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VIII.

CHAP. National Assembly were, in great part, actuated by pure motives, and their measures were chiefly blamable for the precipitance which sprang from inexperienced philanthropy: the measures of the Convention were tinged by the ferocity of popular ambition, and the increasing turbulence of excited talent; the rule of the Jacobins was signalised by the energy of unshackled guilt, and stained by the cruelty of emancipated slaves.

2.

Cause of

It is a total mistake to suppose that the great body of mankind are capable of judging correctly on public affairs. this change. No man, in any rank, ever found a tenth part of his acquaintance fitted for such a task. If the opinions of most men on the great questions which divide society are examined, they will be found to rest on the most flimsy foundations. Early prejudices, personal animosity, private interest, general delusion, constitute the secret springs from which the opinions flow which ultimately regulate their conduct. Truth, indeed, is in the end triumphant; but it becomes predominant only upon the decay of interests, the experience of suffering, or the extinction of passion. The fabric of society is in ordinary times kept together, and moderation impressed upon the measures of government, by the contrary nature of these interests, and the opposing tendency of these desires. Reason is sometimes heard when the struggles of party, or the contentions of faction, have exhausted each other. The stability of free institutions arises from the counteracting nature of the forces which they constantly bring into action on each other, not the wisdom or patriotism with which either party is animated. Public opinion is often wrong in the beginning; it is generally right in the end. And the reason is, that at first it is formed by the passions of the unthinking many, ignorant of mankind, but interested in passing events; at last on the reason of the thinking few, whose judgment had been enlightened by experience, to whom alone the past is an object of concern, and by whom the verdict of posterity is formed.

CHAP.
VIII.

1792.

3.

tal error in

These considerations furnish the eternal and unanswerable objection to democratic institutions. Wherever governments are directly exposed to their control, they are governed during periods of tranquillity by the cabals Fundamenof interest, during moments of turbulence by the storms democratic of passion. America, at present, exhibits an example of institutions. the former-France, during the Reign of Terror, afforded an instance of the latter. Those who refer to the original equality and common rights of mankind, would do well to show that men are equal in abilities as well as in birth; that society could exist with the multitude really judging for themselves on public affairs; that the most complicated subject of human study-that in which the greatest range of information is involved, and the coolest judgment required can be adequately mastered by those, the majority of whom are disqualified by nature from the power of thought, disabled by labour from acquiring knowledge, and exposed by situation to the seductions of interest; that the multitude, when exercising their supposed rights, are not following despotic leaders of their own creation; and that a democracy is not, in the words of ancient wisdom, "an aristocracy of orators, sometimes interrupted by the monarchy of a single orator."

4.

in revolu

tably rise to

When the different classes, during the convulsions of a revolution, are brought into collision, the virtuous and The wicked prudent have no sort of chance with the violent and tions ineviambitious, unless the whole virtuous members of the com- the munity are early roused to a sense of their danger, and manfully unite in resisting the dangers with which they are threatened. In the later stages of such troubles, it is extremely difficult for them to recover their ascendancy : if they are not resolute and united, it is impossible. This is another consequence of the same principle. In the shock of a battle, gentleness and humanity are of little avail-audacity and courage are the decisive qualities. In the contests of faction, wisdom and moderation have as little influence. The virtuous are restrained by scruples,

VIII.

1792.

CHAP. to which the unprincipled are strangers: difficulties which appear insurmountable to men accustomed to weigh the consequences of their actions, vanish before the recklessness of those who have nothing to lose. "It was early seen in the Revolution," says Louvet, "that the men with 1 Louvet, 26. poniards would sooner or later carry the day against the men with principles; and that the latter, upon the first reverse, must prepare for exile or death."1

Rév. Mém.

vol. xxvi.

5.

State of

Paris after

the 10th August.

2 Deux

Amis, viii.

Duval, ii.

