dangers of unbelief, and offered rewards for the best essays in defence of the Christian faith, the productions called forth were so despicable that they sensibly injured the cause of religion. II. 63. prophecies effects ligion of the 1770. The prophecies of the French church, however, though their defence of Christianity was feeble, are well deserving Remarkable of attention as historical documents. They demonstrate, of the French what is often so conspicuous in human affairs, that when-church on ever any great change in society is taking place, its ulti- of the irremate effects are foreseen and foretold by one party as age. clearly as they are denied and ridiculed by another; and that it is not ignorance but prejudice which is the evil principally to be dreaded.* In a general assembly of the clergy held in 1770, the most vigorous remon- March 18, strances against the multiplication of irreligious books were made, and the denunciations of Isaiah and Jeremiah repeated against the modern dereliction from the faith of their fathers. Impiety," said they, "has passed from the capital to the provinces; it is found under the roof of the artisan, and in the cottage of the peasant; it misleads alike their ignorance and their simplicity. Impiety is making inroads alike on God and man; it will never be satisfied till it has destroyed every power, divine and human. Anarchy and independence are the two gulfs into which irreligion would plunge the nation. To accomplish that infernal object, it breaks down by degrees all the bonds which attach man to his duties. It looks abroad over society and the chiefs who govern it, and sees there nothing but a vile mass of ignorant corrupted * The present is one remarkable instance of this truth, which deserves the most attentive consideration from political philosophers. Others not less striking will be found in the sequel of this work; in particular, the predictions of the opponents of the abolition of the slave trade on the ultimate effects of that measure, c. xlv. § 22; of the opponents of Catholic emancipation on its consequences, c. xxxix. § 24, and c. xlv. §§ 77, 78; and of the Opposition on the effects of Mr Vansittart's breaking in upon the Sinking Fund in 1813, in c. lxxvi. §§ 28, 29. A similar instance of the exact prediction of the consequence of a great political change, wholly disregarded and ridiculed at the time, occurred on occasion of the great monetary change of reverting to cash payments in 1819, particularly in the petition from the merchants of Bristol. II. CHAP. men, prostrated before priests who deceive, and princes who oppress them. It teaches, that there is in existence neither a Supreme Being, nor a soul, nor a world to come. It sees in the priesthood nothing but a vile league against virtue and the human race. It teaches nations, that kings have no power but such as it has pleased them to entrust their sovereigns with; that the people have a right to restrain or moderate it, to demand. an account of it, and even to extinguish it, according to their supreme pleasure. It is this spirit which has given birth to the endless multiplication of sects among our neighbours in England, but it is fitted to produce effects far more disastrous among the French. There it will be found, in the inconstancy of the nation, in its activity, its love for novelty, its inconsiderate ardour, an additional i. 218, 223. means of producing the most frightful revolutions, and precipitating it into all the horrors of anarchy." 1* 1 Soulavie, Règne de Louis XVI. 64. and evils of The temporal constitution of the French church, howCorruptions ever, rendered it as unfit to withstand these political the church. dangers as its intellectual power was to grapple with its spiritual enemies. Within the bosom of the establishment, and in all who fell within the sphere of its influence, the seeds of deep-rooted discontent were to be found. This arose from the invidious exclusion of all persons of plebeian birth from the dignities and emoluments of the ecclesiastical profession. In extraordinary cases, indeed, the force of talent may have procured elevation without the advantages of blood; but, generally speaking, the dignitaries of the church were drawn from the same class as the marshals or princes of the empire. While the bishops and elevated clergy were rolling in wealth or *The same denunciations were repeated in an assembly of bishops held two years after, in 1772. "Impiety," said they, "abuses too audaciously the art of writing to break all the cords which unite us to the Christian faith. Irreligious books have become a general pest which pervades the nation. Hence the general effervescence of minds, and that afflicting revolution which is taking place every day under our eyes in the public morals. In many provinces the Protestants are again holding their assemblies no longer secretly, but in the open light of day."--SOULAVIE, Règne de Louis XVI. i. 224. II. glittering in the sunshine of royal favour, the humbler CHAP. clergy, on whom the whole practical duties of the pastoral office devolved, toiled in virtuous obscurity, hardly elevated, either in rank or comfort, above the peasantry who composed their flocks.* The dubious class of abbés brought discredit on the church, from the profligate lives which many of them led, and the general devotion of the whole body to worldly interests and enjoyments. The simple piety and unostentatious usefulness of the rural priests, while it endeared them to their parishioners, formed a striking contrast to the luxurious habits and dissipated lives of the high-born dignitaries of the establishment. The enormous wealth of the latter excited the envy both of their own body and of the lower classes of the people; while the general idleness in which they passed their lives prevented all possibility of justifying the scandalous inequality of their fortunes. The sceptical philosophers took advantage of these real abuses, connected with the established church, to influence the public mind against an establishment of any kind; and to represent the appropriation of any proportion of the landed property of the kingdom to the support of religion, as the most De Stael, i. flagrant abuse which existed in society. Hence the 13. Sieyes, universal indignation, in 1789, at the vices and corrup- thèque d'un tion of the church, and the facility with which, in the Public, par very commencement of the Revolution, their property was iii. 132. sacrificed to relieve the embarrassment of the finances.1 1 Rivarol,93. 