Even to be too
tenacious
of those privileges is not absolutely a crime.
Edmund Burke
The reasonings of this able financier concerning the quantity of gold and silver which remained
for circulation, when he wrote in 1785, that is, about
* De l'Administration des Finances de la France, par M. Necker.
t Vol. III. chap. 8 and chap. 9.
? ? ? ? 404 REFLECTIONS ON THE
four years before the deposition and imprisonment
of the French king, are not of equal certainty; but
they are laid on grounds so apparently solid, that it
is not easy to refuse a considerable degree of assent
to his calculation. He calculates the nume'raire, or
what we call specie, then actually existing in France,
at about eighty-eight millions of the same English
money. A great accumulation of wealth for one
country, large as that country is! M. Necker was
so far from considering this influx of wealth as likely
to cease, when he wrote in 1785, that he presumes
upon a future annual increase of two per cent upon
tihe money brought into France during the periods
firom which he computed.
Some adequate cause must have originally introduced all the money coined at its mint into that kingdom; and some cause as operative must have kept at home, or returned into its bosom, such a vast flood of
treasure as M. Necker calculates to remain for domestic circulation. Suppose any reasonable deductions from M. Necker's computation, the remainder must still amount to an immense sum. Causes thus
powerful to acquire and to retain cannot be found
in discouraged industry, insecure property, and a
positively destructive government. Indeed, when I
consider the face of the kingdom of France, the multitude and opulence of her cities, the useful magnificence of her spacious high-roads and bridges, the opportunity of her artificial canals and navigations
opening the conveniences of maritime communication
through a solid continent of so immense an extent, --
when I turn my eyes to the stupendous works of her
ports and harbors, and to her whole naval apparatus,
whether for war or trade, - when I bring before my
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 405
view the number of her fortifications, constructed
with so bold and masterly a skill, and made and
maintained at so prodigious a charge, presenting an
armed front and impenetrable barrier to her enemies
upon every side, - when I recollect how very small a
part of that extensive region is without cultivation.
and to what complete perfection the culture of many
of the best productions of the earth have been brouglht
in France,- when I reflect on the excellence of her
manufactures and fabrics, second to none but ours,
and in some particulars not second, -- when I contemplate the grand foundations of charity, public and private, - when I survey the state of all the arts that
beautify and polish life, - when I reckon the men
she has bred for extending her fame in war, her able
statesmen, the multitude of her profound lawyers
and theologians, her philosophers, her critics, her
historians and antiquaries, her poets and her orators,
sacred and profane/. -T I behold in all this something
which awes and commands the imagination, which
checks the mind on the brink of precipitate and indiscriminate censure, and which demands that we should very seriously examine what and how great
are the latent vices that could authorize us at once to
level so spacious a fabric with the ground,. I do not
recognize in this view of things the despotism of Turkey. Nor do I discern the character of a government that has been on the whole so oppressive, or so corrupt, or so negligent, as to be utterly unfit for all reformation. I must think such a government well
deserved to have its excellences heightened, its faults
corrected, and its capacities improved into a British
Constitution.
Whoever has examined into the proceedings of that
? ? ? ? 406 REFLECTIONS ON THE
deposed government for several years back cannot
fail to have observed, amidst the inconstancy and
fluctuation natural to courts, an earnest endeavor towards the prosperity and improvement of the country; he must admit that it had long been employed, in some instances wholly to remove, in many considerably to correct, the abusive practices and usages
that had prevailed in the state, - and that even the
unlimited powor of the sovereign over the persons of
his subjects, inconsistent, as undoubtedly it was, with
law and liberty, had yet been every day growing
more mitigated in the exercise. So far from refusing itself to reformation, that government was open,
with a censurable degree of facility, to all sorts of projects and projectors on the subject. Rather too much
countenance was given to the spirit of innovation,
which soon was turned against those who fostered it,
and ended in their ruin. It is but cold, and no very
flattering justice to that fallen monarchy, to say, that,
for many years, it trespassed more by levity and want
of judgment in several of its schemes than from any
defect in diligence or in public spirit. To compare
the government of France for the last fifteen or sixteen years with wise and well-constituted establishments during that, or during any period, is not to act with fairness. But if in point of prodigality in the
expenditure of money, or in point of rigor in the
exercise of power, it be compared with any of the former reigns, I believe candid judges will give little
credit to the good intentions of those who dwell perpetually on the donations to favorites, or on the expenses of the court, or on the horrors of the Bastile, in the reign of Louis the Sixteenth. *
* The world is obliged to M. de Calonne for the pains he has
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 407
Whether the system, if it deserves such a name,
now built on the ruins of that ancient monarchy,
will be able to give a better account of the population
and wealth of the country which it has taken under
its care, is a matter very doubtful. Instead of improving by the change, I apprehend that a long series of years must be told, before it can recover in any degree the effects of this philosophic Revolution,
and before the nation can be replaced on its former
footing. If Dr. Price should think fit, a few years
hence, to favor us with an estimate of the population
of France, he will hardly be able to make up his tale
of thirty millions of souls, as computed in 1789, or
the Assembly's computation of twenty-six millions of
that year, or even M. Necker's twenty-five millions
in 1780. I hear that there are considerable emigrations from France, - and that many, quitting that
voluptuous climate, and that seductive Circean liberty, have taken refuge in the frozen regions and
under the British despotism of Canada.
In the present disappearance of coin, no person
could think it the same country in which the present minister of the finances has been able to discover
fourscore millions sterling in specie. From its general aspect one would conclude that it had been for
some time past under the special direction of the
learned academicians of Laputa and Balnibarbi. *
Already the population of Paris has so declined, that
M. Necker stated to the National Assembly the protaken to refute the scandalous exaggerations relative to some of the
royal expenses, and to detect the fallacious account given of pensions,
for the wicked purpose of provoking the populace to all sorts of
crimes.
* See Gulliver's Travels for the idea of countries governed by
philosophers.
? ? ? ? 408 REFLECTIONS ON THE
vision to be made for its subsistence at a fifth less
than what had formerly been found requisite. * It is
said (and I have never heard it contradicted) that a,
hundred thousand people are out of employment in
that city, though it is become the seat of the imprisoned court and National Assembly. Nothing, I am
credibly informed, can exceed the shocking and disgusting spectacle of mendicancy displayed in that capital. Indeed, the votes of the National Assembly leave no doubt of the fact. They have lately appointed a
standing committee of mendicancy. They are contriving at once a vigorous police on this subject, and,
for the first time, the imposition of a tax to maintain
the poor, for whose present relief great sums appear
on the face of the public accounts of the year. t In
the mean time the leaders of the legislative clubs and
coffee-houses are intoxicated with admiration at their
own wisdom and ability. They speak with the most
sovereign contempt of the rest of the world. They
tell the people, to comfort them in the rags with
which they have clothed them. that they are a nation
of philosophers; and sometimes, by all the arts of
* M. de Calonne states the falling off of the population of Paris
as far more considerable; and it may be so, since the period of M.
Necker's calculation.
t Travaux de charite pour subvenir au manque de travail k Livres. ~
Paris et dans les provinces. 3,866,920 161,121 13 4
Destruction de vagabondage et de la
mendicite. . 1,671,417 69,642 7 6
Primes pour l'importation de grains 5,671,907 236,329 9 2
Depenses relatives aux subsistances,
deduction fait des recouvrements
qui ont eu lieu. . . . 39,871,790 1,661,324 11 8
Total. . . . 51,082,034 2,128,418 1 8
When I sent this book to the press, I entertained some doubt con
? s. d
? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 409
quackish parade, by show, tumult, and bustle, sometimes by the alarms of plots and invasions, they attempt to drown the cries of indigence, and to divert
the eyes of the observer from the ruin and wretchedness of the state. A brave people will certainly prefer liberty accompanied with a virtuous poverty to
a depraved and wealthy servitude. But before the
price of comfort and opulence is paid, one ought to
be pretty sure it is real liberty which is purchased,
and that she is to be purchased at no other price. I
shall always, however, consider that liberty as very
equivocal in her appearance, which has not wisdom
and justice for her companions, and does not lead
prosperity and plenty in her train.
