Necker stated to the
National
Assembly the protaken to refute the scandalous exaggerations relative to some of the
royal expenses, and to detect the fallacious account given of pensions,
for the wicked purpose of provoking the populace to all sorts of
crimes.
royal expenses, and to detect the fallacious account given of pensions,
for the wicked purpose of provoking the populace to all sorts of
crimes.
Edmund Burke
Nothing can reconcile men to their proceedings and projects but the supposition that there
is no third option between them and some tyranny as
odious as can be furnished by the records of history
or by the invention of poets. This prattling of theirs
hardly deserves the name of sophistry. It is nothing
but plain impudence. Have these gentlemen never
heard, in the whole circle of the worlds of theory and
practice, of anything between the despotism of the
monarch and the despotism of the multitude? Have
they never heard of a monarchy directed by laws,
controlled and balanced by the great hereditary
wealth and hereditary dignity of a nation, and both
again controlled by a judicious check from the reason and feeling of the people at large, acting by a suitable and permanent organ? Is it, then, impossi
? ? ? ? 396 REFLECTIONS ON THE
ble that a man may be found who, without criminal
ill intention or pitiable absurdity, shall prefer such a
mixed and tempered government to either of the extremes, - and who may repute that nation to be destitute of all wisdom and of all virtue, which, having in its choice to obtain such a government with ease,
or rather to confirm it when actually possessed, thought
proper to commit a thousand crimes, and to subject
their country to a thousand evils, in order to avoid
it? Is it, then, a truth so universally acknowledged,
that a pure democracy is the only tolerable form into
which human society can be thrown, that a man is
not permitted to hesitate about its merits, without
the suspicion of being a friend to tyranny, that is, of
being a foe to mankind?
I do not know under what description to class the
present ruling authority in France. It affects to be
a pure democracy, though I think it in a direct train
of becoming shortly a mischievous and ignoble oligarchy. But for the present I admit it to be a contrivance of the nature and effect of what it pretends
to. I reprobate no form of government merely upon
abstract principles. There may be situations in which
the purely democratic form will become necessary.
There may be some (very few, and very particularly.
circumstanced) where it would be clearly desirable.
This I do not take to be the case of France, or of
any other great country. Until now, we have seen
no examples of considerable democracies. The ancients were better acquainted with them. Not being
wholly unread in the authors who had seen the most
of those constitutions, and who best understood them,
I cannot help concurring with their opinion, that an
absolute democracy no more than absolute monarchy
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 397
is to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government. They think it rather the corruption and
degeneracy than the sound constitution of a republic.
If I recollect rightly, Aristotle observes, that a democracy has many striking points of resemblance
with a tyranny. * Of this I am certain, that in a
democracy the majority of the citizens is capable of
exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority, whenever strong divisions prevail in that kind of
polity, as they often must, - and that oppression of
the minority will extend to far greater numbers, and
will be carried on with much greater fury, than can
almost ever be apprehended from the dominion of a
single sceptre. In such a popular persecution, individual sufferers are in a much more deplorable colndition than in any other. Under a cruel prince they have the balmy compassion of mankind to assuage
the smart of their wounds, they have the plaudits of
the people to animate their generous constancy under
their sufferings: but those who are subjected to wrong
under multitudes are deprived of all external conso* When I wrote this I quoted from memory, after many years had
elapsed from my reading the passage. A learned friend has found it,
and it is as follows: --
Tb hOoS T'b abTb, iKal a4ow &o'To-LKa 7WV CSehTL6vov, KIal T&a fbl7CjCaTaTL Julrep EKeZ
T& eTrLrTLygaTa, Kal 0 81i. layVyog Katl 0 K6AaX o a VTro KaL avahoyov- KaeL /dhLarra
eKacTepOL trap' ecaTEpotVL loXyovC'V, ot p. e'v K6haKeS 7rap& Tvp&vvoLt, o;L oe t7qLaycoyoL
7rapa ToLS SThOLr T04 TOLOVrOiL.
" The ethical character is the same: both exercise despotism over
the better class of citizens; and decrees are in the one what ordinances and arrets are in the other: the demagogue, too, and the court
favorite, are not unfrequently the same identical men, and always
bear a close analogy; and these have the principal power, each in
their respective forms of government, favorites with the absolute monarch, and demagogues with a people such as I have described. " --
Arist. Politic. lib. iv. cap. 4.
? ? ? ? 398 REFLECTIONS ON THE
lation; they seem deserted by mankind, overpowered by a conspiracy of their whole species.
But admitting democracy not to have that inevitable tendency to party tyranny which I suppose it to have, and admitting it to possess as much good in it
when unmixed as I am sure it possesses when compounded with other forms; does monarchy, on its part, contain nothing at all to recommend it? I do
not often quote Bolingbroke, nor have his works in
general left any permanent impression on my mind.
He is a presumptuous and a superficial writer. But
he has one observation which in my opinion is not
without depth and solidity. He says that he prefers
a monarchy to other governments, because you can
better ingraft any description of republic on a monarchy than anything of monarchy upon the republican forms. I think him perfectly in the right. The fact
is so historically, and it agrees well with the speculation.
I know how easy a topic it is to dwell on the faults
of departed greatness. By a revolution in the state,
the fawning sycophant of yesterday is converted into
the austere critic of the present hour. But steady,
independent minds, when they have an object of so
serious a concern to mankind as government under
their contemplation, will disdain to assume the part
of satirists and declaimers. They will judge of human institutions as they do of human characters.
They will sort out the good from the evil, which
is mixed in mortal institutions as it is in mortal
men. 'Your government in France, though usually, and
I think justly, reputed the best of the unqualified
or ill-qualified monarchies, was-still full of abuses.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 399
These abuses accumulated in a length of time, as
they must accumulate in every monarchy not under
the constant inspection of a popular representative.
I am no stranger to the faults and defects of the
subverted government of France; and I think I am
not inclined by nature or policy to make a panegyric
upon anything which is a just and natural object of
censure. But the question is not now of the vices
of that monarchy, but of its existence. Is it, then,
true, that the French government was such as to
be incapable or undeserving of reform, so that it
was of absolute necessity the whole fabric should be
at once pulled down, and the area cleared for the
erection of a theoretic, experimental edifice in its
place? All France was of a different opinion in the
beginning of the year 1789. The instructions to the
representatives to the States-General, from every district in that kingdom, were filled with projects for the reformation of that government, without the remotest suggestion of a design to destroy it. i Had such a design been then even insinuated, I-'`elieve
there would have been but one voice, and that voice
for rejecting it with scorn and horror. Men have
been sometimes led by degrees, sometimes hurried,
into things of which, if they could have seen the
whole together, they never would have permitted
the most remote approach. When those instructions
were given, there was no question but that abuses
existed, and that they demanded a reform: nor is
there now. In the interval between the instructions
and the Revolution things changed their shape; and.
in consequence of that change, the true question at
present is, whether those who would have reformed
or those who have destroyed are in the right.
? ? ? ? 400 REFLECTIONS ON THE
To hear some men speak of the late monarchy of
France, you would imagine that they were talking
of Persia bleeding under the ferocious sword of Thamas Kouli Khan, - or at least describing the barbarous anarchic despotism of Turkey, where the finest countries in the most genial climates in the world
are wasted by peace more than any countries have
been worried by war, where arts are unknown,
where manufactures languish, where science is extinguished, where agriculture decays, where the human race itself melts away and perishes under the eye of the observer. Was this the case of France?
I have no way of determining. the question but by a
reference to facts. Facts do not support this resemblance. Along with much evil, there is some good
in monarchy itself; and some corrective to its evil
from religion, from laws, from manners, from opinions, the French monarchy must have received,
which renered-{F(tTloughh-iy no means a free, and
therefore by no means a good constitution) a despotism rather in appearance than in reality
Amiong the standards upon which the effects of
government on any country are to be estimated, I
must consider the state of its population as not the
least certain. No country in which population flourishes, and is in progressive improvement, can be under a very mischievous government. About sixty years ago, the Intendants of the Generalities of France
made, with other matters, a report of the population
of their several districts. I have not the books, which,are very voluminous, by me, nor do I know where to
procure them, (I am obliged to speak by memory,
and therefore the less positively,) but I think the
population of France was by them, even at that pe
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 401
riod, estimated at twenty-two millions of souls. At
the end of the last century it had been generally
calculated at eighteen. On either of these estimations, France was not ill-peopled. M. Necker, who
is an authority for his own time at least equal to the
Intendants for theirs, reckons, and upon apparently
sure principles, the people of France, in the year
1780, at twenty-four millions six hundred and seventy thousand. But was this the probable ultimate term under the old establishment? Dr. Price is of
opinion that the growth of population in France was
by no means at its acme in that year. I certainly
defer to Dr. Price's authority a good deal more inl
these speculations than I do in his general politics. .
