots have their 
 temptations and their mistakes, as well as those who govern ; 
 and you must keep your attention directed to the faults that 
 were committed (and by them committed) on the subject 
 of executive power. The great cause of the French Revolution 
 failed for want of executive power. This is indeed a difficult 
 subject, and one which I ought not thus to decide and anti- 
 cipate—this conduct, I mean, of the Assembly with respect to 
 the executive power ; but this at least I may say, that the 
 first and most important point of all others to be accomplished 
 when the king had resigned himself to the Revolution, in the 
 Hotel de Ville, was the immediate establishment (more parti- 
 cularly in Paris) of something like an effective power. The 
 next point was, when the constitution came afterwards to be 
 regularly settled, to make the executive power sufficiently 
 strong. Now, the Constituent Assembly did neither. These
 
 XIV. NECESSITY OF EXECUTIVE POWER. 307 
 
 are, I think, the two great lessons of instruction for you 
 during all the earlier parts of the French Revolution, during 
 the sitting of the Constituent Assembly ; their failures on the 
 subject of executive power. 
 
 You will see a very good description of the situation 
 of Paris, immediately after the king's visit, in Groenvelt. 
 You must read this part of the history also in Bailly's 
 Memoirs, and in the Memoirs of the Marquis de Ferrieres. 
 There is a good account in Dodsley's Annual Register. 
 And now you will obsei-ve, that there seems to have been 
 in Paris, all through the Revolution, a set of wretches 
 among the multitude always ready to undertake any pro- 
 jects of insurrection and bloodshed : these were always con- 
 sidered as the followers and hired ruffians of the Duke of 
 Orleans, though I know not with what sufficient reason : 
 money may have been given, and a certain effect in conse- 
 quence produced, but no such effect, I conceive, as was un- 
 happily witnessed ; and it is quite out of the question to suppose 
 that such a spirit and such excesses, as were witnessed, could 
 have been produced by money; far different, and far more 
 awful, was the origin of such frightful phenomena in the 
 history of our species. There was in the houses of legislature 
 also, at all times and from the first, a party that were always 
 urging every thing to extremes, and seemed to have no relish 
 for any counsels but those of fury and violence. Now men 
 of both these descriptions, whether men of bad designs and 
 desperate characters, or men inflamed to a sort of madness 
 by the intoxicating nature of new opinions, men both like the 
 one and like the other, must always be expected to appear, 
 must always be taken into account in all revolutions. They 
 are naturally the favourites of the multitude, and it is very 
 difficult, it is almost impossible, to save a community from 
 their destructive influence. You will see them in action all 
 through the Revolution ; the low party of the Constituent, the 
 republicans of the Legislative Assembly, the mountain of the 
 Convention, the leaders of the Jacobin club, the demagogues 
 of the Palais Royal. Observe their speeches, the decrees 
 they propose, their conduct; these (after the flrst lessons 
 have been given) are the next lessons of the Revolution. 
 Such men will arise, will necessarily be found in public mobs,
 
 308 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 in public assemblies ; but these are the men against whom 
 real patriots, the real friends of liberty, are to be more 
 particularly on their guard. I must now make a painful 
 reference, in some sHght and passing manner, to subjects of 
 this nature. 
 
 M. Bailly gives a regular account of the massacre of M. de 
 Berthier. He presided that day at the town hall. All the 
 way to Paris, it was but too clear, as M. de Berthier was 
 brought along, under the conduct of the civil power, that no 
 civil power would be sufficient for his protection. The savages 
 that had just murdered his father-in-law, Foulon, brought the 
 head upon a pike, close to the carriage where he was sitting ; 
 M. de la Riviere, his conductor, exerted himself very humanely, 
 made him turn aside his eyes, and told him it was the head of 
 M. de Quesnay ; but the sufferings of the unhappy man were 
 extreme, and M. de la Riviere was unable to lodge him, 
 according to his orders, in the prison of the Abbaye, and he 
 could only bring him to the town hall. M, Bailly had pro- 
 cured a strong guard from La Fayette ; it was their object to 
 remove Berthier to prison, if possible, preparatory to his trial; 
 but even while they were interrogating the prisoner, the 
 blood-thirsty impatience of the crowd had become uncon- 
 trolable, and he no sooner appeared on the steps, than he 
 was torn away from the guard, and massacred on the spot. 
 A dragoon brought his heart to the council ; he Avas repulsed 
 with horror. The multitude next attempted to bring his head 
 on a pike, and were already on the stair-case ; the helpless 
 committee were obliged to send word, that no admission 
 could be allowed, as they were, at the moment, sitting and 
 engaged in business. " In these terrible moments," says 
 M. Bailly, " pretexts were to be made use of to escape from 
 these atrocities; there was a real danger," he continues,/* to 
 those (it was useless to brave it) who attempted to speak the 
 language of justice and humanity; the people could hear 
 nothing; whoever thought not with them was supposed a 
 traitor." 
 
 This is an awful specimen of the rude passions of mankind. 
 The dragoon, however, it is said, was pursued to death by his 
 indignant comrades, and was killed in the first duel with one 
 of them. The honour of the military character was justly felt ;
 
 XIV. NECESSITY OF EXECUTIVE POWER. 309 
 
 and these, the very murderers of Foulon and Berthier, brought 
 their money and trinkets to the Assembly. These incidents 
 speak something in favour of human nature. But in the notes 
 to Bailly's Memoirs, you will see a sort of pamphlet, or hand- 
 bill, that appeared at the time, written by some bad man, but 
 one evidently of intelligence and of literary talents. What 
 are we to say, what are we to think of the frail nature of the 
 peace of society, and of the danger of loosening its bands, when 
 even such a man could dehver to his fellow creatures a detail 
 of the abominations of these massacres, decorated by the 
 refined expressions of pleasantry and good writing ? " But 
 to lose no more time," says this hand-bill, " we strangled 
 him ; and then, as he was an ex-administrator, we took off his 
 head, in a manner the most respectful ; we took from him his 
 heart and his entrails ; the head walked off on the one side, 
 and the body on the other, — the first time that these two 
 intimate connections had found themselves separated from 
 each other." Other passages, and more disgusting, occur: 
 the whole is properly given by the present editor of Bailly, 
 to show to what an extent the human mind may be hardened 
 by political fury. 
 
 After all, it is very strange that no resistance could be 
 made to such atrocious proceedings, and it seems difficult 
 to suppose, that the mere mob were alone concerned; not that, 
 if they were, this would be any justification of the Assembly. 
 Where was all the force of the capital ? Why did not the 
 Assembly call aloud, in the cause of every thing that should 
 have been dear to them 1 When the citizens of Paris, a few 
 days before, expected their town to be attacked by Broglio 
 and the army, the body of electors had assembled, had created 
 a regular force, La Fayette was at the head of it ; afterwards 
 when the king repaired to the capital, wherever he looked, he 
 had seen the population under arms ; where were they all ? 
 They must have constituted much of the respectable part of 
 the population of Paris. Efforts were made by La Fayette 
 and by Bailly, by the military and civil powers, all in vain. 
 What the editors of Bailly have to say is only this, that at 
 the time of these massacres the armed force was not properly 
 organized; that the officers scarcely knew each other, and 
 that their persons were scarcely known to those who were to
 
 310 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 obey them ; that it was an irregular mass, divided in sentiment, 
 over which no general influence could be exercised. Divided 
 in sentiment, but how ? on an occasion like this ? To be able 
 to say no more than this for the people of Paris is to say but 
 little. La Fayette, it is added, had saved from popular fury, at 
 different times, seventeen persons just before : a melancholy 
 addition this to the crimes of the populace, and a new cause 
 of reproach to the Assembly and the respectable part of the 
 community. 
 
 La Fayette on every occasion, it will be found, all circum- 
 stances considered, did every thing that could possibly be 
 done by a brave and good man, often at great personal risk, 
 often with very eminent success. In this instance. La Fayette 
 was not wanting to his own character, or to his country ; the 
 cause of civil order and of the law was evidently at issue. 
 He must have been deeply mortified at this early specimen of 
 the Revolution. He wrote to Bailly, and to the districts, to 
 throw up his command, and he was able to write to them a 
 calm and reasonable letter. Every effort was made to 
 appease his just indignation, and he at last resumed the 
 command, as he had always secretly intended, on a promise 
 of proper obedience to him, given by the electors and depu- 
 ties of the districts in the name of the citizens of Paris; 
 " that his zeal," they said, " seconded by their common 
 efforts, might conduct to perfectionthe great work of the 
 public liberty." 
 
 How ill this promise was observed, is but too well known ; 
 these massacres produced some sensation in the districts of 
 Paris, and occasioned a seasonable proclamation, but they 
 should have far more powerfully affected the National Assem- 
 bly. It was evident how dreadful was the monster that they 
 had unchained, while endeavouring to free their country from 
 a system of bad government and the oppressions of a court ; 
 but no proper sentiment seems to have been awakened in the 
 democratic party. The virtuous M. de Lally Tollendal exerted 
 himself with no adequate success. This distinguished patriot 
 had taken a reasonable view of the situation of France, even 
 before these dreadful events. " From the point where we 
 then were," he says, " immediately after the king's visit to 
 the town hall, it was evident that nothing more was to be
 
 XIV. NECESSITY OF EXECUTIVE POWER. 311 
 
 feared for liberty, but the projects of faction, and the dangers 
 of anarchy ; the National Assembly had only to put itself on 
 its guard against the excess of its power. There was not a 
 moment to lose to re-estabUsh public order; news had been 
 already received that the commotions, which had shaken the 
 capital, had been felt not only in the neighbouring cities, but 
 in the distant provinces." 
 
 With his hands full of letters, that attested the excesses 
 every where committed with impunity, Tollendal repaired to 
 the National Assembly, and proposed his proclamation on the 
 20th. On the first and on the second reading his project was 
 received with acclamations, but to his astonishment, he saw a 
 party rise to oppose it. " According to one," says he, " my 
 sensibility had seduced my reason; these fires, these impri- 
 sonments, these assassinations, were crosses that we should 
 learn to support, because we ought to have expected them : — 
 according to another, my imagination had created dangers 
 which did not exist : there was no danger but in my motion ; 
 danger for liberty, because it would take from the people a 
 salutary fear and alarm for their freedom, which should rather 
 be encouraged than suppressed; danger for the Assembly, 
 that would see Paris declare against it." 
 
 " The next day," continues Lally Tollendal, (the 21st of 
 July,) " I was waked by the cries of grief. I saw enter my 
 chamber a young man, pale, disfigured, who hastened eagerly 
 to throw his arms around me, and who said to me, as he 
 sobbed aloud, ' Sir, you have passed fifteen years of your life 
 in defending the memory of your own father ; save the life of 
 mine, let him be heard by his judges.' It was the son of the 
 unfortunate Berthier. I conducted him instantly to the pre- 
 sident of the Assembly. As ill fortune would have it, there 
 was no sitting in the morning ; in the evening it was too late. 
 The father-in-law and the son-in-law had been, in the mean 
 time, in the course of the day, torn in pieces." Such is the 
 account of Tollendal. Such are the scenes of a Revolution. 
 
 " You may imagine," continues Tollendal, " that at the 
 very first sitting I hastened to fix the general attention on this 
 horrible event. I spoke in the name of a son whose father 
 had been just massacred ; and Barnave, a son who was in 
 mourning for his own father at the time, dared to reproach me
 
 312 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 with feeling, when I should only reason. He added, ' Was 
 then the blood, which has been shed, so very precious?' And 
 every time he raised his arms in the midst of his sanguinary 
 declamations, he showed to every eye the mournful marks of 
 his own recent afflictions, the weepers (for his own father) 
 that made a part of his dress, the incontestable witnesses of 
 his barbarous insensibility." You will see hereafter in the 
 history, that Lally Tollendal at last rushed forth from the 
 Constituent Assembly, unable to bear the presence and the 
 language of the democratic party any longer. 
 
 The conduct of Barnave, on this question, shows the repub- 
 lican character in that odious point of view in which it is but 
 too ready to present itself. You remember the incidents of 
 the Roman story. These often mislead ; and cool cruelty is 
 sometimes supposed to be virtue, and humanity to be weak- 
 ness. But it is agreeable to remember, that Barnave lived 
 to melt over the misfortunes of the king and queen, and to 
 show the more amiable feelings of our common nature. But 
 no such amiable, such indispensable feelings were witnessed 
 in an important portion of the National Assembly. Lally 
 Tollendal was expostulated with, checked, and opposed. " I 
 discharge my conscience," he cried aloud, " of the evils that 
 will result from your refusals of what I propose. I wash my 
 hands of the blood which will flow." Cries of fury resounded 
 on every side, and Mirabeau observed with a ferocious look, 
 " Nations must have their victims ; to the calamities of indi- 
 viduals one must be hardened ; it is only at this price that 
 one can become a citizen." Mirabeau afterwards addressed 
 a letter on the general subject to his constituents; and he 
 called forth all the powers of his eloquence to palliate the 
 excesses of the people, and rather to throw the blame on 
 their former rulers. Admitting that there was too much of 
 truth in some of his remarks on their former rulers, this was 
 surely not a time to have produced them. 
 
 " Observe now," said he, " how many have been the 
 causes that concurred to produce this explosion, these mas- 
 sacres (he enumerated many of these causes), in short," said 
 he, " two centuries of oppression, public and private, political 
 and fiscal, feudal and judicial, crowned by that most horrible 
 conspiracy (Broglio and the court) which the annals of the
 
 XIV. NECESSITY OF EXECUTIVE POWER. 313 
 
 world will for ever transmit to memory ; these are what have 
 so provoked the people ; the people have punished a few of 
 those whom the pubHc voice has declared the authors of these 
 evils. Let those who have so managed as to fear no other 
 tribunal, fear this of the public. 
 
 " It would make a volume to show by examples that 
 in these seasons of severity exercised upon government, 
 governments but reap the hai'vest of their own iniquities. 
 The people are despised, and are then expected to be always 
 gentle and passive ; but no, it is instruction which must be 
 drawn from these events, the injustice of the other classes to 
 the people makes them find justice in barbarity itself." 
 
 Such were some of the passages in the letter of Mirabeau. 
 The oppressions of the old government are here seen, no 
 doubt, but extremely exaggerated and very unseasonably 
 produced, even admitting that there is but too much truth in 
 the moral w^hich he draws. What could be the interpretation 
 or effect of such observations at that particular juncture ? He 
 who justifies a crime is little to be distinguished from the 
 criminal ; and this is a fault of constant occurrence among 
 men, especially when parties run high. The proclamation 
 that was issued by the Assembly turned out to be spiritless 
 and inefficient. The Assembly, in this proclamation, after 
 stating (reasonably enough) its own merits with the public, 
 those of the king, and the consequences of such proceedings, 
 informed the public that a tribunal would be immediately 
 created for the regular trial of cases of treason ; and they were 
 then invited to peace (invited to peace), to the maintenance of 
 order and the public tranquillity, to the confidence which they 
 owed their king and their representatives, and that respect for 
 the laws, without which (it was observed) there can be no 
 liberty. " These were the sentiments and principles," says 
 M. Bailly, " of the National Assembly;" and he seems to 
 think them so adequate to the occasion, as to be quite pleased 
 with his fellow legislators. He pronounces them excellent. 
 
 The proclamation issued was the one that had been pro- 
 posed by Lally, even before the murders of Foulon and Ber- 
 thier had taken place, but the most important paragraph of it, 
 even as it first stood, was left out ; the paragraph was this : 
 " that punishment the most just, pronounced on crimes the
 
 314 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 most clear, became itself an injustice and a crime, unless 
 ordered by the law, and the judge, the proper organ of the 
 law." 
 
 Once more, and to close for a time the subject. 
 
 The scenes I have alluded to are highly disgraceful to the 
 Assembly, and all the constituted authorities of Paris. They 
 show, no doubt, the necessity of some executive power. This 
 is the first lesson ; but more is to be considered. The two 
 unhappy men who were massacred were literally torn in 
 pieces by the multitude. Their heads were carried on pikes, 
 and led in a sort of triumphal procession through the streets. 
 A fiend in the shape of a man, as I have already mentioned, 
 actually thrust his hand into the entrails of one of these un- 
 fortunate victims, tore out the heart, and brought it to the 
 council table, where the committee was sitting in the town 
 hall. These are the great facts to be remembered. 
 
 Now horrors of this kind, and they are innumerable through 
 the French Revolution, show, as I have mentioned, in the 
 first place, the necessity of some executive government; but 
 in the second place, they have been always considered as the 
 most decisive proofs that can possibly be produced to show 
 the necessity, after all, of the Revolution itself, and the bad- 
 ness of the old French government. What must have been 
 the rulers, or at least the system of government, when such 
 were the people ? What further justification can be required ? 
 Now whether this rapid mode of reasoning be or be not 
 entirely conclusive, one thing must, I think, be admitted ; 
 that the moral situation of the lower orders in France at the 
 time of the Revolution, forms an eternal answer to those who 
 would give the people no instruction and no freedom. How is 
 the brute to be taken out of the human animal but by the 
 influence of that moral and religious knowledge, which alone 
 distinguish him from other animals in the desert. But give 
 him instruction, it will be answered, and he will then be a 
 more intelligent and discernino- critic on the vices and follies 
 of his superiors. No doubt they must behave better ; and why 
 not ? Is not this in other words to say, that the community 
 will in every class and in every direction be advanced and 
 improved. 
 