The advocates for this Revolution, not satisfied
with exaggerating the vices of their ancient government, strike at the fame of their country itself, by
painting almost all that could have attracted the attention of strangers, I mean their nobility and their
clergy, as objects of horror. If this were only a libel,
there had not been much in it. But it has practical
consequences. Had your nobility and gentry, who
cerning the nature and extent of the last article in the above accounts,
which is only under a general head, without any detail. Since then I
have seen M. de Calonne's work. I must think it a great loss to me
that I had not that advantage earlier. M. de Calonne thinks this article to be on account of general subsistence; but as he is not able to comprehend how so great a loss as upwards of 1,661,0001. sterling could be sustained on the difference between the price and the sale of grain,
he seems to attribute this enormous head of charge to secret expenses
of the Revolution. I cannot say anything positively on that subject. The reader is capable of judging, by the aggregate of these
immense charges, on the state and condition of France, and the system of public economy adopted in that nation. These articles of
account produced no inquiry or discussion in the National Assem.
bly.
? ? ? ? 410 REFLECTIONS ON THE
formed the great body of your landed men and the
whole of your military officers, resembled those of
Germany, at the period when the Hanse towns were
necessitated to confederate against the nobles in defence of their property, - had they been like the Orsini and Vitelli in Italy, who used to sally from their
fortified dens to rob the trader and traveller, -had
they been such as the Mamelukes in Egypt, or the
Nayres on the coast of Malabar, -I do admit that
too critical an inquiry might not be advisable into
the means of freeing the world from such a nuisance.
The statues of Equity and Mercy might be veiled
for a moment. The tenderest minds, confounded
with the dreadful exigence in which morality submits to the suspension of its own rules in favor of its
own principles, might turn aside whilst fraud and violence were accomplishing the destruction of a pretended nobility, which disgraced, whilst it persecuted, human nature. The persons most abhorrent from blood and treason and arbitrary confiscation might
remain silent spectators of this civil war between the
vices.
But did the privileged nobility who met under the
king's precept at Versailles in 1789, or their constituents, deserve to be looked on as the Nayres or
Mamelukes of this age, or as the Orsini and Vitelli of
ancient times? If I had then asked the question, I
should have passed for a madman. What have they
since done, that they were to be driven into exile,
that their persons should be hunted about, mangled,
and tortured, their families dispersed, their houses
laid in ashes, and that their order should be abolished, and the memory of it, if possible, extinguished,
by ordaining them to change the very names by
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 411
which they were usually known? Read their instructions to their representatives. They breathe
the spirit of liberty as warmly, and they recommend
reformation as strongly, as any other order. Their
privileges relative to contribution were voluntarily
surrendered; as the king, from the beginning, surrendered all pretence to a right of taxation. Upon a free constitution there was but one opinion in
France. The absolute monarchy was at an end. It
breathed its last without a groan, without struggle,
without convulsion. All the struggle, all the dissension, arose afterwards, upon the preference of a. despotic democracy to a government of reciprocal control. The triumph of the victorious party was over the principles of a British Constitution.
I have observed the affectation which for many
years past has prevailed in Paris, even to a degree
perfectly childish, of idolizing the memory of your
Henry the Fourth. If anything could put any one
out of humor with that ornament to the kingly character, it would be this overdone style of insidious panegyric. The persons who have worked this engine
the most busily are those who have ended their panegyrics in dethroning his successor and descendant:
a man as good-natured, at the least, as Henry the
Fourth; altogether as fond of his people; and who
has done infinitely more to correct the ancient vices
of the state than that great monarch did, or we are
sure he ever meant to do. Well it is for his panegyrists
that they have not him to deal with! For Henry of
Navarre was a resolute, active, and politic prince. He
possessed, indeed, great humanity and mildness, but an
humanity and mildness that never stood in the way
of his interests. He never sought to be loved with
? ? ? ? 412 REFLECTIONS ON THE
out putting himself first in a condition to be feared.
He used soft language with determined conduct. He
asserted and maintained his authority in the gross,
and distributed his acts of concession only in the detail. Ho spent the income of his prerogative nobly, but he took care not to break in upon the capital,never abandoning for a moment any of the claims which he made under the fundamental laws, nor
sparing to shed the blood of those who opposed him,
often in the field, sometimes upon the scaffold. Because he knew how to make his virtues respected by the ungrateful, he has merited the praises of those
whom, if they had lived in his time, he would have
shut up in the Bastile, and brought to punishment
along with the regicides whom he hanged after he
had famished Paris into a surrender.
If these panegyrists are in earnest in their admiration of Henry the Fourth, they must remember that they cannot think more highly of him than he did of
the noblesse of France, - whose virtue, honor, courage, patriotism, and loyalty were his constant theme. But the nobility of France are degenerated since the
days of Henry the Fourth. - This is possible; but it
is more than I can believe to be true in any great degree. I do not pretend to know France as correctly as some others; but I have endeavored through my
whole life to make myself acquainted with human
nature, --otherwise I should be unfit to take even my
humble part in the service of mankind. In that study
I could not pass by a vast portion of our nature as
it appeared modified in a country but twenty-four
miles from the shore of this island. On my best observation, compared with my best inquiries, I found your nobility for the greater part composed of men
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 413
of a high spirit, and of a delicate sense of honor, both
with regard to themselves individually, and with regard to their whole corps, over whom they kept, beyond what is common in other countries, a censorial eye. They were tolerably well bred; very officious,
humane, and hospitable; in their conversation frank
and open; with a good military tone; and reasonably
tinctured with literature, particularly of the authors
in their own language. Many had pretensions far
above this description. I speak of those who were
generally met with.
As to their behavior to the inferior classes, they
appeared to me to comport themselves towards them
with good-nature, and with something more nearly approaching to familiarity than is generally practised with us in the intercourse between the higher and lower ranks of life. To strike any person, even
in the most abject condition, was a thing in a manner
unknown, and would be highly disgraceful. Instances of other ill-treatment of the humble part of the
community were rare; and as to attacks made upon
the property or the personal liberty of the commons,
I never heard of any whatsoever from them, -nor,
whilst the laws were in vigor under the ancient government, would such tyranny in subjects have beer
permitted. As men of landed estates, I had no fault
to find with their conduct, though much to reprei
hend, and much to wish changed, in many of th6
old tenures. Where the letting of their land was
by rent, I could not discover that their agreements\
with their farmers were oppressive; nor when they
were in partnership with the farmer, as often was
the case, have I heard that they had taken the
lion's share. The proportions seemed not inequi
? ? ? ? 414 REFLECTIONS ON THE
table. There might be exceptions; but certainly
they were exceptions only. I have no reason to believe that in these respects the landed no'Lase. of
France were worse than the landed gentrTg~his_
country. - certainly in no respect more vexatious
than the landholders, not noble, of their own nation.
In cities the nobility had no manner of power; in the
country very little. You know, Sir, that much of
the civil government, and the police in the most essential parts, was not in the hands of that nobility
which presents itself first to our consideration. The
revenue, the system and collection of which were the
most grievous parts of the French government, was
not administered by the men of the sword; nor were
they answerable for the vices of its principle, or the
vexations, where any such existed, in its management.
Denying, as I am well warranted to do, that the
nobility had any considerable share in the oppression
of the people, in cases in which real oppression existed, I am ready to admit that they were not without
considerable faults and errors. A foolish imitation
of the worst part of the manners of England, which
impaired their natural character, without substituting
in its place what perhaps they meant to copy, has certainly rendered them worse than formerly they were.
Habitual dissoluteness of manners, continued beyond
the pardonable period of life, was more common
amongst them than it is with us; and it reigned with
the less hope of remedy, though possibly with something of less mischief, by being covered with more exterior decorum. Thev countenanced too much that licentious philosophy which has helped to bring on
their ruin. There was another error amongst them
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 415
more fatal. Those of the commons who approached
to or exceeded many of the nobility in point of wealth
were not fully admitted to the rank and estimation
which wealth, in reason and good policy, ought to bestow in every country, - though I think not equally
with that of other nobility. The two kinds of aristocracy were too punctiliously kept asunder: less so,
however, than in Germany and some other nations.
This separation, as I have already taken the liberty
of suggesting to you, I conceive to be one principal
cause of the destruction of the old nobility. The
military, particularly, was too exclusively reserved
for men of family. But, after all, this was an error
of opinion, which a conflicting opinion would have
rectified. A permanent Assembly, in which the commons had their share of power, would soon abolish
whatever was too invidious and insulting in these
distinctions; and even the faults in the morals of
the nobility would have been probably corrected, by
the greater varieties of occupation and pursuit to
which a constitution by orders would have given
rise.
All this violent cry against the nobility I take to be
a mere work of art. To be honored and even privileged by the laws, opinions, and inveterate usages of
our country, growing out of the prejudice of ages, has
nothing to provoke horror and indignation in any man.
