If possible, the next
Assembly
must
be worse than the present.
be worse than the present.
Edmund Burke
But this would
plainly subvert the whole scheme. It would be to
plunge them back into that tumult and confusion
of popular election, which, by their interposed gradation of elections, they mean to avoid, and at length
0to risk the whole fortune of the state with those who
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 483
have the least knowledge of it and the least interest
in it. This is a perpetual dilemma, into which they
are thrown by the vicious, weak, and contradictory
principles they have chosen. Unless the people break
up and level this gradation, it is plain that they do
not at all substantially elect to the Assembly; indeed,
they elect as little in appearance as reality.
What is it we all seek for in an election? To answer its real purposes, you must first possess the
means of knowing the fitness of your man; and then
you must retain some hold upon him by personal
obligation or dependence. For what end are these
primary electors complimented, or rather mocked,
with a choice? They can never know anything of
the qualities of him that is. to serve them, nor has he
any obligation whatsoever to them. Of all the powers unfit to be delegated by those who have any real means of judging, that most peculiarly unfit is what
relates to a personal choice. In case of abuse, that
body of primary electors never can call the representative to an account for his conduct. He is too far removed from them in the chain of representation.
If he acts improperly at the end of his two years'
lease, it does not concern him for two years more.
By the new French Constitution the best and the
wisest representatives go equally with the worst into
this Limbus Patrum. Their bottoms are supposed
foul, and they must go into dock to be refitted.
Every mall who has served in an Assembly is ineligible for two years after. Just as these magistrates begin to learn their trade, like chimney-sweepers,
they are disqualified for exercising it. Superficial,
new, petulant acquisition, and interrupted, dronish,
broken, ill recollection, is to be the destined charac
? ? ? ? 484 REFLECTIONS ON THE
ter of all your future governors. Your Constitution
has too much of jealousy to have much of sense in it.
You consider the breach of trust in the representative
so principally that you do not at all regard the question of his fitness to execute it.
This purgatory interval is not unfavorable to a
faithless representative, who may be as good a canvasser as he was a bad governor. In this time he
may cabal himself into a superiority over the wisest
and most virtuous. As, in the end, all the members
of this elective Constitution are equally fugitive, and
exist only for the election, they may be no longer the
same persons who had chosen him, to whom he is
to be responsible when he solicits for a renewal of
his trust. To call all the secondary electors of the
conmmune to account is ridiculous, impracticable, and
unlljust: they may themselves have been deceived in
their choice, as the third set of electors, those of
the department, may be in theirs. In your elections
responsibility cannot exist.
Finding no sort of principle of coherence with each
other in the nature and constitution of the several
new republics of France, I considered what cement
the legislators had provided for them from any extraneous materials. Their confederations, their spectacles, their civic feasts, and their enthusiasm I take no notice of; they are nothing but mere tricks; but
tracing their policy through their actions, I think I
can distinguish the arrangements by which they propose to hold these republics together. The first is
the confiscation, with the compulsory paper currency
annexed to it; the second is the supreme power of
the city of Paris; the third is the general army of
the state. Of this last I shall reserve what I have
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 485
to say, until I come to consider the army as an head
by itself.
As to the operation of the first (the confiscation
and paper currency) merely as a cement, I cannot
deny that these, the one depending on the other, may
for some time compose some sort of cement, if their
madness and folly in the management, and in the
tempering of the parts together, does not produce a
repulsion in the very outset. But allowing to the
scheme some coherence and some duration, it appears to me, that, if, after a while, the confiscation
should not be found sufficient to support the paper
coinage, (as I am morally certain it will not,) then,
instead of cementing, it will add infinitely to the dissociation, distraction, and confusion of these confederate republics, both with relation to each other and to the several parts within themselves. But if the
confiscation should so far succeed as to sink the paper currency, the cement is gone with the circulation. In the mean time its binding force will be very uncertain, and it will straiten or relax with every variation in the credit of the paper.
One thing only is certain in this scheme, which is
an effect seemingly collateral, but direct, I have no
doubt, in the minds of those who conduct this business: that is, its effect in producing an oligarchy in
every one of the republics. A paper circulation, not
founded on any real money deposited or engaged for,
amounting already to four-and-forty millions of English money, and this currency by force substituted'in
the place of the coin of the kingdom, becoming thereby the substance of its revenue, as well as the medium of all its commercial and civil intercourse, must put the whole of what power, authority, and influ
? ? ? ? 486 REFLECTIONS ON THE
ence is left, in any form whatsoever it may assume,
into the hands of the managers and conductors of
this circulation.
In England we feel the influence of the Bank,
though it is only the centre of a voluntary dealing.
He knows little, indeed, of the influence of money upon mankind, who does not see the force of the man
agement of a moneyed concern which is so much
more extensive, and in its nature so much more depending on the managers, than any of ours. But this
is not merely a money concern. There is another
member inll the system inseparably connected with
this money management. It consists in the means
of drawing out at discretion portions of the confiscated lands for sale, and carrying on a process
of continual transmutation of paper into land and
land into paper. When we follow this process in its
effects, we may conceive something of the intensity
of the force with which this system must operate.
By this means the spirit of money-jobbing and speculation goes into the mass of land itself, and incorporates with it. By this kind of operation, that species of property becomes, as it were, volatilized; it assumes an unnatural and monstrous activity, and
thereby throws into the hands of the several managers, principal and subordinate, Parisian and provincial, all the representative of money, and perhaps a
full tenth part of all the land in France, which has
now acquired the worst and most pernicious part of
thl evil of a paper circulation, the greatest possible
uncertainty in its value. They have reversed the
Latonian kindness to the landed property of Delos.
They have sent theirs to be blown about, like the
light fragments of a wreck, oras, et littora eircum.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 487
The new dealers, being all habitually adventurers,
and without any fixed habits or local predilections, will
purchase to job out again, as the market of paper or
of money or of land shall present an advantage. For
though a holy bishop thinks that agriculture will derive great advantages from the " enlightened" usurers who are to purchase the Church confiscations, I, who
am not a good, but aln old farmer, with great humility
beg leave to tell his late Lordship that usury is not a
tutor of agriculture; and if the word " enlightened"
be understood according to the new dictionary, as it
always is in your new schools, I cannot conceive how
a man's not believing in God can teach him to cultivate the earth with the least of any additional skill
or encouragement. "Diis immortalibus sero," said
an old Roman, when he held one handle of the
plough, whilst Death held the other. Though you
were to join in the commission all the directors of
the two Academies to the directors of the Caisse
d'Escompte, an old experienced peasant is worth
them all. I have got more information upon a curious and interesting branch of husbandry, in one short conversation with an old Carthusian monk, than I have
derived from all the bank directors that I have ever
conversed with. However, there is no cause for apprehension from the meddling of money-dealers with rural economy. These gentlemen are too wise in
their generation. At first, perhaps, their tender and
susceptible imaginations may be captivated with the
innocent and unprofitable delights of a pastoral life;
but in a little time they will find that agriculture is
a trade much more laborious and much less lucrative than that which they had left. After making its panegyric, they will turn their backs on it, like their
? ? ? ? 488 REFLECTIONS ON THE
great precursor and prototype. They may, like him,
begin by singing, "Beatus ille," -- but what will be
the end?
Haec ubi locutus fcenerator Alphius,
Jam jam futurus rusticus,
Omnem relegit Idibus pecuniam,
Quaerit Calendis ponere.