 But the community will never be safe, it will be again
 
 XIV. NECESSITY OF EXECUTIVE POWER. 315 
 
 answered, if every man is thus to be converted into a judge of 
 his betters and erected into a statesman. This is a gross 
 exaggeration : the generality of mankind must be occupied in 
 making provision for themselves and their families; the 
 knowledge they can acquire must be very limited, little more 
 than what may save them from the brutal vices ; the political 
 power which will sufficiently gratify them and make them 
 respectable in their own eyes and those of their superiors is in 
 truth, generally speaking, and in any ordinary state of the 
 world, very little; and at all events the community can never 
 for a moment be safe, when the multitude are degraded and 
 despised. They will, on some opportunity or other, rise, as 
 they did in France, first in the Jacquerie, next at the Revolu- 
 tion ; on both occasions, but too much after the manner of 
 slaves in a West India island. And even in regular and good 
 governments, like our own, in times of any difficulty or dan- 
 ger, the visitation of a scarcity, a fall in the price of labour, a 
 stoppage of the manufactures, to whom has a factious dema- 
 gogue the best chance of successfully addressing himself — to 
 an ignorant creature that can understand no voice but the 
 clamour of his wants and passions, or to one that has been 
 accustomed to consider occasionally the nature of his duties, 
 moral and religious, occasionally to exercise his thoughts, 
 occasionally, in the language of the poet, " to look before 
 and after ?" Again, to which of the two can a wise and good 
 man address himself in these seasons of public calamity with 
 the best chance of success ? Which is most likely to understand 
 what even a wise and good man can then only say — the wisdom 
 of patience; the necessity of suffering; that governments 
 cannot perform impossibilities ; that the best will be abused ; 
 the wisest make mistakes ; that perfection, that happiness, in 
 our sublunary state, are not to be expected ; — of such things 
 which of the two is likely to be the best auditor, the ignorant 
 man or the more improved ? 
 
 But to return to France, and to the subject of the want of 
 executive power. The Revolution failed not a little on account 
 of the tumultuary mobs of Paris. The student's attention 
 should always be directed to this point ; why and how it came 
 about that there was no proper executive power in the metro- 
 polis and in the country ; why the Constituent Assembly 
 never seemed sufficiently aware of the necessity of one ; why
 
 316 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 democratic principles of the most unqualified nature so uni- 
 formly prevailed. 
 
 This subject of executive power is at all times so important, 
 and is so intimately connected w^ith every part of the French 
 Revolution, that I will endeavour, in the remainder of the 
 lecture, to furnish you with such particulars of a general 
 nature, as may give you some notion of what it was, during 
 the period we are now considering, and long after. 
 
 A sort of slight history of it seems the following. 
 
 The first executive power that existed in France prior to 
 the Revolution, was of course the ancient power, prerogative, 
 and authority of the crown. The king was, under the old 
 regime, the great executive, and indeed legislative power. 
 
 But this executive power grew weaker as the Revolution 
 proceeded, and might be said to be suspended, when the king 
 was thought to have brought up Marshal Broglio and his 
 troops to put down the Revolution and to subdue Paris. His 
 authority, on the failure of this measure, was virtually at an 
 end, and a new sort of executive power was created. 
 
 Recourse was had to the body of electors, about three hun- 
 dred in number, those who originally chose the deputies that 
 were sent to the States General, and they became the first 
 magistracy, or executive and civil power ; and, in the revolu- 
 tionary state of things then existing, were highly fitted to be 
 so. They arranged and formed the military force, that ap- 
 peared as by enchantment, and probably saved Paris, not only 
 from Marshal Broglio, but from internal pillage and destruc- 
 tion at that terrible crisis. 
 
 But it was afterwards found that they and the military 
 force, with all the assistance of La Fayette and Bailly, were 
 insuflicient to secure the peace and order of the community ; 
 they had not been able, or they had not sufficiently exerted 
 themselves, to prevent the massacres we have lately alluded 
 to ; and the real executive power became little to be distin- 
 guished from the mere will of the multitude, the will of the 
 sovereign people. This was in truth the law ; there was no 
 other, and none could be worse. The electors were not at 
 ease or pleased with their situation ; they seemed to have 
 understood the nature of their fellow-citizens, the Parisians, 
 perfectly well; they were not very desirous to retain their 
 authority ; and they therefore persuaded the sixty districts of
 
 XIV. NECESSITY OF EXECUTIVE POWER. 317 
 
 the capital to elect each two deputies, who should constitute 
 a temporary administration, make proper provision for a 
 future municipal government, and being the acknowledged 
 representatives of the community, could assume the appear- 
 ance of regular legitimate authority, according to the new 
 opinions. 
 
 These one hundred and twenty deputies then constituted 
 the second municipal authority or acting executive power of 
 the capital ; and these might liave succeeded eventually in 
 maintaining some appearance of order in the community, but 
 for one unfortunate circumstance : it was this ; they were the 
 immediate representatives each of their own districts; and 
 these districts had each of them, most unhappily. General 
 Assemblies. In these Assemblies every inhabitant was per- 
 mitted to speak (each inhabitant, a Frenchman), permitted, I 
 say, to speak and vote. These Assemblies, in this manner, 
 framed resolutions, which were laws in their own districts, 
 issued proclamations, and granted passports. They became 
 themselves, rather than the deputies, the effective executive 
 power ; and the result of this was, that the great city of Paris 
 became at once tormented with sixty republics, each with a 
 General Assembly, where all the citizens, meeting, speaking, 
 voting at the same time, each Assembly became a cave of 
 -^olus, but with no master spirit to control its inmates. This, 
 then, was a dreadful species of executive power or municipal 
 authority. Such Assemblies, with such representatives, the 
 Assemblies constantly sitting, the representatives the mere 
 organs of their will, — this was a miserable specimen of the 
 sovereignty of the people, a melancholy caricature of the doc- 
 trines of freedom. 
 
 Groenvelt, an enthusiastic friend of liberty, who was on the 
 spot at the time, thus expresses himself: — " The noise which 
 prevails in these Assemblies is enough to distract any one 
 who is not accustomed to it. Every speech is followed or 
 interrupted by the loudest and most clamorous applause, or 
 the most tumultuous signs of disapprobation. The president 
 of one of these Assemblies, finding it impossible to command 
 silence by any other means, has stationed a drummer behind 
 him ; and when all is noise, tumult, and confusion, he gives 
 the signal to beat the drum till tranquillity is restored."
 
 318 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 Groenvelt, however, finishes the paragraph by a consolatory 
 reference to the usual subject of vituperation, the old govern- 
 ment, i!" If a man will have his house repaired," says he, 
 " he must not complain that he is incommoded during the 
 operation by dust and noise." " Incommoded" seems a very 
 faint term to be used by one who had been present at these 
 Assemblies. 
 
 When such was the great source of executive power, that 
 is, of the authority of the community, the next step in the 
 progress of destruction, as the student will easily conceive, 
 would be, that these Assemblies would fall under the manage- 
 ment of wrong-headed, furious demagogues ; that sensible 
 people in disgust would withdraw (a constant but most 
 lamentable consequence at all times of a disorderly public 
 assembly) ; that these demagogues, in each district, would 
 communicate and correspond with each other, and at last 
 would fall into a great united club (as they did, the Jacobin 
 club) ; be there joined by the more violent members of the 
 National Assembly ; and, by forming a similar organization 
 in the great towns and all over the kingdom, influence these 
 Assemblies, organize these districts, and in fact constitute the 
 real eifective government of the empire, and give the law to 
 the National Assembly itself, under whatever form or name 
 it appeared. All this took place. 
 
 Now a more tremendous executive (or rather legislative and 
 executive power) than this, to exist in any country, no imagi- 
 nation can conceive. It was highly fitted, it must be allowed, 
 to beat off an invading enemy ; to raise armies, that might be 
 let loose upon the rest of Europe : but it was the least fitted 
 in the world to build up the regular constitution, and lay the 
 foundations of the future peace and prosperity of a great 
 empire. You will often hear of the municipality of Paris, as 
 you read the history ; that is, of the body composed of the 
 representatives of the sixty districts, each district having its 
 own Assembly. You will often hear of the Jacobin club : 
 bear in mind this slight sketch of these dreadful ministers of 
 authority that I have given you ; the nature of the power, its 
 organization, and extent; and all the enormities that dis- 
 graced the Revolution, and destroyed all the efforts of good 
 men, will not surprise you.
 
 XIV. NECESSITY OF EXECUTIVE POWER. 319 
 
 But other circumstances must be mentioned that concurred 
 to the same end ; concurred to the debasement and destruction 
 of all regular executive power, of all the proper authority of 
 the community. 
 
 " There is a very numerous class of men," says Groenvelt, 
 " in this metropolis, who, though they do not frequent the 
 Assemblies of the districts, are by no means indifferent about 
 politics, but hold Assemblies of their own in public places, in 
 the Palais Royal, in the streets, wherever they happen acci- 
 dentally to collect together. They are, in general, men of dis- 
 tressed circumstances, with little or no employment; some 
 supporting a precarious existence by alms, condemned to a 
 life of misery, and consequently restless, dissatisfied, greedy 
 after news, or rather impatient for change. Nearly one hun- 
 dred thousand individuals (of the upper ranks) are supposed 
 to have emigrated. Judge from this circumstance what an 
 army of servants out of place, labourers out of work, men 
 wholly dependent on the luxuries of the great, and now 
 stripped of all resources, must have been turned loose upon 
 the public. Again : the levity and inconstancy of the Pari- 
 sians had been always proverbial; so had their gross igno- 
 rance ; so had their blind credulity : and yet they were 
 suspicious in the extreme; they imagined treachery or vil- 
 lainy in the most indifferent, innocent, or praiseworthy actions ; 
 so that no men could presei've their favour or conduct their 
 business. 
 
 " Falsehood," says Groenvelt, " is the constant and the 
 favourite resource of the cabals which prevail here. You 
 cannot form an idea of the impudence with which the most 
 palpable lies are published and propagated among the people. 
 The most positive assertions, the most minute detail of facts, 
 the strongest appearance of probability, are made to accom- 
 pany the grossest falsehoods. Foulon and Bezenval were the 
 victims of pretended letters, of which one thousand copies, but 
 no original, was ever seen. The convent of Montmartre has 
 been twice beset by twenty or thirty thousand men, who 
 threatened it with destruction for having engrossed the pro- 
 vender of Paris ; it was searched, and there was scarcely 
 found provision enough to supply the house. At one moment 
 it is affirmed that the aristocratical conspirators have thrown
 
 320 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 a great quantity of bread into the Seine; at another, that 
 they mowed the green corn. The public is overwhehned with 
 lies and calumnies." 
 
 Nor was this credulity and this unhappy suspiciousness of 
 temper confined to Paris. These prevailed all over the king- 
 dom, and instances the most ludicrous might be produced. 
 
 Now I must turn for an instant to observe, that the picture 
 of general ignorance in the people of France, as you see, is 
 very complete ; and yet, as you also see, the old government 
 was not in this way made secure, as it should have been, 
 according to those who contend against the instruction of the 
 lower orders : quite the contrary ; there was no chance left 
 for it. But in this general state of public ignorance the 
 political press seems to have been active and unprincipled to 
 the most extraordinary degree. In Paris, thirteen or even 
 sixteen pamphlets a day were no matter of surprise. These 
 innumerable productions were spread from the capital through 
 every part of the kingdom with the greatest dispatch ; it is 
 said they were given away : a circumstance which, like many 
 others, leads to the belief of an Orleans faction existing to a 
 certain extent at least, and exercising all their abominable 
 machinations for the propagation of disorder. Lastly, as a 
 supereminent difficulty for good patriots to struggle with, a 
 scarcity, a famine, was sorely felt in Paris, and more or less 
 in other parts of France, during these earlier parts of the 
 Revolution. Demagogues, and revolutionists, and all the 
 artificers of confusion, can have no instrument in their hands 
 like this — the rich man eating bread while the poor man is 
 famished. How vain to talk to the latter of order and law ! 
 how easy, of the necessity of insurrection and a better govern- 
 ment ! Bailly mentions, that he was often uncertain at mid- 
 night of the proper supply for the city the next day. To all 
 these causes of disorder and calamity must, I conceive, after 
 all, be added the immense fortune of the Duke of Orleans, 
 and the manner in which he suffered it to be employed. And 
 lastly, and above all, the nature of the new opinions, intoxi- 
 cating alike to the speaker and the hearer, to the writer and 
 the reader, to the thousands of demagogues and literary men 
 who supposed they were already wiser than all who had gone 
 before them, and to the crowds and multitudes, more particu-
 
 XIV. NECESSITY OF EXECUTIVE POWER. 321 
 
 larly those, rising into life, who thought they were now to 
 become so. The very nature of these opinions was to suppo e 
 that there was a new era to commence in the rehgion, morals, 
 and governments of mankind ; and when, in this state of 
 things, even the wise and the people of property seemed no 
 longer to respect any established system of conduct or opi- 
 nion, and openly to avow it, what was to become of the mass 
 of the community ? 
 
 You will now, I hope, be able to form some general notion 
 of the state of Paris and of France when the king adopted 
 the Revolution, and for some time after ; a notion sufficiently 
 clear to enable you to understand what I am delivering on 
 the subject of executive power in this lectm-e ; and the ques- 
 tion now is. What was done by the Constituent Assembly from 
 the moment that all the regular and legitimate power was 
 transferred from the king to them? what was done for the 
 preservation of their own consequence ; for the security of the 
 public ; for the very success of any measures they could 
 possibly prepare ; for the improvement of the constitution of 
 their country ? Are they or are they not to be blamed for their 
 want of sense and spirit ? And if Lally Tollendal, and others, 
 were helpless, and unable to carry proper measures with the 
 Assembly, are the friends of freedom to be warned or not by 
 the example of the Assembly ? What has been the event is 
 now known, and what the event could not hut he mioht have 
 been foreseen (so it must now be thought) by all intelligent 
 men at the time. I do not deny their difficulties, but they 
 were intoxicated with the new opinions, as men will always 
 be; and they made no efforts, or thought none necessary, 
 to form a proper executive power for their own defence, the 
 protection of the community, in fact, the protection of their 
 own Revolution. 
 
 You will of course consider the subject more thoroughly 
 hereafter. It was on the whole a most perilous and unhappy 
 situation of affiiirs, though it appeared not so at the time to 
 the friends of liberty in this country, in America, and in 
 Europe. The question in reality was, whether the National 
 Assembly (for this was the only hope), consisting of so many 
 enlightened and respectable men, could restrain the general 
 ardour, and could by their own virtues, wisdom, and mode- 
 
 Y
 
 322 FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 ration, compensate for all the tendencies to evil which we 
 have thus briefly and very imperfectly described. 
 
 As I leave the subject, and before I conclude my lecture, I 
 must announce to you the subject of the lecture of to-morrow 
 — one, indeed, connected with the subject of this lecture, the 
 w^ant of executive power. 
 
 The truth was, that the most dreadful outrages had followed 
 all through France the first success of what must be con- 
 sided as the first insurrection of the people, on the 14th of 
 July. 
 
 A report was made to the Assembly on the 3rd of August ; 
 the committee stated, to use their own words, that " letters 
 and memorials received from all the provinces had proved, 
 that property of every kind was every where the prey of the 
 most atrocious plunderers ; that throughout the country the 
 houses were burned, the convents destroyed, and farms given 
 up to pillage ; imposts, seignorial services, all, every thing is 
 annihilated ; the laws are without force, the magistrates with- 
 out authority, and justice is no longer more than a phantom, 
 which it is in vain to seek in the courts." 
 
 Such was the language of the report made to the Assembly 
 on the 3rd. ' 
 
 Dreadful accounts had also reached many individual mem- 
 bers of the Assembly on the morning of the 4th. 
 
 The question then was, what was the course to be pursued ? 
 The result was the proceedings of the night of the 4th of 
 August : among the most memorable in the course of the 
 Revolution. They must be well considered by you in every 
 part, and I must call your attention to them in my lecture of 
 to-morrow. They must be well observed, because they are 
 connected with the nature of the rights and privileges of pro- 
 perty, particularly ecclesiastical property. They show how 
 these subjects are naturally affected by revolutions. These 
 proceedings of the night of the 4th of August put an end, in 
 a word, to all feudal rights and privileges, and led at last to 
 the destruction of the property of the clergy in France and of 
 her ecclesiastical orders ; and, as a specimen of revolutions, 
 and the reasonings and consequences by which they are 
 accompanied, are for ever memorable in the history of man- 
 kind.
 
 LECTURE XV. 
 
 FOURTH OF AUGUST. DESTRUCTION OF FEUDAL 
 RIGHTS AND CHURCH ESTABLISHMENT. 
 
 THE governments of Europe were all founded on feudal 
 principles ; but customs continue long after the original 
 reasons of them have ceased, and nothing could be less 
 agreeable to the views and reasonings of a philosopher than 
 the rights and observances, which had been thus transmitted 
 from one generation to another, and, however modified and 
 disguised, had thus descended down to us, even so late as 
 the close of the eighteenth century. 
 
