II. CHAP. After the strife is over, it is too often discovered that the balance of freedom has been destroyed, and that the elements of general liberty no longer exist, from the annihilation of all classes between the prince and the peasant, in the course of the massacres and confiscations which have taken place during its continuance. The lower orders then sink rapidly and irrecoverably into degeneracy, from the experienced impossibility of effecting any thing ultimately beneficial to themselves by contending for independence. According to the condition of society, the age of the state, and the degree of public virtue which prevails, such social contests are the commencement or the termination of an era of prosperity and glory-the expansion of bursting vegetation or the fermentation which precedes corruption-the revolution which overthrew the tyranny of Tarquin, or the disastrous contests which prepared, in the extinction of patrician power, the final servitude of the empire. 21. the higher and lower avoidable in every ad vancing mo These causes, however, whatever may be their ultimate Collision of effects, render a collision between the higher and lower orders unavoidable in every advancing state in modern orders is un- times. The nobles are naturally tenacious of the privileges and dignities which have descended to them from dern state. their ancestors; the middle ranks as naturally endeavour to enlarge theirs, when their increasing wealth or importance enables them to demand such enlargement-the lower ultimately become clamorous for a participation in the franchises which they see exercised by their superiors, and which their increasing numbers enable them to claim with effect. It is in the prodigious rapidity with which population advances in the later stages of society among the working classes, owing to the wealth of the opulent and recklessness of the indigent, contrasted with the stationary number of the elevated, the result of their artificial wants or corrupted manners, that the real cause of this collision is to be found. The rich become a beleaguered garrison, of which the spoils are constantly increasing, the defenders diminishing, and the numbers and hardihood of the assailants augmenting. It was in the boroughs of Europe that the struggle first commenced, because there the protection of walls, and of assembled multitudes, had earliest produced the passion for independence it next appeared in England, because there the security of an insular situation, and the efforts of an industrious people, had vivified the seeds of Saxon liberty: it lastly spread to France, because its regular government and powerful armies had long secured the blessings of internal tranquillity and foreign independence. CHAP. 22. of the power I. The destruction of the power of the great vassals of the crown, and the consolidation of the monarchy into one Destruction great kingdom, during the reigns of Louis XI., Francis I., of the noand Henry IV., was undoubtedly an essential cause of the bles. Revolution. This anomalous and unforeseen result, however, arose not from the oppression so much as the protection afforded by the government to the people. Had the central power been weaker, and the privileges of the great feudatories remained unimpaired, France, like Germany, would have been split into a number of independent duchies, and all unity of feeling or national energy have been lost amid the division of separate interests. A revolution could no more have taken place there than in Silesia or Saxony : whereas, by the destruction of the power of the great vassals, and the rise of a formidable military force at the command of the central government, the unity of the nation was preserved, its independence secured, and its industry protected. For a century and a half before the commencement of the Revolution, France had enjoyed the blessings of domestic tranquillity. No internal dissensions, no foreign invasions, had broken this long period of security and repose; war was known only as affording an outlet to the ardent and impatient spirits of the country, or as yielding a rich harvest of national glory; the worst severities of aristocratic oppression had for ages been prevented by the cessation of private warfare. During this II. CHAP. interval of peace, the relative situation and feelings of the different ranks in society underwent a total change. Wealth silently accumulated in the lower orders, from the unceasing efforts of individual industry; power imperceptibly glided from the higher, in consequence of the absorption of their revenues in objects of luxury. When civil dissensions again broke out, this difference appeared in the most striking manner. It was no longer the territorial noblesse, headed by their respective lords, who took the field, or the burghers of towns who maintained insulated contests for the defence of their walls but the national guard, who every where flew to arms, animated by one common feeling, and strong in the consciousness of mutual support. They did not wait for their landlords to lead, or their magistrates to direct; but, acting boldly for themselves, they maintained the cause of democratic freedom against the powers they had hitherto been accustomed to obey. 23. Military spirit of