They will cultivate the Caisse d'Eglise, under the sacred auspices of this prelate, with much more profit
than its vineyards and its corn-fields. They will enmploy their talents according to their habits and their
interests. They will not follow the plough, whilst
they can direct treasuries and govern provinces.
Your legislators, in everything new, are the very
first who have founded a commonwealth upon gaming, and infused this spirit into it as its vital breath.
h-e great object in these politics is to metamorphose
France from a great kingdom into one great playtable, - to turn its inhabitants into a nation of gamesters, - to make speculation as extensive as life, - to mix it with all its concerns, -- and to divert the whole
of the hopes and fears of the people from their usual
channels into the impulses, passions, and superstitions of those who live on chances. They loudly proclaim their opinion, that this their present system of a republic cannot possibly exist without this kind of
gaming fund, and that the very thread of its life is
spun out of the staple of these speculations. The old
gaming in funds was mischievous enough, undoubtedly; but it was so only to individuals. Even when
it had its greatest extent, in the Mississippi and
South Sea, it affected but few, comparatively; where
it extends further, as in lotteries, the spirit has but a
single object. But where the law, which in most cir
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 489
cumstances forbids, and in none countenances gaming, is itself debauched, so as to reverse its nature Mond policy, and expressly to force the subject to this
destructive table, by bringing the spirit and symbols
of gaming into the minutest matters, and engaging
everybody in it, and in everything, a more dreadful
epidemic distemper of that kind is spread than yet
has appeared in the world. With you a man can
neither earn nor buy his dinner without a speculation. What he receives in the morning will not have
the same value at night. What he is compelled to
take as pay for an old debt will not be received as the
same, when he comes to pay a debt contracted by
himself; nor will it be the same, when by prompt
payment he would avoid contracting any debt at all.
Industry must wither away. Economy must be driven from your country. Careful provision will have
no existence. Who will labor without knowing the
amount of his pay? Who will study to increase
what none can estimate? Who will accumulate,
when he does not know the value of what he saves?
If you abstract it from its uses in gaming, to accumulate your paper wealth would be, not the providence of a man, but the distempered instinct of a jackdaw.
The truly melancholy part of the policy of systematically making a -nation of gamesters is this, --
that, though all are forced to play, few can understand
the game, and fewer still are in a condition to avail
themselves of that knowledge. The many must be
the dupes of the few who conduct the machine of
these speculations. What effect it must have on the
country-people is visible. The townsman can calculate from day to day; not so the inhabitant of the country. When the peasant first brings his corn to
? ? ? ? 490 REFLECTIONS ON THE
market, the magistrate in the towns obliges him to
take the assignat at par; when he goes to the shop
with this money, he finds it seven per cent the
worse for crossing the way. This market he will not
readily resort to again. The towns-people will be
inflamed; they will force the country-people to bring
their corn. Resistance will begin, and the murders
of Paris and St. Denis may be renewed through all
France.
What signifies the empty compliment paid to the
country, by giving it, perhaps, more than its share in
the theory of your representation? Where have you
placed the real power over moneyed and landed circulation? Where have you placed the means of raising and falling the value of every man's freehold? Those whose operations can take from or add ten
per cent to the possessions of every man in France
must be the masters of every man in France. The
whole of the power obtained by this Revolution will
settle in the towns among the burghers, and the
moneyed directors who lead them. The landed gentleman, the yeoman, and the peasant have, none of
them, habits or inclinations or experience which can
lead them to any share in this the sole source of
power and influence now left in France. The very
nature of a country life, the very nature of landed
property, in all the occupations and all the pleasures
they afford, render combination and arrangement
(the sole way of procuring and exerting influence)
in a manner impossible amongst country-people.
Combine them by all the art you can, and all the
industry, they are always dissolving into individuality. Anything in the nature of incorporation is almost impracticable amongst them. Hope, fear, alarm,
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 491
jealousy, the ephemerous tale that does its business
and dies in a day, all these things, which are the reins
and spurs by which leaders check or urge the minds
of followers, are not easily employed, or hardly at all,
amongst scattered people. They assemble, they arm,
they act, with the utmost difficulty, and at the greatest charge. Their efforts, if ever they can be commenced, cannot be sustained. They cannot proceed systematically. If the country-gentlemen attempt an
influence through the mere income of their property,
what is it to that of those who have ten times their
income to sell, and who can ruin their property by
bringing their plunder to meet it at market? If the
landed man wishes to mortgage, he falls the value of
his land and raises the value of assignats. He augments the power of his enemy by the very means he
must take to contend with him. The country-gentleman, therefore, the officer by sea and land, the man
of liberal views and habits, attached to no profession,
will be as completely excluded from the government
of his country as if he were legislatively proscribed.
It is obvious, that, in the towns, all the things which
conspire against the country-gentleman combine in
favor of the money manager and director. In towns
combination is natural. The habits of burghers, their
occupations, their diversion, their business, th6ir idleness, continually bring them into mutual contact.
Their virtues and their vices are sociable; they are
always in garrison; and they come embodied and
half-disciplined into the hands of those who mean to
form them for civil or military action.
All these considerations leave no doubt on my
mind, that, if this monster of a Constitution can continue, France will be wholly governed by the agita
? ? ? ? 492 REFLECTIONS ON THE
tors in corporations, by societies in the towns, formed
of directors in assignats, and trustees for the sale of
Churchl lands, attorneys, agents, money-jobbers, speculators, and adventurers, composing an ignoble oligarchy, founded on the destruction of the crown, the Church, the nobility, and the people. Here end all
the deceitful dreams and visions of the equality and
rights of men. In " the Serbonian bog" of this base
oligarchy they are all absorbed, sunk, and lost forever.
Though human eyes cannot trace them, one would
be tempted to think some great offences in France
must cry to Heaven, which has thought fit to punish
it with a subjection to a vile and inglorious domination, in which no comfort or compensation is to be
found in any even of those false splendors which,
playing about other tyrannies, prevent mankind from
feeling themselves dishonored even whilst they are
oppressed. I must confess I am touched with a sorrow mixed with some indignation, at the conduct of
a few men, once of great rank, and still of great character, who, deluded with specious names, have engaged in a business too deep for the line of their understanding to fathom, --who have lent their fair
reputation and the authority of their high-sounding
names to the designs of men with whom they could
not be acquainted, and have thereby made their very
virtues operate to the ruin of their country.
So far as to the first cementing principle.
The second material of cement for their new repub
lie is the superiority of the city of Paris; and this,
I admit, is strongly connected with the other cementing principle of paper circulation and confiscation.
It is in this part of the project we must look for the
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 493
cause of the destruction of all the old bounds of provinces and jurisdictions, ecclesiastical and secular, and
the dissolution of all ancient combinations of things,
as well as the formation of so many small unconnected republics. The power of the city of Paris is evidently one great spring of all their politics. . It is
through the power of Paris, now become the centre
and focus of jobbing, that the leaders of this faction
direct, or rather command, the whole legislative and
the whole executive government. Everything, therefore, must be done which can confirm the authority
of that city over the other republics. Paris is compact; she has an enormous strength, wholly disproportioned to the force of any of the square republics;
and this strength is collected and condensed within
a narrow compass. Paris has a natural and easy
connection of its parts, which will not be affected by
any scheme of a geometrical constitution; nor does
it much signify whether its proportion of representation be more or less, since it has the whole draught
of fishes in its drag-net. The other divisions of the
kingdom, being hackled and torn to pieces, and separated from all their habitual means and even principles of union, cannot, for some time at least, confederate against her. Nothing was to be left in all the subordinate members, but weakness, disconnection,
and confusion. To confirm this part of the plan,
the Assembly has lately come to a resolution that
no two of their republics shall have the same commander-in-chief.