 With these feudal notions, it was impossible that the new 
 opinions should not be in a state of hostility from the first. 
 The distinctions of society itself were scarcely tolerated by 
 Rousseau. There was then little chance for the oppressions 
 of the feudal system, when men began to speculate upon the 
 nature of society and the happiness of their fellow creatures ; 
 and with all our reverence for antiquity, and whatever be the 
 difficulties and dangers which are connected with the breaking 
 up of the habits and customs of a community, still we must 
 allow that the feudal system, as it then existed in France, was 
 a burden from which it was very naturally the wish of the 
 patriots of France to deliver their country. The new phi- 
 losophy was more especially anxious (and very properly so) 
 to elevate the condition of the lower orders ; and, as applied 
 to this part of society, the feudal system assumed no appear- 
 ances but those of oppression and injustice. Reference 
 must be had to some sufferings of this kind in the people, 
 or we shall be unable to explain some of the outrages that 
 took place, and not indeed in Paris and the great towns, but 
 through the interior of France, in the earlier periods of the 
 Revolution. These sufferings of the peasantry have, I appre-
 
 324 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 hend, been overstated by very respectable w^riters ; among the 
 rest, our own Arthur Young. 
 
 It may be observed, for instance, that the chateaux and the 
 title deeds might be burned, because the cultivators of the soil, 
 the metayers, were always in debt to the proprietors. Still, 
 sufferings and oppressions to a certain extent must be sup- 
 posed. The most dreadful disorders took place. 
 
 Accounts to this effect had reached the members of the 
 Constituent Assembly, as I have already mentioned, from all 
 parts of France ; and it now became an object of serious 
 anxiety to all those who had privileges or possessions, to 
 determine immediately what could best be done, as well for 
 themselves as for others. Many letters had been received on 
 the 4th of August ; and when the Assembly met in the 
 evening, strong symptoms of vexation, anxiety, and terror, 
 were visible in the countenances of the members, particularly 
 those belonging to the two first orders. 
 
 But you will see, on the sHghtest reflection, the difficulty 
 that belongs to the subject. 
 
 Privileges, however fantastic and unjust, if long enjoyed, 
 become a species of right and property ; they are retained as 
 such ; they are often more dear to their possessors than more 
 substantial goods : to be required to give them up is thought 
 very unreasonable ; to have them taken away by force, very 
 unjust. A dispute much of this kind led to our own civil 
 war between Charles I. and his parliaments. One of the 
 greatest merits of the long parliament was the clearing away 
 from landed property some of the inconvenient and oppressive 
 usages of the feudal system ; a merit which the parliament of 
 Charles II., without acknowledgment, immediately assumed, 
 as its own, on the Restoration. 
 
 People may no doubt surrender, if they please, their privi- 
 leges and enjoyments, but they are not very likely to do so ; 
 and, therefore, the first operation of revolutions is in general 
 to exercise compulsion upon them, and thus to fill the houses 
 and families of many distinguished individuals, sometimes of 
 whole classes of the community, with misery, indignation, and 
 complaints. 
 
 When the Assembly met on the evening of the 4th of 
 August, some proposed resolutions were read by Target ; the 
 general import of which was, that the ancient laws, imposts,
 
 XV. FOURTH OF AUGUST. 325 
 
 &c. kc, were to remain, till new modified by the Assembly; 
 but the Viscount de Noailles seemed aware that no such 
 temporizing conduct in the Assembly would now be sufficient, 
 and he instantly arose to propose measures, which alone could 
 produce, he said, the public tranquillity, and which went im- 
 mediately to ordain that all public charges should be equally 
 supported by the whole community ; all taxes levied in pro- 
 portion to income • above all, that all feudal claims should 
 be redeemable at a fair valuation, and that corvees and all 
 rights of the lords to the services of the peasantry, with other 
 grievances of the kind, should be abolished. 
 
 You will see his reasonable speech in the notes to the Me- 
 moirs of Bailly. He was immediately seconded by the Due 
 d'Aguillon, whose speech created even more surprise, on 
 account of his very ample estate and extensive royalties. This 
 speech appears to me so humane and yet so considerate, and 
 to touch with so much propriety on all the leading points of 
 the subject, that I will offer to your remembrance some of its 
 leading passages. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the duke, " there is no one who must 
 not groan over the scenes of horror which are now exhibited 
 in France : it is not only that brigands, with arms in their 
 hands, are enriching themselves at the expense of the public 
 calamity; in many provinces, the whole population forms a 
 species of league to destroy the chateaux, to ravage the lands, 
 and, above all, to possess itself of the places where the titles to 
 feudal properties are deposited. Men are every where eager 
 to throw off a yoke, that has for so many ages pressed upon 
 them so heavily; and it must be confessed, gentlemen, that 
 this insurrection, though in itself to be blamed, as all violent 
 aggression must be, may still find its excuse in those vexations 
 of which the people are the victims. The proprietors of the 
 fiefs and seignories are themselves, indeed, but seldom to be 
 blamed for the excesses of which their vassals complain, but 
 their agents are often without pity; and the unhappy culti- 
 vator groans under the barbarous remains of those feudal laws 
 which still subsist in France. These rights, it cannot be 
 concealed, are a property, and all property is sacred ; but then 
 they are burdensome to the people, and all the world agree, 
 how heavy is this oppression. 
 " In this enlightened age, when a sound philosophy has resumed
 
 3-^6 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 its empire ; at this fortunate epoch, when united for the good 
 of the pubhc, and disengaged from every personal interest, 
 we labour together for the regeneration of the state, it appears 
 to me, that it is for us, before we establish the constitution 
 expected from us by the nation, it is for us, I say, to prove to 
 all our fellow citizens, that our intention and our wish is, to 
 anticipate their desires, and to establish, as soon as we can, 
 that equality of rights, which ought to exist amongst all men, 
 and which can alone assure to them their freedom. I doubt 
 not that these proprietors of fiefs, these lords of the seigno- 
 ries, far from their refusing their assent to this great truth, 
 will of themselves be disposed to make every sacrifice of their 
 rights that justice can require : they have already renounced 
 their privileges and pecuniary exemptions. One cannot, at 
 this moment, demand from them the pure and simple renun- 
 ciation of their feudal rights : these rights are their property, 
 of many individuals their only possession; and justice requires 
 from us, not to exact the delivering up of any property from 
 those, to whom we have not first granted a just indemnity; 
 and I therefore propose, for the sake of rendering them duly 
 sensible that we are not inattentive to their interests, that we 
 should offer them a compensation for the sacrifice of their 
 own convenience to the public good." He then went on to 
 propose resolutions agreeably to those of the Duke de Noailles ; 
 the import of which was, that the National Assembly, con- 
 sidering, moreover, that the feudal and seignorial rights are 
 an oppressive tribute, which injures agriculture and desolates 
 the country, but unable to conceal from itself that all rights 
 are in reality a property, and that all property is inviolable, 
 resolves, &c. &c. " that these rights were to be redeemable 
 after a fixed standard, accommodated by the Assembly to the 
 nature of the case," &c. &c. &c. 
 
 Expressions of joy and exclamation followed (and very rea- 
 sonably) these very generous proposals on the part of the 
 viscount and the duke. 
 
 A deputy then arose, Leguen de Kerengal, clad in the 
 habit of a peasant, and gave the Assembly a very full and 
 eloquent description of the feudal abuses. 
 
 " You would have prevented," said he, " these burnings of 
 the chateaux, if you had been more early in declaring, that
 
 XV. FOURTH OF AUGUST. 327 
 
 the terrible instruments of oppression, which they contain, 
 were now to exist no more. Let us be just, and let us bring 
 here and annihilate for ever these feudal rights and titles, that 
 outrage all modesty and humanity ; that degrade the human 
 species ; that tie men to a car or a plough, and make them 
 draw it, as if they were beasts ; that make men pass whole 
 nights in beating the ponds, lest the frogs, by their noise, 
 should disturb the slumbers of the voluptuous lord. Who is 
 there in an enliphtened age like this, that would not make an 
 expiatory bonfire of these infamous parchments ? who that 
 would not seize a torch and offer them up as a sacrifice on the 
 altar of the public good ? There is no peace for France till 
 there is an end of these things : tell the people that you 
 acknowledge the injustice of these rights, acquired in times of 
 ignorance and darkness. You have not a moment to lose. 
 
 " The fall of empires has often been announced by less 
 noise than you now hear : do you mean to give laws to France 
 only when in a state of devastation ?" 
 
 From these few passages, you will, for the present, suffi- 
 ciently conceive the nature of a speech, that was followed 
 by redoubled applauses, and by acclamations too loud, to 
 leave any chance of a hearing to those among the nobles who 
 in vain protested, and probably with very great reason, against 
 the truth of the orator's assertions. 
 
 This orator was soon after followed by another, Laponte, 
 who completed the picture of feudal tyranny, by the descrip- 
 tion, probably a most unfair and exaggerated description, of 
 abominations still more disgusting, and even talked of a right 
 which the lords in certain districts were possessed of, actually 
 to warm their feet in the entrails of their vassals when returning 
 cold from the chase. The nobles here, as may well be sup- 
 posed, could contain themselves no longer; and amid their 
 natural cries of remonstrance, and the equally loud cries of 
 horror and indignation of the Assembly, the uproar was so 
 great, that the orator sat down. Each deputy, as you will 
 now easily imagine, rushed forward to make sacrifices of his 
 particular rights and privileges, many more sacrifices than 
 could be enumerated by any writer or observer of these trans- 
 actions, and many more than could by us be understood. 
 
 The night was, no doubt, a night of tumult and disorder.
 
 328 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 and the Assembly had Httle the appearance of the Assembly 
 of a great nation, a meeting of legislators, who were, by their 
 deliberate wisdom, to regenerate an empire. All this is true ; 
 and this, and much more than this, you will read in the 
 histories and memoirs that I have offered to your attention. 
 It has been called the night of dupes, and I cannot but allow, 
 that rights and institutions, of whatever kind, if found existing 
 in a community, should be treated with a little more ceremony 
 than was now paid; and every accommodation should be given, 
 and every respect shown, to the convenience and feelings of 
 all concerned. Considerations of this kind you will see 
 strongly urged in the Annual Register, and some of the French 
 works ; but it would have been well for France and for man- 
 kind, if the Assembly had committed no greater faults than 
 those of this memorable night, and if their enthusiasm, their 
 folly, if you please, had been always not only so noble and so 
 generous in itself, but directed to purposes equally just and 
 intelligent. 
 
 Whoever considers subjects of the kind now before us, will 
 find, that they at last resolve themselves into questions of 
 feeling. Why am I to give up my right ? says a possessor of 
 an ancient privilege. You should feel for the public good, it 
 is replied ; what other answer can be made him ? If he does 
 feel, he is a man of virtue, and to be had in honour ; and so 
 are these patriots of the Constituent Assembly. Men act from 
 mixed motives : it is impossible to enter into all that may 
 have affected the conduct of the different nobles and privileged 
 persons who distinguished themselves on this occasion ; it is 
 never very useful to occupy ourselves with disquisitions of 
 this nature. The main feelings and principles concerned, were 
 generosity, humanity, disinterestedness, a sense of justice, 
 a sympathy with others, an interest in the public good, 
 a hope for the improvement and regeneration of France; 
 patriotism, in every sense of the word that can belong to it. 
 The natural impetuosity of the French character was no doubt 
 shown ; perhaps, that unhappy taste for scenic effect, by which 
 it is so degraded ; but, on the whole, humanity has here much 
 to be proud of, and an effort was now made for the happiness 
 of the people of France, the benefit of which France now 
 feels, and will never cease to feel, while the very distinctions
 
 XV. FOURTH OF AUGUST. 329 
 
 of society subsist, while the land is cultivated and property 
 enjoyed, w^hatever be the fortunes of her government. 
 
 The Viscount de Montmorency at last proposed, that the 
 various motions that had been made should be converted into 
 a decree, and the president Chapeher was proceeding accord- 
 ingly, when he suddenly made a pause — " However," said 
 he, " none of the clergy have yet had an opportunity of being 
 heard ; I should reproach myself if I closed this interesting 
 discussion before those of the clergy, who are disposed to 
 speak, have made their sentiments known," 
 
 We have now arrived, you will immediately see, at a part 
 of the general subject more particularly interesting — the nature 
 of the sacrifices made by the clergy, and the treatment they 
 received. 
 
 It was impossible for the clergy not to come forward, what- 
 ever might, or might not, have been their original intentions, 
 when thus called upon by the president ; they seem to have 
 managed ill, not to have settled beforehand the part they 
 were to take. The crisis was probably too sudden and un- 
 expected, but they do not appear to have wanted a proper 
 interest in the welfare of the state when they did speak, or in 
 the sufferings of others. 
 
 Lafare, the bishop of Nancy, in the name of his brethren, 
 expressed his approbation of the abolition of feudal rights, 
 &c. &c. ; and proposed that the ransom of ecclesiastical feudali- 
 ties should not go to the profit of the actual incumbent, but 
 to the assistance of the poorer benefices, for the better relief 
 of the indigent. 
 
 Luberac, the bishop of Chartres, expressed his regret at not 
 having sooner seen that the time for political sacrifices was at 
 last arrived. He proposed the suppression of the game laws, 
 and the rights of the chase, describing them as they deserved. 
 
 These two speeches excited the greatest enthusiasm and 
 applause in the Assembly, the sitting seemed suspended by 
 them ; the nobility were excited more than ever to a renewal 
 and redoubling of their generous efforts for the happiness of 
 the community ; more of the nobles came forward with their 
 sacrifices, and more of the clergy ; then came the deputies of 
 the different provinces with the renunciation of their privileges, 
 charters, franchises, and capitulations (you remember how
 
 330 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 the great monarchy of France was formed, by the continued 
 accretion, piece by piece, if I may so speak, of one part after 
 another, till it became what you see it) ; a crowd of other 
 renunciations followed, and the Assembly was at last in such 
 a situation of tumultuous excitement, that the bishop of 
 Paris must be considered as having laid the Assembly under 
 the greatest obligation by hitting off a finale, that might, with 
 proper grace and effect, terminate so extraordinary a scene. 
 He proposed a Te Deum, which was received with the loudest 
 acclamations. 
 
 The Duke de Liancourt next proposed a medal, and Lally 
 ToUendal succeeded in reminding the Assembly of the poor 
 king, and in proposing that he should be proclaimed the 
 restorer of French liberty. 
 
 Thus ended the celebrated sitting of the 4th of August: 
 but not thus did it end to the clergy, who were affected by 
 consequences a little more important to them than the pro- 
 cession to Notre Dame, a medal, and a new title given to the 
 
 A committee was appointed to reduce all these rival emotions 
 of magnanimity and patriotism (for such they were) into a 
 law, and the decree that followed, in the shape of nineteen 
 articles, you will find in the notes of Bailly : the fifth is the 
 important one to the clergy. The committee in this fifth 
 article abolished tithes of every species, and they were only to 
 be paid till the Assembly had made proper provision, and 
 their pi-esent possessors had entered into the enjoyment of 
 what the Assembly called the " remplacement" that was 
 intended for them. And on the 13th of August the Assembly 
 decreed, that by this word they did not mean (as it might 
 naturally have been supposed) that they would furnish them 
 with an equivalent, but with what should be a suitable and 
 honourable support. 
 
 A sad difference of opinion seems immediately to have ap- 
 peared. The committee considered tithes as a feudal vassalage 
 or tax levied on the lands, and as such, with other feudal 
 A'^assalages or taxes to be abolished ; the clergy themselves 
 considered ecclesiastical tithes as a rent-charge for the main- 
 tenance of the church, and they could not see how the legis- 
 lature could transfer this rent-charge from the church, whose
 
 XV. FOURTH OF AUGUST. 331 
 
 property it was, to the landlords, who had no claim to it 
 whatever. Several warm debates followed. Some idea may 
 be formed of them from the Mercure* of the month of Auoust, 
 1789. From the nature of this journal these debates are 
 given in a broken, inconvenient, and imperfect manner, yet 
 are they still sufficient, as they appear in different months, to 
 enable you to mark the progress of revolutionary violence and 
 injustice. 
 
 The great defender of the rights of the church was the 
 great supporter of the Revolution itself, the Abbe Sieyes ; 
 like other celebrated statesmen that mioht be mentioned of 
 our own, and of every other country, powerful when con- 
 curring with the public sentiment, weak when opposing it ; 
 proudly eminent when hallooing on the passions of the public, 
 hooted down and disregarded when breathing the sounds of 
 justice and of peace. 
 
 The arret containing the nineteen articles that I have just 
 alluded to, was the result of the 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 11th 
 of August. As the debate went on, the original rights of the 
 clergy were treated with less and less ceremony; but while 
 the argument was placed only on the issue which I have just 
 mentioned, that the tithe was a rent-charge, the argument 
 at least was entirely in their favour. 
 
 You will see at the close of the Mercure of August, an 
 extract from the abbe's speech, which will perfectly enable 
 you to judge of his reasonings. They seem to be entirely 
 just, but the latter part, as here given, should come first. At 
 the close of the extract, " The National Assembly," says he, 
 " on the 4th of Auotist decreed that the tithes were redeem- 
 
 * The Mercure was a periodical work, the literary part by 
 La Harpe and others, the political part by Mallet du Pan, 
 published before and during the earlier parts of the French 
 Revolution. Havino- made much use of it, and finding;; that it 
 was now scarce, I have suggested to M. Mallet and his 
 family, on account of what I esteemed its importance, my 
 wish that it should be presented to the public library of 
 the University of Cambridge ; and, in compliance with my 
 representations, this has been done.
 
