After abating
much (and much I think ought to be abated) from
the sanguine calculation of Dr.
much (and much I think ought to be abated) from
the sanguine calculation of Dr.
Edmund Burke
This is a great
mistake. They certainly did not contribute equally
with each other, nor either of them equally with the
* In the Constitution of Scotland, during the Stuart reigns, a
committee sat for preparing bills; and none could pass, but those
previously approved by them. This committee was called Lords of
Articles.
? ? ? ? 390 REFLECTIONS ON THE
commons. They both, however, contributed largely.
Neither nobility nor clergy enjoyed any exemption
from the excise on consumable commodities, from duties of custom, or from any of the other numerous indirect impositions, which in France, as well as here, make so very large a proportion of all payments to
the public. The noblesse paid the capitation. They
paid also a land-tax, called the twentieth penny, to
the height sometimes of three, sometimes of four
shillings in the pound: both of them direct impositions, of no light nature, and no trivial produce.
The clergy of the provinces annexed by conquest to
France (which in extent make about an eighth part
of the whole, but in wealth a much larger proportion) paid likewise to the capitation and the twentieth penny, at the rate paid by the nobility. The
clergy in the old provinces did not pay the capitation; but they had redeemed themselves at the expense of about twenty-four millions, or a little more
than a million sterling. They were exempted from
the twentieths: but then they made free gifts; they
contracted debts for the state; and they were subject
to some other charges, the whole computed at about
a thirteenth part of their clear income. They ought
to have paid annually about forty thousand pounds
more, to put them on a par with the contribution of
the nobility.
When the terrors of this tremendous proscription
hung over the clergy, they made an offer of a contribution, through the Archbishop of Aix, which, for its
extravagance, ought not to have been accepted. But
it was evidently and obviously more advantageous
to the public creditor than anything which could rationally be promised by the confiscation. Why was
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 391
It not accepted? The reason is plain: - There was
no desire that the Church should be brought to serve
the State. The service of the State was made a pretext to destroy the Church. In their way to the
destruction of the Church they would not scruple to
destroy their country: and they have destroyed it.
One great end in the project would have been defeated, if the plan of extortion had been adopted in
lieu of the scheme of confiscation. The new landed
interest connected with the new republic, and connected with it for its very being, could not have been
created. This was among the reasons why that extravagant ransom was not accepted.
The madness of the project of confiscation, on the
plan that was first pretended, soon became apparent.
To bring this unwieldy mass of landed property, enlarged by the confiscation of all the vast landed domain of the crown, at once into market was obviously to defeat the profits proposed by the confiscation, by
depreciating the value of those lands, and indeed of
all the landed estates throughout France. Such a
sudden diversion of all its circulating money from
trade to land must be all additional mischief. What
step was taken? Did the Assembly, on becoming sensible of the inevitable ill effects of their projected sale,
revert to the offers of the clergy? No distress could
oblige them to travel in a course which was disgraced
by any appearance of justice. Giving over all hopes
from a general immediate sale, another project seems
to have succeeded. They proposed to take stock in
exchange for the Church lands. In that project great
difficulties arose in equalizing the objects to be exchanged. Other obstacles also presented themselves,
which threw them back again upon some project of
? ? ? ? 392 REFLECTIONS ON THE
sale. The municipalities had taken an alarm. They
would not hear of transferring the whole plunder of
the kingdom to the stockholders in Paris. Many of
those municipalities had been (upon system) reduced
to the most deplorable indigence. Money was nowhere to be seen. They were therefore led to the
point that was so ardently desired. They panted for
a currency of any kind which might revive their perishing industry. The municipalities were, then, to be admitted to a share in the spoil, which evidently rendered the first scheme (if ever it had been seriously entertained) altogether impracticable. Public exigencies pressed upon all sides. The Minister of Finance reiterated his call for supply with a most urgent,
anxious, and boding voice. Thus pressed on all
sides, instead of the first plan of converting their
bankers into bishops and abbots, instead of paying
the old debt, they contracted a new debt, at three
per cent, creating a new paper currency, founded on
an eventual sale of the Church lands. They issued
this paper currency to satisfy in the first instance
chiefly the demands made upon them by the bank of
discount, the great machine or paper-mill of their fictitious wealth.