To a person who takes a view of the whole, the
strength of Paris, thus formed, will appear a system
of general weakness. It is boasted that the geometrical policy has been adopted, that all local ideas
? ? ? ? 494 REFLECTIONS ON THE
should be sunk, and that the people should be no
longer Gascons, Picards, Bretons, Normans,-but
Frenchmen, with one country, one heart, and one
Assembly. But, instead of being all Frenchmen, the
greater likelihood is that the inhabitants of that region will shortly have no country. No man ever was
attached by a sense of pride, partiality, or real affection, to a description of square measurement. He
never will glory in belonging to the chequer No. 71,
or to any other badge-ticket. We begin our public
affections in our families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen. We pass on to our neighborhoods, and
our habitual provincial connections. These are inns
and resting-places. Shich divisions of our country as
have been formed by habit, and not by a sudden jerk
of authority, were so many little images of the great
country, in which the heart found something which it
could fill. The love to the whole is not extinguished
by this subordinate partiality. Perhaps it is a sort
of elemental training to those higher and more large
regards by which alone men come to be affected, as
with their own concern, in the prosperity of a kingdom so extensive as that of France. In that general
territory itself, as in the old name of Provinces, the
citizens are interested from old prejudices and unreasoned habits, and not on account of the geometric
properties of its figure. The power and preeminence of Paris does certainly press down and hold
these republics together as long as it lasts: but, for
the reasons I have already given you, I think it cannot last very long.
Passing from the civil creating and the civil cementing principles of this Constitution to the National Assembly, which is to appear and act as sovereign,
? ? ? ? RFVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 495
we see a body in its constitution with every possible
power and no possible external control. We see a
body without findamental laws, without established
maxims, without respected rules of proceeding, which
nothing can keep firm to any system whatsoever.
Their idea of their powers is always taken at the utmost stretch of legislative competency, and their examples for common cases from the exceptions of the most urgent necessity. The future is to be in most
respects like the present Assembly; but, by the mode
of the new elections and the tendency of the new circulations, it will be purged of the small degree of
internal control existing in a minority chosen originally from various interests, and preserving something
of their spirit.
If possible, the next Assembly must
be worse than the present. The present, by destroying and altering everything, will leave to their successors apparently nothing popular to do. They will
be roused by emulation and example to enterprises
the boldest and the most absurd. To suppose such
an Assembly sitting in perfect quietude is ridiculous.
Y6our all-sufficient legislators, in their hurry to do
everything at once, have forgot one thing that seems
essential, and which, I believe, never has been before,
in the theory or the practice, omitted by any projector of a republic. They have fotr tlo -c s9, tietp. , a
senate, or something of that nature and character. 'e;er', ]before this time, was heard of a body politic
composed of one legislative and active assembly, and
its'executive officers, without such a council: without something to which foreign states might connect
themselves, -- something to which, in the ordinary
detail of government, the people could look up,something which might give a bias and steadiness,
------ ~~ ------- ~'~-~ ----'- ~~ --~' ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~''*". . . . . . . . . . . ~. . . . . . . . . .
? ? ? ? 496 REFLECTIONS ON THE
and preserve something like consistency in the proceedings of state. Such a body kings generally have
as a council. A monarchy may exist without it; but
it seems to be in the very essence of a republican
government. It holds a sort of mddle place between
the supreme power exercised by the people, or immediately delegated from them, and the mere executive.
Of this there are no traces in your Constitution; and
in providing nothing of this kind, your Solons and
Numas have, as much as in anything else, discovered
a sovereign incapacity.
Let us now turn our eyes to what they have done
towards the formation of an executive power. For
this they have chosen a degraded king. This their
first executive officer is to be a machine, without any
sort of deliberative discretion in any one act of his
function. At best, he is but a channel to convey to
the National Assembly such matter as may import
that body to know. If he had been made the exclusive channel, the power would not have been without its importance, though infinitely perilous to those who would choose to exercise it. But public intelligence and statement of facts may pass to the Assembly with equal authenticity through any other conveyance. As to the means, therefore, of giving a
direction to measures by the statement of an authorized reporter, this office of intelligence is as nothing.
To consider the French scheme of an executive
officer, in its two natural divisions of civil and political. - In the first it must be observed, that, according
to the new Constitution, the higher parts of judicature, in either of its lines, are not in the king. The
king of France is not the fountain of justice. The
judges, neither the original nor the appellate, are of
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 497
his nomination. He neither proposes the candidates
nor has a negative on the choice. HIe is not even
the public prosecutor. He serves only as a notary,
to authenticate the choice made of the judges in the
several districts. By his officers he is to execute
their sentence. When we look into the true nature
of his authority, he. appears to be nothing more than
a chief of bumbailiffs, sergeants-at-mace, catchpoles,
jailers, and hangmen. It is impossible to place anything called royalty in a more degrading point of
view. A thousand times better it had been for the
dignity of this unhappy prince, that he had nothing
at all to do with the administration of justice, deprived as he is of all that is venerable and all that
is consolatory in that function, without power of
originating any process, without a power of suspelsion, mitigation, or pardon. Everything in justice
that is vile and odious is thrown upon him. It. was
not for nothing that the Assembly has been at such
pains to remove the stigma from certain offices, when
they were resolved to place the person who had lately
been their king in a situation but one degree above
the executioner, and in an office nearly of the same
quality. It is not in Nature, that, situated as the
king of the French now is, he can respect himself
or can be respected by others.
View this new executive officer on the side of his
political capacity, as he acts under the orders of the
National Assembly. To execute laws is a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust. It is a trust, indeed, that has
much depending upon its faithful and diligent performance, both in the person presiding in it and in
VOL. HI. 32
? ? ? ? 498 REFLECTIONS ON THE
all its subordinates. Means of performing this duty
ought to be given by regulation; and dispositions
towards it ought to be infused by the circumstances
attendant on the trust. It ought to be environed
with dignity, authority, and consideration, and it
ought to lead to glory. The office of execution is
an office of exertion. It is not from impotence we
are to expect the tasks of power. What sort of
person is a king to command executory service, who
has no means whatsoever to reward it: -not in a
permanent office; not in a grant of land; no, not
in a pension of fifty pounds a year; not in the
vainest and most trivial title? In France the king
is no more the fountain of honor than he is the
fountain of justice. All rewards, all distinctions, are
in other hands. Those who serve the king can be actuated by no natural motive but fear,- by a fear of
everything except their master. Ilis functions of internal coercion are as odious as those which he exercises in the department of justice. If relief is to be given to any municipality, the Assembly gives it.
If troops are to be sent to reduce them to obedience to the Assembly, the king is to execute the
order; and upon every occasion he is to be spattered
over with the blood of his people. He has no negative; yet his name and authority is used to enforce
every harsh decree. Nay, he must concur in the
butchery of those who shall attempt to free him from
his imprisonment, or show the slightest attachment to
his person or to his ancient authority.
Executive magistracy ought to be constituted in
such a manner that those who compose it should
be disposed to love and to venerate those whom thev
are bound to obey. A purposed neglect, or, what is
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 499
worse, a literal, but perverse and malignant obedience,
must be the ruin of the wisest counsels. In vain
will the law attempt to anticipate or to follow such
studied neglects and fraudulent attentions. To make
them act zealously is not in the'competence of law.
