Chapter 2

It was this slow, vacillating, indecisive course of the former revolution which generated all the causes that conspired to defeat it. The Bastile was stormed in 1789. It was not until the latter part of 1792 that the unfortunate monarch was deposed. During these three years, though strokes of great boldness were struck, one after another, yet none of them were of a decisive character: none of them indicated a fixed point at which the revolution was to stop: while they were all of a character to alarm, to exasperate and to raise up powerful enemies to the revolution both at home and abroad.

Thus, in 1789 privileges and distinctions of orders were abolished, and the hitherto sacred revenues of the church suffered a deep encroachment.

In 1790 titles of nobility, with all their _insignia_ of emblasoned arms and feudal power, were annihilated, and the estates attached to them were seized for the public use. These measures drove from France a numerous and powerful body of emigrants, inflamed with resentment and despair, who preached up, at every court in Europe, the cause of kings, which they represented, with reason, to be menaced with general destruction; and they left in France an equally numerous and powerful body of malcontents, whose cabals kept every part of the kingdom in a state of constant ferment and insurrection. The people, released at once from the restraints of the clergy and of their feudal lords, and suddenly become their own masters, without the discretion necessary for their guidance, became licentious and turbulent, and the whole kingdom presented a scene of riot and disorder which there were no laws to repress. And now was hatched that political hydra, the Jacobin faction, which no Frenchman will ever be able to remember without an involuntary shudder.

In 1791 the affrighted king made an unsuccessful attempt to escape with his family. They were arrested near the confines of the kingdom and brought back to Paris under the most humiliating circumstances; but still he was acknowledged to be the king of France, and a constituent part of the existing government. A new constitution was then framed, to which he was required to take an oath of obedience, and he took it _per_ force. The leading patriots, who had nothing more in view than the enjoyment of rational liberty under a regular government, attempted to stop the revolution at the point of a limited monarchy. Mirabeau, that prodigy of genius and vice, was believed to have been of this number. The virtuous Lafayette certainly was, and so was a host of others of the brightest names in France. But the ball had rolled beyond their reach, and had acquired a _momentum_ which they could no longer control. A set of unprincipled men, engendered by the slow progress of the revolution, had, by their flatteries and appeals to the worst passions of the populace, worked themselves up to the head of affairs and drove on the revolution before the storm, without any fixed object on their own part.

These infamous men infused suspicions into the minds of the people against their best friends, and even Lafayette had to defend himself against their accusations.

In 1792 the king was tried, condemned and deposed, and a republic was established; but it was a republic of bedlamites. The revolution now assumed a most dreadful form. France, delivered up, at once, to the fury of a foreign and a civil war, and at the same time rent asunder by the most frightful anarchy, exhibited a picture which the heart quails to contemplate even at this distance of time. All was chaos and confusion, and Lafayette perceiving that the great object for which he had contended was lost, retired from the kingdom, and was doomed to mourn, for years, in an Austrian dungeon, the disappointment of his patriot hopes.

In 1793 the amiable and unfortunate king was torn from his family, and bade adieu, on the scaffold, to all the troubles of life; and thenceforth the guillotine streamed with the blood of the best patriots of France. No confidence existed any where. Every one was distrusted. Generals, whose victories had shed the highest glory upon their country, were called from the head of their armies to perish in disgrace. Denunciation and massacre were the order of the day. Suspicion became full proof, and every accusation was fatal. To consummate the horror of the scene, the christian religion was formally abolished, and a sort of heathen worship was substituted in its place. The republic was dissolved, the government was declared to be revolutionary, and a dictatorship was established, compared with which those of Marius and Sylla formed a golden age. Terror, death, and rapine walked abroad in triumph, and the diabolical spirits which had set the mischief afoot, hovered over the bloody spectacle and mocked at the misery which they had created.

In 1794 the ruffians, Danton and Robespierre, fell in succession, and expiated their crimes (if indeed such crimes be expiable at all) on that guillotine which they had so often deluged with the blood of innocence, even of female innocence and beauty. But the reign of terror still held on its course. The government was continually shifting its form. In truth, there was virtually no government at all. It was one continued scene of anarchy and confusion. Those terrible factions, the Jacobin, the Gironde, the Mountain, in their struggles for power, and their alternate ascendancy, continued to exhibit France as one great slaughter-house of human victims, without regard to guilt or innocence, sex or age. The whole nation seemed to have been metamorphosed into a nation of demons, wild and frightful, and drunk with human blood, with which they seemed incapable of being satiated.

