ment in Britain; therefore they concluded it must be a very bad and intolerable government for France. They had not investigated the French mind, sentiments, and habits, so deeply as to see that our neighbours in the aggregate required a much closer curb than we. At the same time it must be admitted, that the old system of France was much more arbitrary than was necessary, and that the power was frequently intrusted to persons who were guilty of the grossest abuses; and though the administration of Louis XVI. was mild and liberal, yet the tenure of their rights continued the same to his subjects. It depended on the will of an individual. Nor was it unreasonable to propose that there should be a control over the monarchical and aristocratical part as well as over the democratical. Besides the nature of the government, other causes, some more remote and general, some more immediate and special, contributed to prepare and excite the French to seek a change. Learning becoming daily more prevalent in Europe, and having been fostered in France by the ostentatious vanity of Louis XIV. though limited, during his reign, to subjects of taste and sentiment, or to physics, yet soon extended to those of moral philosophy and politics; discussions by no means favourable to the theoretical approbation of such a government as that of France, however prudence might dictate a practical acquiescence. These speculations took a more abstract and metaphysical form than in countries where liberty was a practical benefit; probably, because at the time it was impossible to have their practical effect experimentally ascertained. As learning, in general, increased, these disquisitions in that metaphysical mode became common in France, but hitherto only among scholars. Their connection with America afterwards disseminated principles of Freedom among the people in general. The enormous expences incurred by her projects of aggrandizement, the profligacy of her court, and the profu sion of her ministers, had thrown the finances of France into the greatest embarrassment. The inferiority of the revenue to the expenditure was such as to announce approaching bankruptcy, unless most speedy means were employed to bring the expence within the income. Calonne advised the calling of the Notables. The Notables found an assembly of the States necessary. Calonne was banished; Neckar was appointed Minister of Finance. Letters were issued for convoking the States-General. The spirit of liberty becoming more fervid from the heat of elections, the action and re-action of opinion, sentiment, and sympathy, the States assembled, It was proposed by Government that they should meet in three different chambers, according to ancient usage. The people apprehended, that if they were in separate bodies, the clergy and nobility might controul the third estate; and as they had resolved, not merely to make financial regulations, but to procure the redress of grievances, they conceived that the two privileged orders, from dependence on the Court, and for 7 the preservation of their own immunities, would unite in over-ruling the popular voice. They therefore insisted that the States-General should consist of one body only, and regulations be established according to the majority of votes. The Court refused-the Third Estate persisted, and met as a National Assembly, inviting the nobles and clergy to join them as individual members. The King ordered them to separate: it was replied, The Nation assembled has no ORDERS to receive. Troops were summoned by the Court to Paris, and surrounded the capital. The people of Paris took the side of the national representatives; the army caught the prevailing feelings, the Bastile was destroyed, and the old government fell. The notion, that a change from an oppressive and corrupt system must be good, was a natural, but not necessarily a wise conclusion. The alteration was or was not a proper subject of rejoicing to the lovers of mankind, according to the probability that the effect would be well regulated liberty, The order, and happiness. Britons in general were delighted with the overthrow of a fabric so contrary to that liberty which they themselves enjoyed. This was a natural and a benevolent pleasure; but as it is pro-foundly remarked in the masterly investigation of Burke's REGICIDE PEACE' in the Monthly Review of November 1796, great danger to a virtuous man arises from the excess of his virtuous propensities themselves. It is his duty to preserve, with the · most religious care, a just balance among all the natural sentiments and moral principles of his character; and to watch with the utmost vigilance the first symptom of any tendency to excess, in any single principle or pas *Every reader must remember the joy that pervaded all ranks in this country on hearing that the Third Estate had carried its point, and even that the Bastile was destroyed. I remember, some weeks before that period, I happened to be at the Little Theatre, when an actor, making some common place observation, from the Trip to Margate, on-the frivolity of the French, made the following addition, yet I do admire them for their present efforts in favour of liberty,' There was a loud clapping, and even huzzaing, from every corner of the house, for near half an hour. |