Even to be too tenacious of those privileges is not absolutely a crime. The strong struggle in every individual to preserve possession of what he has found to belong to him, and to distinguish him, is one of the
securities against injustice and despotism implanted
in our nature. It operates as an instinct to secure
property, and to preserve communities in a settled
? ? ? ? 416 REFLECTIONS ON THE
state. What is there to shock in this? Nobility is a
graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society. " Omnes boni nobilitati semper favemus," was the saying of a wise and good man. It is, indeed, one sign of a liberal and
benevolent mind to incline to it with some sort of
partial propensity. He feels no ennobling principle
in his own heart, who wishes to level all the artificial
institutions which have been adopted for giving a body
to opinion and permanence to fugitive esteem. It is
a sour, malignant, envious disposition, without taste
for the reality, or for any image or representation of
virtue, that sees with joy the unmerited fall of what
had long flourished in splendor and in honor. I do
not like to see anything destroyed, any void produced in society, any ruin on the face of the land.
It was therefore with no disappointment or dissatisfaction that my inquiries and observations did not
present to me any incorrigible vices in the noblesse
of France, or any abuse which could not be removed
by a reform very short of abolition. Your noblesse
did not deserve punishment; but to degrade is to
punish.
It was with the same satisfaction I found that the
result of my inquiry concerning your clergy was not
dissimilar. It is no soothing news to my ears, that
great bodies of men are incurably corrupt. It is not
with much credulity I listen to any, when they speak
evil of those whom they are going to plunder. I
rather suspect that vices are feigned or exaggerated,
when profit is looked for in their punishment. An
enemy is a bad witness; a robber is a worse. Vices
and abuses there were undoubtedly in that order,
and must be. It wias an old establishment, and not
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 417
frequently revised. But I saw no crimes in the individuals that merited confiscation of their substance,
nor those cruel insults and degradations, and that
unnatural persecution, which have been substituted
in the place of meliorating regulation.
If there had been any just cause for this new religious persecution, the atheistic libellers, who act as
trumpeters to animate the populace to plunder, do
not love anybody so much as not to dwell with- complacence on the vices of the existing clergy. This
they have not done. They find themselves obliged
to rake into the histories of former ages (which they
have ransacked with a malignant and profligate industry) for every instance of oppression and persecution which has been made by that body or in its favor, in order to justify, upon very iniquitous because very
illogical principles of retaliation, their own persecu --
tions and their own cruelties. After destroying all,
other genealogies and family distinctions, they invent
a sort of pedigree of crimes. It is not very just to
chastise men for the offences of their natural ancestors; but to take the fiction of ancestry in a corporate
succession, as a ground for punishing men who have
no relation to guilty acts, except in names and general descriptions, is a sort of refinement in injustice
belonging to the philosophy of this enlightened age.
The Assembly punishes men, many, if not most, of
whom abhor the violent conduct of ecclesiastics in
former times as much as their present persecutors
can do, and who would be as loud and as strong in
the expression of that sense, if they were not well
aware of the purposes for which all this declamation
is employed.
Corporate bodies are immortal for the good of the
VOL. III. 27
? ? ? ? 418 REFLECTIONS ON THE
members, but not for their punishment. Nations
themselves are such corporations. As well might we
in England think of waging inexpiable war upon all
Frenchmen for the evils which they have brought
upon us in the several periods of our mutual hostilities. You might, on your part, think yourselves justified ill falling upon all Englishmen on account of the unparalleled calamities brought upon the people
of France by the unjust invasions of our Henrys and
our Edwards. Indeed, we should be mutually justified in this exterminatory war upon each other, full
as much as you are in the unprovoked persecution of
your present countrymen, on account of the conduct
of men of the same name in other times.
We do not draw the moral lessons we might from
history. Oin the contrary, without care it may be
used to vitiate our minds and to destroy our happiness. In history a great volume is unrolled for our
instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom
from the past errors and infirmities of mankind. It
may, in the perversion, serve for a' magazine, furnishing offensive and defensive weapons for parties in
Church and State, and supplying the means of keeping alive or reviving dissensions and animosities, and
adding fuel to civil fury. History consists, for the
greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world
by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition,
hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetites, which shake the public with the same
"troublous storms that toss
The private state, and render life unsweet. "
These vices are the causes of those storms. Religion,
morals, laws, prerogatives, privileges, liberties, rights
of men, are the pretexts. The pretexts are always
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 419
found in some specious appearance of a real good.
You would not secure men from tyranny and sedition by rooting out of the mind the principles to
which these fraudulent pretexts apply? If you did,
you would root out everything that is valuable in the
human breast. As these are the pretexts, so the ordinary actors and instruments in great public evils are kings, priests, magistrates, senates, parliaments,
national assemblies, judges, and captains. You would
not cure the evil by resolving that there should be
no more monarchs, nor ministers of state, nor of the
Gospel, --no interpreters of law, no general officers,
no public councils. You might change the names:
the things in some shape must remain. A certain
quantum of power must always exist in the community, in some hands, and under some appellation. Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to
names, - to the causes of evil, which are permanent,
not to the occasional organs by which they act, and
the transitory modes in which they appear. Otherwise you will be wise historically, a fool in practice. Seldom have two ages the same fashion in their pretexts, and the same modes of mischief. Wickedness is a little more inventive. Whilst you are discussing
fashion, the fashion is gone by. The very same vice
assumes a new body. The spirit transmigrates; and,
far from losing its principle of life by the change of
its appearance, it is renovated in its new organs with
the fresh vigor of a juvenile activity. It walks abroad,
it continues its ravages, whilst you are gibbeting the
carcass or demolishing the tomb. You are terrifying yourselves with ghosts and apparitions, whilst
your house is the haunt of robbers. It is thus with
all those who, attending only to the shell and husk
? ? ? ? 420 REFLECTIONS ON THE
of history, think they are waging war with intolerance, pride, and cruelty, whilst, under color of abhorring the ill princples of antiquated parties, they are authorizing and feeding the same odious vices in different factions, and perhaps in worse.
Your citizens of Paris formerly had lent themselves as the ready instruments to slaughter the followers of Calvin, at the infamous massacre of St. Bartholomew. What should we say to those who
could think of retaliating on the Parisians of this day
the abominations and horrors of that time? They are,
indeed, brought to abhor that massacre. Ferocious as
they are, it is not difficult to make them dislike it,
because the politicians and fashionable teachers have
no interest in giving their passions exactly the same
direction. Still, however, they find it their interest to
keep the same savage dispositions alive. It was but
the other day that they caused this very massacre to
be acted on the stage for the diversion of the descendants of those who committed it. In this tragic farce
they produced the Cardinal of Lorraine' in his robes
of function, ordering general slaughter. Was this
spectacle intended to make the Parisians abhor persecution and loathe the effusion of blood? No: it
was to teach them to persecute their own pastors; it
was to excite them, by raising a disgust and horror
of their clergy, to an alacrity in hunting down to destruction an order which, if it ought to exist at all,
ought to exist not only in safety, but in reverence.
It was to stimulate their cannibal appetites (which
one would think had been gorged sufficiently) by
variety and seasoning, -- and to quicken them to an
alertness in new murders and massacres, if it should
suit the purpose of the Guises of the day. An As
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 421
sembly in which sat a multitude of priests and prelates was obliged to suffer this indignity at its door. The author was not sent to the galleys, nor the players to the house of correction. Not long after this exhibition, those players came forward to the Assembly to claim the rites of that very religion which they had dared to expose, and to show their prostituted
faces in the senate, whilst the Archbishop of Paris,
whose function was known to his people only by his
prayers and benedictions, and his wealth only by
alms, is forced to abandon his house, and to fly from
his flock, (as from ravenous wolves,) because, truly,
in the sixteenth century, the Cardinal of Lorraine
was a rebel and a murderer. *
Such is the effect of the perversion of history by
those who, for the same nefarious purposes, have
perverted every other part of learning. But those
who will stand upon that elevation of reason which
places centuries under our eye and brings things to
the true point of comparison, which obscures little
names and effaces the colors of little parties, and to
which nothing can ascend but the spirit and moral
quality of human actions, will say to the teachers
of the Palais Royal, -- The Cardinal of Lorraine was
the murderer of the sixteenth century; you have the
glory of being the murderers in the eighteenth; and
this is the only difference between you. But history in the nineteenth century, better understood aind better employed, will, I trust, teach a civilized posterity to abhor the misdeeds of both these barbarous ages. It will teach future priests and magistrates
not to retaliate upon the speculative and inactive
* This is on a supposition of the truth of this story; but he'was
not in France at the time. One name serves as well as another.