And yet, strange as it may seem, and strange as it does now seem even to ourselves, there was a splendour, a magnificence about that revolution that riveted our admiration and sympathy with a force that could not be at once detached by all the horrors that accompanied it.

In the first burst of the revolution, nothing was seen by us but a brave and generous effort by the people for the recovery of their long lost rights and liberties. The spectacle of such a people, a people so endeared to us by recent services, rising, in such a cause, against the whole wealth and power of the court and the vast body of the nobles, temporal and spiritual, who had so long lorded it over France, was well calculated to enlist our strongest sympathies.--The first movements of the national convention, too, were marked with an energy, a grandeur, a magnanimity, and a power of eloquence such as the world had never witnessed, and such as no human heart could withstand.--And, then, when the combined armies moved upon France, the heroism with which they were met by the armies of the republic--chaunting, as they marched up in order of battle, the sublime strains of their national hymn--and the stupendous power with which they were beaten off, and their armies crushed and annihilated one after another--threw such a blaze of glory around the revolution as made us blind to all its excesses. Those excesses, too, came to us, veiled and softened by the distance, and by the medium through which they passed: and, however much to be deplored, we were ready, with the French patriots, to consider them as the unavoidable consequences of such a struggle, and to charge all the blood that was spilt in France, to the tyrants, abroad and at home, who chose to resist, to death, the rightful demands of the people.

Those "wonderful people," too, (as they were characterised by Gen. Washington in '96,) in the midst of the terrific scenes which they were daily enacting, contrived to throw a grace and a beauty around their public acts, and to gild even their wildest projects with a moral sublimity that effectually concealed, at the time, all their folly and injustice, and gave them a rapturous reception throughout the United States. Thus, when, in the rage of reformation which seemed determined to leave nothing of the old order of things remaining, they resolved to abolish the calendar, and, in lieu of the barbarous names by which the months had been distinguished, to introduce a new nomenclature, founded on the exhibitions of nature, in the different seasons: there was a poetic beauty in the conception and a felicity of taste in the execution of which no other nation on earth seemed capable. Their months of buds, flowers and meadows, of harvest, heat and fruit, of vintage, fog and sleet, of snow, rain and wind, were so beautiful and so expressive, that they extorted the admiration even of the reluctant world. Even the wild project of propagating liberty by the sword, and folding the whole human family in their fraternal embrace, was so bold and generous and grand, that, in the contemplation of its magnificence, we forgot its folly. And when, in execution of this project, the young hero of the republic crossed the Alps, and by a series of victories that eclipsed the brightest boasts of ancient history, brought Italy, Austria and Prussia to his feet, it seemed as if heaven itself had set its seal to the high resolve.

Those days come fresh upon our recollection in consequence of the recent movement in France. There are not many of us now alive who were old enough then to understand and recollect them. The first shock of the revolution, the storming of the bastile, struck this whole continent, from one end to the other, like an electric flash, and I believe that there was not a man in the United States whose first impulse it was not to rush to the side of the gallant people of France, and to triumph or die in their cause. Had it not been for the barrier of the ocean, there were hundreds and thousands of our countrymen who would have obeyed the impulse. Even with that impediment in our way, it was with extreme difficulty that the illustrious man then at the head of our affairs, the Father of his country, could restrain us from plunging into the conflict. No other man, and no other thousand men in the United States could have done it. And even when done by him, the idol of our love and the pride of our nation, and of mankind, we complained, in no very measured terms, of a restraint which probably saved us from ruin. In truth, our hearts were too deeply engaged to give fair play to our heads. Many of us were very young, and all of us under a paroxysm of excitement which scarcely left us morally responsible for our conduct. So all-absorbing was the passion, that our own affairs had no longer any flavor for us. We gave to France all that we were permitted to give, our hearts, our prayers, and all the sympathies of our nature. Our eyes, our ears were turned, incessantly, towards her coast, to catch the earliest tidings of her progress, and every new sail from abroad that hove in sight, set our bosoms into the wildest commotion. We identified ourselves with her as far as possible. We assumed her badges, adopted her language of salutation and intercourse, and all her votive cries of joy and triumph. The names of her patriots, orators, and generals, "familiar in our mouths as household words, were, in our flowing cups, _most devoutly_ remembered!" We recited with rapture those noble bursts of indignant or pathetic eloquence which were continually breaking from her tribune. Every shout of victory from her shores was echoed back from ours. Every house and every cottage, our mountains and valleys, rung with her national airs, and often did we see groups of the old and the young, the rich and the poor, fathers and sons, virgins and matrons, swelling the heroic chorus of the Marseilles hymn, with the tears and the fire of enthusiasm in their eyes. Those days are gone; but there is still a mournful pleasure in their remembrance. They recall to us many of those who were wont to join with us in those celebrations, but who can join with us no more. They recall those visions of glory which then surrounded France, but which were, afterwards, so mournfully overcast. They attest the universality, the sincerity, the depth of the interest which we have ever taken in the cause of her liberty. Long, very long, was it before that enthusiasm subsided. Never did it subside, while there was a remaining hope that France might still be free. But the combined powers, though beaten in every field, were still able to protract the war, until all the bloom and beauty of the revolution were gone, and, what was worse, until its very object was lost sight of and exchanged for a deadly thirst of vengeance, and a proud passion for the glory of the arms of France. It was this moral transition in the sentiments of the people, which ultimately defeated the great purpose of the revolution. For it conducted Napoleon to an imperial throne; and his ambition, grown frantic with success, urged him to those rash measures which resulted in the restoration of the Bourbons, and thus brought back the revolution to the point from which it had started.