132. Th. iii. 3, 5. Barbaroux, 43, 69.

The storming of the Tuileries, and the imprisonment of the King, had destroyed the monarchy; the Assembly had evinced its weakness by remaining a passive spectator of the contest; the real power of government had fallen into the hands of the municipality of Paris. The municipality governed Paris; Paris ruled the Assembly; the Assembly guided France. As long as the contest lasted, the leaders of the Jacobins avoided the scene of danger. Marat disappeared during the confusion, and left the whole to Westermann; Santerre was holding back with the forces of the faubourgs, till compelled by Westermann, with his sabre at his breast, to join the troops from Marseilles; Robespierre remained concealed, and only appeared twenty-four hours after at the Commune, when he gave himself the whole credit of the affair. After the overthrow of the Swiss guards, the populace gave full reins to their vengeance in the sacking of the palace. Wearied of massacring or laying waste, they broke to pieces its magnificent furniture, and scattered its remains. Drunken savages broke into the most private apartments of the Queen, and there gave vent to indecent or obscene ribaldry. In an instant all the drawers and archives were forced open, and the papers they contained torn in pieces, or scattered to the winds. The mirrors and glasses were destroyed, the wardrobes and cabinets forced and rifled, the doors hewn down, the cellars ransacked, and the spirits and wines drunk in such enormous quantities that numbers died on the spot. To the horrors of pillage and murder soon succeeded those of conflagration. Nor were the re

2

VIII.

1792.

moter parts of the city exempt from danger. exempt from danger. After the CHAP. discharge of artillery, and the heavy volleys of the platoons had ceased, a dropping fire of musketry told how active was the pursuit of the fugitives; while its receding sound, and reverberation from all quarters, indicated how many parts of the city had become the scene of horrors.

6.

populace.

Early on the 11th, an immense crowd assembled on the spot which was yet reeking with the blood of the Swiss Fury of the who had perished on the preceding day. A strange mix- August 11. ture of feelings actuated the spectators: they succoured the wounded, and at the same time honours were decreed to the troops engaged on the side of the Republic, and hymns of liberty were sung by the multitude. The emblems of royalty, the statues of the kings, were, by orders of the municipality, entirely destroyed; those of bronze were carried to the foundery of cannon. Even the name of Henry IV. could not protect his image from destruction. The statues of Louis XIV. in the Place Vendôme, of Henry IV. on the Pont-Neuf, of Louis XIII. in the Place Royale, of Louis XV. in the Place which bears his name, were pulled down and destroyed. Guingerlot, second in command of the gendarmerie à cheval of Paris, having expressed his regret, in passing, at the destruction of so noble a monument of art, he was forthwith pierced to death with twenty pikes at the foot of the statue. Such was the eagerness of the multitude to pull down the magnificent colossal figure of Louis XIV. in the Place Vendôme, that it killed in its fall a well-known virago, employed by Marat to hawk his journal, who was active in the work of destruction. Similar devastations were committed in every quarter by frantic crowds of drunken men and women. The tombs of the kings of France at St Amis, viii. Denis were rifled of their bronze; those of Turenne, Duval, ii. Richelieu, and Cardinal Mazarin, defaced. All the Lac.ix. 259. churches, and even many private houses, were stripped of iv. 74, 75. their valuable metals. The rise of democratic license in

1

195, 196.

175, 177.

Prudhom.

CHAP. France was signalised by the destruction of the most VIII. venerable monuments of the monarchy: owing nothing to antiquity, the people repudiated the honours she had transmitted to her children.

1792.

7.

ment of the

The first care of the Assembly was to provide, in some Reappoint degree, for the administration of public affairs after the Girondist overthrow of the throne. For this purpose the Girondist ministry. ministers, Roland, Clavière, and Servan, were replaced in the offices of the interior, the war department, and the finances; while Danton, who had been the chief director of the revolt, was appointed to the important office of minister of public justice. This audacious demagogue spoke at the head of a deputation from the municipality, in such language as sufficiently demonstrated where the real power of government now resided. government now resided. "The people, who have sent us to your bar," said he, "have charged us to declare to you, that they regard you as fully worthy of their confidence; but that they recognise no other judges of the extraordinary measures to which necessity has driven them but the voice of the French people, your sovereign as well as ours, as expressed by the primary assemblies." Incapable of resistance, the Assembly had no alternative but to pass decrees, sanctioning all that had been done, and inviting the petitioners to make their concurrence known to the people. Measures of the most important kind were at the same time adopted to secure in an effectual manner to the multitude the ascendency they had now acquired. The whole juges de paix of Paris, who had displayed an honourable fidelity to the constitution in the late crisis, were by one decree of the constitution suppressed, and their places filled up by the most vehement democrats; a camp was directed to be formed close to Paris composed of volunteers; the national guards of the Filles de St Thomas and other loyal quarters were suppressed, and the civic force of Paris was organised in a new manner, in which the extreme democrats had an entire ascendancy. At the same time the formation of a series

Aug. 11.

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