? ? ? ? 422 REFLECTIONS ON THE
atheists of future times the enormities committed by
the present practical zealots and furious fanatics of
that wretched error, which, in its quiescent state, is
more than punished, whenever it is embraced. It
will teach posterity not to make war upon either
religion or pl! ilosophy for tile'abuse which the hypocrites of both have made of the two most valuable
blessings conferred upon us by the bounty of the universal Patron, who in all things eminently favors and
protects the race of man.
If your clergy, or any clergy, should show themselves vicious beyond the fair bounds allowed to human infirmity, and to those professional faults which
can hardly be separated from professional virtues,
though their vices never can countenance the exercise of. oppression, I do admit that they would naturally have the effect of abating very much of our indignation against the tyrants who exceed measure and justice in their punishment. I can allow in clergymen, through all their divisions, some tenaciousness of their own opinion, some overflowings of zeal
for its propagation, some predilection to their own
state and office, some attachment to the interest of
their own corps, some preference to those who listen with docility to their doctrines beyond those who
scorn and deride them. I allow all this, because
I am a man who have to deal with men, and who
would not, through a violence of toleration, run into the greatest of all intolerance. I must bear with
infirmities, until they fester into crimes.
Undoubtedly, the natural progress of the passions,
from frailty to vice, ought to be prevented by a
watchful eye and a firm hand. But is it true that
the body of your clergy had passed those limits of a
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 423
just allowance? From the general style of your late
publications of all sorts, one would be led to believe
that your clergy in France were a sort of monsters:
an horrible composition of superstition, ignorance,
sloth, fraud, avarice, and tyranny. But is this true?
Is it true that the lapse of time, the cessation of conflicting interests,'the woful experience of the evils resulting from party rage, have had no sort of influence gradually to meliorate their minds? Is it true that they were daily renewing invasions on the civil
power, troubling the domestic quiet of their country,
and rendering the operations of its government feeble and precarious? Is it true that the clergy of our times have pressed down the laity with an iron hand,
and were in all places lighting up the fires of a
savage persecution? Did they by every fraud endeavor to increase their estates? Did they use to exceed the due demands on estates that were their
own? Or, rigidly screwing up right into wrong, did
they convert a legal claim into a vexatious extortion? When not possessed of power, were they filled with the vices of those who envy it? Were they
inflamed with a violent, litigious spirit of controversy? Goaded on with the ambition of intellectual sovereignty, were they ready to fly in the face of all
magistracy, to fire churches, to massacre the priests
of other descriptions, to pull down altars, and to
make their way over the ruins of subverted goveri.
ments to an empire of doctrine, sometimes flattering,
sometimes forcing, the consciences of men from the
jurisdiction of public institutions into a submission
to their personal authority, beginning with a claim
of liberty and ending with an abuse of power?
These, orI some of these, were the vices objected,
? ? ? ? 424 REFLECTIONS ON THE
and not wholly without foundation, to several of the
churchmen of former times, who belonged to the two
great parties which then divided and distracted Europe.
If there was in France, as in other countries there
visibly is, a great abatement, rather than any increase of these vices, instead of loading the present
clergy with the crimes of other men and the odious
character of other times, in common equity they
ought to be praised, encouraged, and supported, in
their departure from a spirit which disgraced their
predecessors, and for having assumed a temper of
mind and manners more suitable to their sacred
function.
When my occasions took me into France, towards
the close of the late reign, the clergy, under all their
forms, engaged a considerable part of my curiosity.
So far from finding (except from one set of men, not
then very numerous, though very active) the complaints and discontents against that body which some
publications had given me reason to expect, I perceived little or no public or private uneasiness on their
account. On further examination, I found the clergy, in general, persons of moderate minds and decorous manners: I include the seculars, and the regulars of both sexes. I had not the good fortune to know a great many of the parochial clergy: but in
general I received a perfectly good account of their
morals, and of their attention to their duties. With
some of the higher clergy I had a personal acquaintance, and of the rest in that class a very good means
of information. They were almost all of them persons of noble birth. They resembled others of their
own rank; and where there was ally difference, it was
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 425
in their favor. They were more fully educated than
the military noblesse, --so as by no means to disgrace
their profession by ignorance, or by want of fitness for
the exercise of their authority. They seemed to me,
beyond the clerical character, liberal and open, with
the hearts of gentlemen and men of honor, neither
insolent nor servile in their manners and conduct.
They seemed to me rather a superior class, a set of
men amongst whom you would not be surprised to
find a F4nelon. I saw among the clergy in Paris
(many of the description are not to be met with anywhere) men of great learning and candor; and I had
reason to believe that this description was not confined
to Paris. What I found in other places I know was
accidental, and therefore to be presumed a fair sample. I spent a few days in a provincial town, where,
in the absence of the bishop, I passed my evenings
with three clergymen, his vicars-general, persons who
would have done honor to any church. They were
all well-informed; two of them of deep, general, and
extensive erudition, ancient and modern, Oriental and
Western,- particularly in their own profession. They
had a more extensive knowledge of our English divines than I expected; and they entered into the
genius of those writers with a critical accuracy. One
of these gentlemen is since dead: the Abbe Morangis.
I pay this tribute without reluctance to the memory
of that noble, reverend, learned, and excellent person; and I should do the same with equal cheerfulnless to the merits of the others, who I believe are still living, if I did not fear to hurt those whom I am
unable to serve.
Some of these ecclesiastics of rank are, by all
titles, persons deserving of general respect. They
? ? ? ? 426 REFLECTIONS ON THE
are deserving of gratitude from me, and from many
English. If this letter should ever come into their
hands, I hope they will believe there are those of our
nation who feel for their unmerited fall, and for the
cruel confiscation of their fortunes, with no common
sensibility. What I say of them is a testimony, as
far as one feeble voice can go, which I owe to truth.
Whenever the question of this unnatural persecution
is concerned, I will pay it. No one shall prevent me
from being just and grateful. The time is fitted for
the duty; and it is particularly becoming to show
our justice and gratitude, when those who have
deserved well of us and of mankind are laboring
under popular obloquy and the persecutions of oppressive power.
You had before your Revolution about a hundred
and twenty bishops. A few of them were men of
eminent sanctity, and charity without limit. When
we talk of the heroic, of course we talk of rare virtue.
I believe the instances of eminent depravity may be
as rare amongst them as those of transcendent goodness. Examples of avarice and of licentiousness may
be picked out, I do not question it, by those who
delight in the investigation which leads to such discoveries. A man as old as I am will not be astonished that several, in every description, do not lead that perfect life of self-denial, with regard to wealth
or to pleasure, which is wished for by all, by some
expected, but by none exacted with more rigor than
by those who are the most attentive to ti eir own interests or the most indulgent to their own passions.
When I was in France, I am certain that the'number
of vicious prelates was not great. Certain individuals
among them, not distinguishable for the regularity of
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 427
their lives, made some amends %or their want of the
severe virtues in their possession of the liberal, and
were endowed with qualities which made them useful
in the Church and State. I am told, that, with few
exceptions, Louis the Sixteenth had been more atten
tive to character, in his promotions to that rank, than,
his immediate predecessor; and I believe (as some
spirit of reform has prevailed through the whole
reign) that it may be true. But the present ruling
power has shown a disposition only to plunder the
Church. It has punished all prelates: which is to
favor the vicious, at least in point of reputation. It
has made a degrading pensionary establishment, to
which no man of liberal ideas or liberal condition
will destine his children. It must settle into the
lowest classes of the people. As with you the inferior clergy are not numerous enough for their duties,
as these duties are beyond measure minute and toilsome, as you have left no middle classes of clergy at their ease, in future nothing of science or erudition
can exist in the Gallican Church. To complete the
project, without the least attention to the rights of
patrons, the Assembly has provided in future an elective clergy: an arrangement which will drive out of the clerical profession all men of sobriety, all who
can pretend to independence in their function or
their conduct, -and which will throw the whole direction of the public mind into the hands of a set of licentious, bold, crafty, factious, flattering wretches,
of such condition and such habits of life as will make
their contemptible -pensions (in comparison of which
the stipend of an exciseman is lucrative and honorable) an object of low and illiberal intrigue. Those officers whom they still call bishops are to be elected
? ? ? ? 428 REFLECTIONS ON THE
to a provision comparatively mean, through the same
arts, (that is, electioneering arts,) by men of all religious tenets that are known or can be invented.
The new lawgivers have not ascertained anything
whatsoever concerning their qualifications, relative
either to doctrine or to morals, no more than they
have done with regard to the subordinate clergy; nor
does it appear but that both the higher and the lower
may, at their discretion, practise or preach any mode
of religion or irreligion that they please. I do not
yet see what the jurisdiction of bishops over their
subordinates is to be, or whether they are to have
any jurisdiction at all.
for circulation, when he wrote in 1785, that is, about
* De l'Administration des Finances de la France, par M. Necker.
t Vol. III. chap. 8 and chap. 9.