Kings, even such as are truly kings, may and ought
to bear the freedom of subjects that are obnoxious
to them. They may, too, without derogating from
tllemselves, bear even the authority of such persons,
if it promotes their service. Louis the Thirteenth
mortally hated the Cardinal de Richelieu; but his
support of that minister against his rivals was the
source of all the glory of his reign, and the solid
foundation of his throne itself. Louis the Fourteenth, when come to the throne, did not love the
Cardinal Mazarin; but for his interests he preserved
him in power. When old, he detested Louvois; but
for years, whilst he faithfully served his greatness, he
endured his person. When George the Second took
Mr. Pitt, who certainly was not agreeable to him,
into his councils, he did nothing which could humble
a wise sovereign. But these ministers, who were chosen by affairs, not by affections, acted in the name of
and in trust for kings, and not as their avowed constitutional and ostensible masters. I think it impossible that any king, when he has recovered his first terrors, can cordially infuse vivacity and vigor into
measures which he knows to be dictated by those
who, he must be persuaded, are in the highest degree
ill affected to his person. Will any ministers, who
serve such a king (or whatever he may be called)
with but a decent appearance of respect, cordially
obey the orders of those whom but the other day in
his name they had committed to the Bastile? will
? ? ? ? 500 REFLECTIONS ON THE
they obey the orders of those whom, whilst they were
exercising despotic justice upon them, they conceived
they were treating with lenity, and for whom in a
prison they thought they had provided an asylum?
If you expect such obedience, amongst your other innovations and regenerations, you ought to make a revolution in Nature, and provide a new constitution
for the human mind: otherwise your supreme government cannot harmonize with its executory system. There are cases in which we cannot take up with
names and abstractions. You may call half a dozen
leading individuals, whom we have reason to fear and
hate, the nation. It makes no other difference than
to make us fear and hate them the more. If it had
been thought justifiable and expedient to make such
a revolution by such means and through such persons as you have made yours, it would have been more wise to have completed the business of the fifth
and sixth of October. The new executive officer
would then owe his situation to those who are his
creators as well as his masters; and he might be
bound in interest, in the society of crime, and (if in
crimes there could be virtues) in gratitude, to serve
those who had promoted him to a place of great lucre and great sensual indulgence, - and of something more: for more he must have received from those
who certainly would not have limited an aggrandized
creature as they have done a submitting antagonist.
A king circumstanced as the present, if he is totally stupefied by his misfortunes, so as to think it
not the necessity, but the premium and privilege of
life, to eat and sleep, without any regard to glory, can
never be fit for the office. If he feels as men commonly feel, he must be sensible that an office so cir.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 501
cumstanced is one in which he can obtain no fame or
reputation. He has no generous interest that can
excite him to action. At best, his conduct will be
passive and defensive. To inferior people such an office might be matter of honor. But to be raised to it and to descend to it are different things, and suggest different sentiments. Does he really name the ministers? They will have a sympathy with him.
Are they forced upon him? The whole business
between them and the nominal king will be mutual
counteraction. In all other countries the office of
ministers of state is of the highest dignity. In
France it is full of peril, and incapable of glory.
Rivals, however, they will have in their nothingness,
whilst shallow ambition exists in the world, or the
desire of a miserable salary is an incentive to shortsighted avarice. Those competitors of the ministers are enabled by your Constitution to attack them in
their vital parts, whilst they have not the means of
repelling their charges in any other than the degrading character of culprits. The ministers of state in France are the only persons in that country who are
incapable of a share in the national councils. What
ministers! What councils! What a nation! - But
they are responsible. It is a poor service that is to'
be had from responsibility. The elevation of mind to
be derived from fear will never make a nation glorious. Responsibility prevents crimes. It makes all attempts against the laws dangerous. But for a principle of active and zealous service, none but idiots could think of it. Is the conduct of a war to be
trusted to a mall who may abhor its principle, - who,
in every step he may take to render it successful,
confirms the power of those by whom he is oppressed?
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Will foreign states seriously treat with him who has
no prerogative of peace or war, - no, not so much as
in a single vote by himself or his ministers, or by any
one whom he can possibly influence? A state of contempt is not a state for a prince: better get rid of
him at once.
I know it will be said that these humors in the
court and executive government will continue only
through this generation, and that the king has been
brought to declare the dauphin shall be educated in
a conformity to his situation. If he is made to conform to his situation, he will have no education at all. His training must be worse even than that of an arbitrary monarch. If he reads, -- whether he reads or not, some good or evil genius will tell him his ancestors were kings. Thenceforward his object must be
to assert himself and to avenge his parents. This
you will say is not his duty. That may be; but it is
Nature; and whilst you pique Nature against you,
you do unwisely to trust to duty. In this futile
scheme of polity, the state nurses in its bosom, for
the present, a source of weakness, perplexity, counteraction, inefficiency, and decay; and it prepares the means of its final ruin. In short, I see nothing in
the executive force (I cannot call it authority) that
has even an appearance of vigor, or that has the
smallest degree of just correspondence or symmetry
or amicable relation with the supreme power, either
as it now exists, or as it is planned for the future
government.
You have settled, by an economy as perverted as
the policy, two * establishments of government,- one
* In reality three, to reckon the provincial republican establishments.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 503
real, one fictitious: both maintained at a vast expense; but the fictitious at, I think, the greatest.
Such a machine as the latter is not worth the grease
of its wheels. The expense is exorbitant; and neither the show nor the use deserve the tenth part of
the charge. - Oh! but I don't do justice to the talents of the legislators: I don't allow, as I ought to
do, for necessity. Their scheme of executive force
was not their choice. This pageant must be kept.
The people would not consent to part with it. - Right:
I understand you. You do, in spite of your grand
theories, to which you would have heaven and earth
to bend, you do know how to conform yourselves to
the nature and circumstances of things. But when
you were obliged to conform thus far to circumstances, you ought to have carried your submission farther, and to have made, what you were obliged to take, a proper instrument, and useful to its end.
That was in your power. For instance, among many
others, it was in your power to leave to your king
the right of peace and war. - What! to leave to the
executive magistrate the most dangerous of all prerogatives? - I know none more dangerous; nor any
one more necessary to be so trusted. I do not say
that this prerogative ought to be trusted to your king,
unless he enjoyed other auxiliary trusts along with it,
which he does not now hold. But, if he did possess
them, hazardous as they are undoubtedly, advantages
would arise from such a Constitution, more than compensating the risk. There is no other way of keeping
the several potentates of Europe from intriguing distinctly and personally with the members of your Assembly, from intermeddling in all your concerns, and fomenting, in the heart of your country, the most per
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nicious of all factions,- factions in the interest and
under the direction of foreign powers. From that
worst of evils, thank God, we are still free. Your
skill, if you had any, would be well employed to find
out indirect correctives and controls upon this perilous trust. If you did not like those which in England
we have chosen, your leaders might have exerted
their abilities in contriving better. If it were necessary to exemplify the consequences of such an executive government as yours, in the management of great affairs, I should refer you to the late reports of M. de
Montmorin to the National Assembly, and all the
other proceedings relative to the differences between
Great Britain and Spain. It would be treating your
understanding with disrespect to point them out to
7ou.
jI hear that the persons who are called ministers
have signified an intention of resigning their places.
