II. CHAP. the talent which emerged from the lower classes of society. The artillery and engineers, the higher grades in which were not exclusively confined, under the old régime, to men of family, from the first were superior in intelligence and capacity to any in Europe, and contributed more than any other arm to the early successes of the Republican 1Jom.i.224. forces. The staff was miserably deficient ; but from the Memoirs, general diffusion of an admirable military education, the 136. St Cyr, materials of the finest état-major existed in France, and the ascendant of genius, in a career open to all, soon brought an unparalleled accession of talent to that important department. Carnot's Introd. i. 36. 10. of France in 1792. But the chief addition to the numerical strength of the Real force army when the war broke out, consisted in two hundred battalions of volunteers, raised by a decree of the Constituent Assembly; and who, although not fully completed, and imperfectly instructed in military exercises, were animated with the highest spirit, and in the best possible state of mental and physical activity. In both these respects they were greatly superior to the old regiments, which were not only paralysed by the divisions and insubordination consequent on the Revolution, but weakened by the habits of idleness and vice which they had contracted during a long residence in barracks. It is a mistake, however, to imagine that the regular military force of France at this period was of no importance, or that the independence of France was preserved, on the invasion in 1792, entirely by the revolutionary levies. Napoleon's authority is decisive to the contrary. "It was neither," says he, "the volunteers nor the recruits who saved the Republic; it was one hundred and eighty thousand old troops of the monarchy, and the discharged veterans whom the Revolution impelled to the frontiers. Part of the recruits deserted, part died, a small portion only remained, who, in process of time, formed good solYou will not soon find me going to war with an * Jom. i. 226. St Cyr, i. 38. 109. Thib. Cons. diers. II. Household king. One part of the French army under Louis XVI. de- CHAP. serves particular attention, from the share which it took, with the most disastrous effect to the monarchy, in the 11. convulsions which terminated in the Revolution. This troops of the was the household troops, or Maison du Roi, as they were called, the élite of the army in point of discipline, appearance, and equipment, and the officers of which were exclusively drawn from the sons of the old noblesse. This body of guards was twelve thousand strong, and in some of the favoured regiments, particularly the Gardes du Corps and the Mousquetaires du Roi, which were placed immediately about the person of the sovereign, and were constantly on duty in the interior of the palace, the whole privates even were gentlemen by birth. The expense of those pampered regiments, as may well be conceived, when they were filled entirely with the young scions of the nobility, was very great; and they were a constant thorn in the side of Turgot and the economical ministers of Louis XVI., who were as anxiously bent upon reducing that costly part of the establishment, as the ladies and courtiers were on keeping it up. Yet was this magnificent body of guards not without its use, both in the field of battle and in the general arch of the social system established by Louis XIV.: more than once it had decided the fate of important actions: two of its regiments had arrested the terrible English column at Fontenoy. All great commanders have felt the necessity of such a chosen reserve, upon which they may rely with confidence at the critical moment the Companions of Alexander, the Tenth Legion of Cæsar, the Old Guard of Napoleon, were the same institutions under a different name. Nor was its political importance less in the internal arrangement of the monarchy. It formed the keystone, as it were, of the military hierarchy, and a link, at the same time, which connected 1 Soulavie, Louis XVI. the greatest families in the country at once with the throne Règne de and the army.1 Of all the reforms of Louis XVI., which iii. 68, 73. preceded, and had so large a share in producing the II. CHAP. Revolution, there was none perhaps so fatal as the sweeping and ill-judged changes of Count St Germain, which, as it will appear in the sequel, irrevocably broke up this important bulwark of the throne. 12. led to the What, then, was it that, in a country so profusely What, then, endowed with the riches of nature, and inhabited by a Revolution? race of men so brave, so active, and so enterprising, led to a convulsion attended with the unspeakable horrors of the French Revolution? The answer is to be found in the previous state of the country, and the general perversion of the national mind: in the oppressions to which the people were subjected-the vices by which the nobles alienated them-the corruptions by which morals were contaminated the errors with which religion was disfigured the extent to which infidelity had spread. 1 Sully, i. 133. 