ples of every virtue,
domestic
and public.
Edmund Burke
28 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
common feeling of mankind. If I had but one hour
to live, I would employ it in decrying this wretched
system, and die with my pen in my hand to mark out
the dreadful consequences of receiving an arrangement of empire dictated by the despotism of Regicide to my own country, and to the lawful sovereigns of
the Christian world.
I trust I shall hardly be told, in palliation of this
shamefiul system of politics, that the author expresses his sentiments only as doubts. In such things, it may be truly said, that " once to doubt is once to be
resolved. . " It would be a strange reason for wasting
the treasures and shedding the blood of our country,
to prevent arrangements on the part of another power, of which we were doubtful whether they might not be even to our advantage, and render our neighbor less than before the object of our jealousy and alarm. In this doubt there is much decision. No nation would consent to carry on a war of skepticism.
But the fact is, this expression of doubt is only. a
mode of putting an opinion, when it is not the drift
of the author to overturn the doubt. Otherwise, the
doubt is never stated as the author's own, nor left, as
here it is, unanswered. Indeed, the mode of stating
the most decided opinions in the form of questions is
so little uncommon, particularly since the excellent
queries of the excellent Berkeley, that it became for
a good while a fashionable mode of composition.
Here, then, the author of the Fourth Week of
October is ready for the worst, and would strike the
bargain of peace on these conditions. I must leave it
to you and to every considerate man to reflect upon
the effect of this on any Continental alliances, present
or future, and whether it would be possible (if this
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 29
book was thought of the least authority) that its
maxims with regard to our political interest must not
naturally push them to be beforehand with us in the
fraternity with Regicide, and thus not only strip us
of any steady alliance at present, but leave us without any of that communion of interest which could
produce alliances in future. Indeed, with these maxims, we should be well divided from the world.
Notwithstanding this new kind of barrier and security that is found against her ambition in her conquests, yet in the very same paragraph he admits, that, " for the present, at least, it is subversive of the
balance of power. " This, I confess, is not a direct
contradiction, because the benefits which he promises
himself from it, according to his hypothesis, are future and more remote.
So disposed is this author to peace, that, having
laid a comfortable foundation for our security in the
greatness of her empire, he has another in reserve, if
that should fail, upon quite a contrary ground: that
is, a speculation of her crumbling to pieces, and being thrown into a number of little separate republics. After paying the tribute of humanity to those who will be ruined by all these changes, on the
whole he is of opinion that "the change might be
compatible with general tranquillity, and with the establishment of a peaceful and prosperous commerce
among nations. " Whether France be great or small,
firm and entire or dissipated and divided, all is well,
provided we can have peace with her.
But without entering into speculations about her
dismemberment, whilst she is adding great nations
to her empire, is it, then, quite so certain that the
dissipation of France into such a cluster of petty
? ? ? ? 30 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
republics would be so very favorable to the true balance of power in Europe as this author imagines it would be, and to the commerce of nations? I greatly
differ from him. I perhaps shall prove in a future
letter, with the political map of Europe before my
eye, that the general liberty and independence of the
great Christian commonwealth could not exist with
such a dismemberment, unless it were followed (as
probably enough it would) by the dismemberment
of every other considerable country in Europe: and
what convulsions would arise in the constitution of
every state in Europe it is not easy to conjecture
in the mode, impossible not to foresee in the mass.
Speculate on, good my Lord! provided you ground
no part of your politics on such unsteady speculations. But as to any practice to ensue, are we not yet cured of the malady of speculating on the circumstances of things totally different from those in which we live and move? Five years has this monster continued whole and entire in all its members. Far from falling into a division within itself, it is augmented by tremendous additions. We cannot bear to look that frightful form in the face, as it is, and
in its own actual shape. We dare not be wise; we
have not the fortitude of rational fear; we will not
provide for our future safety; but we endeavor to
hush the cries of present timidity by guesses at what
may be hereafter,
" To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow. "
Is this our style of talk, when
" all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death"?