The spoil of the Church was now become the only
resource of all their operations in finance, the vital
principle of all their politics, the sole security for the
existence of their power. It was necessary, by all,
even the most violent means, to put' every individual
on the same bottom, and to bind the nation in one
guilty interest to uphold this act, and the authority
of those by whom it was done. In order to force the
most reluctant into a participation of their pillage,
they rendered their paper circulation compulsory in
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 393
all payments. Those who consider the general tendency of their schemes to this one object as a centre,
and a centre from which afterwards all their measures radiate, will not think that I dwell too long
upon this part of the proceedings of the National
Assembly.
To cut off all appearance of connection between
the crown and public justice, and to bring the whole
under implicit obedience to the dictators in Paris,
the old independent judicature of the Parliaments,
with all its merits and all its faults, was wholly abolished. Whilst the Parliaments existed, it was evident that the people might some time or other come to resort to them, and rally under the standard of
their ancient laws. It became, however, a matter of
consideration, that the magistrates and officers in the
courts now abolished had purchased their places at a
very high rate, for which, as well as for the duty
they performed, they received but a very low return of interest. Simple confiscation is a boon only
for the clergy: to the lawyers some appearances of
equity are to be observed; and they are to receive
compensation to an immense amount. Their compensation becomes part of the national debt, for the
liquidation of which there is the one exhaustless
fund. The lawyers are to obtain their compensation
in the new Church paper, which is to march with the
new principles of judicature and legislature. The
dismissed magistrates are to take their share of martyrdom with the ecclesiastics, or to receive their own
property from such a fund and in such a manner as
all those who have been seasoned with the ancient
principles of jurisprudence, and had been the sworn
guardians of property, must look upon with horror.
? ? ? ? 394 REFLECTIONS ON THE
Even the clergy are to receive their miserable allow
ance out of the depreciated paper, which is stamped
with the indelible character of sacrilege, and with the
symbols of their own ruin, or they must starve. So
violent an outrage upon credit, property, and liberty,
as this compulsory paper currency, has seldom been
exhibited by the alliance of bankruptcy and tyranny,
at any time, or in any nation.
In the course of all these operations, at length
comes out the grand arcanum, -that in reality, and
in a fair sense, the lands of the Church (so far as
anything certain can be gathered from their proceedings) are not to be sold at all. By the late resolutions of the National Assembly, they are, indeed, to be delivered to the highest bidder. But it is to be
observed, that a certain portion only of the purchasemoney is to be laid down. A period of twelve years
is to be given for the payment of the rest. The philosophic purchasers are therefore, on payment of a
sort of fine, to be put instantly into possession of the
estate. It becomes in some respects a sort of gift to
them, -- to be held on the feudal tenure of zeal to
the new establishment. This project is evidently to
let in a body of purchasers without money. The consequence will be, that these purchasers, or rather
grantees, will pay, not only from the rents as they
accrue, which might as well be received by the state,
but from the spoil of the materials of buildings, from
waste in woods, and from whatever money, by hands
habituated to the gripings of usury, they call wring
from the miserable peasant. He is to be delivered
over to the mercenary and arbitrary discretion of
men who will be stimulated to every species of extortion by the growing demands on the growing prof
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 395
its of an estate held under the precarious settlement
of a new political system.
When all the frauds, impostures, violences, rapines, burnings, murders, confiscations, compulsory
paper currencies, and every description of tyranny
and cruelty employed to bring about and to uphold
this Revolution have their natural effect, that is, to
shock the moral sentiments of all virtuous and sober
minds, the abettors of this philosophic system immediately strain their throats in a declamation against the old monarchical government of France. When
they have rendered that deposed power sufficiently
black, they then proceed in argument, as if all those
who disapprove of their new abuses must of course
be partisans of the old, --that those who reprobate
their crude and violent schemes of liberty ought to
be treated as advocates for servitude. I admit that
their necessities do compel them to this base and contemptible fraud. 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.
mistake. They certainly did not contribute equally
with each other, nor either of them equally with the
* In the Constitution of Scotland, during the Stuart reigns, a
committee sat for preparing bills; and none could pass, but those
previously approved by them. This committee was called Lords of
Articles.