the people. II. The military spirit of the French people, and the native courage, which a long series of national triumphs had fostered, rendered them capable both of the moral fortitude to commence, and the patient endurance to sustain a conflict. But for this circumstance, the Revolution would never have been attempted, or, if begun, would have been speedily crushed by the military force at the disposal of the monarchy. In many countries of Europe, such as Italy, Portugal, and Spain, the people have lost, during centuries of peace, the firmness requisite to win their freedom. They complain of their oppressors, they lament their degeneracy, they bewail their liberties, but they have not the courage generally to attempt the vindication of these liberties. Unless under the guidance of foreign officers, they are incapable of any sustained or courageous efforts in the field: when deprived of that guidance, they sink immediately into their native imbecility. But the case was very different with the French. The long and disastrous wars with the English, the fierce and sanguinary II. religious contests of the sixteenth century, the continued CHAP. conflicts with the European powers, had spread a military spirit throughout the people, which neither the enjoyment of domestic peace, nor the advantages of unbroken protection, had been able to extinguish. In every age the French have been the most warlike people of Europe; and the spirit of warlike enterprise is nearly allied to that of civil freedom. Military courage may, and often does, subsist without domestic liberty; but domestic liberty cannot long subsist without military courage. The dreams of inexperienced philanthropy may nourish expectations inconsistent with this position, and anticipate an adequate protection to private right from the extension of knowledge, or the interests of commerce, without the aid of warlike prowess; but experience gives no countenance to these ideas, and loudly proclaims the everlasting truth, that as regulated freedom is the greatest blessing in life, so it never can be defended for a course of ages from the assaults of regal or democratic despotism, but by the hardihood and resolution of those who enjoy it. 24. and litera ture. III. Though the Reformation was extinguished in France, freedom of thought and the spirit of investi- Philosophy gation were unrestrained in the regions of taste and philosophy. Louis XIV. made no attempt to curb the literary genius of his age, provided it did not interfere with political topics; and the intellectual vigour which was exhibited during his reign, on general subjects, has never been surpassed. In the mental strife which occurred during the Revolution, no more energetic speculation is to be found than exists in the writings of Corneille and Pascal. But it is impossible that unfettered inquiry can long subsist without political controversy becoming the subject of investigation. Religion and politics, the condition of man here and hereafter, ever must form the most interesting objects of thought; and, accordingly, they ere long became so, under the feeble successors of the Grand Monarque. In the philosophical speculations of II. CHAP. the eighteenth century, in the writings of Voltaire, Rousseau, Raynal, and the Encyclopedists, the most free and unreserved discussion, if not on political subjects, at least on those which were most nearly allied to them, on morals and religion, took place. By a singular blindness, the constituted authorities, despotic though they were, made no attempt to curb these inquiries, which, being all couched in general terms, or made in reference to other states, appeared to have no direct bearing on the tranquillity of the kingdom. Strong in the support of the nobility, the protection of the army, and the long-established tranquillity of the country, they deemed their power beyond the reach of attack, and anticipated no danger from dreams on the social compact, or the morals and spirit of nations. A direct attack on the monarchy, or still more, on any of the ministers or royal mistresses, would have been followed by an immediate place in the Bastile; but general disquisitions excited no alarm, either among the higher classes or in the government. So universal was this delusion, that the young nobility amused themselves with visionary speculations concerning the original equality and pristine state of man; deeming such speculations as inapplicable to their interests as the license of Otaheite or the customs of Tartary.1 1 Ségur's Memoirs, i. 62. Lac. i. 10, 12. It is not surprising that the higher ranks mistook the signs of the times. They were advancing into a region in which the ancient landmarks were no longer to be seen, where the signs of a new heaven, and hitherto unseen constellations, were to guide the statesman. Judging from the past, no danger was to be apprehended; for all former convulsions of a serious description had been headed by a portion at least of the higher ranks. Judging from what we know of what followed, the speck was already to be seen in the horizon which was to overwhelm the civilised world with darkness. The speculations of those eloquent philosophers spread widely among the rising generation. Captivated by the novelty of the ideas |