ness.

by a crowd, who claimed that privilege with importunate eagerUnder Louis XIV. the radiations of learning had not spread beyond the circumference of the higher circles of society, and therefore the others were content to be governed by those whom they considered wiser than themselves: but under his successors, instruction became diffused over a wider sphere, and nourished up to high intelligence many more capacities. Society however, was not so organized as to weld and consolidate the talents of the different classes together, but rather to throw them into opposition, and to endow them with that repelling nature which is observable in the similar poles of a magnet.

From the desire on the one part to maintain, and on the other to break down, those arbitrary distinctions which classed the French nation into two species of men, "des oppresseurs et des opprimés," arose that jealousy and discord which proved so fa tal to the happiness of this country. The hostility of the commons to the privileged classes displayed itself very violently at the elections. A general burst of applause was excited, by even that eloquent address of Mirabeau, in which he declared, that privileges should end and the power of the people be eternal; in which he denounced the aristocrats as the implacable enemies of the nation; and after hinting at himself as the probable victim of their vengeance, because he had belonged to their order, he pointed out the prototype of his future conduct. "Ainsi perit le dernier des Gracques de la main des Patricièns; mais atteint d'un coup mortel il lança de la poussiére vers le ciel en attestant les dieux vengeurs; et de cette poussiére naquit Marius; Marius moins grand pour avoír exterminé les Cimbres que pour avoir abattu dans Rome l'aristocratie de la noblesse."

Travelling was much less common formerly in France than at present, and therefore many members of the States General, in emerging suddenly from distant provinces, where they had lived familiar with scenes of distress and wretchedness, beheld, for the first time, the splendours of Versailles, and are said to have been offended by the contrast between the gorgeous pomp of the court and the penury of the nation. Nor do I think this at all extraordinary-for after spending a day in walking through the splendid apartments of these sumptuous palaces, and over the artificial hills and vallies of their magnificent gardens, I remem

ber the impression they made on me, and the observation of an American gentleman who accompanied me-"It is time for me to return;" said he, "I left home a very rational republicanthese scenes have almost made me a democrat, and a few more might make me a jacobin." Now, in America, where there are no objects of beggary, or in England, where every thing breathes of opulence, scenes of this kind would be less striking than in France, where even yet the villages look like the filthy abodes of misery. Among the French peasantry, the first effect of competence has been to add to the internal comforts of their rooms; cleanliness and external embellishments have been, as yet, but little attended to, and, therefore, the appearance of the houses does not often correspond with the interior decorations.

At length, after many difficulties and delays, the States General met on the 5th of May, 1789. Never was national expectation more highly excited than on this occasion. It was a day of rejoicing and promise, on which hope stood on tiptoe in every mind. The sentiments of the public may be judged of, from the extraordinary unanimity of opinion which prevailed among the six hundred delegates of the Tiers Etat. They seem each to have gone to Versailles, with a resolution to assert their rights and to maintain them-to remember "que les prières du peuple sont des ordres-que ses doleances sont des loix.'* I do not mean to say, that they met with the frenzied spirit of reform, which afterwards animated them, and which brought down the revolution like "the thundering lauwine" on France, but only that they assembled with the intention of achieving, if possible, a change in their constitution of government. The king perceived this, and observed to the assembly, that a general inquietude and rage for innovation had seized upon every mind; and yet the privileged orders had not sagacity enough to perceive that it would be wise to yield to day, that which would infallibly be torn from them to-morrow. When experienced seamen see a storm coming up, they slacken sail, brace up their yards, and lay the ship too, in order to drift with it. Nothing but folly or madness could suggest the hoisting of top-gallant sails and sky-sails under such circumstances. Yet this seems to have been the conduct of the French no

* Discours de Boissy d'Anglas.