 332 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 able, and you now propose," says he, " that the tithe shall 
 not be redeemable ; and this is only a difference in the state- 
 ment you say: pleasant enough this. If the ecclesiastical 
 tithe is to be suppressed without any indemnity, will it not 
 rest in the hands of those who owe it, instead of going to 
 those to whom it is due ? Is there an estate that has not been 
 bought and sold since the establishment of tithes? Was 
 purchase ever made without the charges being taken into 
 calculation?" 
 
 You will easily see that while the abbe was proceeding 
 in this strain, his reasonings were totally unanswerable ; but 
 he had before, as you will observe in the opening of this 
 extract, taken a much more general view of the subject. He 
 said not a word of the divine origin of tithes. This seems to 
 have been a doctrine which he either did not hold, or did not 
 think it prudent to produce ; and the most philosophic layman, 
 while the word philosophic is pronounced in its proper and 
 natural sense, as a title of respect, will not, I conceive, find it 
 necessary to proceed further than the abbe, who states as the 
 sum and substance of what he meant to say, — first, that the 
 tithe ought not to be compared to any impost or tax laid 
 upon the land, but considered as a real rent-charge, left upon 
 different estates by those who once possessed them ; secondly, 
 that the tithe ought not to be suppressed, for the sake of the 
 actual proprietors of the land, who know very well that at 
 all events it does not belong to them; nevertheless, thirdly, 
 that the tithe has been with reason classed with that species 
 of property which, however lawful (perfectly so in itself), is 
 still answerable to the public good, and is liable to be extin- 
 guished, as all property of this kind is, after an indemnity 
 offered to the present holders ; fourthly, that the redemption 
 ought to be settled by agreement freely between the parties 
 concerned, or according to a fair estimate proposed by the 
 Assembly; fifthly and lastly, that by due management, the 
 sums so arising from the redemption might be so disposed of 
 as properly to answer all the original purposes of the tithe, 
 and yet furnish to the revenue of the state a resource infi- 
 nitely precious to it in its present circumstances." These 
 were the abbe's general statements and conclusions. I must 
 a^ain observe, that they were such as the most philosophic
 
 XV. FOURTH OF AUGUST. 333 
 
 laymen could not object to, and could not in common reason 
 and justice go beyond. His reasonings and remonstrances 
 with those the more violent of his opponents, do him in every 
 point of view great honour ; and he cried out at last, and his 
 words have been ever since very properly remembered, " You 
 wish to be free, and you know not how to be just." He 
 appears to have pubUshed his speech on the 12th of August, 
 and to have made it on the 10th. 
 
 There seems to have been a violent debate on the 10th, in 
 the morning sitting, and in the evening. 
 
 You will see a sketch given in the Mercure. Mirabeau 
 took a part. You may look at the second volume of his 
 speeches. I will make a reference to it, that after seeing 
 what in the main was said by the Abbe Sieyes on the one 
 side, and by Mirabeau on the other (men so distinguished), 
 you may judge of the general views that were entertained on 
 the subject by the different reasoners in the Assembly and in 
 France at the time. " No, gentlemen," said Mirabeau, 
 " tithe is not a property ; property is that which a man can 
 dispose of: this the clergy never could do; they have never 
 had more than a life interest in their tithes. Tithes are a sort 
 of tenure, a sort of enjoyment from year to year; they are 
 merely possessions revocable at the will of the sovereign 
 power : nay, more, the tithe is not even a possession, as it has 
 been supposed to be ; it is a mere contribution, devoted to that 
 part of the public service which concerns the ministers of the 
 altar ; it is the subsidy with which the nation provides for the 
 salai-y of those who are to take care of their morals and 
 instruction. At the word salary, which I have used, a great 
 murmur has, I perceive, arisen ; there are those, then, who 
 are now saying that I wound the dignity of the priesthood. 
 Gentlemen, it is high time that in a revolution which has 
 brought to light sentiments, and those so many, just, and 
 generous, it is high time that we should abjure these pre- 
 judices of haughty ignorance which would disdain these words 
 of salaries and salaried. For my part, I know of but three 
 ways of living in society— to beg, to rob, or to be salaried." 
 These were words which Mirabeau thundered out into the 
 Assembly with all the energy of his voice and manner. 
 " What is the proprietor of land himself," he continued.
 
 334 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 " more than the first of these salaried persons ? Wliat is 
 vulgarly called his property? Is it any thing more than 
 the price which society pays him for the distribution which 
 he makes to others, in the shape of his consumption and his 
 expenses ? 
 
 " No doubt they who are charged with the morals and 
 instruction of society must hold a distinguished place in 
 its hierarchy. Consideration must be paid them, that they 
 may show themselves worthy of it. It is just and proper that 
 they should be accommodated and endowed in a manner 
 agreeable to the dignity of their ministry and the importance 
 of their functions; but it cannot be necessary that they 
 should insist upon a particular mode of contribution from 
 society, as if it was their property, when it is not agreeable to 
 the interests of the public. I know not why it is disputed 
 that the tithe is a national ordinance ; it is so in point of fact, 
 and it is on this very account that the nation has a right 
 to revoke it, and substitute another. If it were not, that one 
 is at length arrived at a period when one may disdain the 
 frivolous authority of these mere men of learning, in matters 
 of natural and pubhc right, I would defy the best of them 
 to find in all their capitularies of Charlemagne, where tithes 
 are mentioned, the word "solverint;" the word is always 
 " dederint," not pay, but give : but of what consequence is all 
 this 1 The nation abolishes ecclesiastical tithes because they 
 are a mode of paying that part of the public service, to which 
 they are destined, and because it is easy to replace them in a 
 manner less expensive and more equal." 
 
 Such was the general view of the subject taken by Mira- 
 beau. I have already described to you the reasonings of the 
 Abbe Sieyes. It may be instructive to you to see the notions 
 of such distinguished men on so interesting a subject. 
 
 The notions of Mirabeau, vague as they may be, still remain ; 
 though trust property is a very common species of property, 
 and obviously the nature of church property; this at least. 
 But observe the hght manner in which the same Mirabeau 
 speaks of such an element in the constitution of all civil 
 society, as property ; think of such a man as Mirabeau, under 
 the existing circumstances of an actual revolution, while the 
 populace were lawless, and all ancient authority at an end,
 
 XV. FOURTH OF AUGUST. 33.3 
 
 talking; of property " as the price which society pays a man 
 for the distribution which he makes to others, in the shape of 
 his consumption and expenses." 
 
 Obsei-ve, too, as you read the debates, for I have not time to 
 comment upon them, the careless and unphilosophic terms 
 in which the members of the Constituent Assembly, too many 
 of them, spoke on this vital subject of property, property of 
 whatever sort, at all times. It was this total disregard of what 
 men hold most sacred in civilized society, which led to the 
 extreme and pertinacious resistance of the privileged orders, 
 the horrors of the Revolution, and the determined and ulti- 
 mately successful resistance of all Europe to the new prin- 
 ciples upon which the Revolution was founded. 
 
 The debate was in the same evening renewed. " I demand," 
 said the bishop of Rhodes, " as indispensable, the preserva- 
 tion of the ecclesiastical benefices, and the conversion of 
 the tithes into pecuniary payments. Your present resolution 
 attacks, and would go to destroy religion itself. The tithe 
 is destined to the support of the pastor ; it has subsisted from 
 the earliest ages of Christianity ; it has been confirmed both 
 by Pepin and Charlemagne. There must be divine worship ; 
 there must be priests ; there must be funds for their support, 
 when abstracted from the world, and for their comfort. With- 
 out this parishes would soon be without pastors, confessionals 
 without confessors, the sick without assistance, the poor without 
 relief, the afflicted w'ithout consolation." 
 
 " An enumeration of the payments and expenses of the 
 clergy would show the extent of the charge to which the state 
 will have hereafter to be exposed, if ecclesiastical property 
 is to be destroyed." The bishop went on, but though, as you 
 see, very reasonably, he could no longer obtain an audience. 
 
 No better fortune attended the Abbe Sieyes, who followed ; 
 the same clamours, the same interruptions. " What, then," 
 said the abbe, " no truths are here to be spoken but those 
 that are agreeable." In spite of all opposition, however, 
 he delivered the speech to which I have just alluded, and 
 which he published. He was followed by other speakers on 
 each side the question ; but the tribune became at last 
 inaccessible, surrounded on all sides by candidates and cla- 
 mours. Various efforts were made, and schemes proposed.
 
 336 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 to come at the sense of the Assembly ; all in vain : the disorder, 
 the tumult, the interruptions, increased ; the members left 
 their seats, and got all mixed and confused together in the 
 middle of the hall ; at last the Assembly dispersed. 
 
 These are the scenes over which the friends of liberty must 
 droop and hang their heads in mortification and grief, for they 
 show the disgraceful violence of which men are capable, when 
 they have been once excited in her cause, and collected into 
 any popular assembly. They show likewise the inexpediency of 
 leaving questions of state to be determined by one House of 
 Assembly, exposed to such excitements ; and the necessity of 
 constituting a second, a subsequent one, by which a pause 
 may be introduced, and reason, and justice, and humanity 
 have some chance of protection. 
 
 The next morning (the 11th), when the subject was re- 
 newed, one of the secretaries but too naturally complained 
 of the tumultuous sitting of the preceding evening. One of 
 the members of the Commons made a furious attack on 
 the clergy; the deputy from Toulon followed with an attack 
 less violent, but more elaborate, concluding with an eloge on 
 those of the clergy, who had already sacrificed their tithes, 
 and a distinct enumeration of their names. This produced on 
 a French assembly the effect intended, the curates rushing 
 forward, as on the 4th, to give in their renunciation at the 
 bureau. The Abbe de Plaquet resigned a priory ; " and yet," 
 said he, " notwithstanding the enumerating eloquence of M. 
 de Mirabeau, I am, first, too old to get a salary; secondly, 
 too honest to rob ; thirdly, my past services have been such 
 that I cannot think I ought to be left to beg." Applauses 
 always ready, as ready as the hootings and clamours, resounded 
 from all sides; and the Archbishop of Paris could not for 
 some time obtain a hearing to deliver, as at the last he was 
 allowed to do, his own and the general sentiment of the 
 clergy. 
 
 " Our colleagues," he said, " have only anticipated the 
 sacrifices which we have now universally to offer to our 
 country. We return into the hands of the nation the ecclesi- 
 astical tithes, and we must trust ourselves entirely to its 
 wisdom. Let the gospel be preached, let Divine worship lose 
 nothing of its dejsency, let the poor be still relieved and
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 XV. FOURTH OF AUGUST. 337 
 
 comforted ; such are the objects of our wishes, the end and 
 meaning of our ministry : from your enhghtened wisdom we 
 hope to find every necessary support and security for objects 
 so important," 
 
 The fifth article then passed, as you see it, after some 
 reasonable distinctions and objections had been offered, but 
 which were not attended to, though they deserved attention, 
 and with the dissent, firmly urged, of the Abbe Sieyes and 
 0183 of the nobles. 
 
 It cannot be supposed that a concession like this from the 
 bishops, so unlimited and so unconditional, was freely and 
 voluntarily made by the clergy : the revolutionary tide had 
 begun to run violently against them, and it was for them 
 to endeavour, if possible, to evade it, and not to render it 
 more rapid and furious by attempting openly to resist it. 
 
 In all times of disorder the officers of the law, and more 
 particularly the clergy, are the first objects of popular hatred 
 and persecution : it has been the necessary business of these 
 two descriptions of men to restrain the passions of mankind ; 
 and mankind, in these unhappy seasons, do not choose to be 
 restrained any longer; they therefore first dislike and soon 
 detest those whose very presence admonishes them of the 
 folly, the injustice, the guilt of the course they are pursuing. 
 
 Such is a general account of the fall of the French church 
 estabhshment ; but I will now enter a little more into the 
 detail. 
 
 It must have already occurred to you that the property 
 of the clergy offered an easy means of repairing the finances 
 of the nation, and very early in the sittings of the National 
 Assembly it must have presented itself in this point of view to 
 those of its members who were the most violent and the most 
 unprincipled. Even admitting the truth of some of the obser- 
 vations of Mirabeau, with regard to the possessions of the 
 clergy, it is one thing to negotiate with a particular descrip- 
 tion of men, to enter into adjustments, and even obtain 
 concessions from the necessity of the case, and it is quite 
 another to use no right but that of the strongest, to violate 
 their principles and feelings, disappoint their reasonable ex- 
 pectations, take away their property (what they had been 
 allowed to consider as such), and draw out one set of men 
 
 z
 
 338 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 from the midst of society, like sheep, to be sacrificed and 
 butchered for the support of the remainder. 
 
 We will try to allude to the progress of the fortunes of the 
 clergy from the first. Observe while we do so, how far these 
 harsh words, which I have just used, are or are not applicable 
 to the proceedings of the National Assembly, or rather the 
 violent members of it ; for it is to this point to which I must 
 for ever remind you that my humble efforts all through these 
 lectures are directed, not for a moment against the moderaste 
 and reasonable friends of liberty, but against the cruel, unjust, 
 and fatal conduct of violent men ; those whom the Marquis 
 de Ferrieres calls the revolutionists ; those who were in truth 
 not the friends, but the enemies of liberty ; those who have 
 brouo-ht her great cause into suspicion and dislike, even with 
 the virtuous and the good. 
 
 But to return to the fortunes of the clergy, and to gather 
 up some particulars of the history, as yet not mentioned. 
 Soon after the 4th of August, the Marquis la Coste, when 
 Necker had called the attention of the Assembly to the sub- 
 ject of the finances, had insisted upon it, that the people 
 could not furnish the succour that was wanted, but that there 
 was one resource still remaining. " Declare," said he, " that 
 the ecclesiastical possessions belong to the nation:" this was 
 the first distinct and open assault. Alexander Lameth 
 laboured to show, that to seize the possessions of the clergy 
 was not to attack property in general. These attacks on the 
 property of the clergy excited some murmurs. No measure 
 at the time followed ; " but this notion, thus thrown out," 
 says De Ferrieres, " thus cast into the nation, germinated 
 every where ; it was adopted with enthusiasm by the monied 
 men ; and the people thought, that by thus extinguishing the 
 pubhc debt, they should get rid of the taxes. 
 
 The next attack on the possession of the clergy consisted 
 of the debates, subsequent to the 4th of August, the debates 
 on the 5th article respecting tithes ; to these I have already 
 
 alluded. 
 
 But on the 30th of October the motion of the Marquis de 
 la Coste was revived by the Bishop of Autun, the celebrated 
 Talleyrand. You will see his elaborate speech in the Mer- 
 cure. This was a very serious attack, indeed, coming from
 
 XV. FOURTH OF AUGUST. 339 
 
 an ecclesiastic, high in rank, and of distingviished abihty. 
 His measure went to the destruction of the church property ; 
 but necessary provision, he said, must be made for the sup- 
 port of the ahars and the ministers of rehgion. No minister 
 of a parish was to have less than twelve hundred livres annu- 
 ally, house and glebe not included. Sec. Sec. 
 
 Loud applauses followed from the revolutionists and capi- 
 talists. The Abbes de Rastignac and D'Aymar, however, 
 combated the project of the Bishop d'Autun, and showed how 
 unjust it was and how dangerous to religion to leave its 
 ministers at the mercy of the caprice of a nation, already 
 little attached to its worship, and a government necessarily 
 expensive and prodigal ; no funds assigned, nothing upon 
 which any dependence could be placed. 
 
 " You will plunge then into a state of indigence, two hun- 
 dred thousand of your fellow citizens," said the Abbe Maury; 
 " you talk of a general interest, and in the mean time, we are 
 to see one part seizing the property of another part." Obser- 
 vations of this kind were of no effect. The business was indeed 
 adjourned, till the Assembly could be removed from Ver- 
 sailles to Paris, " but, in the mean time," says De Ferrieres, 
 " every effort was made to render the priesthood odious and 
 contemptible. Men were hired," he says, " to represent to 
 crowds in the streets, that the riches of the clergy must be 
 seized, or a national bankruptcy ensue. The pride and 
 hauteur of the bishops was not forgotten ; the incontinence and 
 drunkenness of the monks ; the soft voluptuous lives of the 
 abbes. Pamphlets on pamphlets succeeded to each other; 
 some affected to be profound, and demonstrate the right of 
 the nation to the possessions of the clergy. 
 
 " At the theatre was acted the tragedy of Charles IX., who 
 reigned, you may remember, during the massacre of St. Bar- 
 tholomew ; acted with the most unhappy effect, from the 
 nature of its misrepresentations on the minds of the audience." 
 
 Such are the very credible accounts of De Ferrieres. 
 