I am rather astonished that they have not resigned
long since.
plainly subvert the whole scheme. It would be to
plunge them back into that tumult and confusion
of popular election, which, by their interposed gradation of elections, they mean to avoid, and at length
0to risk the whole fortune of the state with those who
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 483
have the least knowledge of it and the least interest
in it. This is a perpetual dilemma, into which they
are thrown by the vicious, weak, and contradictory
principles they have chosen. Unless the people break
up and level this gradation, it is plain that they do
not at all substantially elect to the Assembly; indeed,
they elect as little in appearance as reality.
What is it we all seek for in an election? To answer its real purposes, you must first possess the
means of knowing the fitness of your man; and then
you must retain some hold upon him by personal
obligation or dependence. For what end are these
primary electors complimented, or rather mocked,
with a choice? They can never know anything of
the qualities of him that is. to serve them, nor has he
any obligation whatsoever to them. Of all the powers unfit to be delegated by those who have any real means of judging, that most peculiarly unfit is what
relates to a personal choice. In case of abuse, that
body of primary electors never can call the representative to an account for his conduct. He is too far removed from them in the chain of representation.
If he acts improperly at the end of his two years'
lease, it does not concern him for two years more.
By the new French Constitution the best and the
wisest representatives go equally with the worst into
this Limbus Patrum. Their bottoms are supposed
foul, and they must go into dock to be refitted.
Every mall who has served in an Assembly is ineligible for two years after. Just as these magistrates begin to learn their trade, like chimney-sweepers,
they are disqualified for exercising it. Superficial,
new, petulant acquisition, and interrupted, dronish,
broken, ill recollection, is to be the destined charac
? ? ? ? 484 REFLECTIONS ON THE
ter of all your future governors. Your Constitution
has too much of jealousy to have much of sense in it.
You consider the breach of trust in the representative
so principally that you do not at all regard the question of his fitness to execute it.
This purgatory interval is not unfavorable to a
faithless representative, who may be as good a canvasser as he was a bad governor. In this time he
may cabal himself into a superiority over the wisest
and most virtuous. As, in the end, all the members
of this elective Constitution are equally fugitive, and
exist only for the election, they may be no longer the
same persons who had chosen him, to whom he is
to be responsible when he solicits for a renewal of
his trust. To call all the secondary electors of the
conmmune to account is ridiculous, impracticable, and
unlljust: they may themselves have been deceived in
their choice, as the third set of electors, those of
the department, may be in theirs. In your elections
responsibility cannot exist.
Finding no sort of principle of coherence with each
other in the nature and constitution of the several
new republics of France, I considered what cement
the legislators had provided for them from any extraneous materials. Their confederations, their spectacles, their civic feasts, and their enthusiasm I take no notice of; they are nothing but mere tricks; but
tracing their policy through their actions, I think I
can distinguish the arrangements by which they propose to hold these republics together. The first is
the confiscation, with the compulsory paper currency
annexed to it; the second is the supreme power of
the city of Paris; the third is the general army of
the state. Of this last I shall reserve what I have
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 485
to say, until I come to consider the army as an head
by itself.
As to the operation of the first (the confiscation
and paper currency) merely as a cement, I cannot
deny that these, the one depending on the other, may
for some time compose some sort of cement, if their
madness and folly in the management, and in the
tempering of the parts together, does not produce a
repulsion in the very outset. But allowing to the
scheme some coherence and some duration, it appears to me, that, if, after a while, the confiscation
should not be found sufficient to support the paper
coinage, (as I am morally certain it will not,) then,
instead of cementing, it will add infinitely to the dissociation, distraction, and confusion of these confederate republics, both with relation to each other and to the several parts within themselves. But if the
confiscation should so far succeed as to sink the paper currency, the cement is gone with the circulation. In the mean time its binding force will be very uncertain, and it will straiten or relax with every variation in the credit of the paper.
One thing only is certain in this scheme, which is
an effect seemingly collateral, but direct, I have no
doubt, in the minds of those who conduct this business: that is, its effect in producing an oligarchy in
every one of the republics. A paper circulation, not
founded on any real money deposited or engaged for,
amounting already to four-and-forty millions of English money, and this currency by force substituted'in
the place of the coin of the kingdom, becoming thereby the substance of its revenue, as well as the medium of all its commercial and civil intercourse, must put the whole of what power, authority, and influ
? ? ? ? 486 REFLECTIONS ON THE
ence is left, in any form whatsoever it may assume,
into the hands of the managers and conductors of
this circulation.
In England we feel the influence of the Bank,
though it is only the centre of a voluntary dealing.
He knows little, indeed, of the influence of money upon mankind, who does not see the force of the man
agement of a moneyed concern which is so much
more extensive, and in its nature so much more depending on the managers, than any of ours. But this
is not merely a money concern. There is another
member inll the system inseparably connected with
this money management. It consists in the means
of drawing out at discretion portions of the confiscated lands for sale, and carrying on a process
of continual transmutation of paper into land and
land into paper. When we follow this process in its
effects, we may conceive something of the intensity
of the force with which this system must operate.
By this means the spirit of money-jobbing and speculation goes into the mass of land itself, and incorporates with it. By this kind of operation, that species of property becomes, as it were, volatilized; it assumes an unnatural and monstrous activity, and
thereby throws into the hands of the several managers, principal and subordinate, Parisian and provincial, all the representative of money, and perhaps a
full tenth part of all the land in France, which has
now acquired the worst and most pernicious part of
thl evil of a paper circulation, the greatest possible
uncertainty in its value. They have reversed the
Latonian kindness to the landed property of Delos.
They have sent theirs to be blown about, like the
light fragments of a wreck, oras, et littora eircum.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 487
The new dealers, being all habitually adventurers,
and without any fixed habits or local predilections, will
purchase to job out again, as the market of paper or
of money or of land shall present an advantage. For
though a holy bishop thinks that agriculture will derive great advantages from the " enlightened" usurers who are to purchase the Church confiscations, I, who
am not a good, but aln old farmer, with great humility
beg leave to tell his late Lordship that usury is not a
tutor of agriculture; and if the word " enlightened"
be understood according to the new dictionary, as it
always is in your new schools, I cannot conceive how
a man's not believing in God can teach him to cultivate the earth with the least of any additional skill
or encouragement. "Diis immortalibus sero," said
an old Roman, when he held one handle of the
plough, whilst Death held the other. Though you
were to join in the commission all the directors of
the two Academies to the directors of the Caisse
d'Escompte, an old experienced peasant is worth
them all. I have got more information upon a curious and interesting branch of husbandry, in one short conversation with an old Carthusian monk, than I have
derived from all the bank directors that I have ever
conversed with. However, there is no cause for apprehension from the meddling of money-dealers with rural economy. These gentlemen are too wise in
their generation. At first, perhaps, their tender and
susceptible imaginations may be captivated with the
innocent and unprofitable delights of a pastoral life;
but in a little time they will find that agriculture is
a trade much more laborious and much less lucrative than that which they had left. After making its panegyric, they will turn their backs on it, like their
? ? ? ? 488 REFLECTIONS ON THE
great precursor and prototype. They may, like him,
begin by singing, "Beatus ille," -- but what will be
the end?
Haec ubi locutus fcenerator Alphius,
Jam jam futurus rusticus,
Omnem relegit Idibus pecuniam,
Quaerit Calendis ponere.