? ? ? ? 404 REFLECTIONS ON THE
four years before the deposition and imprisonment
of the French king, are not of equal certainty; but
they are laid on grounds so apparently solid, that it
is not easy to refuse a considerable degree of assent
to his calculation. He calculates the nume'raire, or
what we call specie, then actually existing in France,
at about eighty-eight millions of the same English
money. A great accumulation of wealth for one
country, large as that country is! M. Necker was
so far from considering this influx of wealth as likely
to cease, when he wrote in 1785, that he presumes
upon a future annual increase of two per cent upon
tihe money brought into France during the periods
firom which he computed.
Some adequate cause must have originally introduced all the money coined at its mint into that kingdom; and some cause as operative must have kept at home, or returned into its bosom, such a vast flood of
treasure as M. Necker calculates to remain for domestic circulation. Suppose any reasonable deductions from M. Necker's computation, the remainder must still amount to an immense sum. Causes thus
powerful to acquire and to retain cannot be found
in discouraged industry, insecure property, and a
positively destructive government. Indeed, when I
consider the face of the kingdom of France, the multitude and opulence of her cities, the useful magnificence of her spacious high-roads and bridges, the opportunity of her artificial canals and navigations
opening the conveniences of maritime communication
through a solid continent of so immense an extent, --
when I turn my eyes to the stupendous works of her
ports and harbors, and to her whole naval apparatus,
whether for war or trade, - when I bring before my
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 405
view the number of her fortifications, constructed
with so bold and masterly a skill, and made and
maintained at so prodigious a charge, presenting an
armed front and impenetrable barrier to her enemies
upon every side, - when I recollect how very small a
part of that extensive region is without cultivation.
and to what complete perfection the culture of many
of the best productions of the earth have been brouglht
in France,- when I reflect on the excellence of her
manufactures and fabrics, second to none but ours,
and in some particulars not second, -- when I contemplate the grand foundations of charity, public and private, - when I survey the state of all the arts that
beautify and polish life, - when I reckon the men
she has bred for extending her fame in war, her able
statesmen, the multitude of her profound lawyers
and theologians, her philosophers, her critics, her
historians and antiquaries, her poets and her orators,
sacred and profane/. -T I behold in all this something
which awes and commands the imagination, which
checks the mind on the brink of precipitate and indiscriminate censure, and which demands that we should very seriously examine what and how great
are the latent vices that could authorize us at once to
level so spacious a fabric with the ground,. I do not
recognize in this view of things the despotism of Turkey. Nor do I discern the character of a government that has been on the whole so oppressive, or so corrupt, or so negligent, as to be utterly unfit for all reformation. I must think such a government well
deserved to have its excellences heightened, its faults
corrected, and its capacities improved into a British
Constitution.
Whoever has examined into the proceedings of that
? ? ? ? 406 REFLECTIONS ON THE
deposed government for several years back cannot
fail to have observed, amidst the inconstancy and
fluctuation natural to courts, an earnest endeavor towards the prosperity and improvement of the country; he must admit that it had long been employed, in some instances wholly to remove, in many considerably to correct, the abusive practices and usages
that had prevailed in the state, - and that even the
unlimited powor of the sovereign over the persons of
his subjects, inconsistent, as undoubtedly it was, with
law and liberty, had yet been every day growing
more mitigated in the exercise. So far from refusing itself to reformation, that government was open,
with a censurable degree of facility, to all sorts of projects and projectors on the subject. Rather too much
countenance was given to the spirit of innovation,
which soon was turned against those who fostered it,
and ended in their ruin. It is but cold, and no very
flattering justice to that fallen monarchy, to say, that,
for many years, it trespassed more by levity and want
of judgment in several of its schemes than from any
defect in diligence or in public spirit. To compare
the government of France for the last fifteen or sixteen years with wise and well-constituted establishments during that, or during any period, is not to act with fairness. But if in point of prodigality in the
expenditure of money, or in point of rigor in the
exercise of power, it be compared with any of the former reigns, I believe candid judges will give little
credit to the good intentions of those who dwell perpetually on the donations to favorites, or on the expenses of the court, or on the horrors of the Bastile, in the reign of Louis the Sixteenth. *
* The world is obliged to M. de Calonne for the pains he has
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 407
Whether the system, if it deserves such a name,
now built on the ruins of that ancient monarchy,
will be able to give a better account of the population
and wealth of the country which it has taken under
its care, is a matter very doubtful. Instead of improving by the change, I apprehend that a long series of years must be told, before it can recover in any degree the effects of this philosophic Revolution,
and before the nation can be replaced on its former
footing. If Dr. Price should think fit, a few years
hence, to favor us with an estimate of the population
of France, he will hardly be able to make up his tale
of thirty millions of souls, as computed in 1789, or
the Assembly's computation of twenty-six millions of
that year, or even M. Necker's twenty-five millions
in 1780. I hear that there are considerable emigrations from France, - and that many, quitting that
voluptuous climate, and that seductive Circean liberty, have taken refuge in the frozen regions and
under the British despotism of Canada.
In the present disappearance of coin, no person
could think it the same country in which the present minister of the finances has been able to discover
fourscore millions sterling in specie. From its general aspect one would conclude that it had been for
some time past under the special direction of the
learned academicians of Laputa and Balnibarbi. *
Already the population of Paris has so declined, that
M. Necker stated to the National Assembly the protaken to refute the scandalous exaggerations relative to some of the
royal expenses, and to detect the fallacious account given of pensions,
for the wicked purpose of provoking the populace to all sorts of
crimes.
* See Gulliver's Travels for the idea of countries governed by
philosophers.
? ? ? ? 408 REFLECTIONS ON THE
vision to be made for its subsistence at a fifth less
than what had formerly been found requisite. * It is
said (and I have never heard it contradicted) that a,
hundred thousand people are out of employment in
that city, though it is become the seat of the imprisoned court and National Assembly. Nothing, I am
credibly informed, can exceed the shocking and disgusting spectacle of mendicancy displayed in that capital. Indeed, the votes of the National Assembly leave no doubt of the fact. They have lately appointed a
standing committee of mendicancy. They are contriving at once a vigorous police on this subject, and,
for the first time, the imposition of a tax to maintain
the poor, for whose present relief great sums appear
on the face of the public accounts of the year. t In
the mean time the leaders of the legislative clubs and
coffee-houses are intoxicated with admiration at their
own wisdom and ability. They speak with the most
sovereign contempt of the rest of the world. They
tell the people, to comfort them in the rags with
which they have clothed them. that they are a nation
of philosophers; and sometimes, by all the arts of
* M. de Calonne states the falling off of the population of Paris
as far more considerable; and it may be so, since the period of M.
Necker's calculation.
t Travaux de charite pour subvenir au manque de travail k Livres. ~
Paris et dans les provinces. 3,866,920 161,121 13 4
Destruction de vagabondage et de la
mendicite. . 1,671,417 69,642 7 6
Primes pour l'importation de grains 5,671,907 236,329 9 2
Depenses relatives aux subsistances,
deduction fait des recouvrements
qui ont eu lieu. . . . 39,871,790 1,661,324 11 8
Total. . . . 51,082,034 2,128,418 1 8
When I sent this book to the press, I entertained some doubt con
? s. d
? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 409
quackish parade, by show, tumult, and bustle, sometimes by the alarms of plots and invasions, they attempt to drown the cries of indigence, and to divert
the eyes of the observer from the ruin and wretchedness of the state. A brave people will certainly prefer liberty accompanied with a virtuous poverty to
a depraved and wealthy servitude. But before the
price of comfort and opulence is paid, one ought to
be pretty sure it is real liberty which is purchased,
and that she is to be purchased at no other price. I
shall always, however, consider that liberty as very
equivocal in her appearance, which has not wisdom
and justice for her companions, and does not lead
prosperity and plenty in her train.
The advocates for this Revolution, not satisfied
with exaggerating the vices of their ancient government, strike at the fame of their country itself, by
painting almost all that could have attracted the attention of strangers, I mean their nobility and their
clergy, as objects of horror. If this were only a libel,
there had not been much in it. But it has practical
consequences. Had your nobility and gentry, who
cerning the nature and extent of the last article in the above accounts,
which is only under a general head, without any detail. Since then I
have seen M. de Calonne's work. I must think it a great loss to me
that I had not that advantage earlier. M. de Calonne thinks this article to be on account of general subsistence; but as he is not able to comprehend how so great a loss as upwards of 1,661,0001. sterling could be sustained on the difference between the price and the sale of grain,
he seems to attribute this enormous head of charge to secret expenses
of the Revolution. I cannot say anything positively on that subject. The reader is capable of judging, by the aggregate of these
immense charges, on the state and condition of France, and the system of public economy adopted in that nation. These articles of
account produced no inquiry or discussion in the National Assem.
bly.