Talk not to me of what swarm of republics may come
from this carcass! It is no carcass. Now, now,
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 31
whilst we are talking, it is full of life and action.
What say you to the Regicide empire of to-day?
Tell me, my friend, do its terrors appall you into
an abject submission, or rouse you to a vigorous defence? But do - I no longer prevent it - do go on,
-- look into futurity. Has this empire nothing to
alarm you when all struggle against it is over, when
mankind shall be silent before it, when all nations
shall be disarmed, disheartened, and truly divided by
a treacherous peace? Its malignity towards humankind will subsist with undiminished hleat, whilst the
means of giving it effect must proceed, and every
means of resisting it must inevitably and rapidly
decline.
Against alarm on their politic and military empire
these are the writer's sedative remedies. But he
leaves us sadly in the dark with regard to the moral
consequences, which he states have threatened to demolish a system of civilization under which his country enjoys a prosperity unparalleled in the history of man. We had emerged from. our first terrors, but
here we sink into them again, - however, only to
shake them off upon the credit of his being a man
of very sanguine hopes.
Against the moral terrors of this successful empire
of barbarism, though he has given us no consolation
here, in another place he has formed other securities,
- securities, indeed, which will make even the enormity of the crimes and atrocities of France a benefit
to the world. We are to be cured by her diseases.
We are to grow proud of our Constitution upon the
distempers of theirs. Governments throughout all
Europe are to become much stronger by this event.
This, too, comes in the favorite mode of doubt and
? ? ? ? 32 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
perhaps. " To those," he says, "who meditate on
the workings of the human mind, a doubt may
perhaps arise, whether the effects which I have described," (namely, the change he supposes to be wrought on the public mind with regard to the
French doctrines,) "though at present a salutary
check to the dangerous spirit of innqvatioll, may
not prove favorable to abuses of power, by creating
a timidity in the just cause of liberty. " Here the
current of our apprehensions takes a contrary course.
Instead of trembling for the existence of our government from the spirit of licentiousness and anarchy, the author would make us believe we are to tremble
for our liberties from the great accession of power
which is to accrue to government.
I believe I have read in some author who criticized
the productions of the famous Jurieu, that it is not
very wise in people who dash away in prophecy, to
fix the time of accomplishment at too short a period.
Mr. Brothers may meditate upon this at his leisure.
He was a melancholy prognosticator, and has had
the fate of melancholy men. But they who prophesy
pleasant things get great present applause; and in
days of calamity people have something else to think
of: they lose, in their feeling of their distress, all
memory of those who flattered them in their prosperity. But merely for the credit of the prediction, nothing could have happened more unluckily for the
noble lord's sanguine expectations of the amendment
of the public mind, and the consequent greater security to government, from the examples in France, than what happened in the week after the publication
of his hebdomadal system. I am not sure it was not
in the very week one of the most violent and danger
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 33
ous seditious broke out that we have seen in several
years. This sedition, menacing to the public security,
endangering the sacred person of the king, and violating in the most audacious manner the authority
of Parliament, surrounded our sovereign with a murderous yell and war-whoop for that peace which the noble lord considers as a cure for all domestic disturbances and dissatisfactions.
So far as to this general cure for popular disorders.
As for government, the two Houses of Parliament,
instead of being guided by the speculations of the
Fourth Week in October, and throwing up new barriers against the dangerous power of the crown, which the noble lord considered as no unplausible subject of
apprehension, the two Houses of Parliament thought
fit to pass two acts for the further strengthening of
that very government against a most dangerous and
wide-spread faction.
Unluckily, too, for this kind of sanguine speculation,
on the very first day of the ever-famed "' last week of
October," a large, daring, and seditious meeting was
publicly held, from which meeting this atrocious attempt against the sovereign publicly originated.
No wonder that the author should tell us tlhat the
whole consideration might be varied whilst he was
writing those pages. In one, and that the most material instance, his speculations not only might be, but were at that very time, entirely overset. Their warcry for peace with France was the same with that of this gentle author, but in a different note. His is the
gemitus columbce, cooing and wooing fraternity; theirs
the funereal screams of birds of night calling for their
ill-omened paramours. But they are both songs of
courtship. These Regicides considered a Regicide!