81. Biblio Homme Condorcet, IX. A school of philosophy, too, had risen up at this 65. period in France, which, although far from being so The Econo important in its ultimate effects as the great atheistical phalanx which aimed at destroying all the foundations of mists. 2 Chateau *The total revenues of the church, derived from tithes, amounted to 130,000,000 francs, of which only 42,000,000 were in the hands of the parochial clergy; the number of the ecclesiastics was 80,000. But this revenue, large as it was, was inconsiderable, compared to the extent of the territorial posses- briand, sions of this body, which embraced almost a third of the whole land of France. Etudes Hist. The nobles and the clergy possessed nearly two-thirds of the whole estates of Thiers, i. 34. the kingdom; and the other third was in the hands of the Tiers Etat, upon whom fell the greater proportion of the burdens of the state." iii. 284. * CHAP. religious belief, yet exercised a most important influence II. on its political history. This was the sect of the ECONOMISTS, the founders of that school of philosophers who first applied abstract principles to human affairs, and sought to enunciate in a few propositions the principles on which social prosperity depended. Many bright lights had been thrown on this noble science in the beautiful work which Fénélon composed to instruct his royal pupil in the science of government; but the founder of the School of the Economists, properly so called, was Quesnay, a physician in Mantes, who about the year 1761 began to inculcate the simple and original ideas which afterwards made their doctrines so celebrated. His maxims were, that there is a natural order intended by Providence for society; that if this order is observed in human institutions, every thing prospers and mankind are happy; if it is violated, misery is engendered and the people are wretched. The only source of wealth, according to him, was to be found in agriculture; commerce or manufactures did not create riches, they only changed their form from that of rude produce to that of manufactured articles the artisan or the merchant consumed as much 1Biog. Univ. xxxvi. 396. in food, in altering the form, or changing the place of rude produce, as they added to its value.1* 66. liar doctrines. It followed from these principles, that unlimited freedom Their pecu- should prevail, both in external and internal commerce; but that government should look for the principal and only secure source of national riches, to the improvement of the cultivation of the soil. They carried this principle of free trade so far as to apply it to the whole relations of social life, and proposed to abolish all incorporations, crafts, faculties, apprenticeships, and restrictions of every kind, from those of medicine and theology downwards, * Télémaque. Quesnay was a great favourite of Madame de Pompadour, and the first reunions of the Economists were held in her drawing-room. At that period, not even the speculations of philosophers could be fostered any where but in the boudoirs of mistresses. II. and to let every man exercise any profession, set up any CHAP. trade, or carry on any employment in any part of the kingdom. Religion was not to be excluded from the general competition: no peculiar creed was to be supported by the state every man was to pay his priest as he did his butcher and baker. A heavy tax on the rent of land should, according to Quesnay, be the sole public burden permitted in the state, as it directly reached in the cheapest form its real revenue. These docrines, from their novelty and simplicity, soon attracted general notice ; they formed the basis of the political opinions of the statesmen and philosophers who rose to eminence immediately before the French Revolution; and from having been in great part embraced, and attempted to be put in practice by Turgot, when minister of Louis XVI., they deserve a place in the history of that great convulsion. In the belief which these doctrines spread among the thinking classes in France, that the existing structure of society was essentially defective, and that unbounded social blessings would follow its entire change, is to be found one of the most powerful causes of that violent convulsion which so soon after entirely uprooted all its institutions. 67. on these Certainly in these doctrines abstractly considered, apart from their fatal error as to religion, there is much Reflections truth which the philosopher must admire, and some which doctrines. the statesman might cautiously embrace; but they require to be essentially modified before they are put in practice. If rashly adopted, they cannot fail, from the vast extent of vested interests they injure, to produce wide-spread misery or dreadful convulsions. It is true that all wealth in the world originally comes from the soil; but it is not less true that a particular state, such as Holland or Venice, may attain the greatest riches and importance without any considerable territorial possessions, by merely drawing to itself, in exchange for its mercantile industry, the agricultural resources of other states. It is true that all incorporations and statutes of apprenticeship are |