? ? ? ? 390 REFLECTIONS ON THE
commons. They both, however, contributed largely.
Neither nobility nor clergy enjoyed any exemption
from the excise on consumable commodities, from duties of custom, or from any of the other numerous indirect impositions, which in France, as well as here, make so very large a proportion of all payments to
the public. The noblesse paid the capitation. They
paid also a land-tax, called the twentieth penny, to
the height sometimes of three, sometimes of four
shillings in the pound: both of them direct impositions, of no light nature, and no trivial produce.
The clergy of the provinces annexed by conquest to
France (which in extent make about an eighth part
of the whole, but in wealth a much larger proportion) paid likewise to the capitation and the twentieth penny, at the rate paid by the nobility. The
clergy in the old provinces did not pay the capitation; but they had redeemed themselves at the expense of about twenty-four millions, or a little more
than a million sterling. They were exempted from
the twentieths: but then they made free gifts; they
contracted debts for the state; and they were subject
to some other charges, the whole computed at about
a thirteenth part of their clear income. They ought
to have paid annually about forty thousand pounds
more, to put them on a par with the contribution of
the nobility.
When the terrors of this tremendous proscription
hung over the clergy, they made an offer of a contribution, through the Archbishop of Aix, which, for its
extravagance, ought not to have been accepted. But
it was evidently and obviously more advantageous
to the public creditor than anything which could rationally be promised by the confiscation. Why was
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 391
It not accepted? The reason is plain: - There was
no desire that the Church should be brought to serve
the State. The service of the State was made a pretext to destroy the Church. In their way to the
destruction of the Church they would not scruple to
destroy their country: and they have destroyed it.
One great end in the project would have been defeated, if the plan of extortion had been adopted in
lieu of the scheme of confiscation. The new landed
interest connected with the new republic, and connected with it for its very being, could not have been
created. This was among the reasons why that extravagant ransom was not accepted.
The madness of the project of confiscation, on the
plan that was first pretended, soon became apparent.
To bring this unwieldy mass of landed property, enlarged by the confiscation of all the vast landed domain of the crown, at once into market was obviously to defeat the profits proposed by the confiscation, by
depreciating the value of those lands, and indeed of
all the landed estates throughout France. Such a
sudden diversion of all its circulating money from
trade to land must be all additional mischief. What
step was taken? Did the Assembly, on becoming sensible of the inevitable ill effects of their projected sale,
revert to the offers of the clergy? No distress could
oblige them to travel in a course which was disgraced
by any appearance of justice. Giving over all hopes
from a general immediate sale, another project seems
to have succeeded. They proposed to take stock in
exchange for the Church lands. In that project great
difficulties arose in equalizing the objects to be exchanged. Other obstacles also presented themselves,
which threw them back again upon some project of
? ? ? ? 392 REFLECTIONS ON THE
sale. The municipalities had taken an alarm. They
would not hear of transferring the whole plunder of
the kingdom to the stockholders in Paris. Many of
those municipalities had been (upon system) reduced
to the most deplorable indigence. Money was nowhere to be seen. They were therefore led to the
point that was so ardently desired. They panted for
a currency of any kind which might revive their perishing industry. The municipalities were, then, to be admitted to a share in the spoil, which evidently rendered the first scheme (if ever it had been seriously entertained) altogether impracticable. Public exigencies pressed upon all sides. The Minister of Finance reiterated his call for supply with a most urgent,
anxious, and boding voice. Thus pressed on all
sides, instead of the first plan of converting their
bankers into bishops and abbots, instead of paying
the old debt, they contracted a new debt, at three
per cent, creating a new paper currency, founded on
an eventual sale of the Church lands. They issued
this paper currency to satisfy in the first instance
chiefly the demands made upon them by the bank of
discount, the great machine or paper-mill of their fictitious wealth.