They will cultivate the Caisse d'Eglise, under the sacred auspices of this prelate, with much more profit
than its vineyards and its corn-fields. They will enmploy their talents according to their habits and their
interests. They will not follow the plough, whilst
they can direct treasuries and govern provinces.
Your legislators, in everything new, are the very
first who have founded a commonwealth upon gaming, and infused this spirit into it as its vital breath.
h-e great object in these politics is to metamorphose
France from a great kingdom into one great playtable, - to turn its inhabitants into a nation of gamesters, - to make speculation as extensive as life, - to mix it with all its concerns, -- and to divert the whole
of the hopes and fears of the people from their usual
channels into the impulses, passions, and superstitions of those who live on chances. They loudly proclaim their opinion, that this their present system of a republic cannot possibly exist without this kind of
gaming fund, and that the very thread of its life is
spun out of the staple of these speculations. The old
gaming in funds was mischievous enough, undoubtedly; but it was so only to individuals. Even when
it had its greatest extent, in the Mississippi and
South Sea, it affected but few, comparatively; where
it extends further, as in lotteries, the spirit has but a
single object. But where the law, which in most cir
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 489
cumstances forbids, and in none countenances gaming, is itself debauched, so as to reverse its nature Mond policy, and expressly to force the subject to this
destructive table, by bringing the spirit and symbols
of gaming into the minutest matters, and engaging
everybody in it, and in everything, a more dreadful
epidemic distemper of that kind is spread than yet
has appeared in the world. With you a man can
neither earn nor buy his dinner without a speculation. What he receives in the morning will not have
the same value at night. What he is compelled to
take as pay for an old debt will not be received as the
same, when he comes to pay a debt contracted by
himself; nor will it be the same, when by prompt
payment he would avoid contracting any debt at all.
Industry must wither away. Economy must be driven from your country. Careful provision will have
no existence. Who will labor without knowing the
amount of his pay? Who will study to increase
what none can estimate? Who will accumulate,
when he does not know the value of what he saves?
If you abstract it from its uses in gaming, to accumulate your paper wealth would be, not the providence of a man, but the distempered instinct of a jackdaw.
The truly melancholy part of the policy of systematically making a -nation of gamesters is this, --
that, though all are forced to play, few can understand
the game, and fewer still are in a condition to avail
themselves of that knowledge. The many must be
the dupes of the few who conduct the machine of
these speculations. What effect it must have on the
country-people is visible. The townsman can calculate from day to day; not so the inhabitant of the country. When the peasant first brings his corn to
? ? ? ? 490 REFLECTIONS ON THE
market, the magistrate in the towns obliges him to
take the assignat at par; when he goes to the shop
with this money, he finds it seven per cent the
worse for crossing the way. This market he will not
readily resort to again. The towns-people will be
inflamed; they will force the country-people to bring
their corn. Resistance will begin, and the murders
of Paris and St. Denis may be renewed through all
France.
What signifies the empty compliment paid to the
country, by giving it, perhaps, more than its share in
the theory of your representation? Where have you
placed the real power over moneyed and landed circulation? Where have you placed the means of raising and falling the value of every man's freehold? Those whose operations can take from or add ten
per cent to the possessions of every man in France
must be the masters of every man in France. The
whole of the power obtained by this Revolution will
settle in the towns among the burghers, and the
moneyed directors who lead them. The landed gentleman, the yeoman, and the peasant have, none of
them, habits or inclinations or experience which can
lead them to any share in this the sole source of
power and influence now left in France. The very
nature of a country life, the very nature of landed
property, in all the occupations and all the pleasures
they afford, render combination and arrangement
(the sole way of procuring and exerting influence)
in a manner impossible amongst country-people.
Combine them by all the art you can, and all the
industry, they are always dissolving into individuality. Anything in the nature of incorporation is almost impracticable amongst them. Hope, fear, alarm,
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 491
jealousy, the ephemerous tale that does its business
and dies in a day, all these things, which are the reins
and spurs by which leaders check or urge the minds
of followers, are not easily employed, or hardly at all,
amongst scattered people. They assemble, they arm,
they act, with the utmost difficulty, and at the greatest charge. Their efforts, if ever they can be commenced, cannot be sustained. They cannot proceed systematically. If the country-gentlemen attempt an
influence through the mere income of their property,
what is it to that of those who have ten times their
income to sell, and who can ruin their property by
bringing their plunder to meet it at market? If the
landed man wishes to mortgage, he falls the value of
his land and raises the value of assignats. He augments the power of his enemy by the very means he
must take to contend with him. The country-gentleman, therefore, the officer by sea and land, the man
of liberal views and habits, attached to no profession,
will be as completely excluded from the government
of his country as if he were legislatively proscribed.
It is obvious, that, in the towns, all the things which
conspire against the country-gentleman combine in
favor of the money manager and director. In towns
combination is natural. The habits of burghers, their
occupations, their diversion, their business, th6ir idleness, continually bring them into mutual contact.
Their virtues and their vices are sociable; they are
always in garrison; and they come embodied and
half-disciplined into the hands of those who mean to
form them for civil or military action.
All these considerations leave no doubt on my
mind, that, if this monster of a Constitution can continue, France will be wholly governed by the agita
? ? ? ? 492 REFLECTIONS ON THE
tors in corporations, by societies in the towns, formed
of directors in assignats, and trustees for the sale of
Churchl lands, attorneys, agents, money-jobbers, speculators, and adventurers, composing an ignoble oligarchy, founded on the destruction of the crown, the Church, the nobility, and the people. Here end all
the deceitful dreams and visions of the equality and
rights of men. In " the Serbonian bog" of this base
oligarchy they are all absorbed, sunk, and lost forever.
Though human eyes cannot trace them, one would
be tempted to think some great offences in France
must cry to Heaven, which has thought fit to punish
it with a subjection to a vile and inglorious domination, in which no comfort or compensation is to be
found in any even of those false splendors which,
playing about other tyrannies, prevent mankind from
feeling themselves dishonored even whilst they are
oppressed. I must confess I am touched with a sorrow mixed with some indignation, at the conduct of
a few men, once of great rank, and still of great character, who, deluded with specious names, have engaged in a business too deep for the line of their understanding to fathom, --who have lent their fair
reputation and the authority of their high-sounding
names to the designs of men with whom they could
not be acquainted, and have thereby made their very
virtues operate to the ruin of their country.
So far as to the first cementing principle.
The second material of cement for their new repub
lie is the superiority of the city of Paris; and this,
I admit, is strongly connected with the other cementing principle of paper circulation and confiscation.
It is in this part of the project we must look for the
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 493
cause of the destruction of all the old bounds of provinces and jurisdictions, ecclesiastical and secular, and
the dissolution of all ancient combinations of things,
as well as the formation of so many small unconnected republics. The power of the city of Paris is evidently one great spring of all their politics. . It is
through the power of Paris, now become the centre
and focus of jobbing, that the leaders of this faction
direct, or rather command, the whole legislative and
the whole executive government. Everything, therefore, must be done which can confirm the authority
of that city over the other republics. Paris is compact; she has an enormous strength, wholly disproportioned to the force of any of the square republics;
and this strength is collected and condensed within
a narrow compass. Paris has a natural and easy
connection of its parts, which will not be affected by
any scheme of a geometrical constitution; nor does
it much signify whether its proportion of representation be more or less, since it has the whole draught
of fishes in its drag-net. The other divisions of the
kingdom, being hackled and torn to pieces, and separated from all their habitual means and even principles of union, cannot, for some time at least, confederate against her. Nothing was to be left in all the subordinate members, but weakness, disconnection,
and confusion. To confirm this part of the plan,
the Assembly has lately come to a resolution that
no two of their republics shall have the same commander-in-chief.