13. Modification of nion as to grievances alone producing re Universa The people," says the greatest of French statesmen, "never revolt from fickleness, or the mere desire of change. It is the impatience of suffering which alone has this effect."1 Subsequent events have not falsified the maxim of Sully, though they have shown that it requires modification. If the condition of the lower orders in France anterior to the Revolution is examined, it will not be deemed surprising that a convulsion should have arisen; and if humanity sees much to deplore in the calamities it produced, it will find much cause for consolation in the grievances it has removed. The observation of the French statesman, however, is true only in reference to the commencement of revolu Sully's opi- tionary troubles. The people, over a whole country, never pass from a state of quiescence to one of tumult, without the experience of practical grievances. Disturvolution. bances never assume the magnitude of revolutions, unless lity of the these grievances have come to affect the great body of the citizens. But when the minds of men have been once set afloat by successful resistance, subsequent innovations are made from mere temporary causes, and arise from the thirst for illicit gain on the part of one class, disaffection. II. and delusion and timidity on the part of another; the CHAP. restlessness following high excitation; the distress consequent on suspended credit; the audacity arising from unpunished crime. "The people," said Robespierre, "will as soon revolt without oppression as the ocean will heave in billows without the wind."-" True," replied Vergniaud, "but wave after wave will roll upon the shore, after the fury of the winds is stilled." The universality of the disaffection which prevailed in France anterior to the Revolution, is a sufficient indication that causes were in operation affecting all classes in the state. Temporary distress occasions passing seditions; local grievances excite partial discontent; but general and long-continued suffering alone can produce a steady and extensive resistance. In France, at the convocation of the States-General, the desire for change was universal, excepting with part of the privileged orders. The cruelty of the Jacobins, and the precipitate measures of the Constituent Assembly, subsequently produced a very great division of opinion, and lighted the flames of civil war in Lyons and La Vendée; but, in the beginning, one universal cry in favour of freedom was heard from Calais to the Pyrenees. The nobles, for the most part, returned members in the interest of their order; the dignified clergy did the same; but the Tiers Etat, and the curés, unanimously supported the cause of independence. The bitter rancour which subsequent injustice induced between the clergy and the supporters of the Revolution, was unknown in its earlier stages; the Tennis Court oath found no warmer supporters than in the solitudes of La Vendée; and the first body who joined the commons in their stand against Th. i. 8, 41. the throne, were the representatives of the ordinary clergy of France.1 Without doubt, the observation of a modern philosopher is well founded, that the march of civilisation necessarily produces a collision between the aristocratic and the popular classes, in every advancing community. Power VOL. I. I 1 Mig. i. 26. II. 14. The colli sion of the classes did not neces sarily pro duce revolution. CHAP. founded in conquest, privileges handed down from barbarous ages, prerogatives suited to periods of anarchy, are incompatible with the rising desires springing from the tranquillity and opulence of civilised life. other must yield: the power of the noblesse must extinguish the rising importance of the commons, or it must be modified by their exertions. But it is not necessary that this change should be effected by a revolution. It is quite possible that it may be accomplished so gradually, as not only to produce no convulsion, but to be felt only by its vivifying and beneficial effects upon society. It is sudden innovation which brings about the catastrophe ; the rapidity of the descent which converts the stream into a cataract.1 1 Mig. i. 26. Th. i. 8, 41. Guiz. Hist. Mod. 321. 15. Middle ranks desi vation. Situated in the centre of European civilisation, it was impossible that France, in the eighteenth century, rous of ele- could escape the general tendency towards free institutions. However despotic her government may have been ; however powerful her armies; however haughty her nobility, the natural progress of opulence, joined to the force of philosophical inquiry, spread an unruly spirit among the middle ranks. The strength of the government, by suppressing private wars, and affording tolerable security to the fruits of industry, prepared the period of a reaction against itself. The burghers, after the enjoyment of centuries of repose, and the acquisition of a competent share of wealth, felt indignant at the barriers which prevented them from rising into the higher ranks of society; the enterprising, conscious of powers suited to elevated stations, repined at their exclusion from offices of trust or importance; the studious, imbued with the spirit of Greek or Roman freedom, contrasted the brilliant career of talent in the republics of antiquity, with its fettered walk in modern times. All classes, except the privileged ones, were discontented with the government, in consequence of the expanded wants which a state of advancing civili |