? ? ? ? 410 REFLECTIONS ON THE
formed the great body of your landed men and the
whole of your military officers, resembled those of
Germany, at the period when the Hanse towns were
necessitated to confederate against the nobles in defence of their property, - had they been like the Orsini and Vitelli in Italy, who used to sally from their
fortified dens to rob the trader and traveller, -had
they been such as the Mamelukes in Egypt, or the
Nayres on the coast of Malabar, -I do admit that
too critical an inquiry might not be advisable into
the means of freeing the world from such a nuisance.
The statues of Equity and Mercy might be veiled
for a moment. The tenderest minds, confounded
with the dreadful exigence in which morality submits to the suspension of its own rules in favor of its
own principles, might turn aside whilst fraud and violence were accomplishing the destruction of a pretended nobility, which disgraced, whilst it persecuted, human nature. The persons most abhorrent from blood and treason and arbitrary confiscation might
remain silent spectators of this civil war between the
vices.
But did the privileged nobility who met under the
king's precept at Versailles in 1789, or their constituents, deserve to be looked on as the Nayres or
Mamelukes of this age, or as the Orsini and Vitelli of
ancient times? If I had then asked the question, I
should have passed for a madman. What have they
since done, that they were to be driven into exile,
that their persons should be hunted about, mangled,
and tortured, their families dispersed, their houses
laid in ashes, and that their order should be abolished, and the memory of it, if possible, extinguished,
by ordaining them to change the very names by
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 411
which they were usually known? Read their instructions to their representatives. They breathe
the spirit of liberty as warmly, and they recommend
reformation as strongly, as any other order. Their
privileges relative to contribution were voluntarily
surrendered; as the king, from the beginning, surrendered all pretence to a right of taxation. Upon a free constitution there was but one opinion in
France. The absolute monarchy was at an end. It
breathed its last without a groan, without struggle,
without convulsion. All the struggle, all the dissension, arose afterwards, upon the preference of a. despotic democracy to a government of reciprocal control. The triumph of the victorious party was over the principles of a British Constitution.
I have observed the affectation which for many
years past has prevailed in Paris, even to a degree
perfectly childish, of idolizing the memory of your
Henry the Fourth. If anything could put any one
out of humor with that ornament to the kingly character, it would be this overdone style of insidious panegyric. The persons who have worked this engine
the most busily are those who have ended their panegyrics in dethroning his successor and descendant:
a man as good-natured, at the least, as Henry the
Fourth; altogether as fond of his people; and who
has done infinitely more to correct the ancient vices
of the state than that great monarch did, or we are
sure he ever meant to do. Well it is for his panegyrists
that they have not him to deal with! For Henry of
Navarre was a resolute, active, and politic prince. He
possessed, indeed, great humanity and mildness, but an
humanity and mildness that never stood in the way
of his interests. He never sought to be loved with
? ? ? ? 412 REFLECTIONS ON THE
out putting himself first in a condition to be feared.
He used soft language with determined conduct. He
asserted and maintained his authority in the gross,
and distributed his acts of concession only in the detail. Ho spent the income of his prerogative nobly, but he took care not to break in upon the capital,never abandoning for a moment any of the claims which he made under the fundamental laws, nor
sparing to shed the blood of those who opposed him,
often in the field, sometimes upon the scaffold. Because he knew how to make his virtues respected by the ungrateful, he has merited the praises of those
whom, if they had lived in his time, he would have
shut up in the Bastile, and brought to punishment
along with the regicides whom he hanged after he
had famished Paris into a surrender.
If these panegyrists are in earnest in their admiration of Henry the Fourth, they must remember that they cannot think more highly of him than he did of
the noblesse of France, - whose virtue, honor, courage, patriotism, and loyalty were his constant theme. But the nobility of France are degenerated since the
days of Henry the Fourth. - This is possible; but it
is more than I can believe to be true in any great degree. I do not pretend to know France as correctly as some others; but I have endeavored through my
whole life to make myself acquainted with human
nature, --otherwise I should be unfit to take even my
humble part in the service of mankind. In that study
I could not pass by a vast portion of our nature as
it appeared modified in a country but twenty-four
miles from the shore of this island. On my best observation, compared with my best inquiries, I found your nobility for the greater part composed of men
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 413
of a high spirit, and of a delicate sense of honor, both
with regard to themselves individually, and with regard to their whole corps, over whom they kept, beyond what is common in other countries, a censorial eye. They were tolerably well bred; very officious,
humane, and hospitable; in their conversation frank
and open; with a good military tone; and reasonably
tinctured with literature, particularly of the authors
in their own language. Many had pretensions far
above this description. I speak of those who were
generally met with.
As to their behavior to the inferior classes, they
appeared to me to comport themselves towards them
with good-nature, and with something more nearly approaching to familiarity than is generally practised with us in the intercourse between the higher and lower ranks of life. To strike any person, even
in the most abject condition, was a thing in a manner
unknown, and would be highly disgraceful. Instances of other ill-treatment of the humble part of the
community were rare; and as to attacks made upon
the property or the personal liberty of the commons,
I never heard of any whatsoever from them, -nor,
whilst the laws were in vigor under the ancient government, would such tyranny in subjects have beer
permitted. As men of landed estates, I had no fault
to find with their conduct, though much to reprei
hend, and much to wish changed, in many of th6
old tenures. Where the letting of their land was
by rent, I could not discover that their agreements\
with their farmers were oppressive; nor when they
were in partnership with the farmer, as often was
the case, have I heard that they had taken the
lion's share. The proportions seemed not inequi
? ? ? ? 414 REFLECTIONS ON THE
table. There might be exceptions; but certainly
they were exceptions only. I have no reason to believe that in these respects the landed no'Lase. of
France were worse than the landed gentrTg~his_
country. - certainly in no respect more vexatious
than the landholders, not noble, of their own nation.
In cities the nobility had no manner of power; in the
country very little. You know, Sir, that much of
the civil government, and the police in the most essential parts, was not in the hands of that nobility
which presents itself first to our consideration. The
revenue, the system and collection of which were the
most grievous parts of the French government, was
not administered by the men of the sword; nor were
they answerable for the vices of its principle, or the
vexations, where any such existed, in its management.
Denying, as I am well warranted to do, that the
nobility had any considerable share in the oppression
of the people, in cases in which real oppression existed, I am ready to admit that they were not without
considerable faults and errors. A foolish imitation
of the worst part of the manners of England, which
impaired their natural character, without substituting
in its place what perhaps they meant to copy, has certainly rendered them worse than formerly they were.
Habitual dissoluteness of manners, continued beyond
the pardonable period of life, was more common
amongst them than it is with us; and it reigned with
the less hope of remedy, though possibly with something of less mischief, by being covered with more exterior decorum. Thev countenanced too much that licentious philosophy which has helped to bring on
their ruin. There was another error amongst them
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 415
more fatal. Those of the commons who approached
to or exceeded many of the nobility in point of wealth
were not fully admitted to the rank and estimation
which wealth, in reason and good policy, ought to bestow in every country, - though I think not equally
with that of other nobility. The two kinds of aristocracy were too punctiliously kept asunder: less so,
however, than in Germany and some other nations.
This separation, as I have already taken the liberty
of suggesting to you, I conceive to be one principal
cause of the destruction of the old nobility. The
military, particularly, was too exclusively reserved
for men of family. But, after all, this was an error
of opinion, which a conflicting opinion would have
rectified. A permanent Assembly, in which the commons had their share of power, would soon abolish
whatever was too invidious and insulting in these
distinctions; and even the faults in the morals of
the nobility would have been probably corrected, by
the greater varieties of occupation and pursuit to
which a constitution by orders would have given
rise.
All this violent cry against the nobility I take to be
a mere work of art. To be honored and even privileged by the laws, opinions, and inveterate usages of
our country, growing out of the prejudice of ages, has
nothing to provoke horror and indignation in any man.