VOL. VI. 3
? ? ? ? 34 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
peace as a cure for all their evils; and so far as I can
find, they showed nothing at all of the timidity which
the noble lord apprehends in what they call the just
cause of liberty.
However, it seems, that, notwithstanding these awkward appearances with regard to the strength of government, he has still his fears and doubts about our liberties. To a free people this would be a matter of
alarm; but this physician of October has in his shop
all sorts of salves for all sorts of sores. It is curious
that they all come from the inexhaustible drug-shop
of the Regicide dispensary. It costs him nothing to
excite terror, because he lays it at his pleasure. He
finds a security for this danger to liberty from the
wonderful wisdom to be taught to kings, to nobility,
and even to the lowest of the people, by the late transactions.
I confess I was always blind enough to regard the
French Revolution, inl the act, and much more in the
example, as one of the greatest calamities that had
ever fallen upon mankind. I now find that in its effects it is to be the greatest of all blessings. If so,
we owe amende honorable to the Jacobins. They, it
seems, were right; and if they were right a little ear~lier than we are, it only shows that they exceeded us
in sagacity. If they brought out their right ideas
somewhat in a disorderly manner, it must be remembered that great zeal produces some irregularity;
1)ut when greatly in the right, it must be pardoned by
those who are very regularly and temperately in the
wrong. The master Jacobins had told me this a
thousand times. I never believed the masters; nor
do I now find myself disposed to give credit to the
disciple. I will not muclh dispute with our author,
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 35
which party has the best of this Revolution, -- that
which is from thence to learn wisdom, or that which
from the same event has obtained power. The dispute o0l the preference of strength to wisdom may perhaps be decided as Horace has decided the controversy between Art and Nature. I do not like to leave all the power to my adversary, and to secure
nothing to myself but the untimely wisdom that is
taught by the consequences of folly. I do not like
my share in the partition: because to his strength my
adversary may possibly add a good deal of cullning,
whereas my wisdom may totally fail in producing to
me the same degree of strength. But to descend
from the author's generalities a little nearer to meaning, the security given to liberty is this, -- " that governments will have learned not to precipitate
themselves into embarrassments by speculative wars.
Sovereigns and princes will not forget that steadiness,
moderation, and economy are the best supports of the
eminoence on which they stand. " There seems to me
a good deal of oblique reflection in this lesson. As to
the lesson itself, it is at all times a good one. One
would think, however, by this formal introduction of
it as a recommendation of the arrangements proposed
by the author, it had never been taught before, either
by precept or by experience, - and that these maxims
are discoveries reserved for a Regicide peace. But is
it permitted to ask what security it affords to the liberty of the subject, that the prince is pacific or frugal? The very contrary has happened in our history. Our
best securities for freedom have been obtained fromn
princes who were either warlike, or prodigal, or both.
Although the amendment of princes in these points
can have no effect in quieting our apprehensions for
? ? ? ? 36 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
liberty on account of the strength to be acquired to
government by a Regicide peace, I allow that the
avoiding of speculative wars may possibly be an advantage, provided I well understand what the author
means by a speculative war. I suppose he means a
war grounded on speculative advantages, and not
wars founded on a just speculation of danger. Does
lie mean to include this war, which we are now carrying on, amongst those speculative wars which this
Jacobin peace is to teach sovereigns to avoid hereafter? If so, it is doing the party an important service. Does he mean that we are to avoid such wars as that of the Grand Alliance, made on a speculation
of danger to the independence of Europe? I suspect
he has a sort of retrospective view to the American
war, as a speculative war, carried on by England
upon one side and by Louis the Sixteenth on the
other. As to our share of that war, let reverence
to the dead and respect to the living prevent us fionm
reading lessons of this kind at their expense. I don't
know how far the author may find himself at liberty
to wanton on that subject; but, for my part, I entered
into a coalition which, when I had no longer a duty
relative to that business, made me think myself bound
in honor not to call it up without necessity. But if
he puts England out of the question, and reflects only
on Louis the Sixteenth, I have only to say,' Dearly
has he answered it! " I will not defend him. But
all those who pushed on the Revolution by which he
was deposed were much more in fault than he was.