This sketch, imperfect as it necessarily is, will enable us to institute a comparison between the former revolution and the present. And we cannot but see that it was the slow, lingering, fluctuating course of the former revolution, and the repeated intervals in which there was, virtually, no government at all, that gave time for the demoralization of the people, and for the formation of those terrible factions within, and those powerful combinations without, which finally ended in its discomfiture. But here the blow has been struck, and the whole revolution rounded off and finished in three days. No time has been afforded for the demoralization of the people; none for the formation of factions within, or combinations without. The first intelligence that Europe, or even the remote provinces of France have of the affair is, that it is finished. It is this celerity, and the constant presence of an efficient government, which distinguish this revolution from the former and constitute its safety. The men who head this movement are practical men, with strong common sense, (the best of all sense) and with honest intentions. With the former revolution full in their view, and a thorough knowledge of all the causes of its miscarriage, they have gone to work in this case with the decision and despatch of men of business. They change their monarch, limit his powers, and there they stop. And what power in Europe can complain?

Can England? She has saved us the trouble of a speculation on this subject by a prompt acknowledgment of the existing government.

Can Austria or Prussia complain of it, as breaking the line of legitimate succession, while acknowledging Michael on the throne of Portugal? Or can Russia, while not only acknowledging Michael, but having her own throne at this moment filled with the younger brother of the family? These are, both, departures from the strict line of legitimate succession adopted by the holy alliance: and if it be sufficient to excuse the departure in these two instances, that the reigning prince is of the same blood with the right heir, the same may be urged for the reigning king of France; for he is a Bourbon in the maternal line. It is not upon the abstract principle of the strict line of legitimate succession that these powers can be expected to unite in a war against France. If they do unite in such a war, it will be to assert the right of a prince to rule despotically, in violation of the social compact which unites him with his people. Is this probable? Let us remember that Alexander of Russia was the chief of the armed negotiators by whom this compact was arranged. That monarch saw the impossibility of maintaining a despotic prince, of the obnoxious house of Bourbon, on the throne of France, in the state of high illumination which then existed among the people. And although the allied armies were in possession of Paris, he would not permit Louis the XVIII. to enter until he had given to his people the charter which they required. Will the present Emperor of Russia support with his arms the violation of the charter thus sanctioned by his august brother? That it has been most shamefully and most unwisely violated, all Europe admits. That the offender has been removed with astonishing moderation and humanity, is equally admitted. That the revolution is not a war upon monarchy is apparent by the fact that a monarch now occupies the throne, and substantially under the charter to which Russia herself gave her sanction in 1814. With what decency, then, could Russia interfere? But, waving the _decorum_ of such an interference, (which perhaps would not be insurmountable,) let us attend to the motives by which princes are more generally governed; the practicability of the enterprize, and the value of its precarious success, compared with the certain costs and hazards of the attempt.

The question is every day becoming more complicated to them: and circumstances which, at first, seem calculated to provoke this attempt, immediately assume an appearance well fitted to discourage it. Thus the contagion is spreading: the Netherlands have risen and demanded a charter from their king. This is a new alarm to the neighboring monarchies. But the king of the Netherlands is a sensible and honest man, and has, we are told, already called the States General, with a view to the redress of the grievances of his subjects. This monarch has followed, in the main, the policy of England so closely as to leave but little doubt that he will be willing to adopt the British form of government; and that he will, also, follow her example in the immediate recognition of that of France. Similar governments will probably soon be instituted both in Spain and Portugal; and they will be recognized by England, France, and the Netherlands.