Even to be too tenacious of those privileges is not absolutely a crime. The strong struggle in every individual to preserve possession of what he has found to belong to him, and to distinguish him, is one of the
securities against injustice and despotism implanted
in our nature. It operates as an instinct to secure
property, and to preserve communities in a settled
? ? ? ? 416 REFLECTIONS ON THE
state. What is there to shock in this? Nobility is a
graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society. " Omnes boni nobilitati semper favemus," was the saying of a wise and good man. It is, indeed, one sign of a liberal and
benevolent mind to incline to it with some sort of
partial propensity. He feels no ennobling principle
in his own heart, who wishes to level all the artificial
institutions which have been adopted for giving a body
to opinion and permanence to fugitive esteem. It is
a sour, malignant, envious disposition, without taste
for the reality, or for any image or representation of
virtue, that sees with joy the unmerited fall of what
had long flourished in splendor and in honor. I do
not like to see anything destroyed, any void produced in society, any ruin on the face of the land.
It was therefore with no disappointment or dissatisfaction that my inquiries and observations did not
present to me any incorrigible vices in the noblesse
of France, or any abuse which could not be removed
by a reform very short of abolition. Your noblesse
did not deserve punishment; but to degrade is to
punish.
It was with the same satisfaction I found that the
result of my inquiry concerning your clergy was not
dissimilar. It is no soothing news to my ears, that
great bodies of men are incurably corrupt. It is not
with much credulity I listen to any, when they speak
evil of those whom they are going to plunder. I
rather suspect that vices are feigned or exaggerated,
when profit is looked for in their punishment. An
enemy is a bad witness; a robber is a worse. Vices
and abuses there were undoubtedly in that order,
and must be. It wias an old establishment, and not
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 417
frequently revised. But I saw no crimes in the individuals that merited confiscation of their substance,
nor those cruel insults and degradations, and that
unnatural persecution, which have been substituted
in the place of meliorating regulation.
If there had been any just cause for this new religious persecution, the atheistic libellers, who act as
trumpeters to animate the populace to plunder, do
not love anybody so much as not to dwell with- complacence on the vices of the existing clergy. This
they have not done. They find themselves obliged
to rake into the histories of former ages (which they
have ransacked with a malignant and profligate industry) for every instance of oppression and persecution which has been made by that body or in its favor, in order to justify, upon very iniquitous because very
illogical principles of retaliation, their own persecu --
tions and their own cruelties. After destroying all,
other genealogies and family distinctions, they invent
a sort of pedigree of crimes. It is not very just to
chastise men for the offences of their natural ancestors; but to take the fiction of ancestry in a corporate
succession, as a ground for punishing men who have
no relation to guilty acts, except in names and general descriptions, is a sort of refinement in injustice
belonging to the philosophy of this enlightened age.
The Assembly punishes men, many, if not most, of
whom abhor the violent conduct of ecclesiastics in
former times as much as their present persecutors
can do, and who would be as loud and as strong in
the expression of that sense, if they were not well
aware of the purposes for which all this declamation
is employed.
Corporate bodies are immortal for the good of the
VOL. III. 27
? ? ? ? 418 REFLECTIONS ON THE
members, but not for their punishment. Nations
themselves are such corporations. As well might we
in England think of waging inexpiable war upon all
Frenchmen for the evils which they have brought
upon us in the several periods of our mutual hostilities. You might, on your part, think yourselves justified ill falling upon all Englishmen on account of the unparalleled calamities brought upon the people
of France by the unjust invasions of our Henrys and
our Edwards. Indeed, we should be mutually justified in this exterminatory war upon each other, full
as much as you are in the unprovoked persecution of
your present countrymen, on account of the conduct
of men of the same name in other times.
We do not draw the moral lessons we might from
history. Oin the contrary, without care it may be
used to vitiate our minds and to destroy our happiness. In history a great volume is unrolled for our
instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom
from the past errors and infirmities of mankind. It
may, in the perversion, serve for a' magazine, furnishing offensive and defensive weapons for parties in
Church and State, and supplying the means of keeping alive or reviving dissensions and animosities, and
adding fuel to civil fury. History consists, for the
greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world
by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition,
hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetites, which shake the public with the same
"troublous storms that toss
The private state, and render life unsweet. "
These vices are the causes of those storms. Religion,
morals, laws, prerogatives, privileges, liberties, rights
of men, are the pretexts. The pretexts are always
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 419
found in some specious appearance of a real good.
You would not secure men from tyranny and sedition by rooting out of the mind the principles to
which these fraudulent pretexts apply? If you did,
you would root out everything that is valuable in the
human breast. As these are the pretexts, so the ordinary actors and instruments in great public evils are kings, priests, magistrates, senates, parliaments,
national assemblies, judges, and captains. You would
not cure the evil by resolving that there should be
no more monarchs, nor ministers of state, nor of the
Gospel, --no interpreters of law, no general officers,
no public councils. You might change the names:
the things in some shape must remain. A certain
quantum of power must always exist in the community, in some hands, and under some appellation. Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to
names, - to the causes of evil, which are permanent,
not to the occasional organs by which they act, and
the transitory modes in which they appear. Otherwise you will be wise historically, a fool in practice. Seldom have two ages the same fashion in their pretexts, and the same modes of mischief. Wickedness is a little more inventive. Whilst you are discussing
fashion, the fashion is gone by. The very same vice
assumes a new body. The spirit transmigrates; and,
far from losing its principle of life by the change of
its appearance, it is renovated in its new organs with
the fresh vigor of a juvenile activity. It walks abroad,
it continues its ravages, whilst you are gibbeting the
carcass or demolishing the tomb. You are terrifying yourselves with ghosts and apparitions, whilst
your house is the haunt of robbers. It is thus with
all those who, attending only to the shell and husk
? ? ? ? 420 REFLECTIONS ON THE
of history, think they are waging war with intolerance, pride, and cruelty, whilst, under color of abhorring the ill princples of antiquated parties, they are authorizing and feeding the same odious vices in different factions, and perhaps in worse.
Your citizens of Paris formerly had lent themselves as the ready instruments to slaughter the followers of Calvin, at the infamous massacre of St. Bartholomew. What should we say to those who
could think of retaliating on the Parisians of this day
the abominations and horrors of that time? They are,
indeed, brought to abhor that massacre. Ferocious as
they are, it is not difficult to make them dislike it,
because the politicians and fashionable teachers have
no interest in giving their passions exactly the same
direction. Still, however, they find it their interest to
keep the same savage dispositions alive. It was but
the other day that they caused this very massacre to
be acted on the stage for the diversion of the descendants of those who committed it. In this tragic farce
they produced the Cardinal of Lorraine' in his robes
of function, ordering general slaughter. Was this
spectacle intended to make the Parisians abhor persecution and loathe the effusion of blood? No: it
was to teach them to persecute their own pastors; it
was to excite them, by raising a disgust and horror
of their clergy, to an alacrity in hunting down to destruction an order which, if it ought to exist at all,
ought to exist not only in safety, but in reverence.
It was to stimulate their cannibal appetites (which
one would think had been gorged sufficiently) by
variety and seasoning, -- and to quicken them to an
alertness in new murders and massacres, if it should
suit the purpose of the Guises of the day. An As
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 421
sembly in which sat a multitude of priests and prelates was obliged to suffer this indignity at its door. The author was not sent to the galleys, nor the players to the house of correction. Not long after this exhibition, those players came forward to the Assembly to claim the rites of that very religion which they had dared to expose, and to show their prostituted
faces in the senate, whilst the Archbishop of Paris,
whose function was known to his people only by his
prayers and benedictions, and his wealth only by
alms, is forced to abandon his house, and to fly from
his flock, (as from ravenous wolves,) because, truly,
in the sixteenth century, the Cardinal of Lorraine
was a rebel and a murderer. *
Such is the effect of the perversion of history by
those who, for the same nefarious purposes, have
perverted every other part of learning. But those
who will stand upon that elevation of reason which
places centuries under our eye and brings things to
the true point of comparison, which obscures little
names and effaces the colors of little parties, and to
which nothing can ascend but the spirit and moral
quality of human actions, will say to the teachers
of the Palais Royal, -- The Cardinal of Lorraine was
the murderer of the sixteenth century; you have the
glory of being the murderers in the eighteenth; and
this is the only difference between you. But history in the nineteenth century, better understood aind better employed, will, I trust, teach a civilized posterity to abhor the misdeeds of both these barbarous ages. It will teach future priests and magistrates
not to retaliate upon the speculative and inactive
* This is on a supposition of the truth of this story; but he'was
not in France at the time. One name serves as well as another.