 The project of the Bishop d'Autun was, after these prepa- 
 rations, revived by Thouret; now attached to the revolu- 
 tionists. " No public body," he said, " the nation excepted, 
 can have in itself either property or existence, for it owes both 
 to the nation, who protects it and allows it to have either ; the
 
 340 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 nation may therefore resume its grant." Applauses followed 
 a long and able and laboured speech, which he regularly 
 delivered. Opinions, however, were still somewhat unde- 
 cided, and Mirabeau, who knew the importance of phrases, 
 " Say rather," he cried, " in your decree, not that the posses- 
 sions of the clergy belong to the state, but that they are * at 
 the disposal of the state.' " 
 
 An ordinaiy mind, in its simple honesty, will see here, per- 
 haps, no very material distinction, but the amendment was 
 applauded, as if of importance, and was violently resisted by 
 the nobles and the clergy ; and a base and shuffling crowd of 
 the members affected not to see the consequences of the prin- 
 ciple they thus established, and uniting themselves to the 
 revolutionists, the decree thus worded passed on the 2nd of 
 November, 1789, by a large majority. For some time, how- 
 ever, it was only a decree, not acted upon ; the first attempt 
 to make a practical use of it was a succeeding decree, which 
 ordered the sale of four hundred millions of the property to 
 the different municipalities. The clergy hoped, however, that 
 the remnant would be left them undisturbed; they offered to 
 raise by a loan, and present to the state, the four hundred 
 millions wanted. 
 
 But all their hopes were dispelled by a motion made on the 
 3rd of April, 1790, by Chapel, who, on that day, proposed 
 that the possessions of the clergy should, in each district, be 
 transferred to the administration of the department, and pro- 
 per provision being made for the clergy and the public wor- 
 ship, the whole be then disengaged and made available to the 
 exigencies of the state. The Bishop of Nanci, the Archbishop 
 of Aix, in vain protested against the motion, complained of 
 the perfidious manner in which the clergy had been treated, 
 and renewed the offer of four hundred millions to be freely 
 given to the service of the state. The Abbe de Montesquieu, 
 so endeared by his amiable qualities, both to one party and the 
 other, found that it was in vain he endeavoured to engage the 
 Assembly in favour of the clergy. 
 
 At last he said, " When I mounted this tribune, I was 
 addressed on all sides : * What are you doing ? ' they cried ; 
 ' the business is already settled ; the committees have already 
 decided.' It is too true : I have only then to descend from
 
 XV. FOURTH OF AUGUST. 341 
 
 this tribune ; I have only to implore the God of our fathers 
 that he will preserve to you the religion of St. Louis ; that he 
 will still grant you his protection : the truly unhappy, those 
 most to be pitied, are not they who suffer injustice, but they 
 who commit it." This brought up a member of the monastic 
 order, who said, it was easy for the Assembly to put an end 
 to calumnies vented against them on the subject of religion, 
 by declaring, as he now proposed that they should do, that 
 the religion Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman, was, and was 
 for ever, to remain the religion of the state, and its worship 
 the only one to be authorized. 
 
 You will easily see how inconvenient and unexpected a 
 motion like this must necessarily have been to the Assembly 
 at this particular moment : the advantage which the one 
 party would endeavour to make of it, the embarrassment and 
 distress of the other. Having mentioned it, I need do no 
 more ; your curiosity will be sufficiently excited. 
 
 You will see a good account of the scene that took place ; 
 among other writers, more particularly by the Marquis de 
 Ferrieres. 
 
 The motion, as you may suppose, was got rid of, as irrele- 
 vant and unnecessary ; but the fate of the clergy and their 
 possessions was soon after in subsequent sittings decided. 
 
 The number of bishops and archbishops was reduced to one 
 for each department ; their stipends, in future, to twenty-five, 
 fifteen, or ten thousand livres, that is about from one thousand 
 to four hundred pounds per annum, or under, according to the 
 population; parish priests, about one hundred pounds per 
 annum; and the curates, about forty pounds each, with a par- 
 sonage in addition. 
 
 This was but indifferent provision for the future clergy; 
 but the present bishops were to have the whole of what they 
 received, if not exceeding five or six hundred pounds per 
 annum ; one half of what it did exceed, if the whole did not 
 exceed about fifteen hundred pounds per annum : they had 
 before five, some of them ten thousand pounds per annum, 
 fifteen, and even in some cases between thirty and forty thou- 
 sand pounds per annum. 
 
 The abbes, priors, dignitaries, &c. &c. and other beneficed 
 clergymen, if their ecclesiastical revenue did not exceed fifty
 
 342 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 pounds, had the whole ; if it did, half the excess, as before ; 
 but the whole revenue was never to exceed about three 
 hundred pounds. 
 
 The incomes, therefore, of the existing- priests and dignita- 
 ries were miserably curtailed. The triumph of the Jansenists 
 and revolutionary reasoners was very evident : these two were 
 descriptions of men, who, in their notion of the priestly 
 character, its offices, and its proper rewards, not a little 
 
 agreed. 
 
 In a word, the total expense of divine worship, including 
 the stipends of its ministers, to the number of forty-eight 
 thousand, the provisions of the friars and nuns, the necessary 
 succours for the hospitals, colleges, &c. Sec. and the expenses 
 of erecting and repairing buildings, was fixed at about seven 
 millions. 
 
 The plan of the ecclesiastical committee was, to add the 
 raising of this sum to the general mass of taxes and contri- 
 butions to be raised from the nation ; suppressing tithes, and 
 placing the whole amount of ecclesiastical property in the 
 liands of the nation. This was in April, 1790. 
 
 At a prior meeting of the Assembly, in February, 1790, the 
 monastic establishments had been suppressed for ever, and 
 their lands confiscated. The existing friars and nuns were, 
 however, allowed to continue in the observance of their mo- 
 nastics vows ; moderate stipends were granted for their main- 
 tenance; and the nuns were not to be removed from the con- 
 vents in which they then resided without their own consent. 
 It should seem, in this last instance, as if the ancient gal- 
 lantry of the French nation had still survived to produce 
 something like a parting emotion of humanity and politeness, 
 when the fate of these inoffensive females was ultimately to 
 be decided. 
 
 But on the whole, these proceedings must be considered as 
 marked with the most unequivocal tyranny and injustice, 
 though little or nothing of this kind is said by the popular 
 French writers, who are often to be censured, not only as too 
 indifferent to the humanity of the case, but as inattentive to 
 the great leading principles on which constitutional govern- 
 ments are founded, and from which they derive so inestimable 
 a value. The clergy were told, indeed, that they were to be 
 paid in money ; but no real property was left as a security
 
 XV. FOURTH OF AUGUST. 343 
 
 for their stipends, the whole was swept away : assignats were 
 to be issued ; the church property was to be pledged or sold 
 for the regular payment of these assignats. If a system of 
 paper money was to be resorted to, as a measure of the state, 
 there was little chance that the state would pay the clergy in 
 money. The paper money of America had been just before 
 a subject of historic experience ; depreciated, so as at last not 
 to be worth the counting. On the whole, the indignant 
 exclamation of one of the cures, in some of the earlier stages 
 of these ecclesiastical discussions, is recalled to our remem- 
 brance. " Was it for this then," said the unhappy man, 
 when he saw, as he thought, how the proceedings of the 
 Assembly were likely to terminate, " was it for this that you 
 invited us to join you in the name of the God of peace?" 
 
 But the last and finishing act of tyranny and injustice yet 
 remained : this was the interference of the National Assem- 
 bly, not only in the temporal but in the spiritual concerns of 
 the church. Various decrees were proposed for what was 
 called the organization of the church ; every benefice, for 
 instance, from a curacy to a bishoprick, was to be rendered 
 elective ; people of all religions were to vote ; the long estab- 
 lished limits and extent of dioceses were to be altered. The 
 discussions to which a scheme of church government like this 
 gave occasion, occupy a certain portion of the histories which 
 you will have to read. You will easily, in the mean time, 
 comprehend, that this new civil constitution of the church 
 was totally inconsistent with all the notions and feehngs, 
 whether right or wrong, which had been so long transmitted 
 from age to age, and considered as sacred by the members of 
 the Roman Catholic church, a church that refers every thing 
 in their spiritual economy to the first Apostles and to the 
 Saviour himself It was in vain that they expostulated, 
 argued, and remonstrated ; that they proposed the calling of a 
 National Council to consider what concessions could be made. 
 No such measure as a general council was likely to be very 
 agreeable to the Assembly; and they, on the contrary, imposed 
 an oath of submission and acceptance of the new civil consti- 
 tution, as already decreed, to be taken by the clergy, under 
 the penalty of expulsion from their benefices in cases of non- 
 compliance. 
 
 This is surely a sad specimen of revolutions; this is surely
 
 344 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 to legislate and to act with the rude and savage spirit of those 
 who, in the carelessness of power, exercise only the right of 
 the strongest; this is surely to disregard and outrage the 
 most sacred feelings of the human heart, and the most en- 
 nobling principles of human conduct. 
 
 There is, indeed, no limit to be put to our indignation on 
 the present occasion. 
 
 The French clergy had, at the moment of the Revolution, 
 essentially contributed to the success even of the popular 
 party ; their reunion with the Tiers Etat was to be written, 
 according to Bailly the president, in letters of gold. They had 
 shown no want of interest in the public welfare at any period 
 of the Revolution ; could then no better terms than these be 
 made with them, no better means than these be found for 
 reconciling them to the new order of things ? Suppose them 
 enemies to it, and fallen and helpless, could no better mercy 
 be shown them, than first stripping them of their property, 
 and then violating their consciences ? 
 
 All these proceedings were then defended in the Assembly, 
 and since in the patriotic histories, as measures of self pre- 
 servation, as necessary to the cause of liberty, as arising from 
 the refractoriness of the clergy, from their efforts to put down 
 the Revolution, particularly in the interior; but this is to con- 
 found dates and misrepresent the history. I do not deny that 
 there was, originally, great difficulty in the case. The clergy 
 could not be expected to be very favourable to the Revolution 
 originally ; but how could they be favourable to the progress 
 of the Revolution afterwards, if it was to sweep away, in its 
 torrent, their property and their establishments ; and where 
 was the necessity that this should be the case ; where was the 
 necessity, after they had joined the Tiers Etat, that their pos- 
 sessions should be menaced, their rights disputed and denied ; 
 that when they argued and remonstrated, no concessions 
 should be admitted ; that the Revolution should be made fatal, 
 to them at least ; and because they were then no longer any 
 friends to it, that their destruction should be resolved upon ? 
 
 It could not have been the wise and the good men of the 
 National Assembly (the earlier majorities were not great, 
 about twelve to seven), it must have been the furious, violent 
 revolutionists, whom I can never sufficiently denounce to
 
 XV. FOURTH OF AUGUST. 345 
 
 you, who originated, conducted (the moderate men committed 
 their usual fault of being too torpid), and at length step by- 
 step succeeded in their scheme of carrying into execution 
 these arbitrary, and unjust, and cruel measures ; impolitic too 
 as they were cruel : and the only consolation that can now be 
 derived from the subject is, that the clergy of France, though 
 ruined, were not disgraced ; that they refused to take the 
 oath required from them, and were not wanting, either to 
 themselves or to mankind, on this trying occasion. Certainly 
 they were acting on the theatre of the world, and in the pre- 
 sence of all posterity, and still more in the presence of 
 their Almighty Master; and they showed, as men of real 
 piety always will show, a sense of duty, and the faith that 
 was within them. They were to be cast, indeed, like the 
 traveller in holy writ, to the compassion of the Samaritan (and 
 for much the same reason, for they had fallen among robbers) ; 
 they were thus to be thrown into the highway, in any stage, 
 whatever it might be, of age and infirmity, but they were still 
 to show, and they did show to the bad men of a world of 
 violence, the plunderers that had encompassed them, that 
 powerful as they might think themselves, still there were those, 
 the innocent and the helpless, who would resist them — resist 
 them, and, in all the power of unoffending piety, resist them 
 to the death ; that there were those whom they might 
 despoil of their possessions, but who had that within which 
 their decrees could not reach ; who, wretched as they might 
 be thought, and who, outcasts as they might be, seen flying 
 from their country, or lingering in its hiding places, without a 
 benefice and without an altar, had still a character to enjoy 
 and a God to serve. 
 
 What then are the facts? You must observe them. You 
 will see them all from the first, very fully in the Marquis de 
 Ferrieres, and very easily in Bertrand de Moleville. In the 
 sitting of the 2nd of Januaiy, 1791, the Bishop of Clermont 
 proposed an oath which he would have taken, and which it 
 was the height of the most intolerable injustice in the Assem- 
 bly to refuse. " He would be true," he said, " to the nation, 
 to the law, and to the king, and would maintain with all his 
 power, in all that related to political order, the constitution 
 decreed by the National Assembly, and accepted by the king.
 
 34& FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 with the express exception of those matters which depend 
 particularly upon the authority of the church." " This oath 
 I can take," he said; "the oath you propose I do not think I 
 conscientiously can take." 
 
 But this sort of declaration would not satisfy the Assem- 
 bly. 
 
 Barnave moved, that the time for taking the oath should 
 expire at one o'clock the next day. The Abbe Gregoire 
 attempted explanations of the oath, but the Assembly refused 
 to avow them formally, by any decree, and the president at 
 last informed the ecclesiastical members, that they must 
 answer to the call of names which was going to be made, and 
 take the oath or refuse it. A dead silence followed, inter- 
 rupted by the bowlings of the mob who surrounded the hall ; 
 by the cries of" To the Lanterne ! Away with the nonjurors 
 to the Lanterne !" 
 
 The Bishop of Agen was named the first ; and he desired to 
 speak. " No speaking," cried out several members of the 
 cott gauche ; " will you take the oath or not ?" 
 
 The bishop at length obtained a hearing; he had never 
 spoken before in the Assembly. " I feel no regret," said he, 
 " for the loss of my preferment" (the courteous, the polite 
 humility of the Christian character did not desert him), " I 
 feel no regret for my fortune, but I shall regret the loss of 
 your esteem, which I am determined to deserve at least; 
 believe me then, that I feel great pain at not being able to 
 take the oath you require." 
 
 M. Fournes was next called. 
 
 " I glory," said he, " in following my bishop, as St. Law- 
 rence did his pastor." 
 
 M. Le Clerc was the third called upon : he had scarcely 
 pronounced the words, " I am a member of the Apostohcal 
 Cathohc Church," when he was interrupted by the most 
 violent murmurs. " Take the oath," said Roederer," or refuse 
 to take it." 
 
 " This," said M. de Feriault, " is tyranny indeed ; the very 
 emperors suffered the martyrs to pronounce the name of God, 
 to utter the testimonies of their fidelity to rehgion." 
 
 At last the president persisted no longer in the call of 
 names, but required the public ecclesiastical functionarie
 
 XV. FOURTH OF AUGUST. 347 
 
 collectively to ascend the tribune. A motion had been made 
 to that effect, and carried. The good part of the Assembly had 
 feared, that those who refused the oath would be marked out 
 and massacred ; and the bad had perceived that the triumph 
 of religious principle was becoming too distinct and solemn. 
 
 A curate of the name of Landrin was the only one who took 
 the oath. Two offered to take it with the restrictions pro- 
 posed by the Bishop of Clermont, but were refused. No 
 concession could afterwards be obtained from the Assembly ; 
 they would not say distinctly, by a decree, that they meant 
 not the control of spiritual affairs. " To the order of the day" 
 was the only answer. 
 
 The Bishop of Poitiers ascended the tribune. " I am 
 seventy years old," said he- " I have passed thirty-five in the 
 episcopacy ; I have done my best to discharge my duty ; I 
 will not dishonour my old age ; I cannot take an oath against 
 my conscience." " Say yes or no." " I prefer then living 
 in poverty, and will take my fate in the spirit of penitence." 
 
 After some more vain efforts by the clergy to obtain con- 
 cessions and explanations from the Assembly, the president 
 for the last time called upon the public ecclesiastical func- 
 tionaries to take the oath conformably to the decree. 
 
 The Assembly waited in vain : no one presented himself; 
 no bishop, no priest spoke ; and all heard in silence, serene 
 and unmoved, the decree that pronounced their deprivation. 
 Such was the conduct of the French clergy ; such the cruel 
 and unjust proceedings of the National Assembly. But these 
 proceedings were impolitic as well as cruel and unjust, for 
 they inevitably threw the clergy into the most decided oppo- 
 sition to the Revolution, and all whom they could influence. 
 
 I will cast a parting glance on this part of the subject, and 
 conclude. 
 
 "■ I do not think," said afterwards M. de Montlosier, " that 
 the bishops can he forced to quit their sees. Driven from 
 their episcopal palaces, they will retire to the huts of the 
 cottagers who have fed upon their bounty ; take from them 
 their golden crosses, they will find those of wood. The cross 
 was of wood, — the cross that saved the world." 
 
 M. de Cazales insisted on the necessity of suspending the 
 execution of the decree. " A schism," said he, " is preparing;
 
 348 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 the whole body of the bishops of France and the great ma- 
 jority of the inferior clergy believe that the principles of reli- 
 gion forbid them to obey your decrees ; their principles are of 
 a nature superior to your laws. Expelling bishops from their 
 sees, and priests from their parishes, in order to overcome this 
 resistance, is not the way to overcome it. You will be but at 
 the commencement of the course of persecution that opens 
 before you. The victims of the Revolution will be multiplied, 
 and the kingdom be divided." Nor was M. de Cazales 
 materially mistaken in his prediction. 
 