This gentleman, taking ground on M. Necker's data,
is very confident that since the period of that minister's calculation the French population has increased rapidly, -- so rapidly, that in the year 1789 he will
not consent to rate the people of that kingdom at
a lower number than thirty millions. After abating
much (and much I think ought to be abated) from
the sanguine calculation of Dr. Price, I have no
doubt that the population of France did increase
considerably during this latter period: but supposing that it increased to nothing more than will be sufficient to complete the twenty-four millions six
hundred and seventy thousand to twenty-five millions, still a population of twenty-five millions, and that in an increasing progress, on a space of about
twenty-seven thousand square leagues, is immense.
It is, for instance, a good deal more than the proportionable population of this island, or even than
that of England, the best peopled part of the United
Kingdom.
VOL. III. 26
? ? ? ? 402 REFLECTIONS ON THE
It is not universally true that France is a fertile
country. Considerable tracts of it are barren, and labor under other natural disadvantages. In the portions of that territory where things are more favorable, as far as I am able to discover, the. numbers of the people correspond to the indulgence of Nature. *
The Generality of Lisle, (this I admit is the strongest
example,) upon an extent of four hundred and four
leagues and a half, about ten years ago contained
seven hundred and thirty-four thousand six hundred
souls, which is one thousand seven hundred and seventy-two inhabitants to each square league. The middle term for the rest of France is about nine hundred
inhabitants to the same admeasurement.
I do not attribute this population to the deposed
government; because I do not like to compliment
the contrivances of men with what is due in a great
degree to the bounty of Providence. But that decried government could not have obstructed, most
probably it favored, tile operation of those causes,
(whatever they were,) whether of Nature in the soil,
or habits of industry among the people, which has
produced so large a number of the species throughout that whole kingdom, and exhibited in some particular places such prodigies of population. I never
will suppose that fabric of a state to be the worst of
all political institutions which by experience is found
to contain a principle favorable (however latent it
may be) to the increase of mankind.
The wealth of a country is another, and no contemptible standard, by which we may judge whether,
on the whole, a government be protecting or destruc* De l'Administration des Finances de la France, par Mons
Necker, Vol. I. p. 288
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 403
tive. France far exceeds England in the multitude
of her people; but I apprehend that her comparative
wealth is much inferior, to ours, --that it is not'so
equal in the distribution, nor so ready in the circulation. I believe the difference in the form of the
two governments to be amongst the causes of this
advantage on the side of England: I speak of England, not of the whole British dominions, --which, if
compared with those of France, will in some degree
weaken the comparative rate of wealth upon our side.
But that wealth, which will not endure a comparison
with the riches of England, may constitute a very
respectable degree of opulence. M. Necker's book,
published in 1785,* contains an accurate and interesting collection of facts relative to public economy
and to political arithmetic; and his speculations on
the subject are in general wise and liberal. In that
work he gives an idea of the state of France, very
remote from the portrait of a country whose government was a perfect grievance, an absolute evil, admitting no cure but through the violent and uncertain remedy of a total revolution. He affirms, that from
the year 1726 to the year 1784 there was coined at
the mint of France, in the species of gold and silver,
to the amount of about one hundred millions of
pounds sterling. t
It is impossible that M. Necker should be mistaken in the amount of the bullion which has been
coined in the mint. It is a matter of official record. The reasonings of this able financier concerning the quantity of gold and silver which remained
for circulation, when he wrote in 1785, that is, about
* De l'Administration des Finances de la France, par M. Necker.
t Vol. III. chap. 8 and chap. 9.
? ? ? ? 404 REFLECTIONS ON THE
four years before the deposition and imprisonment
of the French king, are not of equal certainty; but
they are laid on grounds so apparently solid, that it
is not easy to refuse a considerable degree of assent
to his calculation. He calculates the nume'raire, or
what we call specie, then actually existing in France,
at about eighty-eight millions of the same English
money. A great accumulation of wealth for one
country, large as that country is! M. Necker was
so far from considering this influx of wealth as likely
to cease, when he wrote in 1785, that he presumes
upon a future annual increase of two per cent upon
tihe money brought into France during the periods
firom which he computed.
Some adequate cause must have originally introduced all the money coined at its mint into that kingdom; and some cause as operative must have kept at home, or returned into its bosom, such a vast flood of
treasure as M. Necker calculates to remain for domestic circulation. Suppose any reasonable deductions from M. Necker's computation, the remainder must still amount to an immense sum. Causes thus
powerful to acquire and to retain cannot be found
in discouraged industry, insecure property, and a
positively destructive government. Indeed, when I
consider the face of the kingdom of France, the multitude and opulence of her cities, the useful magnificence of her spacious high-roads and bridges, the opportunity of her artificial canals and navigations
opening the conveniences of maritime communication
through a solid continent of so immense an extent, --
when I turn my eyes to the stupendous works of her
ports and harbors, and to her whole naval apparatus,
whether for war or trade, - when I bring before my
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 405
view the number of her fortifications, constructed
with so bold and masterly a skill, and made and
maintained at so prodigious a charge, presenting an
armed front and impenetrable barrier to her enemies
upon every side, - when I recollect how very small a
part of that extensive region is without cultivation.
and to what complete perfection the culture of many
of the best productions of the earth have been brouglht
in France,- when I reflect on the excellence of her
manufactures and fabrics, second to none but ours,
and in some particulars not second, -- when I contemplate the grand foundations of charity, public and private, - when I survey the state of all the arts that
beautify and polish life, - when I reckon the men
she has bred for extending her fame in war, her able
statesmen, the multitude of her profound lawyers
and theologians, her philosophers, her critics, her
historians and antiquaries, her poets and her orators,
sacred and profane/. -T I behold in all this something
which awes and commands the imagination, which
checks the mind on the brink of precipitate and indiscriminate censure, and which demands that we should very seriously examine what and how great
are the latent vices that could authorize us at once to
level so spacious a fabric with the ground,. I do not
recognize in this view of things the despotism of Turkey. Nor do I discern the character of a government that has been on the whole so oppressive, or so corrupt, or so negligent, as to be utterly unfit for all reformation. I must think such a government well
deserved to have its excellences heightened, its faults
corrected, and its capacities improved into a British
Constitution.
Whoever has examined into the proceedings of that
? ? ? ? 406 REFLECTIONS ON THE
deposed government for several years back cannot
fail to have observed, amidst the inconstancy and
fluctuation natural to courts, an earnest endeavor towards the prosperity and improvement of the country; he must admit that it had long been employed, in some instances wholly to remove, in many considerably to correct, the abusive practices and usages
that had prevailed in the state, - and that even the
unlimited powor of the sovereign over the persons of
his subjects, inconsistent, as undoubtedly it was, with
law and liberty, had yet been every day growing
more mitigated in the exercise. So far from refusing itself to reformation, that government was open,
with a censurable degree of facility, to all sorts of projects and projectors on the subject. Rather too much
countenance was given to the spirit of innovation,
which soon was turned against those who fostered it,
and ended in their ruin. It is but cold, and no very
flattering justice to that fallen monarchy, to say, that,
for many years, it trespassed more by levity and want
of judgment in several of its schemes than from any
defect in diligence or in public spirit. To compare
the government of France for the last fifteen or sixteen years with wise and well-constituted establishments during that, or during any period, is not to act with fairness. But if in point of prodigality in the
expenditure of money, or in point of rigor in the
exercise of power, it be compared with any of the former reigns, I believe candid judges will give little
credit to the good intentions of those who dwell perpetually on the donations to favorites, or on the expenses of the court, or on the horrors of the Bastile, in the reign of Louis the Sixteenth. *
* The world is obliged to M. de Calonne for the pains he has
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 407
Whether the system, if it deserves such a name,
now built on the ruins of that ancient monarchy,
will be able to give a better account of the population
and wealth of the country which it has taken under
its care, is a matter very doubtful. Instead of improving by the change, I apprehend that a long series of years must be told, before it can recover in any degree the effects of this philosophic Revolution,
and before the nation can be replaced on its former
footing. If Dr. Price should think fit, a few years
hence, to favor us with an estimate of the population
of France, he will hardly be able to make up his tale
of thirty millions of souls, as computed in 1789, or
the Assembly's computation of twenty-six millions of
that year, or even M. Necker's twenty-five millions
in 1780. I hear that there are considerable emigrations from France, - and that many, quitting that
voluptuous climate, and that seductive Circean liberty, have taken refuge in the frozen regions and
under the British despotism of Canada.