Now, although England was willing in 1792 to unite in a war against that wild democracy in France, which threatened to subvert, by force, monarchy in every form, throughout the world, and to give the fraternal embrace to every nation upon earth, willing or unwilling, does it follow that she will look with composure at a war on the limited monarchies in her neighborhood, which she has thought proper to recognize, and that war, too, headed by Russia? Jealous as she is, and with good reason, of the alarming strides of the great autocrat, and interfering, as she certainly did, with his distant enterprise upon Turkey, will she be content to see the kingdoms in her immediate neighborhood reduced to Russian dependencies, by those armies of occupation with which the success of Russia must be followed? Will Russia rise against the resistance of England to such an enterprise, when she is believed to have mitigated her designs on Turkey in consequence of English _mediation_? This is scarcely credible. Or if she should, will Austria and Prussia, notwithstanding their alleged servility to her views, follow her in such an enterprise? Those powers will unquestionably consult their own safety, and will weigh the consequences, on both sides, before they take such a step. There is a wide difference between their situation and that of Russia, and what may be politic for Russia, might be very impolitic for them. The subjects of Russia are yet in polar darkness: those of Austria and Prussia are in a very different condition. Look at the internal state of their own dominions. The spirit of liberty has gone abroad among their people, and even in Prussia is so strong, that so far back as 1814 the king found it necessary to promise his subjects an amelioration of their political condition, to induce them to follow his standard against France. In Austria liberty is awake, not only in her Universities, but among the body of her people. Neither of these powers could send an army against France, without raising and maintaining another at home to keep down the discontents of their own people. Those people are no longer the automatons they were in 1814. They have discovered that they are men as their monarchs are, deriving from the God of nature equal rights, and with a clear right to participate in the government of their choice. Is it credible that they would bear the repeated conscriptions to which such a war would subject them, for the purpose of carrying on a crusade against the liberties of others abroad, and thus riveting, more closely, their own chains at home?

If, in spite of all these discouragements, those powers were mad or fatuitous enough to meditate such an enterprise, have they any reason to believe that it could succeed? Must they not see, on the contrary, that it would be utterly hopeless? Have they forgotten that when France stood alone, with all Europe combined against her, they found her invincible; that she swept their embattled hosts from every field, and led her victorious legions into their own capitals? One of these monarchs is reported already to have said that "he has had enough of French wars." Well may he say so; and well may Austria respond "Amen." They have not forgotten that Napoleon twice "struck their crowns into the hazard," and that it was by his gift that they now wear them. And although Napoleon be no more, they well know the gigantic power of France when armed in such a cause, and how readily a war upon her liberties will raise up some other Napoleon, probably from among the heroes of the Polytechnic school, once more to sweep like a whirlwind over their dominions, and to bring them again to his feet. If France, single-handed, was able to do this, while every power in Europe frowned upon her, what will she not be able to accomplish when cheered by the countenance, and perhaps supported by the arms of England?

Amid so many discouragements, is it conceivable that these powers will brave the consequences of an enterprise so full of despair? No one believes that their decision will be governed by any other motive than their own interest. Their own safety will be their supreme law. But will not this very consideration conduct them to the conclusion that it is their wisest course to keep the peace with France, and endeavor to preserve peace at home? Can they fail to perceive that the irresistible course of events must constrain them ultimately to make terms with their subjects; and that it is far wiser to make them at once, with as good a grace as remains to them, and to place their governments at least on the basis of the British constitution, of whose stability they have had such signal proof? Must they not see that it is far wiser thus to act, than to peril the consequences of that wild and desolating uproar throughout Europe, which an invasion of France would unquestionably produce?

That they will take the course that is wisest, because it is the wisest, may be problematical. But it is scarcely to be presumed that these sovereigns are so utterly bereft of reason as to provoke and precipitate their own ruin by a measure so hopeless. If they do attempt it, it can only be because Heaven, resolved upon their destruction, has first made them mad.

What course they will take is yet problematical. But supposing them to have the use of their reason, we have fair grounds of hope, that although the astounding character of the revolution, and of the progress of the same principles in the neighboring kingdoms may make them pause for a while, their own common sense will at length conduct them all to the conclusion, that there is no other course left for them but to recognize the existing government of France, and to direct their attention, exclusively, to their affairs at home.