 In the metropolis, no doubt, the populace took little inter- 
 est in the fate of the church, but all the unhappy effects of 
 rehgious schism were every where else but too visible, as M. 
 de Cazales had predicted. The bishops refused to give up 
 their sees; protested against the spiritual authority of those, 
 who were to replace them ; forbade all good Catholics from 
 communicating with them in any of the sacred offices of the 
 church ; declared the marriages illegal, &c. 
 
 The effect was very unfavourable to the National Assem- 
 bly all over France, though not exactly in Paris; for the 
 revolutionists, in the mean time, filled the streets and shops 
 of Paris with indecent caricatures and dramatic exhibitions, 
 ridicuHng and reflecting on the clergy. In a contest like 
 this it was very clear, who were likely to bear away the 
 triumph in the midst of the Revolution and in the streets 
 of Paris ; and while the thoughtful and the grave, the few 
 that there were, turned away with pain or disgust from 
 prints and spectacles of the nature we have described, the rest 
 of the population, laughing and amused, were content to be 
 entertained at any expense, and the interests of religion were 
 no longer regarded, if found not to harmonize with the inter- 
 ests, such as they were supposed, of the Revolution. 
 
 The violent party in the Assembly had always depended on 
 the inferior clergy, who were to be tempted with the benefices 
 and sees of their superiors, and were from the first less at- 
 tached to the ancient system. And it is very true, that 
 though a great majority was firm, a sufficient minority, on one 
 account or another, took the oath ; so that there was no 
 danger of the entire cessation of public worship. 
 
 The rites of religion necessary to society could still be per-
 
 XV. FOURTH OF AUGUST. 349 
 
 formed. And the people every where, in the great towns 
 more particularly, supposed, that the only chance which 
 France had of escaping from tithes, and even feudal oppres- 
 sions, as well as from taxes and public burdens, was the spoli- 
 ation of the clergy, and the submission of the clergy to the 
 new constitution proposed to them. 
 
 Still all the interior of France was long harassed by civil 
 and religious dissensions, and by local wars ; always very 
 disgraceful to the country, often very bloody, and sometimes 
 not a little dangerous to the success even of the more violent 
 and popular party. These, and above all, the dreadful war of 
 La Vendee, sufficiently proved the original impolicy as well as 
 injustice of the National Assembly, and the wisdom of the 
 very humane observations I have just quoted from M. de 
 Cazales and M. de Montlosier ; and all that the former pre- 
 dicted in the remainder of his speech to a similar effect would 
 have been fully verified, if the subsequent fury and violence of 
 the Revolution had not swept away from the minds of the 
 people of France all the ordinary feelings and associations of 
 their nature. Such is the general sketch that I have to offer 
 to your consideration of this very remarkable portion of the 
 French Revolution : the destruction of the feudal system and 
 church establishment of France. 
 
 You will easily conceive that the different writers of histo- 
 ries and memoirs will see these transactions from very differ- 
 ent points of view. 
 
 I can have afforded you, in a short lecture like this, but a 
 very imperfect notion of their reasonings, and of the subject 
 itself, but you will read for yourselves, and you will see a veiy 
 able and spirited precis of the whole subject in M^. de Stael, 
 
 You will find a general account of it in both of our Annual 
 Registers ; a general though more detailed account in Lacre- 
 telle ; one also from which I have quoted, in Bertrand de Mole- 
 ville. The most full and complete account is in the Memoirs of 
 the Marquis de Ferrieres, which you may compare with the 
 very full account on the other side, furnished by the history 
 of the Two Friends of Liberty. In this last work you will meet 
 with every thing that can be urged on the revolutionary side 
 of the question, all the philosophy that can be produced, and 
 all the ecclesiastical learning ; the same philosophy you will
 
 350 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 also find, united to all the eloquence of which that side of the 
 question was susceptible in the different speeches of Mira- 
 beau (there are several of them), appearing in the different 
 volumes of the octavo collection of them. And if you look 
 through the different volumes of the Mercure, you will acquire 
 a very adequate idea of the debates that took place, and the 
 different speeches and various reasonings by which the inter- 
 ests of the clergy were assailed and defended. And, indeed, 
 every thing relative to the subject in the course of these 
 volumes is more or less found, particularly the unanswerable 
 pleadings of the Abbe Sieyes. Lastly, in our own writers, 
 you will see all the powers of Burke engaged on the one side, 
 and the rising eloquence of Mackintosh on the other. These 
 are very splendid portions of their great performances. 
 You will find in the public library a short treatise by Sarpi, 
 his " Treatise on Beneficiary Matters." And you will very 
 easily refer to a learned and very able history and defence 
 of church property in the Quarterly Review for July, 1823, 
 and again the subject continued in the number for January, 
 1830. 
 
 A few words more, for the sake of making a few neces- 
 sary distinctions on the general subject of the destruction of 
 the church establishment of France, and I conclude my lecture. 
 
 Society cannot exist (any state, at least, that deserves the 
 name of society) without the institution of property, but it 
 may, without the institution of church property. The founda- 
 tion, therefore, of the two is not the same, — this must be 
 admitted ; the property of the individual is necessary to the 
 very constitution of society, not so, the property of the clergy- 
 man. 
 
 It may be very possible, that an establishment may be the 
 best method of providing society with the consolations of 
 religion, the best method of explaining its doctrines and ex- 
 hibiting its evidences, of securing mankind from degrading or 
 dangerous fanaticism on the one side, or even on the other, 
 from licentious indifference : it is very possible, that the best 
 method of securing these most important ends, may be the 
 establishment of an ecclesiastical body, and the furnishing of 
 that body with a permanent, independent, visible, real support, 
 like that of land or its produce. All this may be very true ;
 
 XV. FOURTH OF AUGUST. 351 
 
 and as this possession is from age to age continued, it may 
 not, in the common estimation of mankind, or in a court of 
 law, be distinguished from any other possession or property ; 
 and an estate of land or tithes may thus be enjoyed by an 
 ecclesiastical body, or by a minister of religion, as an estate 
 is by any other individual : still it must be allowed, that the 
 original nature of the possession is different; that society 
 cannot exist without the one sort of property, but may without 
 the other ; that the one is a case of necessity, the other of 
 legislative wisdom. 
 
 But when this sort of reasoning has been admitted, with 
 Mirabeau, still it must be laid down, with the Abbe de Sieyes, 
 that men must be just ; and when a state has long proceeded, 
 from age to age, on a certain system ; has long suffered men 
 to educate themselves for a specific purpose ; has at all times, 
 and in all places, dedicated, or allowed individuals to dedicate, 
 which is the same thing, real possessions to that specific pur- 
 pose, and suffered their possessions to assume the office and 
 character of property; it surely can have no right to turn 
 round on a sudden, to tell such a body of men, that it has 
 altered its system, that they are no longer wanted, and that 
 they were mistaken in supposing their land or their tithes 
 property ; that the original elementary difference of property 
 was now to be acted upon ; that they must give up the whole, 
 or any part of it, which the legislature now found it convenient 
 to resume, or to annul the right of. Language of this kind, 
 the language of the revolutionists, is surely not, for a moment, 
 to be considered as consistent with humanity or justice. A 
 wide distinction even exists between what a state may do as 
 regards the future, and as regards the present; a future 
 heirarchy it may treat according to its new system and views, 
 or it may in future dispense with an hierarchy altogether : 
 this may be a matter of legislative wisdom, and no more ; but 
 it is not to proceed in this speculative manner with those in 
 whom it has already raised rational expectations, and whose 
 thoughts, opinions, feelings, and habits, whose ideas of com- 
 fort, respectability, and happiness, it has suffered to grow up 
 and be fashioned to a particular model of its own approving 
 or proposing. Indemnity, compensation, voluntary adjust- 
 ment, these are the only sounds that can now be heard.
 
 352 FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 In these observations I have not insisted on the nature of 
 trust property, that it is inviolable if the duty be performed ; I 
 have consented to take the ground which the enemies of 
 church property propose. They may, however, be reminded, 
 that what is now church property was never in possession of 
 the state ; that it was originally given by those who possessed 
 it to ecclesiastical bodies and functionaries, who were thus to 
 be supported while they dispensed the offices of religion ; and 
 that while, therefore, they do faithfully dispense the offices of 
 religion, their part of the obligation is performed, and the 
 property must remain with them according to the intention 
 of the original possessor and giver of it ; the property is trust 
 property. 
 
 There never was, as is supposed, any gift of property made 
 by the state ; the state is only indirectly the giver, as allowing 
 such gifts to be legal. As far as the state has interfered, it has 
 not been to give property, but rather to prevent the gift of it, 
 that is, to prevent persons of religious feelings, by statutes of 
 mortmain and other legal expedients, from giving away their 
 property to pious uses, in a manner that became at last in- 
 jurious to the community. 
 
 But, as I have already intimated, France, it will be said, 
 and it has been said by two most distinguished writers, France 
 had to perfect its Revolution, and the existence of the great 
 Roman Catholic hierarchy of France, was inconsistent with 
 its hopes of freedom ; the whole body was therefore to be 
 dissolved. 
 
 I do not think it necessary now, at the termination of my 
 lecture, and after all that I have already said, to enter into 
 this sort of reasoning. I hope that I love liberty, and that I 
 teach the love of it to others, and that it will be sufficient for 
 me to answer, that liberty itself, even if it could, must not be 
 thus procured.
 
 LECTURE XVI. 
 
 MOUNIER. LA FAYETTE. NO PROPER EXECUTIVE 
 
 POWER. 
 
 THE fall of the church establishment in France was not 
 the result of a single sitting of the Assembly, as in the 
 case of the feudal privileges of the aristocracy and the nobility ; 
 the transactions, to which we have just alluded, were, one 
 after another, the consequences, and the subject matter of 
 many debates and discussions, from the middle of the year 
 1789, to the 12th of June, 1790. It took a year to overthrow 
 the hierarchy of this great kingdom, but this was an interval 
 fearfully short for such an event ; and the destruction of a body 
 of men so numerous, so connected, so elevated by their educa- 
 tion, in their office so sacred, even so useful, to say the least of 
 them, in their occupation, as the civilizers of the main portions 
 of mankind, a body of men for ages had in honour, and con- 
 sidered as an indispensable element in society, — the destruction 
 of their privileges, their property, and their influence, so soon 
 to be accomplished and so completely, — was, indeed, a most 
 striking specimen of the hardness of the nature of the members 
 of the Constituent Assembly, and well fitted to show how 
 reckless men may be made by the sympathy and fury of new 
 opinions, and how unpitying, indeed, is the nature of enthu- 
 siasm, on whatever occasion, and of whatever kind. 
 
 A milder fate might have awaited the clergy, but the current 
 of these new opinions had begun to run more and more 
 strongly in favour of innovation and democracy from the 
 moment that the Assembly and the people had triumphed, 
 and the court had tried their experiment of menaces and force 
 in vain. It would often be happy for mankind, if the victorious 
 party could abstain from abusing their victory; but this is 
 not to be expected from human nature, and governments 
 mu!tt not proceed upon any supposition of this kind : they 
 
 A A
 
 354 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 must abide their mistakes, and the consequences of their 
 faults, which will certainly be followed by faults in their 
 opponents. 
 
 Melancholy were the events that intervened during the 
 struggles of the clergy with the National Assembly, all most 
 unfavourable to the clergy ; for them there was no hope, nor 
 ever had been, but in the due maintenance of the respectability 
 and efficiency of the royal power. 
 
 But this respectability and efficiency had constantly declined 
 from the month of July, 1789 ; it had been deeply injured by 
 the sweeping and totally unqualified sacrifices of the night 
 of the 4th of August ; every movement and every event con- 
 tinued to operate to its prejudice ; that is, as it may now be 
 perceived, when it is too late, continued to operate to the 
 failure of the experiment of this French Revolution. These 
 movements and events should be carefully marked by the 
 student, for they are now the lessons of history. 
 
 To us, who live at some distance of time and place, it is 
 somewhat surprising to observe, that the very enhghtened, 
 and most of them virtuous men, who composed the patriotic 
 part of the National Assembly, for some time after the month 
 of July, were not more aware than they seem to have been, 
 how completely the executive power was now destroyed. It is 
 scarcely too much to say, that the king was, indeed, seated 
 on the throne, but that a baby sceptre was in his hand, and 
 that he was a phantom only and a name. 
 
 The troops of the line, all the former supports of his power, 
 had acceded to the new order of things, and the nation itself 
 had suddenly taken up arms ; and the regular soldiers of 
 France, if favourable to the king, were surrounded, and had, 
 in truth, become mere prisoners of war. What single wish 
 of the king could now be accomphshed, if leave were not first 
 asked of the National Assembly ? In theory, indeed, and as 
 a component part of a good constitution, and of any that 
 could be well intended for France, these patriotic leaders saw 
 the necessity of a king, and of executive power ; but they seem 
 by no means to have been sufficiently aware, that they had 
 now nothing to fear, whatever they might once have had to 
 fear, but from the violence of democratic principles. No 
 doubt they would have had great difficulties to contend with,
 
 XVI. MOUNIER. 355 
 
 in the midst of a people so giddy, licentious, and ignorant, 
 however just had been their estimate of their situation ; but 
 they had formed no such estimate, and they seem by no 
 means to have taken sufficiently into their account the extra- 
 ordinary advantages which they possessed, not only in the 
 complete triumph of the Assembly, but in the known disposi- 
 tion of the monarch, so marked by gentleness and amiable 
 qualities. 
 
 Whatever might be their difficulties, arising whether from 
 the people or the court, the monarch, at least, as they knew 
 very well, had no wish but the happiness of his people ; no 
 terror but that of shedding their blood ; no fear but that of a 
 civil war. This they knew, and they knew that his mind was 
 open to schemes of improvement, to any change and experi- 
 ment, not obviously inconsistent with his long established 
 opinions and the proper dignity of his crown. 
 
 This was their great advantage. In the patriotic feelings of 
 the court and the princes, they could look for no assistance ; 
 every thing the reverse : but they could in those of the king ; 
 and it was their business to make their terms as mild and 
 equitable to him as possible ; to furnish him with as good a 
 case as they could against those who surrounded him, while 
 he was endeavouring to be patriotic, while he was listening to 
 the suggestions of Necker, or other friendly counsellors, or 
 acceding to the measures of the Assembly. Here hes, I 
 conceive, their great accusation. The mildness of his disposi- 
 tion, his real benevolence, his genuine patriotism, had no 
 proper effect upon them ; it did not, for a moment, check their 
 usurpations on the royal power; it did not, for a moment, 
 dispose them to the wisdom of offering honourable terms to a 
 fallen foe, if a foe he was to be esteemed ; it did not animate 
 them, as it ought to have done, to encircle him with their 
 protection, and shield him from the violent and disorderly 
 spirits which they saw in the Palais Royal, and in their own 
 Assembly ; there was no generous sympathy with gentleness 
 and goodness (I speak not of Mounier and his friends, Lally 
 Tollendal and others, I speak of the main body of the patriots). 
 These French patriots were not situated as were our English 
 patriots in the time of what is denominated the great rebellion. 
 Louis XVI. was not Charles I. Our patriots had, indeed, 
 difficulties ; for there was in their king no proper mildness, no
 
 356 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 general benevolence, no sympathy with civil liberty on which 
 they could depend. It was otherwise with the French mo- 
 narch ; and not only this, but the violent counsellors of his 
 more immediate court had tried their experiment, and had 
 been defeated and overpowered. They were, no doubt, to be 
 watched and distrusted, but they were no longer to be feared. 
 The king had shown, that he could be no instrument in their 
 hands ; that there were certain limits, distinct measures of 
 tyranny, a civil war, bloodshed, beyond which they could not 
 hurry him ; that wanting character as he did, still, as far as 
 benevolence to his people was concerned, he did not want 
 character; and that if they did not give the court an oppor- 
 tunity of saying, that as a king of France he was insulted and 
 extinguished, all might yet be well. The main body of the 
 men of talents and patriotism in the National Assembly, the 
 main body of the assertors of the new opinions are not to be 
 forgiven for their want of forbearance, caution, and concilia- 
 tory wisdom. I must appeal to the great leading facts. 
 
 You will observe, then, that from the period of their victory 
 in July, every measure and every change was continually 
 more and more unfavourable to the royal power. 
 
 In the first place, the proceedings of the night of the 4th of 
 August could not have been altogether relished by the king, for 
 whatever might be, in general, their beneficial and reasonable 
 import, they were in a style of revolutionary rapidity and 
 violence, that could not but be alarming to any one like 
 himself, a regular and constituted authority of the state. 
 
 He made, therefore, very natural observations when these 
 proceedings were reported to him, and, while he approved 
 their general spirit and meaning, talked of modifications and 
 indemnities, and, with the love he bore his people, spoke of 
 the protection he owed also to the principles of justice. On 
 the general subject, however, as he said, there could be no 
 difference between him and the Assembly ; their wishes being 
 the same. 
 
 The Assembly were not pleased with his measured acquies- 
 cence, with his reasonable criticisms, important remarks, nor 
 did many of the members at all conceal their displeasure. 
 
 But now, in the second place, it must be observed, that the 
 great subject of the future constitution of France was also 
 brought forward, and that every change and every measure
 
 XVI. MOUNIER. 357 
 
 was continually unfavourable to the royal power, visibly, offen- 
 sively so, in the eyes of himself, his friends, and all Europe. 
 Was it thus that he was to be reconciled to the Revolution ? 
 