The spoil of the Church was now become the only
resource of all their operations in finance, the vital
principle of all their politics, the sole security for the
existence of their power. It was necessary, by all,
even the most violent means, to put' every individual
on the same bottom, and to bind the nation in one
guilty interest to uphold this act, and the authority
of those by whom it was done. In order to force the
most reluctant into a participation of their pillage,
they rendered their paper circulation compulsory in
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 393
all payments. Those who consider the general tendency of their schemes to this one object as a centre,
and a centre from which afterwards all their measures radiate, will not think that I dwell too long
upon this part of the proceedings of the National
Assembly.
To cut off all appearance of connection between
the crown and public justice, and to bring the whole
under implicit obedience to the dictators in Paris,
the old independent judicature of the Parliaments,
with all its merits and all its faults, was wholly abolished. Whilst the Parliaments existed, it was evident that the people might some time or other come to resort to them, and rally under the standard of
their ancient laws. It became, however, a matter of
consideration, that the magistrates and officers in the
courts now abolished had purchased their places at a
very high rate, for which, as well as for the duty
they performed, they received but a very low return of interest. Simple confiscation is a boon only
for the clergy: to the lawyers some appearances of
equity are to be observed; and they are to receive
compensation to an immense amount. Their compensation becomes part of the national debt, for the
liquidation of which there is the one exhaustless
fund. The lawyers are to obtain their compensation
in the new Church paper, which is to march with the
new principles of judicature and legislature. The
dismissed magistrates are to take their share of martyrdom with the ecclesiastics, or to receive their own
property from such a fund and in such a manner as
all those who have been seasoned with the ancient
principles of jurisprudence, and had been the sworn
guardians of property, must look upon with horror.
? ? ? ? 394 REFLECTIONS ON THE
Even the clergy are to receive their miserable allow
ance out of the depreciated paper, which is stamped
with the indelible character of sacrilege, and with the
symbols of their own ruin, or they must starve. So
violent an outrage upon credit, property, and liberty,
as this compulsory paper currency, has seldom been
exhibited by the alliance of bankruptcy and tyranny,
at any time, or in any nation.
In the course of all these operations, at length
comes out the grand arcanum, -that in reality, and
in a fair sense, the lands of the Church (so far as
anything certain can be gathered from their proceedings) are not to be sold at all. By the late resolutions of the National Assembly, they are, indeed, to be delivered to the highest bidder. But it is to be
observed, that a certain portion only of the purchasemoney is to be laid down. A period of twelve years
is to be given for the payment of the rest. The philosophic purchasers are therefore, on payment of a
sort of fine, to be put instantly into possession of the
estate. It becomes in some respects a sort of gift to
them, -- to be held on the feudal tenure of zeal to
the new establishment. This project is evidently to
let in a body of purchasers without money. The consequence will be, that these purchasers, or rather
grantees, will pay, not only from the rents as they
accrue, which might as well be received by the state,
but from the spoil of the materials of buildings, from
waste in woods, and from whatever money, by hands
habituated to the gripings of usury, they call wring
from the miserable peasant. He is to be delivered
over to the mercenary and arbitrary discretion of
men who will be stimulated to every species of extortion by the growing demands on the growing prof
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 395
its of an estate held under the precarious settlement
of a new political system.
When all the frauds, impostures, violences, rapines, burnings, murders, confiscations, compulsory
paper currencies, and every description of tyranny
and cruelty employed to bring about and to uphold
this Revolution have their natural effect, that is, to
shock the moral sentiments of all virtuous and sober
minds, the abettors of this philosophic system immediately strain their throats in a declamation against the old monarchical government of France. When
they have rendered that deposed power sufficiently
black, they then proceed in argument, as if all those
who disapprove of their new abuses must of course
be partisans of the old, --that those who reprobate
their crude and violent schemes of liberty ought to
be treated as advocates for servitude. I admit that
their necessities do compel them to this base and contemptible fraud. 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.