To a person who takes a view of the whole, the
strength of Paris, thus formed, will appear a system
of general weakness. It is boasted that the geometrical policy has been adopted, that all local ideas
? ? ? ? 494 REFLECTIONS ON THE
should be sunk, and that the people should be no
longer Gascons, Picards, Bretons, Normans,-but
Frenchmen, with one country, one heart, and one
Assembly. But, instead of being all Frenchmen, the
greater likelihood is that the inhabitants of that region will shortly have no country. No man ever was
attached by a sense of pride, partiality, or real affection, to a description of square measurement. He
never will glory in belonging to the chequer No. 71,
or to any other badge-ticket. We begin our public
affections in our families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen. We pass on to our neighborhoods, and
our habitual provincial connections. These are inns
and resting-places. Shich divisions of our country as
have been formed by habit, and not by a sudden jerk
of authority, were so many little images of the great
country, in which the heart found something which it
could fill. The love to the whole is not extinguished
by this subordinate partiality. Perhaps it is a sort
of elemental training to those higher and more large
regards by which alone men come to be affected, as
with their own concern, in the prosperity of a kingdom so extensive as that of France. In that general
territory itself, as in the old name of Provinces, the
citizens are interested from old prejudices and unreasoned habits, and not on account of the geometric
properties of its figure. The power and preeminence of Paris does certainly press down and hold
these republics together as long as it lasts: but, for
the reasons I have already given you, I think it cannot last very long.
Passing from the civil creating and the civil cementing principles of this Constitution to the National Assembly, which is to appear and act as sovereign,
? ? ? ? RFVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 495
we see a body in its constitution with every possible
power and no possible external control. We see a
body without findamental laws, without established
maxims, without respected rules of proceeding, which
nothing can keep firm to any system whatsoever.
Their idea of their powers is always taken at the utmost stretch of legislative competency, and their examples for common cases from the exceptions of the most urgent necessity. The future is to be in most
respects like the present Assembly; but, by the mode
of the new elections and the tendency of the new circulations, it will be purged of the small degree of
internal control existing in a minority chosen originally from various interests, and preserving something
of their spirit.
If possible, the next Assembly must
be worse than the present. The present, by destroying and altering everything, will leave to their successors apparently nothing popular to do. They will
be roused by emulation and example to enterprises
the boldest and the most absurd. To suppose such
an Assembly sitting in perfect quietude is ridiculous.
Y6our all-sufficient legislators, in their hurry to do
everything at once, have forgot one thing that seems
essential, and which, I believe, never has been before,
in the theory or the practice, omitted by any projector of a republic. They have fotr tlo -c s9, tietp. , a
senate, or something of that nature and character. 'e;er', ]before this time, was heard of a body politic
composed of one legislative and active assembly, and
its'executive officers, without such a council: without something to which foreign states might connect
themselves, -- something to which, in the ordinary
detail of government, the people could look up,something which might give a bias and steadiness,
------ ~~ ------- ~'~-~ ----'- ~~ --~' ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~''*". . . . . . . . . . . ~. . . . . . . . . .
? ? ? ? 496 REFLECTIONS ON THE
and preserve something like consistency in the proceedings of state. Such a body kings generally have
as a council. A monarchy may exist without it; but
it seems to be in the very essence of a republican
government. It holds a sort of mddle place between
the supreme power exercised by the people, or immediately delegated from them, and the mere executive.
Of this there are no traces in your Constitution; and
in providing nothing of this kind, your Solons and
Numas have, as much as in anything else, discovered
a sovereign incapacity.
Let us now turn our eyes to what they have done
towards the formation of an executive power. For
this they have chosen a degraded king. This their
first executive officer is to be a machine, without any
sort of deliberative discretion in any one act of his
function. At best, he is but a channel to convey to
the National Assembly such matter as may import
that body to know. If he had been made the exclusive channel, the power would not have been without its importance, though infinitely perilous to those who would choose to exercise it. But public intelligence and statement of facts may pass to the Assembly with equal authenticity through any other conveyance. As to the means, therefore, of giving a
direction to measures by the statement of an authorized reporter, this office of intelligence is as nothing.
To consider the French scheme of an executive
officer, in its two natural divisions of civil and political. - In the first it must be observed, that, according
to the new Constitution, the higher parts of judicature, in either of its lines, are not in the king. The
king of France is not the fountain of justice. The
judges, neither the original nor the appellate, are of
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 497
his nomination. He neither proposes the candidates
nor has a negative on the choice. HIe is not even
the public prosecutor. He serves only as a notary,
to authenticate the choice made of the judges in the
several districts. By his officers he is to execute
their sentence. When we look into the true nature
of his authority, he. appears to be nothing more than
a chief of bumbailiffs, sergeants-at-mace, catchpoles,
jailers, and hangmen. It is impossible to place anything called royalty in a more degrading point of
view. A thousand times better it had been for the
dignity of this unhappy prince, that he had nothing
at all to do with the administration of justice, deprived as he is of all that is venerable and all that
is consolatory in that function, without power of
originating any process, without a power of suspelsion, mitigation, or pardon. Everything in justice
that is vile and odious is thrown upon him. It. was
not for nothing that the Assembly has been at such
pains to remove the stigma from certain offices, when
they were resolved to place the person who had lately
been their king in a situation but one degree above
the executioner, and in an office nearly of the same
quality. It is not in Nature, that, situated as the
king of the French now is, he can respect himself
or can be respected by others.
View this new executive officer on the side of his
political capacity, as he acts under the orders of the
National Assembly. To execute laws is a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust. It is a trust, indeed, that has
much depending upon its faithful and diligent performance, both in the person presiding in it and in
VOL. HI. 32
? ? ? ? 498 REFLECTIONS ON THE
all its subordinates. Means of performing this duty
ought to be given by regulation; and dispositions
towards it ought to be infused by the circumstances
attendant on the trust. It ought to be environed
with dignity, authority, and consideration, and it
ought to lead to glory. The office of execution is
an office of exertion. It is not from impotence we
are to expect the tasks of power. What sort of
person is a king to command executory service, who
has no means whatsoever to reward it: -not in a
permanent office; not in a grant of land; no, not
in a pension of fifty pounds a year; not in the
vainest and most trivial title? In France the king
is no more the fountain of honor than he is the
fountain of justice. All rewards, all distinctions, are
in other hands. Those who serve the king can be actuated by no natural motive but fear,- by a fear of
everything except their master. Ilis functions of internal coercion are as odious as those which he exercises in the department of justice. If relief is to be given to any municipality, the Assembly gives it.
If troops are to be sent to reduce them to obedience to the Assembly, the king is to execute the
order; and upon every occasion he is to be spattered
over with the blood of his people. He has no negative; yet his name and authority is used to enforce
every harsh decree. Nay, he must concur in the
butchery of those who shall attempt to free him from
his imprisonment, or show the slightest attachment to
his person or to his ancient authority.
Executive magistracy ought to be constituted in
such a manner that those who compose it should
be disposed to love and to venerate those whom thev
are bound to obey. A purposed neglect, or, what is
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worse, a literal, but perverse and malignant obedience,
must be the ruin of the wisest counsels. In vain
will the law attempt to anticipate or to follow such
studied neglects and fraudulent attentions. To make
them act zealously is not in the'competence of law.