They have murdered him, and have divided his kingdom as a spoil; but they who are the guilty are
not they who furnish the example. They who reign
through his fault are not among those sovereigns
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 37
who are likely to be taught to avoid speculative
wars by the murder of their master. I think the
author will not be hardy enough to assert that they
have shown less disposition to meddle in the concerns
of that very America than he did, and in a way not
less likely to kindle the flame of speculative war.
Here is one sovereign not yet reclaimed by these
healing examples. Will he point out the other sovereigns who are to be reformed by this peace? Their wars may not be speculative. But the world will not
be much mended by turning wars from unprofitable
and speculative to practical and lucrative, whether
the liberty or the repose of mankind is regarded. If
the author's new sovereign in France is not reformed by the example of his own Revolution, that Revolution has not added much to the security and
repose of Poland, for instance, or taught the three
great partitioning powers more moderation in their
second than they had shown in their first division
of that devoted country. The first division, which
preceded these destructive examples, was moderation
itself, in comparison of what has been donle since the
period of the author's amendment.
This paragraph is written with something of a
studied obscurity. If it means anything, it seems
to hint as if sovereigns were to learn moderation,
and an attention to the liberties of their people,
from the fate of the sovereigns who have suffered in
this war, and eminently of Louis the Sixteenth.
Will lie say whether the King of Sardinia's horrible tyranny was the cause of the loss of Savoy and of Nice'? What lesson of moderation does it teach the
Pope? I desire to know whether his Holiness is to
learn not to massacre his subjects, nor to waste and
? ? ? ? 38 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
destroy such beautiful countries as that of Avignon,
lest he should call to their assistance that great deliverer of nations, Jourdan Coupe-tete? What lesson
does it give of mnoderation to the Emperor, whose
predecessor never put one man to death after a general rebellion of the Low Countries, that the Regicides never spared man, woman, or child, whom they but suspected of dislike to their usurpations? What,
then, are all these lessons about the softening the
character of sovereigns by this Regicide peace? On
reading thifs section, one would imagine that the poor
tame sovereigns of Europe had been a sort of furious wild beasts, that stood in need of some uncommonly rough discipline to subdue the ferocity of their savage nature.
As to the example to be learnt from the murder
of Louis the Sixteenth, if a lesson to kings is not
derived from his fate, I do not know whence it can
come. The author, however, ought not to have left
us in the dark upon that subject, to break our shins
over his hints and insinuations. Is it, then, true, that
this unfortunate monarch drew his punishment upon
himself by his want of moderation, and his oppressing the liberties of which he had found his people
in possession? Is not the direct contrary the fact?
And is not the example of this Revolution the very
reverse of anything which can lead to that softening
of character in princes which the author supposes as
a security to the people, and has broughllt forward as
a recommendation to fraternity with those who have
administered that happy emollient in the murder
of their king and the slavery and desolation of their
country?
But the author does not confine the benefit of the
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 39
Regicide lesson to kings alone. He has a diffusive
bounty. Nobles, and men of property, will likewise
be greatly reformed. They, too, will be led to a review of their social situation and duties, --" and will
reflect, that their large allotment of worldly advantages is for the aid and benefit of the whole. " Is it,
then, from the fate of Juign6, Archbishop of Paris,
or of the Cardinal de Rochefoucault, and of so many
others, who gave their fortunes, and, I may say, their
very beings, to the poor, that the rich are to learn
that their "fortunes are for the aid and benefit of
the whole"? I say nothing of the liberal persons
of great rank and property, lay and ecclesiastic, men
and women, to whom we have had the honor and
happiness of affording an asylum: I pass by these,
lest I should never have done, or lest I should omit
some as deserving as any I might mention. Why
will the author, then. suppose that the nobles and
men of property in France have been banished, confiscated, and murdered, on account of the savageness
and ferocity of their character, and their being tainted with vices beyond those of the same order and
description in other countries? No judge of a revolutionary tribunal, with his hands dipped in their
blood and his maw gorged with their property, has
yet dared to assert what this author has been pleased,
by way of a moral lesson, to insinuate.