In the present disappearance of coin, no person
could think it the same country in which the present minister of the finances has been able to discover
fourscore millions sterling in specie. From its general aspect one would conclude that it had been for
some time past under the special direction of the
learned academicians of Laputa and Balnibarbi. *
Already the population of Paris has so declined, that
M.
Necker stated to the National Assembly the protaken to refute the scandalous exaggerations relative to some of the
royal expenses, and to detect the fallacious account given of pensions,
for the wicked purpose of provoking the populace to all sorts of
crimes.
* See Gulliver's Travels for the idea of countries governed by
philosophers.
? ? ? ? 408 REFLECTIONS ON THE
vision to be made for its subsistence at a fifth less
than what had formerly been found requisite. * It is
said (and I have never heard it contradicted) that a,
hundred thousand people are out of employment in
that city, though it is become the seat of the imprisoned court and National Assembly. Nothing, I am
credibly informed, can exceed the shocking and disgusting spectacle of mendicancy displayed in that capital. Indeed, the votes of the National Assembly leave no doubt of the fact. They have lately appointed a
standing committee of mendicancy. They are contriving at once a vigorous police on this subject, and,
for the first time, the imposition of a tax to maintain
the poor, for whose present relief great sums appear
on the face of the public accounts of the year. t In
the mean time the leaders of the legislative clubs and
coffee-houses are intoxicated with admiration at their
own wisdom and ability. They speak with the most
sovereign contempt of the rest of the world. They
tell the people, to comfort them in the rags with
which they have clothed them. that they are a nation
of philosophers; and sometimes, by all the arts of
* M. de Calonne states the falling off of the population of Paris
as far more considerable; and it may be so, since the period of M.
Necker's calculation.
t Travaux de charite pour subvenir au manque de travail k Livres. ~
Paris et dans les provinces. 3,866,920 161,121 13 4
Destruction de vagabondage et de la
mendicite. . 1,671,417 69,642 7 6
Primes pour l'importation de grains 5,671,907 236,329 9 2
Depenses relatives aux subsistances,
deduction fait des recouvrements
qui ont eu lieu. . . . 39,871,790 1,661,324 11 8
Total. . . . 51,082,034 2,128,418 1 8
When I sent this book to the press, I entertained some doubt con
? s. d
? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 409
quackish parade, by show, tumult, and bustle, sometimes by the alarms of plots and invasions, they attempt to drown the cries of indigence, and to divert
the eyes of the observer from the ruin and wretchedness of the state. A brave people will certainly prefer liberty accompanied with a virtuous poverty to
a depraved and wealthy servitude. But before the
price of comfort and opulence is paid, one ought to
be pretty sure it is real liberty which is purchased,
and that she is to be purchased at no other price. I
shall always, however, consider that liberty as very
equivocal in her appearance, which has not wisdom
and justice for her companions, and does not lead
prosperity and plenty in her train.
The advocates for this Revolution, not satisfied
with exaggerating the vices of their ancient government, strike at the fame of their country itself, by
painting almost all that could have attracted the attention of strangers, I mean their nobility and their
clergy, as objects of horror. If this were only a libel,
there had not been much in it. But it has practical
consequences. Had your nobility and gentry, who
cerning the nature and extent of the last article in the above accounts,
which is only under a general head, without any detail. Since then I
have seen M. de Calonne's work. I must think it a great loss to me
that I had not that advantage earlier. M. de Calonne thinks this article to be on account of general subsistence; but as he is not able to comprehend how so great a loss as upwards of 1,661,0001. sterling could be sustained on the difference between the price and the sale of grain,
he seems to attribute this enormous head of charge to secret expenses
of the Revolution. I cannot say anything positively on that subject. The reader is capable of judging, by the aggregate of these
immense charges, on the state and condition of France, and the system of public economy adopted in that nation. These articles of
account produced no inquiry or discussion in the National Assem.
bly.
? ? ? ? 410 REFLECTIONS ON THE
formed the great body of your landed men and the
whole of your military officers, resembled those of
Germany, at the period when the Hanse towns were
necessitated to confederate against the nobles in defence of their property, - had they been like the Orsini and Vitelli in Italy, who used to sally from their
fortified dens to rob the trader and traveller, -had
they been such as the Mamelukes in Egypt, or the
Nayres on the coast of Malabar, -I do admit that
too critical an inquiry might not be advisable into
the means of freeing the world from such a nuisance.
The statues of Equity and Mercy might be veiled
for a moment. The tenderest minds, confounded
with the dreadful exigence in which morality submits to the suspension of its own rules in favor of its
own principles, might turn aside whilst fraud and violence were accomplishing the destruction of a pretended nobility, which disgraced, whilst it persecuted, human nature. The persons most abhorrent from blood and treason and arbitrary confiscation might
remain silent spectators of this civil war between the
vices.
But did the privileged nobility who met under the
king's precept at Versailles in 1789, or their constituents, deserve to be looked on as the Nayres or
Mamelukes of this age, or as the Orsini and Vitelli of
ancient times? If I had then asked the question, I
should have passed for a madman. What have they
since done, that they were to be driven into exile,
that their persons should be hunted about, mangled,
and tortured, their families dispersed, their houses
laid in ashes, and that their order should be abolished, and the memory of it, if possible, extinguished,
by ordaining them to change the very names by
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 411
which they were usually known? Read their instructions to their representatives. They breathe
the spirit of liberty as warmly, and they recommend
reformation as strongly, as any other order. Their
privileges relative to contribution were voluntarily
surrendered; as the king, from the beginning, surrendered all pretence to a right of taxation. Upon a free constitution there was but one opinion in
France. The absolute monarchy was at an end. It
breathed its last without a groan, without struggle,
without convulsion. All the struggle, all the dissension, arose afterwards, upon the preference of a. despotic democracy to a government of reciprocal control. The triumph of the victorious party was over the principles of a British Constitution.
I have observed the affectation which for many
years past has prevailed in Paris, even to a degree
perfectly childish, of idolizing the memory of your
Henry the Fourth. If anything could put any one
out of humor with that ornament to the kingly character, it would be this overdone style of insidious panegyric. The persons who have worked this engine
the most busily are those who have ended their panegyrics in dethroning his successor and descendant:
a man as good-natured, at the least, as Henry the
Fourth; altogether as fond of his people; and who
has done infinitely more to correct the ancient vices
of the state than that great monarch did, or we are
sure he ever meant to do. Well it is for his panegyrists
that they have not him to deal with! For Henry of
Navarre was a resolute, active, and politic prince. He
possessed, indeed, great humanity and mildness, but an
humanity and mildness that never stood in the way
of his interests. He never sought to be loved with
? ? ? ? 412 REFLECTIONS ON THE
out putting himself first in a condition to be feared.
He used soft language with determined conduct. He
asserted and maintained his authority in the gross,
and distributed his acts of concession only in the detail. Ho spent the income of his prerogative nobly, but he took care not to break in upon the capital,never abandoning for a moment any of the claims which he made under the fundamental laws, nor
sparing to shed the blood of those who opposed him,
often in the field, sometimes upon the scaffold. Because he knew how to make his virtues respected by the ungrateful, he has merited the praises of those
whom, if they had lived in his time, he would have
shut up in the Bastile, and brought to punishment
along with the regicides whom he hanged after he
had famished Paris into a surrender.