 This part of our general subject is so important, that I 
 must present it to you under every possible point of view that 
 I can contrive. My mode of doing this will be by exhibiting to 
 you the different notices that were taken of these transactions 
 by intelligent writers and reasoners at the time. I wish you 
 to proceed as little as possible upon any authority of mine; 
 and dp not be offended by my tediousness of detail or dulness 
 of quotation, or repetitions of the same facts or reasonings. 
 
 This cause of the French Revolution was one of the greatest 
 that has existed in the annals of mankind since the times of 
 the Reformation. It failed — in every proper sense of the word, 
 it failed ; and the point of the subject now more immediately 
 before us is, how far the friends of freedom themselves were 
 in fault ; how far they, too, did or did not take their turn, 
 and commit their particular faults ; faults to be marked and 
 condemned, after those that had been committed by the court 
 and privileged orders have been first stated and duly repro- 
 bated. I certainly conceive that this was the case. How 
 fer these faults and mistakes were or were not but too natural, 
 is not the point ; if they really were committed, they must be 
 produced, and made to serve as a warning to wise and vir- 
 tuous men hereafter. 
 
 With respect, then, to the great subject of the formation of 
 the constitution, you will observe that among the patriotic 
 members of the Assembly there was one particular band, 
 headed by Mounier, consisting of Lally Tollendal, Clermont, 
 Tonnerre, and others, who were men (as I conceive) of real 
 wisdom as well as of patriotic feeling, to whom the business 
 of the constitution was first referred, and who were the com- 
 mittee of five, and who really did make on the whole a very 
 reasonable report to the Assembly, who did not press too hard 
 on the royal executive power in the existing state of things, 
 and who in fact proposed a scheme of a constitution some- 
 what after the model of that of England. This is the first 
 point. 
 
 But that this scheme was overruled by the Assembly, and 
 one of a much more democratic nature, after much discussion,
 
 358 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 ultimately adopted : this was, I apprehend, fatal to the Revo- 
 lution. This is the second point. 
 
 This second scheme of a constitution was made much more 
 democratic. For, in the formation of any constitution that 
 could be proposed for France at this particular period, the 
 great questions at issue were — 
 
 1st. The veto of the king on the proceedings of the As- 
 sembly. 
 
 2ndly. Whether the Assembly should consist of two houses 
 or one. 
 
 3rdly. Whether be dissolved at the pleasure of the king. 
 
 All these three questions were determined in favour of the 
 crown by Mounier and his friends in their first scheme of 
 government ; and determined right, as I conceive : but other 
 patriotic members of the Assembly thought otherwise, as did 
 the majority of the Assembly ; and in their scheme of govern- 
 ment these points were determined against the crown ; and 
 in this manner the cause of the Revolution was, I also con- 
 ceive, lost — lost in the interval that passed between the middle 
 of July and the beginning of October. 
 
 And now I have two observations to make. Those other 
 patriotic members. La Fayette and others, who thus made 
 another constitution, more democratic in its nature ; a consti- 
 tution in which these questions were determined against the 
 crown, were not a little led away by the example of America, 
 as well as by the intoxicating nature of the new opinions. 
 This is my first observation. 
 
 Lastly, by a reference to the debates that took place, you 
 will see that these patriots and the people of France had 
 sufficient warning, from the reasonings and speeches of intel- 
 ligent men, of the mistakes they were committing. This is 
 my second observation. 
 
 Such is my general statement, which I must request you to 
 remember while I journey on through the varying opinions 
 and statements of different actors in the scene, and while I 
 go a little more into the detail than I have yet done, on 
 account of what I suppose to be the importance of this part 
 of the general subject. 
 
 One of the most distinguished men among the leaders of 
 the popular party at this particular epoch was the celebrated
 
 XVI. MOUNiER. 359 
 
 La Fayette. He had been the hero of the American Revo- 
 lution ; and however then favourable (as indeed, in practice 
 at least, he always remained) to the monarchy of France, it 
 was still impossible that he should not bear away from that 
 revolution a strong impression of those great democratic 
 principles of liberty, which he had seen in America success- 
 fully established, and to wiiose triumph he had so materially, 
 in the face of the world and of posterity, contributed. 
 
 His fellow patriots must have been caught by the same 
 flame, and influenced by the same example. Even Mounier, 
 Lally Tollendal, and the most virtuous and the wisest mem- 
 bers of the Assembly, could not have been otherwise than 
 affected by the influence of this memorable assertion of what 
 they considered as the great, the original rights of mankind ; 
 and, therefore, even in moments of depression, and while they 
 thought the court and the royal authority were likely to over- 
 whelm them, and before the Bastile was destroyed, they had 
 busied themselves in preparing a declaration of their rights, to 
 leave, if it were necessary, as a legacy to their countrymen. 
 
 It happened that the issue of the struggle, as you have 
 seen, turned out entirely in their favour ; and, therefore, they 
 now renewed their intention of exhibiting these great prin- 
 ciples of civil liberty, as had been done in America, and of 
 laying the foundations of the future constitution of France so 
 deeply, as they conceived, that the edifice could never here- 
 after be shaken by any efforts of tyranny or usurpation. It 
 is at this moment that beg-in our first thouo;hts of doubt, 
 and even of censure, in this business of the formation of the 
 constitution ; for this their resolution, though wise and mag- 
 nanimous in the first instance, and before the 14th of July, 
 might not be exactly expedient in the second. The conduct 
 to be pursued in a situation of danger or defeat was one 
 thing, and in a situation of victory and triumph might be 
 quite another. 
 
 Considerations, however, of this kind, seem never to have 
 occurred to La Fayette or his friends, and the consequences 
 were very lamentable. 
 
 We will refer a little to the great example that on this 
 occasion betrayed them — to America. 
 
 In America, not long after the declaration of independence
 
 360 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 by the Congress, the different provinces of that great con- 
 tinent bescan to form constitutions for themselves, and these 
 were generally prefaced or accompanied by assertions of the 
 original rights of mankind and the popular origin of all free 
 government. 
 
 " All men are born free and equal," says the first article of 
 the declaration of Massachusetts, " and have certain natural, 
 essential, and unalienable rights;" and it proceeds to enume- 
 rate them. 
 
 Again, in the constitution of Pennsylvania : " All men are 
 born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent 
 and indefeasible rights." " All power is inherent in the 
 people; all free governments are founded on their authority," 
 says the ninth article. " All government of right originates 
 from the people," says the first article of the declaration of 
 the state of Delaware. So the declarations of Maryland, and 
 of North Carolina ; so the ninth article in that of South Caro- 
 lina ; and so the rest. " All men are born equally free and 
 independent, and have certain natural, inherent, and unalien- 
 able rights," says the declaration of the inhabitants of Ver- 
 mont. " We hold these truths to be self-evident," said the 
 Declaration of Independence issued by Congress in 1776, 
 " that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by 
 their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among 
 these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; that to 
 secure these rights governments are instituted among them, 
 deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." 
 " That whenever any form of government becomes destruc- 
 tive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or 
 abolish it." " That governments long estabhshed should not 
 be changed for light and transient causes; but when a long 
 train of abuses and usurpations evinces a design to reduce 
 men under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their 
 duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new 
 guards for their future security." 
 
 Here we see the school in which the French patriots had 
 studied. La Fayette talked afterwards, you may remember 
 (but in cases of necessity arising from oppression), " of the 
 sacred duty of insurrection ;" nor can it be denied that these 
 manly principles are founded in nature and in truth, that they
 
 XVI. 
 
 MOUNIER. 361 
 
 are deeply engraven on the hearts of all men, and tliat they 
 form the proper protection of the social order among men. 
 These are the theories upon which legislators and governors 
 are to proceed while they are endeavouring to administer to 
 the happiness of their fellow creatures ; and these are no 
 doubt the great princ'ples and sentiments of human nature to 
 which an appeal must ultimately be made by the people and 
 their patriots, when governments abuse and persevere in 
 abusing their trust. 
 
 The only question is the manner in which these principles 
 and sentiments are to be applied to the concerns of mankind ; 
 the time, the occasion, the form, under which they are to be 
 exhibited to the consideration of the people. The limitation 
 made even by the American Congress, while throwing off the 
 yoke, as they thought it, of Great Britain, is very remarkable. 
 " Prudence will dictate," they say, " that governments long 
 established should not be changed for hght and transient 
 causes ;" and they reduce the case to a design of absolute 
 despotism — to a case " of a long train of abuses and usurpa- 
 tions," such are their words, and " that evince a design to 
 reduce men under absolute despotism." 
 
 It therefore well became the wise and virtuous men of the 
 National Assembly of France to consider carefully what were 
 the doctrines they were scattering broad-cast upon the land, 
 and upon what soil they were to fall. Without disputing their 
 abstract truth, we may protest against the propriety of their 
 being proclaimed, as they were, at the moment when the king 
 and the court had ceased to contend, and when the Assembly, 
 or rather perhaps the people themselves, were now supreme. 
 The true wisdom would have been to have left these abstract 
 rights, where they were found, in the intuitions of the under- 
 standing and in the first and inevitable feelings of the heart ; 
 to have left them there, acknowledged and undisturbed, and 
 then to have proceeded immediately, as it were, to business ; 
 and as the night of the 4th of August had cleared away the 
 stage, first to have secured the proper existence of the king 
 and the executive power, and then to have made such reforms 
 in the laws and the system of taxation as would have recon- 
 ciled all Frenchmen, who meant well, to the Revolution and 
 the new order of things ; proclaiming aloud, not the doctrines
 
 362 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 that might flatter the people into madness and folly, but those 
 that showed them the danger of their situation ; the necessity, 
 to them, of peace and order ; the benevolent nature of their 
 king; how fruitless must be the effort that could now be 
 made by the court to resist the labours of the Assembly ; and 
 how evident it was that the community could have now no 
 enemy but its own irritability and rashness. 
 
 I do not deny, I am happy to acknowledge, that great 
 wisdom and caution were shown by Mounier and his friends ; 
 that it will be an eternal honour to their memory that they 
 made great provisions for the stability of the royal power. 
 You must never forget, what I have already announced to 
 you, that they (the first committee of five) determined the 
 three great questions, on which the future existence of the 
 royal power depended, quite right and in favour of it. This 
 was great merit in them, considering the times and circum- 
 stances in which they were placed ; and had they been pro- 
 perly countenanced and assisted by others, all might have 
 been well. Very different were, however, the views and feel- 
 ings of but too many of the most enhghtened and powerful 
 men of the Assembly at the time. These men (and the 
 Assembly unfortunately followed them) went far greater 
 lengths than Mounier and the admirers of the English con- 
 stitution ; and the first thing they had to do, as they sup- 
 posed, was, after the example of America, to teach the people 
 their rights, and to exhibit the principles upon which the 
 existing government was to be swept away, and a new one 
 substituted in its room. Mounier's scheme was therefore 
 rejected, and a new declaration of the rights of man and of 
 the citizen (followed by most important alterations in the in- 
 tended constitution) was drawn up and presented to the king. 
 In this declaration, by the first article it was laid down that 
 all men were born and remained free and equal, and that 
 social distinctions could only be founded on common utility. 
 The natural rights of man were declared by the second to be 
 liberty, property, security, and resistance against oppression ; 
 and by the third, that the principle of sovereignty resided 
 essentially in the nation, and that no body of men and no 
 individual could exercise an authority that did not emanate 
 expressly from that source.
 
 XVI, 
 
 MOUNIER. 363 
 
 In the preface to the Declaration, it was said, that these 
 natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man were thus 
 exhibited, in order that being ever present to all the members 
 of the social body, they might be incessantly reminded of 
 their rights and their duties, and that the acts of the legis- 
 lative power and those of the executive power being every 
 moment compared with the end of all politica institutions, 
 both might require the more respect. Finally, that the 
 remonstrances of the citizens, being thus founded hencefor- 
 ward on simple and incontestable principles, might ever tend 
 to maintain the constitution and to promote the general 
 good. 
 
 Now what we contend for is, that, independent of the 
 democratic provisions of the constitution, by which they were 
 followed, doctrines and prefaces like these, however fitted for 
 America in June, 1776, at the beginning of a doubtful and 
 even unpromising contest with the king of Great Britain and 
 a parliament that would not listen to petitions, were far from 
 being fitted to the situation of France, and more particularly 
 of Paris, in August, 1789, — to the case of a benevolent 
 monarch with a people in a state of triumphant insurrection, 
 headed by an Assembly, a single Assembly, that were the 
 representatives of the whole community, and that were exer- 
 cising all the powers of it. Our argument will not be affected 
 by supposing the court and the royal party more powerful 
 than they are here conceived to be. If they were, it then 
 became still more a matter of prudence to offer them better 
 terms, and to keep out of their sight such principles as must 
 necessarily be offensive to them. But the National Assembly 
 must at all events be considered, in this stage of the Revo- 
 lution, as the triumphant party ; and it is impossible for us, 
 at this distance of time, not to contrast, as Mr. Burke did at 
 an earlier period, the moderation and the good sense of the 
 Whigs in 1688, with the rashness and enthusiasm of the 
 leaders of the Constituent Assembly a century afterwards, in 
 August, 1789; for so far these two very dissimilar cases may 
 be compared. 
 
 These principles of the rights of man you will see very fully 
 and earnestly discussed in the works you will have to read, 
 more especially in Burke and Mackintosh. They were after-
 
 364 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 wards produced by Paine, in his celebrated pamphlet " Rights 
 of Man," and applied to our own constitution. The propa- 
 gation of these doctrines gave the greatest alarm to the 
 generality of the people of property of this country, and you 
 will therefore consider the first appearance of these principles 
 in France with a more than usual interest ; and you may now 
 do it with impartiality and calmness, unaffected by the 
 passions which were most tremendously excited by the situ- 
 ation of France, and indeed of Europe, at this particular 
 period. 
 
 In the mean time, there is one observation which may be 
 very obviously made, and which I must even now present to 
 your consideration ; and it is this : that these rights of man, 
 under whatever form presented, are in fact abstract political 
 maxims ; are to be received, if received at all, as the intuitions 
 of the understanding, when applying itself to the subject of 
 politics; as the metaphysical or moral axioms of the sc ence. 
 Now what may or may not be justly so esteemed, under 
 what limitations and what exceptions, must be ever a matter 
 of discussion ; and as it is the business of statesmen and re- 
 formers, as much as possible, to avoid subjects of debate and 
 collision, all such men, if they are wise, will keep at the 
 greatest possible distance from all elementary rights and 
 principles. They will in reality proceed upon them, and take 
 such of them for granted as are clearly connected with the 
 public happiness; but they will say little or nothing about 
 them, and certainly not preface their measures or open their 
 discussions with abstract positions and metaphysical gene- 
 ralities of this kind, but hasten on to practice and to the real 
 wants and wishes of their fellow citizens, as they see them 
 plainly existing before them, not expecting too much from 
 themselves or others, and above all things, losing no time. 
 
 I have already intimated to you, that when Mounier's 
 scheme had been rejected, a new one was at last formed. 
 This new Declaration of Rights (of the 17th of August) con- 
 sisted of seventeen articles, and this was immediately fol- 
 lowed by nineteen supplementary articles of the constitution, 
 October 1st, 1789; and of these last articles, it must be 
 remarked, that, by the fifth, the legislature was to consist only 
 of one house ; by the eleventh, the king was only to have a
 
 XVI. MOUNTER. 365 
 
 suspensive veto ; and by the fourth, the Assembly was to be 
 permanent : that is, the king was not to have the power of 
 dissolving the Assembly, and he was to have no army ; so 
 that the democratic principles announced in the Declaration 
 were very decidedly carried into full effect in these proceed- 
 ings of the Assembly ; and it was veiy clear, that while the 
 government was declared to be monarchical, the authority of 
 the monarch was to be most materially changed, was indeed 
 to be virtually destroyed. 
 
 For ourselves, we conceive that it was the business of the 
 friends of freedom at this period to have taken security, as 
 much as possible, against the exasperated popular feelings, 
 against demagogues and mobs for the present, and against 
 democracy for the future. But, on the contrary, the friends 
 of freedom, most of them, seem to have been anxious chiefly 
 and in the first place to provide against the court and the 
 nobility and clergy for the present ; and, secondly, against 
 the renewal of the royal power, with its ancient tyrannies and 
 abuses, for the future ; and to have thought of little else. 
 
 To recapitulate, therefore, the subject, as far as we have 
 hitherto alluded to it. 
 
 You will now, I hope, have a general notion, first, of the 
 reasonable attempt that was made by Mounier and his friends 
 to raise up a constitution somewhat after the English model. 
 
 Next, of the manner in which the minds of many patriotic 
 members of the Assembly became inflamed by the new opi- 
 nions, and particularly by the example of America. 
 
 Next, that in consequence, they formed a scheme of govern- 
 ment of a much more democratic nature than Mounier's, con- 
 sisting of seventeen articles, and nineteen supplementary 
 articles. 
 
 And lastly, you will have, I hope, a general notion of these 
 articles, and of the nature of the elements on which they were 
 founded, the rights of man ; on the whole, that the royal 
 power was unreasonably and fatally weakened. 
 
 But I have also said, that the patriots and people of France 
 had sufficient warning, in the different reasonings and 
 speeches of intelligent men, of the mistakes they were com- 
 mitting. 
 
