VI. 1791. CHAP. attacked. Resistance was nowhere attempted; and yet the popular party, so far from being satisfied, incessantly rose in its demands. Democratic ambition was never so violent as when it had triumphed over every other authority in the commonwealth. The legislature, the leaders of the state, in vain strove to maintain their ascendency by giving up everything which their antagonists demanded in proportion as they receded, their opponents advanced; and the party which had professed at first a 1 Burke's desire only for a fair proportion of political influence, soon became indignant if the slightest opposition was made to its authority.1 Consid. v. 89. 109. Cause to which this This extraordinary fact suggests an important conclusion in political science, which was first enunciated by was owing. Mr Burke, but has, since his time, been abundantly verified by experience. This is, that there is a wide difference between popular convulsions which spring from real grievances, and those which arise merely from popular zeal or democratic passion. There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from reason, resentment, or interest, but none when they are stimulated by imagination or ambition. Remove the grievances complained of, and, when men act from the first motives, you go a great way towards quieting a commotion. But the good or bad conduct of a government, the protection men have enjoyed, or the oppression they have suffered under it, are of no sort of moment, when a faction proceeding on speculative grounds is thoroughly roused against its form. It is the combination of these two different principles, so opposite in nature and character, but yet co-operating at the moment to induce the same effect, which renders the management of a nation in such circumstances so extremely difficult; for the concessions and reforms which are the appropriate remedies for, and are best calculated to remove the discontent arising from the real grievances, are precisely the steps likely to rouse to the highest pitch the fervour springing from the imaginative passions.1 1 Burke, vi. 259. VI. 1791. 110. sistance to be made? Crimes de 312, and The great point of difficulty, and that on which the CHAP. judgment of a statesman is most imperatively required, is to determine when the proper period for resistance has arrived. That such a period will arrive in all revolutions, When may be predicted with perfect certainty, because their should reeffects will ere long display themselves in a way obvious to revolution every capacity. Even during the sitting of the Constituent Assembly this event had taken place; for during the two years and five months it lasted, no less than three thousand seven hundred and fifty-three persons perished of a violent death, and a hundred and seven chateaus were committed to the flames. It was a poor compensation for those disasters, that the Assembly passed two thousand five hundred and fifty laws, the great majority of which were repealed or forgotten during the progress of the Revolution.' But though such disasters will ever be 1 Prudhom. present to the prophetic vision of foresight, from the very la Rév. iii. outset of revolutionary troubles, and amidst the general 324 transports of the unthinking multitude, yet it is by no means safe for the statesman to act on such anticipations the moment they become pregnant in his own mind, and those of the few historic students or thinking men in the country. Government has need of the support of physical strength to enforce its measures; and if the great majority of the nation have become imbued with revolutionary sentiments, it is generally in vain to hoist the standard of decided resistance, till the holders of property and better class of citizens have become sensible of its necessity, from a practical experience of the effects of an opposite system. Philosophers and historians, who trust to the unaided force of truth, can never state it too early or too strongly ; but statesmen, who must rely on the support of others, should wait for the moment of action, the period when dangers or catastrophes, which strike the senses, have procured for them the support, not only of the thinking few, but of the unthinking many. The personal character of the King was doubtless the VI. 1791. 111. CHAP. first and greatest cause which in France prevented this resistance being opposed to the work of innovation, even when the proper season for it had arrived, and converted Undue hu- the stream of improvement into the cataract of revolution. mod So strongly was this fatal defect in the monarch's characof the King. ter felt by the wisest men of the popular party in France, that they have not hesitated to ascribe to it the whole irresolution 343. 1 Dumont, miseries of the Revolution.1 Had a firm and resolute king been on the throne, it is doubtful whether the Revolution would have taken place, or at least whether it would have been attended by such horrors. All the measures of Louis conspired to bring it about; the benevolence and philanthropy which, duly tempered by resolution, would have formed a perfect, when combined with weakness and vacillation, produced the most dangerous, of sovereigns.* His indecision, tenderness of heart, and horror at decided measures, ruined everything; the inferior causes which conspired to bring about the same disastrous result, in some degree, at least, emanated from that source. There were many epochs during the sitting of the first Assembly, after its dangerous tendency began to be perceived by the great body of the people, when an intrepid monarch, aided by a faithful army and resolute nobility, might have averted the tempest, turned the stream of innovation into constitutional channels, and established, in conformity with the wishes of the great majority of the nation, a limited monarchy, similar to that which, for above a century, had given dignity and happiness to the British empire. 1 1 Dumont, 343. * "Pison a l'âme simple et l'esprit abattu; S'il a grande naissance, il a peu de vertue : CORNEILLE, Othon, Act ii. scene 4. VI. 1791. 112. Treachery of the troops, and of the no The treachery of the troops was the immediate cause of CHAP. the catastrophe which precipitated the throne beneath the feet of the Assembly; and the terrible effects with which it was attended, the bloody tyranny which it induced, the minous career of foreign conquest which it occasioned, and the national subjugation in which it terminated, are to emigration be chiefly ascribed to the treason or vacillation of these, blesse. the sworn defenders of order and loyalty. But for their defection, the royal authority would have been respected, democratic ambition coerced, a rallying point afforded for the friends of order, and the changes which were required confined within safe and constitutional bounds. The revolt of the French Guards was the signal for the dissolution of the bonds of society in France; and they have been hardly reconstructed, even by the terrible Committee of Public Salvation, and the merciless sword of Napoleon. What the treachery of the army had commenced, the desertion of the nobility consummated. The flight of this immense body, estimated, with their families and retainers, by Mr Burke at seventy thousand persons, completed the prostration of the throne by depriving it of its best defenders. The friends of order naturally abandoned themselves to despair when they saw the army revolting, the crown yielding, and the nobility taking to flight. Who would make even the show of resisting, when these, the leaders and defenders of the state, gave up the cause as hopeless? The energy of ambition, the confidence arising from numbers, the prestige of opinion, passed over to the other side. A party speedily becomes irresistible when its opponents shrink from the first encounter. Such, then, is the great moral to be drawn from the French Revolution. Its immediate disasters, its bloody atrocities, its ultimate failure, did not arise from any necessary fatality, any unavoidable sequence, but are solely to be ascribed to the guilt of some, the treachery of others, the delusion of all who were concerned in its 347. direction.1 1 Dumont, CHAPTER VII. CHAP. VII. 1791. 1. Great ex government Constituent FROM THE OPENING OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY TO THE FALL OF THE MONARCHY.-SEPT. 14, 1791.-AUG. 10, 1792. UNIVERSAL Suffrage, or a low qualification for electors, has, in every age of democratic excitement, been the favourite object of the people. All men, it is said, are by nature equal; the superior privileges enjoyed by some are periment in the growth of injustice and superstition, and the first step made by the towards rational freedom is to restore the pristine equality Assembly. of the species. This principle had been acted upon, accordingly, by the Constituent Assembly. They had given the right of voting for the national representatives to every labouring man of the better sort in France; and the Legislative Assembly affords the first example, on a great scale, in modern Europe, of the effects of a completely popular election. 2. universal If property were equally divided, and the object of Dangers of government were only the protection of persons from suffrage. injury or injustice, and every man, in whatever rank, were equally capable of judging on political subjects, there can be no question that the claims of the lower orders to an equal share with the higher in the representation would be well founded, because every man's life is of equal value to himself. But its object is not less the protection of property than that of persons; and from this double duty arises the necessity of limiting the right of election |