If these panegyrists are in earnest in their admiration of Henry the Fourth, they must remember that they cannot think more highly of him than he did of
the noblesse of France, - whose virtue, honor, courage, patriotism, and loyalty were his constant theme. But the nobility of France are degenerated since the
days of Henry the Fourth. - This is possible; but it
is more than I can believe to be true in any great degree. I do not pretend to know France as correctly as some others; but I have endeavored through my
whole life to make myself acquainted with human
nature, --otherwise I should be unfit to take even my
humble part in the service of mankind. In that study
I could not pass by a vast portion of our nature as
it appeared modified in a country but twenty-four
miles from the shore of this island. On my best observation, compared with my best inquiries, I found your nobility for the greater part composed of men
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 413
of a high spirit, and of a delicate sense of honor, both
with regard to themselves individually, and with regard to their whole corps, over whom they kept, beyond what is common in other countries, a censorial eye. They were tolerably well bred; very officious,
humane, and hospitable; in their conversation frank
and open; with a good military tone; and reasonably
tinctured with literature, particularly of the authors
in their own language. Many had pretensions far
above this description. I speak of those who were
generally met with.
As to their behavior to the inferior classes, they
appeared to me to comport themselves towards them
with good-nature, and with something more nearly approaching to familiarity than is generally practised with us in the intercourse between the higher and lower ranks of life. To strike any person, even
in the most abject condition, was a thing in a manner
unknown, and would be highly disgraceful. Instances of other ill-treatment of the humble part of the
community were rare; and as to attacks made upon
the property or the personal liberty of the commons,
I never heard of any whatsoever from them, -nor,
whilst the laws were in vigor under the ancient government, would such tyranny in subjects have beer
permitted. As men of landed estates, I had no fault
to find with their conduct, though much to reprei
hend, and much to wish changed, in many of th6
old tenures. Where the letting of their land was
by rent, I could not discover that their agreements\
with their farmers were oppressive; nor when they
were in partnership with the farmer, as often was
the case, have I heard that they had taken the
lion's share. The proportions seemed not inequi
? ? ? ? 414 REFLECTIONS ON THE
table. There might be exceptions; but certainly
they were exceptions only. I have no reason to believe that in these respects the landed no'Lase. of
France were worse than the landed gentrTg~his_
country. - certainly in no respect more vexatious
than the landholders, not noble, of their own nation.
In cities the nobility had no manner of power; in the
country very little. You know, Sir, that much of
the civil government, and the police in the most essential parts, was not in the hands of that nobility
which presents itself first to our consideration. The
revenue, the system and collection of which were the
most grievous parts of the French government, was
not administered by the men of the sword; nor were
they answerable for the vices of its principle, or the
vexations, where any such existed, in its management.
Denying, as I am well warranted to do, that the
nobility had any considerable share in the oppression
of the people, in cases in which real oppression existed, I am ready to admit that they were not without
considerable faults and errors. A foolish imitation
of the worst part of the manners of England, which
impaired their natural character, without substituting
in its place what perhaps they meant to copy, has certainly rendered them worse than formerly they were.
Habitual dissoluteness of manners, continued beyond
the pardonable period of life, was more common
amongst them than it is with us; and it reigned with
the less hope of remedy, though possibly with something of less mischief, by being covered with more exterior decorum. Thev countenanced too much that licentious philosophy which has helped to bring on
their ruin. There was another error amongst them
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 415
more fatal. Those of the commons who approached
to or exceeded many of the nobility in point of wealth
were not fully admitted to the rank and estimation
which wealth, in reason and good policy, ought to bestow in every country, - though I think not equally
with that of other nobility. The two kinds of aristocracy were too punctiliously kept asunder: less so,
however, than in Germany and some other nations.
This separation, as I have already taken the liberty
of suggesting to you, I conceive to be one principal
cause of the destruction of the old nobility. The
military, particularly, was too exclusively reserved
for men of family. But, after all, this was an error
of opinion, which a conflicting opinion would have
rectified. A permanent Assembly, in which the commons had their share of power, would soon abolish
whatever was too invidious and insulting in these
distinctions; and even the faults in the morals of
the nobility would have been probably corrected, by
the greater varieties of occupation and pursuit to
which a constitution by orders would have given
rise.
All this violent cry against the nobility I take to be
a mere work of art. To be honored and even privileged by the laws, opinions, and inveterate usages of
our country, growing out of the prejudice of ages, has
nothing to provoke horror and indignation in any man.
Even to be too tenacious of those privileges is not absolutely a crime. The strong struggle in every individual to preserve possession of what he has found to belong to him, and to distinguish him, is one of the
securities against injustice and despotism implanted
in our nature. It operates as an instinct to secure
property, and to preserve communities in a settled
? ? ? ? 416 REFLECTIONS ON THE
state. What is there to shock in this? Nobility is a
graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society. " Omnes boni nobilitati semper favemus," was the saying of a wise and good man. It is, indeed, one sign of a liberal and
benevolent mind to incline to it with some sort of
partial propensity. He feels no ennobling principle
in his own heart, who wishes to level all the artificial
institutions which have been adopted for giving a body
to opinion and permanence to fugitive esteem. It is
a sour, malignant, envious disposition, without taste
for the reality, or for any image or representation of
virtue, that sees with joy the unmerited fall of what
had long flourished in splendor and in honor. I do
not like to see anything destroyed, any void produced in society, any ruin on the face of the land.
It was therefore with no disappointment or dissatisfaction that my inquiries and observations did not
present to me any incorrigible vices in the noblesse
of France, or any abuse which could not be removed
by a reform very short of abolition. Your noblesse
did not deserve punishment; but to degrade is to
punish.
It was with the same satisfaction I found that the
result of my inquiry concerning your clergy was not
dissimilar. It is no soothing news to my ears, that
great bodies of men are incurably corrupt. It is not
with much credulity I listen to any, when they speak
evil of those whom they are going to plunder. I
rather suspect that vices are feigned or exaggerated,
when profit is looked for in their punishment. An
enemy is a bad witness; a robber is a worse. Vices
and abuses there were undoubtedly in that order,
and must be. It wias an old establishment, and not
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 417
frequently revised. But I saw no crimes in the individuals that merited confiscation of their substance,
nor those cruel insults and degradations, and that
unnatural persecution, which have been substituted
in the place of meliorating regulation.
If there had been any just cause for this new religious persecution, the atheistic libellers, who act as
trumpeters to animate the populace to plunder, do
not love anybody so much as not to dwell with- complacence on the vices of the existing clergy. This
they have not done. They find themselves obliged
to rake into the histories of former ages (which they
have ransacked with a malignant and profligate industry) for every instance of oppression and persecution which has been made by that body or in its favor, in order to justify, upon very iniquitous because very
illogical principles of retaliation, their own persecu --
tions and their own cruelties. After destroying all,
other genealogies and family distinctions, they invent
a sort of pedigree of crimes. It is not very just to
chastise men for the offences of their natural ancestors; but to take the fiction of ancestry in a corporate
succession, as a ground for punishing men who have
no relation to guilty acts, except in names and general descriptions, is a sort of refinement in injustice
belonging to the philosophy of this enlightened age.
The Assembly punishes men, many, if not most, of
whom abhor the violent conduct of ecclesiastics in
former times as much as their present persecutors
can do, and who would be as loud and as strong in
the expression of that sense, if they were not well
aware of the purposes for which all this declamation
is employed.
Corporate bodies are immortal for the good of the
VOL. III. 27
? ? ? ? 418 REFLECTIONS ON THE
members, but not for their punishment. Nations
themselves are such corporations. As well might we
in England think of waging inexpiable war upon all
Frenchmen for the evils which they have brought
upon us in the several periods of our mutual hostilities. You might, on your part, think yourselves justified ill falling upon all Englishmen on account of the unparalleled calamities brought upon the people
of France by the unjust invasions of our Henrys and
our Edwards. Indeed, we should be mutually justified in this exterminatory war upon each other, full
as much as you are in the unprovoked persecution of
your present countrymen, on account of the conduct
of men of the same name in other times.