 Much light is thrown on points of this nature by the
 
 366 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 weekly journal, the Mercure. Slight sketches of the debates 
 are occasionally given, and a general notion may hence be 
 formed of the violence of parties, the endless variety of human 
 opinion, and the difficulties which the counsels of wise and 
 good men have inevitably to encounter when they are to 
 address themselves to the passions and abide the decisions 
 of any large and popular assembly. I will endeavour, as I 
 have said, to give you some general notion of these debates 
 given in this journal ; but you will not find your time thrown 
 away (very much otherwise) if you refer to the journal your- 
 selves. 
 
 Turning, then, to this journal, and as a specimen of the 
 manner in which the majority of the Assembly neglected the 
 reasonable observations that were made to them, I shall first 
 allude to the report that was delivered to them by the com- 
 mittee of five (Mounier and his friends) on the very important 
 point, whether there should be two houses or one. I shall 
 then give a specimen of the debates on the subject of the 
 Declaration of the Rights of Man. 
 
 " Some persons," says the report, " are attached to the 
 system of one chamber ; they appeal to the happy effects pro- 
 duced in the instance of the National Assembly already ; they 
 argue, that it is the common will that should make the law, 
 and that it is best seen in a single chamber ; that every 
 division of the legislative body, by destroying its unity, often 
 renders impossible the most desirable institutions and the 
 most salutary reforms ; that such a division would introduce 
 a constant struggle and combat into the very heart of the 
 nation, the result of which must be either a political torpor 
 and inertness or the most unhappy dissensions ; that by the 
 two chambers we should be also exposed to the dangers of a 
 new aristocracy, which it is equally the wish and the interest 
 of the nation to avoid." 
 
 The report has here fairly stated the arguments in favour of 
 one chamber, but observe how just are the arguments urged 
 in reply. 
 
 " Others," says the report, " on the contrary, contend that 
 this division of the legislative body into two chambers is 
 entirely necessary ; that though one chamber might be more 
 desirable in the moment of regeneration, when every obstacle
 
 XVI. 
 
 MOUNIER. 367 
 
 was to be resisted, two chambers are still the proper measure, 
 and are indispensable for the preservation and stability of the 
 constitution aftericards, and when it shall once have been 
 determined upon; that two chambers are necessary to pre- 
 vent all surprise and all precipitation, and to secure mature 
 dehberation ; that the intervention of the king in the legis- 
 lation will be vain, illusory, and without effect, if it is to be 
 opposed to the irresistible mass of the national will, brought 
 forward and exhibited in one single assembly ; that meaning 
 first, and above all things, to make a constitution durable 
 and solid, the National Assembly should take care to avoid 
 every system which, throwing all the real power into the 
 hands of the legislative body, could only render the monarch 
 anxious to seize any opportunity to modify and change it, and 
 expose the empire to new convulsions ; that by giving the 
 legislative body a great facility of movement, which is done 
 by leaving it to act in one body, you expose it very idly to 
 resolutions that are too sudden — resolutions inspired perhaps 
 by some eloquent speech, some hasty enthusiasm, some in- 
 trigue in favour of ministers or against them, and that such 
 precipitate resolutions must lead to despotism or to anarchy ; 
 finally, that the examples of England and America show the 
 utility of two chambers, and are a sufficient answer to those 
 who insist upon their inconvenience." 
 
 Such were the reasonings which this report of the five (of 
 Mounier, Lally Tollendal, and others) exhibited on the great 
 question of the two chambers ; and the fate of the reasonings 
 in favour of the two chambers, their real wisdom and total 
 failure with the Assembly, is surely now, after all that we 
 have seen, very remarkable. 
 
 And next, with respect to the second point, the Declaration 
 of the Rights of Man. 
 
 I have already announced to you that very reasonable 
 speeches were occasionally made in the Assembly ; and the 
 Assembly and people of France were not in the end wrong 
 without having been first distinctly warned of the mistakes 
 they might commit. 
 
 Observe some of the speeches that were made on this sub- 
 ject, that so agitated mankind at this period and long after, 
 the rigjits of man.
 
 3G8 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 M. de Riauzat protested against these printed formularies 
 of declarations of rights. Liberty, according to him, was to 
 emanate from the constitution and the decrees of the Assem- 
 bly. Man could only be considered in a state of society : to 
 take him in a state of nature, is to found political institutions 
 upon bases merely chimerical. 
 
 M. Malonet could not see how a declaration of this kind 
 was at all necessary to the destruction of tyranny ; the con- 
 stitution itself would be sufficient for this purpose. " Meta- 
 physical maxims," he said, " are always little intelligible to 
 the generality of mankind. It is dangerous to present the 
 people with a system of rights of which their understandings 
 can neither seize the proper character nor the limits. America 
 was in a different situation. The rights proposed should be 
 quite simplified and joined to the constitution itself." 
 
 A speech of greater length, by M. de Landine, is then 
 given, who seems, in this speech at least, to have been one of 
 the few men of letters disposed rather to practice than to 
 theory. 
 
 " Far," said he, " from mounting up to the first origin of 
 the social order, let us improve that in which we are placed ; 
 let us turn from the man in a natural state, let us consider 
 him in a civilized. Without inquiring what we have been, 
 or even what we are, let us fix our eyes on what we ought to 
 be. Locke, Cumberland, Smith, Hume, Rousseau, and many 
 others, have developed the great principles of laws ; but we 
 want now the practice, not the theory. We are not likely to 
 lose sight of those principles, but it is the immediate appli- 
 cation of them that is the business before us. The law itself 
 will be better than a thousand prefaces to it. Our wisdom is 
 to gain time, now that we have lost so much of it, and have 
 uo more to lose ; and on no account to open wide to the 
 public mind a vast field for disputes, and commentaries, and 
 opinions. When points are made the subjects of long dis- 
 cussion, even among ourselves, can we suppose that the 
 imaginations of others will not take fire ? and the divisions, 
 the controversial writings, and the debates that will ensue, 
 will they not necessarily weaken the profound respect with 
 which every thing that comes from the Assembly of the repre- 
 sentatives of the nation should be received?"
 
 XVI. MOUNIER. 369 
 
 This slight notice of what passed in the Assembly on the 
 3rd of August will give you a general notion of the style and 
 import of the observations that were occasionally made there. 
 There was no want of discussion, however stormy, or of intel- 
 ligence, however unavailing. 
 
 I will now briefly allude to the events that took place, and 
 to the constitution that really was formed. 
 
 And to give you, in the shortest manner I can, some general 
 notion of the spirit in which the framers of it proceeded, I 
 will also quote to you some of the sentiments that were ex- 
 pressed on the subject of the constitution of England. I will 
 then conclude. 
 
 In the first place, then, on the 17th of August, when 
 Mirabeau presented his report from Mounier's committee of 
 five (he was one of the five), he accompanied it with a modest 
 and sensible speech, stating the difficulties with which they 
 had to struggle ; and he renewed observations of this kind 
 on the 18th. You will see his remarks in the Mercure, and 
 still more at length in the printed account of his speeches. 
 Great diversity of opinion prevailed. But this report as drawn 
 up by the committee, though in itself so reasonable, though 
 presented by Mirabeau, and though coming from Mounier 
 and other men of such high authority, did not at all succeed ; 
 and this (you will remember) I consider as one of the fatal 
 events of the Revolution. 
 
 A new effort to make a constitution was almost unani- 
 mously required; other schemes of government were after- 
 wards considered, and the votes of the Assembly were taken. 
 Forty appeared in favour of one by La Fayette ; two hundred 
 and forty for one by the Abbe de Sieyes ; six hundred and 
 forty for one attributed to the Bishop of Nancy. 
 
 On the 20th this last more favoured scheme was discussed. 
 Great difference of opinion still prevailed on the whole and 
 every part of it. 
 
 The great points of debate were, as I have already intimated, 
 those more immediately connected with the prerogative of 
 the king. 
 
 In the opening week of September questions, such as I 
 have mentioned, had already agitated the Assembly. 
 
 An appeal was of course made to the example of England. 
 
 B B
 
 370 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 It had chanced that Rousseau, who was then the highest 
 authority, had observed, in his Letters from the Mountains, 
 that the veto of the king of England was, after all, so checked, 
 and tempered, and controlled, as not to be formidable to 
 liberty, and he counselled the representatives of Geneva not to 
 deny their magistrates a similar power, if they wished for it ; 
 but now in France the orators and writers of the day still 
 insisted that to give the veto was to establish despotism ; that 
 the English had given their kings the veto in feudal times of 
 barbarism, and that they now repented. 
 
 It was in vain to reply that the English did not repent, and 
 that they certainly flattered themselves that they were free. 
 The same Rousseau was now again produced to prove that 
 they were otherwise. 
 
 " The people of England," so went the quotation, " suppose 
 themselves free, but they are quite mistaken ; they are only 
 so during the election of the members of parliament : when 
 these are once elected, the people ai^e then slaves ; they are 
 a mere nothing : this modern idea of representation is quite 
 absurd, the offspring of the feudal governments," &c. &:c. 
 
 When such sentiments as these could be quoted from 
 Rousseau, and when Rousseau was to be considered not only 
 as a moral sage, but as a political writer and a legislator, in 
 what a bewildered state must have been the understandings of 
 too many of the Assembly and of the community ! 
 
 In the Mercure will be found a very full debate that took 
 place on the 2nd of September. M. de Landnies seems to 
 have spoken at great length. 
 
 " At every moment," said he, " the government of England 
 is referred to. No doubt, considering the age in which it was 
 formed, the government of England is a noble monument 
 erected to the liberty of man ; it is an enlightened system for 
 that period, no doubt, but let us lay aside all prejudice. Does 
 any one suppose that there is nothing there defective, that the 
 English statesmen and reasoners see nothing there to correct ? 
 Are we to suppose that if England was now labouring, as we 
 are labouring, and making a constitution, that she would 
 establish it on the same bases which she has done; that she 
 would retain even the House of Peers, very often indeed useful 
 to the king, but always perfectly useless to the people.
 
 XV7. MOUNIER. 371 
 
 " Never believe it, gentlemen, that England has done every 
 thing for the happiness of mankind, and that we have nothing 
 left but to copy her. Let us dare to do something better; 
 let us have the elevated boldness to place the statue of 
 Liberty on a base, that it will be still more impossible to 
 overturn." 
 
 This paragraph will give you a notion of the sentiments of 
 a large description of those who were unfortunately considered 
 among the wisest at this particular period. " Talk not to 
 me," said the celebrated Barnave in the same debate, " of the 
 British constitution, formed not by the liberal use of reason, 
 but the result of time and custom, and in the midst of wars 
 and political events. It would be against all natural reason 
 that the people should make their king into their legislator ; 
 it would be unjust to submit a whole nation to the caprices of 
 a single man." 
 
 These were the notions that unhappily had taken possession 
 of the patrons of the new opinions, and it was in vain that 
 Mounier, virtuous and intrepid as he was wise, defended, 
 apparently at the risk of his life, the views of the committee 
 of the constitution, the plurality of chambers, the senate for 
 life, and the absolute veto. 
 
 The debates through the whole month of September, 1789, 
 continued to turn on the great points connected with the 
 future constitution, but were still marked by violence and 
 disorder. Nothing could exceed the commotion when M. de 
 Virieux observed with a good sense, that was but too pro- 
 phetic, " It is my duty strongly to warn you of the dangers 
 that result from the unity of the Assembly; all numerous 
 assemblies, if singly left to act, are hurried away by dema- 
 gogues and popular fury, and they have always been the 
 destruction of free states, after first tearing them to pieces 
 by their factions." 
 
 Lally Tollendal afterwards appeared at the tribune; and 
 the president, the bishop of Langres, was at last so offended 
 by the treatment he received, that he threw up his post and 
 put an end to the sitting. 
 
 The question upon which might be said almost to turn the 
 fortunes of the Revolution, was the next day decided (the 
 10th of September), and most unfortunately decided; eight
 
 372 FRENCH REVOLUTION. lect. 
 
 hundred and forty-nine were for the single chamber, only 
 eighty-nine for the double, and one hundred and twenty-two 
 did not vote at all. 
 
 The next sitting was not less confused and stormy, so 
 numerous were the different propositions made by different 
 members — made, accepted, rejected, again and again. 
 
 It was at last voted that the royal consent was necessary to 
 the constitution; seven hundred and thirty to one hundred 
 and forty-three, one hundred and twenty-two not voting, and 
 in favour of the absolute veto were three hundred and twenty- 
 five ; six hundred and seventy-three in favour of the suspen- 
 sion, eleven not voting. M. de St. Farzeau and Robespierre, 
 afterwards so well known, were for an annual election of the 
 Assembly; the Abbe de Maury was for a duration of four 
 years ; M. de Virieux, for three ; M. Demeunier, for two : there 
 seemed no probable end to the debates. 
 
 Mounier, Lally Tollendal, Borgasse, and Clermont Ton- 
 nerre almost immediately gave in their resignations as 
 members of the committee of constitution, the committee 
 of five. These were the men that, after the sitting of the 
 23rd of June, would have given the Revolution its second best 
 chance of success. They failed ; they were outvoted by La 
 Fayette and his friends, by a large majority of the Constituent 
 Assembly, who are therefore answerable for the event. 
 
 That these latter patriots, like the former, meant well, there 
 can be no doubt. Their mistake (such I esteem it) I have 
 endeavoured to explain; but of this mistake (they suffered 
 for it severely) I shall often have to remind you, if I should 
 hereafter come to consider the proceedings of the second or 
 Legislative Assembly. 
 
 The lecture you have just heard was written some years 
 ago, but I have just met a passage in Jefferson's Memoirs 
 that illustrates many of the statements and opinions it con- 
 tains. Jefferson, you may remember, was the American 
 minister, resident at Paris at the time. He is speaking of 
 the popular leaders. " When they proceeded to subordi- 
 nate developements, many and various shades of opinion 
 came into conflict; and schism, strongly marked, broke 
 the patriots into fragments of very discordant principles. 
 The first question, whether there should be a king, met with
 
 XVI. MOUNIER. 373 
 
 no open opposition ; and it was readily agreed that the go- 
 vernment of France should be monarchical and hereditary. 
 Shall the king have a negative on the laws ? Shall that nega- 
 tive be absolute or suspensive only ? Shall there be two 
 chambers of legislation ? Or one only ? If two, shall one of 
 them be hereditary ? Or for life ? Or for a fixed term ? And 
 named by the king ? Or elected by the people ? These ques- 
 tions found strong differences of opinion, and produced repul- 
 sive combinations among the patriots. The aristocracy was 
 cemented by a common principle, of preserving the ancient 
 regime, or whatever should be nearest to it. Making this 
 their polar star, they moved in phalanx, gave preponderance 
 on every question to the minorities of the patriots, and always 
 to those who advocated the least change. The features of the 
 new constitution were thus assuming a fearful aspect, and 
 great alarm was produced among the honest patriots by these 
 dissensions in their ranks. In this uneasy state of things, I 
 received one day a note from the Marquis de La Fayette, 
 informing me that he should bring a party of six or eight 
 friends to ask a dinner of me the next day. I assured him of 
 their welcome. When they arrived they were. La Fayette 
 himself, Duport, Barnave, Alexander Lameth, Blacon, Mou- 
 nier, Maubourg, and Dagout. These were leading patriots 
 of honest but differing opinions, sensible of the necessity of 
 effecting a coalition by mutual sacrifices, knowing each other, 
 and not afraid, therefore, to unbosom themselves mutually. 
 This last was a material principle in the selection. With this 
 view the Marquis had invited the conference, and had fixed 
 the time and place inadvertently, as to the embarrassment 
 under which it might place me. The cloth being removed, 
 and wine set on the table after the American manner, the 
 Marquis introduced the objects of the conference by summa- 
 rily reminding them of the state of things in the Assembly, 
 the course which the principles of the constitution were 
 taking, and the inevitable result, unless checked by more 
 concord among the patriots themselves. He observed, that 
 although he also had his opinion, he was ready to sacrifice it 
 to that of his brethren of the same cause ; but that a common 
 opinion must now be formed, or the aristocracy would carry 
 every thing, and that, whatever they should now agree on, he,
 
 374 FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 at the head of the national force, would maintain. The dis- 
 cussions began at the hour of four, and were continued till 
 ten o'clock in the evening ; during which time I was a silent 
 witness to a coolness and candour of argument, unusual in 
 the conflicts of political opinion ; to a logical reasoning, and 
 chaste eloquence, disfigured by no gaudy tinsel of rhetoric or 
 declamation, and truly worthy of being placed in parallel with 
 the finest dialogues of antiquity, as handed to us by Xeno- 
 phon, by Plato, and Cicero. The result was, that the king 
 should have a suspensive veto on the laws, that the legislature 
 should be composed of a single body only, and that, to be 
 chosen by the people. This concordat decided the fate of 
 the constitution. The patriots all rallied to the principles 
 thus settled, carried every question agreeably to them, and 
 reduced the aristocracy to insignificance and impotence." 
 
 Such is the account of Jefferson. Such, you see, were then 
 the patriots of France ; the logic and the eloquence of Xeno- 
 phon, Plato, and Cicero; and with the best intentions. But 
 all in vain amidst the enthusiasm of the new opinions — an 
 enthusiasm which I must for ever represent to you as one of 
 the great lessons of the French Revolution. 
 
 END OF VOLUME I, 
 
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