Kings, even such as are truly kings, may and ought
to bear the freedom of subjects that are obnoxious
to them. They may, too, without derogating from
tllemselves, bear even the authority of such persons,
if it promotes their service. Louis the Thirteenth
mortally hated the Cardinal de Richelieu; but his
support of that minister against his rivals was the
source of all the glory of his reign, and the solid
foundation of his throne itself. Louis the Fourteenth, when come to the throne, did not love the
Cardinal Mazarin; but for his interests he preserved
him in power. When old, he detested Louvois; but
for years, whilst he faithfully served his greatness, he
endured his person. When George the Second took
Mr. Pitt, who certainly was not agreeable to him,
into his councils, he did nothing which could humble
a wise sovereign. But these ministers, who were chosen by affairs, not by affections, acted in the name of
and in trust for kings, and not as their avowed constitutional and ostensible masters. I think it impossible that any king, when he has recovered his first terrors, can cordially infuse vivacity and vigor into
measures which he knows to be dictated by those
who, he must be persuaded, are in the highest degree
ill affected to his person. Will any ministers, who
serve such a king (or whatever he may be called)
with but a decent appearance of respect, cordially
obey the orders of those whom but the other day in
his name they had committed to the Bastile? will
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they obey the orders of those whom, whilst they were
exercising despotic justice upon them, they conceived
they were treating with lenity, and for whom in a
prison they thought they had provided an asylum?
If you expect such obedience, amongst your other innovations and regenerations, you ought to make a revolution in Nature, and provide a new constitution
for the human mind: otherwise your supreme government cannot harmonize with its executory system. There are cases in which we cannot take up with
names and abstractions. You may call half a dozen
leading individuals, whom we have reason to fear and
hate, the nation. It makes no other difference than
to make us fear and hate them the more. If it had
been thought justifiable and expedient to make such
a revolution by such means and through such persons as you have made yours, it would have been more wise to have completed the business of the fifth
and sixth of October. The new executive officer
would then owe his situation to those who are his
creators as well as his masters; and he might be
bound in interest, in the society of crime, and (if in
crimes there could be virtues) in gratitude, to serve
those who had promoted him to a place of great lucre and great sensual indulgence, - and of something more: for more he must have received from those
who certainly would not have limited an aggrandized
creature as they have done a submitting antagonist.
A king circumstanced as the present, if he is totally stupefied by his misfortunes, so as to think it
not the necessity, but the premium and privilege of
life, to eat and sleep, without any regard to glory, can
never be fit for the office. If he feels as men commonly feel, he must be sensible that an office so cir.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 501
cumstanced is one in which he can obtain no fame or
reputation. He has no generous interest that can
excite him to action. At best, his conduct will be
passive and defensive. To inferior people such an office might be matter of honor. But to be raised to it and to descend to it are different things, and suggest different sentiments. Does he really name the ministers? They will have a sympathy with him.
Are they forced upon him? The whole business
between them and the nominal king will be mutual
counteraction. In all other countries the office of
ministers of state is of the highest dignity. In
France it is full of peril, and incapable of glory.
Rivals, however, they will have in their nothingness,
whilst shallow ambition exists in the world, or the
desire of a miserable salary is an incentive to shortsighted avarice. Those competitors of the ministers are enabled by your Constitution to attack them in
their vital parts, whilst they have not the means of
repelling their charges in any other than the degrading character of culprits. The ministers of state in France are the only persons in that country who are
incapable of a share in the national councils. What
ministers! What councils! What a nation! - But
they are responsible. It is a poor service that is to'
be had from responsibility. The elevation of mind to
be derived from fear will never make a nation glorious. Responsibility prevents crimes. It makes all attempts against the laws dangerous. But for a principle of active and zealous service, none but idiots could think of it. Is the conduct of a war to be
trusted to a mall who may abhor its principle, - who,
in every step he may take to render it successful,
confirms the power of those by whom he is oppressed?
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Will foreign states seriously treat with him who has
no prerogative of peace or war, - no, not so much as
in a single vote by himself or his ministers, or by any
one whom he can possibly influence? A state of contempt is not a state for a prince: better get rid of
him at once.
I know it will be said that these humors in the
court and executive government will continue only
through this generation, and that the king has been
brought to declare the dauphin shall be educated in
a conformity to his situation. If he is made to conform to his situation, he will have no education at all. His training must be worse even than that of an arbitrary monarch. If he reads, -- whether he reads or not, some good or evil genius will tell him his ancestors were kings. Thenceforward his object must be
to assert himself and to avenge his parents. This
you will say is not his duty. That may be; but it is
Nature; and whilst you pique Nature against you,
you do unwisely to trust to duty. In this futile
scheme of polity, the state nurses in its bosom, for
the present, a source of weakness, perplexity, counteraction, inefficiency, and decay; and it prepares the means of its final ruin. In short, I see nothing in
the executive force (I cannot call it authority) that
has even an appearance of vigor, or that has the
smallest degree of just correspondence or symmetry
or amicable relation with the supreme power, either
as it now exists, or as it is planned for the future
government.
You have settled, by an economy as perverted as
the policy, two * establishments of government,- one
* In reality three, to reckon the provincial republican establishments.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 503
real, one fictitious: both maintained at a vast expense; but the fictitious at, I think, the greatest.
Such a machine as the latter is not worth the grease
of its wheels. The expense is exorbitant; and neither the show nor the use deserve the tenth part of
the charge. - Oh! but I don't do justice to the talents of the legislators: I don't allow, as I ought to
do, for necessity. Their scheme of executive force
was not their choice. This pageant must be kept.
The people would not consent to part with it. - Right:
I understand you. You do, in spite of your grand
theories, to which you would have heaven and earth
to bend, you do know how to conform yourselves to
the nature and circumstances of things. But when
you were obliged to conform thus far to circumstances, you ought to have carried your submission farther, and to have made, what you were obliged to take, a proper instrument, and useful to its end.
That was in your power. For instance, among many
others, it was in your power to leave to your king
the right of peace and war. - What! to leave to the
executive magistrate the most dangerous of all prerogatives? - I know none more dangerous; nor any
one more necessary to be so trusted. I do not say
that this prerogative ought to be trusted to your king,
unless he enjoyed other auxiliary trusts along with it,
which he does not now hold. But, if he did possess
them, hazardous as they are undoubtedly, advantages
would arise from such a Constitution, more than compensating the risk. There is no other way of keeping
the several potentates of Europe from intriguing distinctly and personally with the members of your Assembly, from intermeddling in all your concerns, and fomenting, in the heart of your country, the most per
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nicious of all factions,- factions in the interest and
under the direction of foreign powers. From that
worst of evils, thank God, we are still free. Your
skill, if you had any, would be well employed to find
out indirect correctives and controls upon this perilous trust. If you did not like those which in England
we have chosen, your leaders might have exerted
their abilities in contriving better. If it were necessary to exemplify the consequences of such an executive government as yours, in the management of great affairs, I should refer you to the late reports of M. de
Montmorin to the National Assembly, and all the
other proceedings relative to the differences between
Great Britain and Spain. It would be treating your
understanding with disrespect to point them out to
7ou.
jI hear that the persons who are called ministers
have signified an intention of resigning their places.
I am rather astonished that they have not resigned
long since.