We do not draw the moral lessons we might from
history. Oin the contrary, without care it may be
used to vitiate our minds and to destroy our happiness. In history a great volume is unrolled for our
instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom
from the past errors and infirmities of mankind. It
may, in the perversion, serve for a' magazine, furnishing offensive and defensive weapons for parties in
Church and State, and supplying the means of keeping alive or reviving dissensions and animosities, and
adding fuel to civil fury. History consists, for the
greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world
by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition,
hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetites, which shake the public with the same
"troublous storms that toss
The private state, and render life unsweet. "
These vices are the causes of those storms. Religion,
morals, laws, prerogatives, privileges, liberties, rights
of men, are the pretexts. The pretexts are always
? ? ? ?
is no third option between them and some tyranny as
odious as can be furnished by the records of history
or by the invention of poets. This prattling of theirs
hardly deserves the name of sophistry. It is nothing
but plain impudence. Have these gentlemen never
heard, in the whole circle of the worlds of theory and
practice, of anything between the despotism of the
monarch and the despotism of the multitude? Have
they never heard of a monarchy directed by laws,
controlled and balanced by the great hereditary
wealth and hereditary dignity of a nation, and both
again controlled by a judicious check from the reason and feeling of the people at large, acting by a suitable and permanent organ? Is it, then, impossi
? ? ? ? 396 REFLECTIONS ON THE
ble that a man may be found who, without criminal
ill intention or pitiable absurdity, shall prefer such a
mixed and tempered government to either of the extremes, - and who may repute that nation to be destitute of all wisdom and of all virtue, which, having in its choice to obtain such a government with ease,
or rather to confirm it when actually possessed, thought
proper to commit a thousand crimes, and to subject
their country to a thousand evils, in order to avoid
it? Is it, then, a truth so universally acknowledged,
that a pure democracy is the only tolerable form into
which human society can be thrown, that a man is
not permitted to hesitate about its merits, without
the suspicion of being a friend to tyranny, that is, of
being a foe to mankind?
I do not know under what description to class the
present ruling authority in France. It affects to be
a pure democracy, though I think it in a direct train
of becoming shortly a mischievous and ignoble oligarchy. But for the present I admit it to be a contrivance of the nature and effect of what it pretends
to. I reprobate no form of government merely upon
abstract principles. There may be situations in which
the purely democratic form will become necessary.
There may be some (very few, and very particularly.
circumstanced) where it would be clearly desirable.
This I do not take to be the case of France, or of
any other great country. Until now, we have seen
no examples of considerable democracies. The ancients were better acquainted with them. Not being
wholly unread in the authors who had seen the most
of those constitutions, and who best understood them,
I cannot help concurring with their opinion, that an
absolute democracy no more than absolute monarchy
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 397
is to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government. They think it rather the corruption and
degeneracy than the sound constitution of a republic.
If I recollect rightly, Aristotle observes, that a democracy has many striking points of resemblance
with a tyranny. * Of this I am certain, that in a
democracy the majority of the citizens is capable of
exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority, whenever strong divisions prevail in that kind of
polity, as they often must, - and that oppression of
the minority will extend to far greater numbers, and
will be carried on with much greater fury, than can
almost ever be apprehended from the dominion of a
single sceptre. In such a popular persecution, individual sufferers are in a much more deplorable colndition than in any other. Under a cruel prince they have the balmy compassion of mankind to assuage
the smart of their wounds, they have the plaudits of
the people to animate their generous constancy under
their sufferings: but those who are subjected to wrong
under multitudes are deprived of all external conso* When I wrote this I quoted from memory, after many years had
elapsed from my reading the passage. A learned friend has found it,
and it is as follows: --
Tb hOoS T'b abTb, iKal a4ow &o'To-LKa 7WV CSehTL6vov, KIal T&a fbl7CjCaTaTL Julrep EKeZ
T& eTrLrTLygaTa, Kal 0 81i. layVyog Katl 0 K6AaX o a VTro KaL avahoyov- KaeL /dhLarra
eKacTepOL trap' ecaTEpotVL loXyovC'V, ot p. e'v K6haKeS 7rap& Tvp&vvoLt, o;L oe t7qLaycoyoL
7rapa ToLS SThOLr T04 TOLOVrOiL.
" The ethical character is the same: both exercise despotism over
the better class of citizens; and decrees are in the one what ordinances and arrets are in the other: the demagogue, too, and the court
favorite, are not unfrequently the same identical men, and always
bear a close analogy; and these have the principal power, each in
their respective forms of government, favorites with the absolute monarch, and demagogues with a people such as I have described. " --
Arist. Politic. lib. iv. cap. 4.
? ? ? ? 398 REFLECTIONS ON THE
lation; they seem deserted by mankind, overpowered by a conspiracy of their whole species.
But admitting democracy not to have that inevitable tendency to party tyranny which I suppose it to have, and admitting it to possess as much good in it
when unmixed as I am sure it possesses when compounded with other forms; does monarchy, on its part, contain nothing at all to recommend it? I do
not often quote Bolingbroke, nor have his works in
general left any permanent impression on my mind.
He is a presumptuous and a superficial writer. But
he has one observation which in my opinion is not
without depth and solidity. He says that he prefers
a monarchy to other governments, because you can
better ingraft any description of republic on a monarchy than anything of monarchy upon the republican forms. I think him perfectly in the right. The fact
is so historically, and it agrees well with the speculation.
I know how easy a topic it is to dwell on the faults
of departed greatness. By a revolution in the state,
the fawning sycophant of yesterday is converted into
the austere critic of the present hour. But steady,
independent minds, when they have an object of so
serious a concern to mankind as government under
their contemplation, will disdain to assume the part
of satirists and declaimers. They will judge of human institutions as they do of human characters.
They will sort out the good from the evil, which
is mixed in mortal institutions as it is in mortal
men. 'Your government in France, though usually, and
I think justly, reputed the best of the unqualified
or ill-qualified monarchies, was-still full of abuses.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 399
These abuses accumulated in a length of time, as
they must accumulate in every monarchy not under
the constant inspection of a popular representative.
I am no stranger to the faults and defects of the
subverted government of France; and I think I am
not inclined by nature or policy to make a panegyric
upon anything which is a just and natural object of
censure. But the question is not now of the vices
of that monarchy, but of its existence. Is it, then,
true, that the French government was such as to
be incapable or undeserving of reform, so that it
was of absolute necessity the whole fabric should be
at once pulled down, and the area cleared for the
erection of a theoretic, experimental edifice in its
place? All France was of a different opinion in the
beginning of the year 1789. The instructions to the
representatives to the States-General, from every district in that kingdom, were filled with projects for the reformation of that government, without the remotest suggestion of a design to destroy it. i Had such a design been then even insinuated, I-'`elieve
there would have been but one voice, and that voice
for rejecting it with scorn and horror. Men have
been sometimes led by degrees, sometimes hurried,
into things of which, if they could have seen the
whole together, they never would have permitted
the most remote approach. When those instructions
were given, there was no question but that abuses
existed, and that they demanded a reform: nor is
there now. In the interval between the instructions
and the Revolution things changed their shape; and.
in consequence of that change, the true question at
present is, whether those who would have reformed
or those who have destroyed are in the right.
? ? ? ? 400 REFLECTIONS ON THE
To hear some men speak of the late monarchy of
France, you would imagine that they were talking
of Persia bleeding under the ferocious sword of Thamas Kouli Khan, - or at least describing the barbarous anarchic despotism of Turkey, where the finest countries in the most genial climates in the world
are wasted by peace more than any countries have
been worried by war, where arts are unknown,
where manufactures languish, where science is extinguished, where agriculture decays, where the human race itself melts away and perishes under the eye of the observer. Was this the case of France?
I have no way of determining. the question but by a
reference to facts. Facts do not support this resemblance. Along with much evil, there is some good
in monarchy itself; and some corrective to its evil
from religion, from laws, from manners, from opinions, the French monarchy must have received,
which renered-{F(tTloughh-iy no means a free, and
therefore by no means a good constitution) a despotism rather in appearance than in reality
Amiong the standards upon which the effects of
government on any country are to be estimated, I
must consider the state of its population as not the
least certain. No country in which population flourishes, and is in progressive improvement, can be under a very mischievous government. About sixty years ago, the Intendants of the Generalities of France
made, with other matters, a report of the population
of their several districts. I have not the books, which,are very voluminous, by me, nor do I know where to
procure them, (I am obliged to speak by memory,
and therefore the less positively,) but I think the
population of France was by them, even at that pe
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 401
riod, estimated at twenty-two millions of souls. At
the end of the last century it had been generally
calculated at eighteen. On either of these estimations, France was not ill-peopled. M. Necker, who
is an authority for his own time at least equal to the
Intendants for theirs, reckons, and upon apparently
sure principles, the people of France, in the year
1780, at twenty-four millions six hundred and seventy thousand. But was this the probable ultimate term under the old establishment? Dr. Price is of
opinion that the growth of population in France was
by no means at its acme in that year. I certainly
defer to Dr. Price's authority a good deal more inl
these speculations than I do in his general politics. .