bles and clergy; for instead of a timely surrender of their feudal privileges they coalesced and conspired to preserve them, and to acquire political power also. These orders consisted, at that time, of about sixty thousand nobles, and one hundred thousand privileged persons*-of about two hundred thousand priestsand of sixty thousand monks, who had, it is true, renounced the temptations of the flesh and the world, but still meddled in its concerns. In this coalition to keep things as they were, may also be included a large class of government pensioners and office holders, who, living on the offal of the state, were the natural friends of that prodigality from which they derived their licences of peculation. This powerful combination could only be opposed successfully by the body of the nation. Hence, the most virtuous and enlightened men were driven into an offensive and defensive alliance with those, whom ignorance had debased, and oppression corrupted. This connexion, which nothing but the obdurate folly of the higher orders and the necessities of the times could have created, was in itself so unnatural and discordant, that great evil as well as great good must have grown out of it. Many of the nobility and clergy, however, deserve to be distinguished out of this general censure, for they displayed the noblest generosity and patriotism. But the majority acted with strange infatuation, in first exasperating the Commons by proud pretensions, and then driving them to madness by an obstinate adherence to their privileges. Nothing but the inveterate hostility of the cabal about the court against all reformation, could have induced the National Assembly to lay hold, like Sampson, on the pillars of the temple which sheltered their enemies, and to tumble it about their heads, even though they themselves might perish under its ruins.

*Precis de la Revolution.

LETTER VII.

Paris, March 2d, 1820.

MY DEAR SIR,

To the bright and brilliant Aurora of '89, succeeded a cloudy morning and the thunders of a stormy day. The sun of liberty made violent emissions of his rays it is true, but the clouds of folly continued to boil up from every side of the horizon till the year of '93, when they closed in, in such heavy masses as to shut out his light entirely from France, and to cover this land for a time with the darkness of despotism and the horrors of anarchy. It is not my intention, however, at present, to lead you through all the windings of the labyrinth of error in which the parties of the revolution lost themselves, and for the want of the illumination of virtue and experience, mistook the slaughter house of faction for the temple of liberty. I only wish to shew you that the lights which led them into these entanglements were not the stars of freedom, but those meteoric illusions which rise from the fenny grounds of despotism and float about in the atmosphere of ignorance.

One of the most melancholy consequences of the French revolution in Europe, is the disposition of mind it has left to mistake impatience under oppression for a love of insubordination. No nation can now ask a redress of grievances, or such a change of its institutions as might place them in harmony with its advance in civilization without having all the horrors of the French revolution called up by its rulers to frighten it into contentment. The ruin of church and state-the desolation of the countrythe massacre of its inhabitants, and a final submission to a military despot, are represented as the necessary consequences of any popular attempt to acquire freedom. The diffusion of vice and misery created by governments which foster ignorance is no longer remembered; the sufferings of thousands whose very sighs

are suppressed by legitimate monarchs, are disbelieved; and the bloody proscriptions of tyrants, the very recording of which is prevented by despotism, are forgotten; or if perchance any of them should have escaped from oblivion, they are recalled with the most forgiving charity as the crimes of accident. But if any factious maniacs, in the mistaken pursuit of liberty, commit an atrocity, it is invested with every gratuitous horror the imagination can invent, and emblazoned to the world as the necessary consequence of the spirit of liberty; as if in fact this spirit were any more responsible for the crimes committed in its name, than water is for the convulsions it brings on in the hydrophobia.

The characters of men are determined by education, and although they may best discover themselves in the sudden knowledge of a prosperous accident, they can never be imagined to be created by it. In the like manner, the character of a nation is formed by time and circumstances; so that if on a sudden emancipation it should become intoxicated, and fall into a delirium, and commit many follies in mistaking the abuse of its faculties for the use of them, it is not emancipation but restriction that produces this evil. Hence the criminal violence of a suddenly liberated people is generally in proportion to the excess of the oppression under which they have lived. Nature, for example, had done every thing to render France prosperous and happy, but absurd institutions had contraried her intentions, and destroyed the excellence of her gifts: so that to no nation could Sully's observation be more justly applied-"Ce n'est jamais par envie d'attaquer que le peuple se souleve mais par impatience de souffrir." When they broke their chains, therefore, they wantoned in excess of folly. The rebellion in England was less bloody than the revolution in France, principally because the government that brought it on had been less arbitrary. Under its more benign influence, a sense of justice had grown up among the people-the nobility, instead of being a class separate and distinct from the nation, had been blended with it through the younger branches of their families, and the reformation had infused into the public mind something of the spirit of toleration, along with a zeal for religion.

The men who brought about the Revolution in England were the children of the Rebellion; they had imbibed many of its best