? ? ? ? 422 REFLECTIONS ON THE
atheists of future times the enormities committed by
the present practical zealots and furious fanatics of
that wretched error, which, in its quiescent state, is
more than punished, whenever it is embraced. It
will teach posterity not to make war upon either
religion or pl! ilosophy for tile'abuse which the hypocrites of both have made of the two most valuable
blessings conferred upon us by the bounty of the universal Patron, who in all things eminently favors and
protects the race of man.
If your clergy, or any clergy, should show themselves vicious beyond the fair bounds allowed to human infirmity, and to those professional faults which
can hardly be separated from professional virtues,
though their vices never can countenance the exercise of. oppression, I do admit that they would naturally have the effect of abating very much of our indignation against the tyrants who exceed measure and justice in their punishment. I can allow in clergymen, through all their divisions, some tenaciousness of their own opinion, some overflowings of zeal
for its propagation, some predilection to their own
state and office, some attachment to the interest of
their own corps, some preference to those who listen with docility to their doctrines beyond those who
scorn and deride them. I allow all this, because
I am a man who have to deal with men, and who
would not, through a violence of toleration, run into the greatest of all intolerance. I must bear with
infirmities, until they fester into crimes.
Undoubtedly, the natural progress of the passions,
from frailty to vice, ought to be prevented by a
watchful eye and a firm hand. But is it true that
the body of your clergy had passed those limits of a
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 423
just allowance? From the general style of your late
publications of all sorts, one would be led to believe
that your clergy in France were a sort of monsters:
an horrible composition of superstition, ignorance,
sloth, fraud, avarice, and tyranny. But is this true?
Is it true that the lapse of time, the cessation of conflicting interests,'the woful experience of the evils resulting from party rage, have had no sort of influence gradually to meliorate their minds? Is it true that they were daily renewing invasions on the civil
power, troubling the domestic quiet of their country,
and rendering the operations of its government feeble and precarious? Is it true that the clergy of our times have pressed down the laity with an iron hand,
and were in all places lighting up the fires of a
savage persecution? Did they by every fraud endeavor to increase their estates? Did they use to exceed the due demands on estates that were their
own? Or, rigidly screwing up right into wrong, did
they convert a legal claim into a vexatious extortion? When not possessed of power, were they filled with the vices of those who envy it? Were they
inflamed with a violent, litigious spirit of controversy? Goaded on with the ambition of intellectual sovereignty, were they ready to fly in the face of all
magistracy, to fire churches, to massacre the priests
of other descriptions, to pull down altars, and to
make their way over the ruins of subverted goveri.
ments to an empire of doctrine, sometimes flattering,
sometimes forcing, the consciences of men from the
jurisdiction of public institutions into a submission
to their personal authority, beginning with a claim
of liberty and ending with an abuse of power?
These, orI some of these, were the vices objected,
? ? ? ? 424 REFLECTIONS ON THE
and not wholly without foundation, to several of the
churchmen of former times, who belonged to the two
great parties which then divided and distracted Europe.
If there was in France, as in other countries there
visibly is, a great abatement, rather than any increase of these vices, instead of loading the present
clergy with the crimes of other men and the odious
character of other times, in common equity they
ought to be praised, encouraged, and supported, in
their departure from a spirit which disgraced their
predecessors, and for having assumed a temper of
mind and manners more suitable to their sacred
function.
When my occasions took me into France, towards
the close of the late reign, the clergy, under all their
forms, engaged a considerable part of my curiosity.
So far from finding (except from one set of men, not
then very numerous, though very active) the complaints and discontents against that body which some
publications had given me reason to expect, I perceived little or no public or private uneasiness on their
account. On further examination, I found the clergy, in general, persons of moderate minds and decorous manners: I include the seculars, and the regulars of both sexes. I had not the good fortune to know a great many of the parochial clergy: but in
general I received a perfectly good account of their
morals, and of their attention to their duties. With
some of the higher clergy I had a personal acquaintance, and of the rest in that class a very good means
of information. They were almost all of them persons of noble birth. They resembled others of their
own rank; and where there was ally difference, it was
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 425
in their favor. They were more fully educated than
the military noblesse, --so as by no means to disgrace
their profession by ignorance, or by want of fitness for
the exercise of their authority. They seemed to me,
beyond the clerical character, liberal and open, with
the hearts of gentlemen and men of honor, neither
insolent nor servile in their manners and conduct.
They seemed to me rather a superior class, a set of
men amongst whom you would not be surprised to
find a F4nelon. I saw among the clergy in Paris
(many of the description are not to be met with anywhere) men of great learning and candor; and I had
reason to believe that this description was not confined
to Paris. What I found in other places I know was
accidental, and therefore to be presumed a fair sample. I spent a few days in a provincial town, where,
in the absence of the bishop, I passed my evenings
with three clergymen, his vicars-general, persons who
would have done honor to any church. They were
all well-informed; two of them of deep, general, and
extensive erudition, ancient and modern, Oriental and
Western,- particularly in their own profession. They
had a more extensive knowledge of our English divines than I expected; and they entered into the
genius of those writers with a critical accuracy. One
of these gentlemen is since dead: the Abbe Morangis.
I pay this tribute without reluctance to the memory
of that noble, reverend, learned, and excellent person; and I should do the same with equal cheerfulnless to the merits of the others, who I believe are still living, if I did not fear to hurt those whom I am
unable to serve.
Some of these ecclesiastics of rank are, by all
titles, persons deserving of general respect. They
? ? ? ? 426 REFLECTIONS ON THE
are deserving of gratitude from me, and from many
English. If this letter should ever come into their
hands, I hope they will believe there are those of our
nation who feel for their unmerited fall, and for the
cruel confiscation of their fortunes, with no common
sensibility. What I say of them is a testimony, as
far as one feeble voice can go, which I owe to truth.
Whenever the question of this unnatural persecution
is concerned, I will pay it. No one shall prevent me
from being just and grateful. The time is fitted for
the duty; and it is particularly becoming to show
our justice and gratitude, when those who have
deserved well of us and of mankind are laboring
under popular obloquy and the persecutions of oppressive power.
You had before your Revolution about a hundred
and twenty bishops. A few of them were men of
eminent sanctity, and charity without limit. When
we talk of the heroic, of course we talk of rare virtue.
I believe the instances of eminent depravity may be
as rare amongst them as those of transcendent goodness. Examples of avarice and of licentiousness may
be picked out, I do not question it, by those who
delight in the investigation which leads to such discoveries. A man as old as I am will not be astonished that several, in every description, do not lead that perfect life of self-denial, with regard to wealth
or to pleasure, which is wished for by all, by some
expected, but by none exacted with more rigor than
by those who are the most attentive to ti eir own interests or the most indulgent to their own passions.
When I was in France, I am certain that the'number
of vicious prelates was not great. Certain individuals
among them, not distinguishable for the regularity of
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 427
their lives, made some amends %or their want of the
severe virtues in their possession of the liberal, and
were endowed with qualities which made them useful
in the Church and State. I am told, that, with few
exceptions, Louis the Sixteenth had been more atten
tive to character, in his promotions to that rank, than,
his immediate predecessor; and I believe (as some
spirit of reform has prevailed through the whole
reign) that it may be true. But the present ruling
power has shown a disposition only to plunder the
Church. It has punished all prelates: which is to
favor the vicious, at least in point of reputation. It
has made a degrading pensionary establishment, to
which no man of liberal ideas or liberal condition
will destine his children. It must settle into the
lowest classes of the people. As with you the inferior clergy are not numerous enough for their duties,
as these duties are beyond measure minute and toilsome, as you have left no middle classes of clergy at their ease, in future nothing of science or erudition
can exist in the Gallican Church. To complete the
project, without the least attention to the rights of
patrons, the Assembly has provided in future an elective clergy: an arrangement which will drive out of the clerical profession all men of sobriety, all who
can pretend to independence in their function or
their conduct, -and which will throw the whole direction of the public mind into the hands of a set of licentious, bold, crafty, factious, flattering wretches,
of such condition and such habits of life as will make
their contemptible -pensions (in comparison of which
the stipend of an exciseman is lucrative and honorable) an object of low and illiberal intrigue. Those officers whom they still call bishops are to be elected
? ? ? ? 428 REFLECTIONS ON THE
to a provision comparatively mean, through the same
arts, (that is, electioneering arts,) by men of all religious tenets that are known or can be invented.
The new lawgivers have not ascertained anything
whatsoever concerning their qualifications, relative
either to doctrine or to morals, no more than they
have done with regard to the subordinate clergy; nor
does it appear but that both the higher and the lower
may, at their discretion, practise or preach any mode
of religion or irreligion that they please. I do not
yet see what the jurisdiction of bishops over their
subordinates is to be, or whether they are to have
any jurisdiction at all.