This gentleman, taking ground on M. Necker's data,
is very confident that since the period of that minister's calculation the French population has increased rapidly, -- so rapidly, that in the year 1789 he will
not consent to rate the people of that kingdom at
a lower number than thirty millions. After abating
much (and much I think ought to be abated) from
the sanguine calculation of Dr. Price, I have no
doubt that the population of France did increase
considerably during this latter period: but supposing that it increased to nothing more than will be sufficient to complete the twenty-four millions six
hundred and seventy thousand to twenty-five millions, still a population of twenty-five millions, and that in an increasing progress, on a space of about
twenty-seven thousand square leagues, is immense.
It is, for instance, a good deal more than the proportionable population of this island, or even than
that of England, the best peopled part of the United
Kingdom.
VOL. III. 26
? ? ? ? 402 REFLECTIONS ON THE
It is not universally true that France is a fertile
country. Considerable tracts of it are barren, and labor under other natural disadvantages. In the portions of that territory where things are more favorable, as far as I am able to discover, the. numbers of the people correspond to the indulgence of Nature. *
The Generality of Lisle, (this I admit is the strongest
example,) upon an extent of four hundred and four
leagues and a half, about ten years ago contained
seven hundred and thirty-four thousand six hundred
souls, which is one thousand seven hundred and seventy-two inhabitants to each square league. The middle term for the rest of France is about nine hundred
inhabitants to the same admeasurement.
I do not attribute this population to the deposed
government; because I do not like to compliment
the contrivances of men with what is due in a great
degree to the bounty of Providence. But that decried government could not have obstructed, most
probably it favored, tile operation of those causes,
(whatever they were,) whether of Nature in the soil,
or habits of industry among the people, which has
produced so large a number of the species throughout that whole kingdom, and exhibited in some particular places such prodigies of population. I never
will suppose that fabric of a state to be the worst of
all political institutions which by experience is found
to contain a principle favorable (however latent it
may be) to the increase of mankind.
The wealth of a country is another, and no contemptible standard, by which we may judge whether,
on the whole, a government be protecting or destruc* De l'Administration des Finances de la France, par Mons
Necker, Vol. I. p. 288
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 403
tive. France far exceeds England in the multitude
of her people; but I apprehend that her comparative
wealth is much inferior, to ours, --that it is not'so
equal in the distribution, nor so ready in the circulation. I believe the difference in the form of the
two governments to be amongst the causes of this
advantage on the side of England: I speak of England, not of the whole British dominions, --which, if
compared with those of France, will in some degree
weaken the comparative rate of wealth upon our side.
But that wealth, which will not endure a comparison
with the riches of England, may constitute a very
respectable degree of opulence. M. Necker's book,
published in 1785,* contains an accurate and interesting collection of facts relative to public economy
and to political arithmetic; and his speculations on
the subject are in general wise and liberal. In that
work he gives an idea of the state of France, very
remote from the portrait of a country whose government was a perfect grievance, an absolute evil, admitting no cure but through the violent and uncertain remedy of a total revolution. He affirms, that from
the year 1726 to the year 1784 there was coined at
the mint of France, in the species of gold and silver,
to the amount of about one hundred millions of
pounds sterling. t
It is impossible that M. Necker should be mistaken in the amount of the bullion which has been
coined in the mint. It is a matter of official record. The reasonings of this able financier concerning the quantity of gold and silver which remained
for circulation, when he wrote in 1785, that is, about
* De l'Administration des Finances de la France, par M. Necker.
t Vol. III. chap. 8 and chap. 9.
? ? ? ? 404 REFLECTIONS ON THE
four years before the deposition and imprisonment
of the French king, are not of equal certainty; but
they are laid on grounds so apparently solid, that it
is not easy to refuse a considerable degree of assent
to his calculation. He calculates the nume'raire, or
what we call specie, then actually existing in France,
at about eighty-eight millions of the same English
money. A great accumulation of wealth for one
country, large as that country is! M. Necker was
so far from considering this influx of wealth as likely
to cease, when he wrote in 1785, that he presumes
upon a future annual increase of two per cent upon
tihe money brought into France during the periods
firom which he computed.
Some adequate cause must have originally introduced all the money coined at its mint into that kingdom; and some cause as operative must have kept at home, or returned into its bosom, such a vast flood of
treasure as M. Necker calculates to remain for domestic circulation. Suppose any reasonable deductions from M. Necker's computation, the remainder must still amount to an immense sum. Causes thus
powerful to acquire and to retain cannot be found
in discouraged industry, insecure property, and a
positively destructive government. Indeed, when I
consider the face of the kingdom of France, the multitude and opulence of her cities, the useful magnificence of her spacious high-roads and bridges, the opportunity of her artificial canals and navigations
opening the conveniences of maritime communication
through a solid continent of so immense an extent, --
when I turn my eyes to the stupendous works of her
ports and harbors, and to her whole naval apparatus,
whether for war or trade, - when I bring before my
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 405
view the number of her fortifications, constructed
with so bold and masterly a skill, and made and
maintained at so prodigious a charge, presenting an
armed front and impenetrable barrier to her enemies
upon every side, - when I recollect how very small a
part of that extensive region is without cultivation.
and to what complete perfection the culture of many
of the best productions of the earth have been brouglht
in France,- when I reflect on the excellence of her
manufactures and fabrics, second to none but ours,
and in some particulars not second, -- when I contemplate the grand foundations of charity, public and private, - when I survey the state of all the arts that
beautify and polish life, - when I reckon the men
she has bred for extending her fame in war, her able
statesmen, the multitude of her profound lawyers
and theologians, her philosophers, her critics, her
historians and antiquaries, her poets and her orators,
sacred and profane/. -T I behold in all this something
which awes and commands the imagination, which
checks the mind on the brink of precipitate and indiscriminate censure, and which demands that we should very seriously examine what and how great
are the latent vices that could authorize us at once to
level so spacious a fabric with the ground,. I do not
recognize in this view of things the despotism of Turkey. Nor do I discern the character of a government that has been on the whole so oppressive, or so corrupt, or so negligent, as to be utterly unfit for all reformation. I must think such a government well
deserved to have its excellences heightened, its faults
corrected, and its capacities improved into a British
Constitution.
Whoever has examined into the proceedings of that
? ? ? ? 406 REFLECTIONS ON THE
deposed government for several years back cannot
fail to have observed, amidst the inconstancy and
fluctuation natural to courts, an earnest endeavor towards the prosperity and improvement of the country; he must admit that it had long been employed, in some instances wholly to remove, in many considerably to correct, the abusive practices and usages
that had prevailed in the state, - and that even the
unlimited powor of the sovereign over the persons of
his subjects, inconsistent, as undoubtedly it was, with
law and liberty, had yet been every day growing
more mitigated in the exercise. So far from refusing itself to reformation, that government was open,
with a censurable degree of facility, to all sorts of projects and projectors on the subject. Rather too much
countenance was given to the spirit of innovation,
which soon was turned against those who fostered it,
and ended in their ruin. It is but cold, and no very
flattering justice to that fallen monarchy, to say, that,
for many years, it trespassed more by levity and want
of judgment in several of its schemes than from any
defect in diligence or in public spirit. To compare
the government of France for the last fifteen or sixteen years with wise and well-constituted establishments during that, or during any period, is not to act with fairness. But if in point of prodigality in the
expenditure of money, or in point of rigor in the
exercise of power, it be compared with any of the former reigns, I believe candid judges will give little
credit to the good intentions of those who dwell perpetually on the donations to favorites, or on the expenses of the court, or on the horrors of the Bastile, in the reign of Louis the Sixteenth. *
* The world is obliged to M. de Calonne for the pains he has
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 407
Whether the system, if it deserves such a name,
now built on the ruins of that ancient monarchy,
will be able to give a better account of the population
and wealth of the country which it has taken under
its care, is a matter very doubtful. Instead of improving by the change, I apprehend that a long series of years must be told, before it can recover in any degree the effects of this philosophic Revolution,
and before the nation can be replaced on its former
footing. If Dr. Price should think fit, a few years
hence, to favor us with an estimate of the population
of France, he will hardly be able to make up his tale
of thirty millions of souls, as computed in 1789, or
the Assembly's computation of twenty-six millions of
that year, or even M. Necker's twenty-five millions
in 1780. I hear that there are considerable emigrations from France, - and that many, quitting that
voluptuous climate, and that seductive Circean liberty, have taken refuge in the frozen regions and
under the British despotism of Canada.
In the present disappearance of coin, no person
could think it the same country in which the present minister of the finances has been able to discover
fourscore millions sterling in specie. From its general aspect one would conclude that it had been for
some time past under the special direction of the
learned academicians of Laputa and Balnibarbi. *
Already the population of Paris has so declined, that
M.
Necker stated to the National Assembly the protaken to refute the scandalous exaggerations relative to some of the
royal expenses, and to detect the fallacious account given of pensions,
for the wicked purpose of provoking the populace to all sorts of
crimes.
* See Gulliver's Travels for the idea of countries governed by
philosophers.
? ? ? ? 408 REFLECTIONS ON THE
vision to be made for its subsistence at a fifth less
than what had formerly been found requisite. * It is
said (and I have never heard it contradicted) that a,
hundred thousand people are out of employment in
that city, though it is become the seat of the imprisoned court and National Assembly. Nothing, I am
credibly informed, can exceed the shocking and disgusting spectacle of mendicancy displayed in that capital. Indeed, the votes of the National Assembly leave no doubt of the fact. They have lately appointed a
standing committee of mendicancy. They are contriving at once a vigorous police on this subject, and,
for the first time, the imposition of a tax to maintain
the poor, for whose present relief great sums appear
on the face of the public accounts of the year. t In
the mean time the leaders of the legislative clubs and
coffee-houses are intoxicated with admiration at their
own wisdom and ability. They speak with the most
sovereign contempt of the rest of the world. They
tell the people, to comfort them in the rags with
which they have clothed them. that they are a nation
of philosophers; and sometimes, by all the arts of
* M. de Calonne states the falling off of the population of Paris
as far more considerable; and it may be so, since the period of M.
Necker's calculation.
t Travaux de charite pour subvenir au manque de travail k Livres. ~
Paris et dans les provinces. 3,866,920 161,121 13 4
Destruction de vagabondage et de la
mendicite. . 1,671,417 69,642 7 6
Primes pour l'importation de grains 5,671,907 236,329 9 2
Depenses relatives aux subsistances,
deduction fait des recouvrements
qui ont eu lieu. . . . 39,871,790 1,661,324 11 8
Total. . . . 51,082,034 2,128,418 1 8
When I sent this book to the press, I entertained some doubt con
? s. d
? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 409
quackish parade, by show, tumult, and bustle, sometimes by the alarms of plots and invasions, they attempt to drown the cries of indigence, and to divert
the eyes of the observer from the ruin and wretchedness of the state. A brave people will certainly prefer liberty accompanied with a virtuous poverty to
a depraved and wealthy servitude. But before the
price of comfort and opulence is paid, one ought to
be pretty sure it is real liberty which is purchased,
and that she is to be purchased at no other price. I
shall always, however, consider that liberty as very
equivocal in her appearance, which has not wisdom
and justice for her companions, and does not lead
prosperity and plenty in her train.
The advocates for this Revolution, not satisfied
with exaggerating the vices of their ancient government, strike at the fame of their country itself, by
painting almost all that could have attracted the attention of strangers, I mean their nobility and their
clergy, as objects of horror. If this were only a libel,
there had not been much in it. But it has practical
consequences. Had your nobility and gentry, who
cerning the nature and extent of the last article in the above accounts,
which is only under a general head, without any detail. Since then I
have seen M. de Calonne's work. I must think it a great loss to me
that I had not that advantage earlier. M. de Calonne thinks this article to be on account of general subsistence; but as he is not able to comprehend how so great a loss as upwards of 1,661,0001. sterling could be sustained on the difference between the price and the sale of grain,
he seems to attribute this enormous head of charge to secret expenses
of the Revolution. I cannot say anything positively on that subject. The reader is capable of judging, by the aggregate of these
immense charges, on the state and condition of France, and the system of public economy adopted in that nation. These articles of
account produced no inquiry or discussion in the National Assem.
bly.
? ? ? ? 410 REFLECTIONS ON THE
formed the great body of your landed men and the
whole of your military officers, resembled those of
Germany, at the period when the Hanse towns were
necessitated to confederate against the nobles in defence of their property, - had they been like the Orsini and Vitelli in Italy, who used to sally from their
fortified dens to rob the trader and traveller, -had
they been such as the Mamelukes in Egypt, or the
Nayres on the coast of Malabar, -I do admit that
too critical an inquiry might not be advisable into
the means of freeing the world from such a nuisance.
The statues of Equity and Mercy might be veiled
for a moment. The tenderest minds, confounded
with the dreadful exigence in which morality submits to the suspension of its own rules in favor of its
own principles, might turn aside whilst fraud and violence were accomplishing the destruction of a pretended nobility, which disgraced, whilst it persecuted, human nature. The persons most abhorrent from blood and treason and arbitrary confiscation might
remain silent spectators of this civil war between the
vices.
But did the privileged nobility who met under the
king's precept at Versailles in 1789, or their constituents, deserve to be looked on as the Nayres or
Mamelukes of this age, or as the Orsini and Vitelli of
ancient times? If I had then asked the question, I
should have passed for a madman. What have they
since done, that they were to be driven into exile,
that their persons should be hunted about, mangled,
and tortured, their families dispersed, their houses
laid in ashes, and that their order should be abolished, and the memory of it, if possible, extinguished,
by ordaining them to change the very names by
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 411
which they were usually known? Read their instructions to their representatives. They breathe
the spirit of liberty as warmly, and they recommend
reformation as strongly, as any other order. Their
privileges relative to contribution were voluntarily
surrendered; as the king, from the beginning, surrendered all pretence to a right of taxation. Upon a free constitution there was but one opinion in
France. The absolute monarchy was at an end. It
breathed its last without a groan, without struggle,
without convulsion. All the struggle, all the dissension, arose afterwards, upon the preference of a. despotic democracy to a government of reciprocal control. The triumph of the victorious party was over the principles of a British Constitution.
I have observed the affectation which for many
years past has prevailed in Paris, even to a degree
perfectly childish, of idolizing the memory of your
Henry the Fourth. If anything could put any one
out of humor with that ornament to the kingly character, it would be this overdone style of insidious panegyric. The persons who have worked this engine
the most busily are those who have ended their panegyrics in dethroning his successor and descendant:
a man as good-natured, at the least, as Henry the
Fourth; altogether as fond of his people; and who
has done infinitely more to correct the ancient vices
of the state than that great monarch did, or we are
sure he ever meant to do. Well it is for his panegyrists
that they have not him to deal with! For Henry of
Navarre was a resolute, active, and politic prince. He
possessed, indeed, great humanity and mildness, but an
humanity and mildness that never stood in the way
of his interests. He never sought to be loved with
? ? ? ? 412 REFLECTIONS ON THE
out putting himself first in a condition to be feared.
He used soft language with determined conduct. He
asserted and maintained his authority in the gross,
and distributed his acts of concession only in the detail. Ho spent the income of his prerogative nobly, but he took care not to break in upon the capital,never abandoning for a moment any of the claims which he made under the fundamental laws, nor
sparing to shed the blood of those who opposed him,
often in the field, sometimes upon the scaffold. Because he knew how to make his virtues respected by the ungrateful, he has merited the praises of those
whom, if they had lived in his time, he would have
shut up in the Bastile, and brought to punishment
along with the regicides whom he hanged after he
had famished Paris into a surrender.
If these panegyrists are in earnest in their admiration of Henry the Fourth, they must remember that they cannot think more highly of him than he did of
the noblesse of France, - whose virtue, honor, courage, patriotism, and loyalty were his constant theme. But the nobility of France are degenerated since the
days of Henry the Fourth. - This is possible; but it
is more than I can believe to be true in any great degree. I do not pretend to know France as correctly as some others; but I have endeavored through my
whole life to make myself acquainted with human
nature, --otherwise I should be unfit to take even my
humble part in the service of mankind. In that study
I could not pass by a vast portion of our nature as
it appeared modified in a country but twenty-four
miles from the shore of this island. On my best observation, compared with my best inquiries, I found your nobility for the greater part composed of men
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 413
of a high spirit, and of a delicate sense of honor, both
with regard to themselves individually, and with regard to their whole corps, over whom they kept, beyond what is common in other countries, a censorial eye. They were tolerably well bred; very officious,
humane, and hospitable; in their conversation frank
and open; with a good military tone; and reasonably
tinctured with literature, particularly of the authors
in their own language. Many had pretensions far
above this description. I speak of those who were
generally met with.
As to their behavior to the inferior classes, they
appeared to me to comport themselves towards them
with good-nature, and with something more nearly approaching to familiarity than is generally practised with us in the intercourse between the higher and lower ranks of life. To strike any person, even
in the most abject condition, was a thing in a manner
unknown, and would be highly disgraceful. Instances of other ill-treatment of the humble part of the
community were rare; and as to attacks made upon
the property or the personal liberty of the commons,
I never heard of any whatsoever from them, -nor,
whilst the laws were in vigor under the ancient government, would such tyranny in subjects have beer
permitted. As men of landed estates, I had no fault
to find with their conduct, though much to reprei
hend, and much to wish changed, in many of th6
old tenures. Where the letting of their land was
by rent, I could not discover that their agreements\
with their farmers were oppressive; nor when they
were in partnership with the farmer, as often was
the case, have I heard that they had taken the
lion's share. The proportions seemed not inequi
? ? ? ? 414 REFLECTIONS ON THE
table. There might be exceptions; but certainly
they were exceptions only. I have no reason to believe that in these respects the landed no'Lase. of
France were worse than the landed gentrTg~his_
country. - certainly in no respect more vexatious
than the landholders, not noble, of their own nation.
In cities the nobility had no manner of power; in the
country very little. You know, Sir, that much of
the civil government, and the police in the most essential parts, was not in the hands of that nobility
which presents itself first to our consideration. The
revenue, the system and collection of which were the
most grievous parts of the French government, was
not administered by the men of the sword; nor were
they answerable for the vices of its principle, or the
vexations, where any such existed, in its management.
Denying, as I am well warranted to do, that the
nobility had any considerable share in the oppression
of the people, in cases in which real oppression existed, I am ready to admit that they were not without
considerable faults and errors. A foolish imitation
of the worst part of the manners of England, which
impaired their natural character, without substituting
in its place what perhaps they meant to copy, has certainly rendered them worse than formerly they were.
Habitual dissoluteness of manners, continued beyond
the pardonable period of life, was more common
amongst them than it is with us; and it reigned with
the less hope of remedy, though possibly with something of less mischief, by being covered with more exterior decorum. Thev countenanced too much that licentious philosophy which has helped to bring on
their ruin. There was another error amongst them
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 415
more fatal. Those of the commons who approached
to or exceeded many of the nobility in point of wealth
were not fully admitted to the rank and estimation
which wealth, in reason and good policy, ought to bestow in every country, - though I think not equally
with that of other nobility. The two kinds of aristocracy were too punctiliously kept asunder: less so,
however, than in Germany and some other nations.
This separation, as I have already taken the liberty
of suggesting to you, I conceive to be one principal
cause of the destruction of the old nobility. The
military, particularly, was too exclusively reserved
for men of family. But, after all, this was an error
of opinion, which a conflicting opinion would have
rectified. A permanent Assembly, in which the commons had their share of power, would soon abolish
whatever was too invidious and insulting in these
distinctions; and even the faults in the morals of
the nobility would have been probably corrected, by
the greater varieties of occupation and pursuit to
which a constitution by orders would have given
rise.
All this violent cry against the nobility I take to be
a mere work of art. To be honored and even privileged by the laws, opinions, and inveterate usages of
our country, growing out of the prejudice of ages, has
nothing to provoke horror and indignation in any man.
Even to be too tenacious of those privileges is not absolutely a crime. The strong struggle in every individual to preserve possession of what he has found to belong to him, and to distinguish him, is one of the
securities against injustice and despotism implanted
in our nature. It operates as an instinct to secure
property, and to preserve communities in a settled
? ? ? ? 416 REFLECTIONS ON THE
state. What is there to shock in this? Nobility is a
graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society. " Omnes boni nobilitati semper favemus," was the saying of a wise and good man. It is, indeed, one sign of a liberal and
benevolent mind to incline to it with some sort of
partial propensity. He feels no ennobling principle
in his own heart, who wishes to level all the artificial
institutions which have been adopted for giving a body
to opinion and permanence to fugitive esteem. It is
a sour, malignant, envious disposition, without taste
for the reality, or for any image or representation of
virtue, that sees with joy the unmerited fall of what
had long flourished in splendor and in honor. I do
not like to see anything destroyed, any void produced in society, any ruin on the face of the land.
It was therefore with no disappointment or dissatisfaction that my inquiries and observations did not
present to me any incorrigible vices in the noblesse
of France, or any abuse which could not be removed
by a reform very short of abolition. Your noblesse
did not deserve punishment; but to degrade is to
punish.
It was with the same satisfaction I found that the
result of my inquiry concerning your clergy was not
dissimilar. It is no soothing news to my ears, that
great bodies of men are incurably corrupt. It is not
with much credulity I listen to any, when they speak
evil of those whom they are going to plunder. I
rather suspect that vices are feigned or exaggerated,
when profit is looked for in their punishment. An
enemy is a bad witness; a robber is a worse. Vices
and abuses there were undoubtedly in that order,
and must be. It wias an old establishment, and not
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 417
frequently revised. But I saw no crimes in the individuals that merited confiscation of their substance,
nor those cruel insults and degradations, and that
unnatural persecution, which have been substituted
in the place of meliorating regulation.
If there had been any just cause for this new religious persecution, the atheistic libellers, who act as
trumpeters to animate the populace to plunder, do
not love anybody so much as not to dwell with- complacence on the vices of the existing clergy. This
they have not done. They find themselves obliged
to rake into the histories of former ages (which they
have ransacked with a malignant and profligate industry) for every instance of oppression and persecution which has been made by that body or in its favor, in order to justify, upon very iniquitous because very
illogical principles of retaliation, their own persecu --
tions and their own cruelties. After destroying all,
other genealogies and family distinctions, they invent
a sort of pedigree of crimes. It is not very just to
chastise men for the offences of their natural ancestors; but to take the fiction of ancestry in a corporate
succession, as a ground for punishing men who have
no relation to guilty acts, except in names and general descriptions, is a sort of refinement in injustice
belonging to the philosophy of this enlightened age.
The Assembly punishes men, many, if not most, of
whom abhor the violent conduct of ecclesiastics in
former times as much as their present persecutors
can do, and who would be as loud and as strong in
the expression of that sense, if they were not well
aware of the purposes for which all this declamation
is employed.
Corporate bodies are immortal for the good of the
VOL. III. 27
? ? ? ? 418 REFLECTIONS ON THE
members, but not for their punishment. Nations
themselves are such corporations. As well might we
in England think of waging inexpiable war upon all
Frenchmen for the evils which they have brought
upon us in the several periods of our mutual hostilities. You might, on your part, think yourselves justified ill falling upon all Englishmen on account of the unparalleled calamities brought upon the people
of France by the unjust invasions of our Henrys and
our Edwards. Indeed, we should be mutually justified in this exterminatory war upon each other, full
as much as you are in the unprovoked persecution of
your present countrymen, on account of the conduct
of men of the same name in other times.
We do not draw the moral lessons we might from
history. Oin the contrary, without care it may be
used to vitiate our minds and to destroy our happiness. In history a great volume is unrolled for our
instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom
from the past errors and infirmities of mankind. It
may, in the perversion, serve for a' magazine, furnishing offensive and defensive weapons for parties in
Church and State, and supplying the means of keeping alive or reviving dissensions and animosities, and
adding fuel to civil fury. History consists, for the
greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world
by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition,
hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetites, which shake the public with the same
"troublous storms that toss
The private state, and render life unsweet. "
These vices are the causes of those storms. Religion,
morals, laws, prerogatives, privileges, liberties, rights
of men, are the pretexts. The pretexts are always
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