Their nobility, and their men of property, in a
mass, had the very same virtues, and the very same
vices, and in the very same proportions, with the
same description of men in this and in other nations. I must do justice to suffering honor, generosity, and integrity. I do not know that any time or any country has furnished more splendid exam
? ? ? ? 40 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
ples of every virtue, domestic and public. I do not
enter into the councils of Providence; but, humanly
speaking, many of these nobles and men of property,
from whose disastrous fate we are, it seems, to learn
a general softening of character, and a revision of our
social situations and duties, appear to me full as little deserving of that fate as the author, whoever he
is, can be. Many of them, I am sure, were such
as I should be proud indeed to be able to compare
myself with, in knowledge, in integrity, and in every other virtue. My feeble nature might shrink,
though theirs did not, from the proof; but my reason and my ambition tell me that it would be a good bargain to purchase their merits'with their fate.
For which of his vices did that great magistrate,
D'Esprdmenil, lose his fortune and his head? What
were the abominations of Malesherbes, that other excellent magistrate, whose sixty Oyears of uniform virtue was acknowledged, in the very act of his murder, by
the judicial butchers who condemned him? On account of what misdemeanors was he robbed of his property, and slaughtered with two generations of
his offspring, -- and the remains of the third race,
with a refinement of cruelty, and lest they should
appear to reclaim the property forfeited by the virtues of their ancestor, confounded in an hospital with
the thousands of those unhappy foundling infants
who are abandoned, without relation and without
name, by the wretchedness or by the profligacy of
their parents?
Is the fate of the Queen of France to produce this
softening of character? Was she a person so very
ferocious and cruel, as, by the example of her death,
to frighten us into common humanity? Is there no
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 41
way to teach the Emperor a softening of character,
and a review of his social situation and duty, but
his consent, by an infamous accord with Regicide,
to drive a second coach with the Austrian arms
through the. streets of Paris, along which, after a
series of preparatory horrors exceeding the atrocities
of the bloody execution itself, the glory of the Imperial race had been carried to an ignominious death?
Is this a lesson of moderation to a descendant of
Maria Theresa, drawn from the fate of the daughter of that incomparable woman and sovereign? If
he learns this lesson from such an object, and from
such teachers, the man may remain, but the king is
deposed. If he does not carry quite another memory
of that transaction in the inmost recesses of his heart,
he is unworthy to reign, he is unworthy to live. In
the chronicle of disgrace he will have but this short
tale told of him: " Ha was the first emperor of his
house that embraced a regicide; he was the last that
wore the imperial purple. " Far am I from thinking
so ill of this august sovereign, who is at the head of
the monarchies of Europe, and who is the trustee of
their dignities and his own.
What ferocity of character drew on the fate of
Elizabeth, the sister of King Louis the Sixteenth?
For which of the vices of that pattern of benevolence, of piety, and of all the virtues, did they put
her to death? For which of her vices did they put
to death the mildest of all human creatures, the Duchess of Biron? What were the crimes of those crowds of matrons and virgins of condition, whom they mas
sacred, with their juries of blood, in prisons and on
scaffolds? What were the enormities of the infant
king, whom they caused, by lingering tortures, to
? ? ? ? 42 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
perish in their dungeon, and whom if at last they
dispatched by poison, it was in that detestable crime
the only act of mercy they have ever shown?
What softening of character is to be had, what
review of their social situations and duties is to be
taught by these examples to kings, to nobles, to men
of property, to women, and to infants? The royal
family perished because it was royal. The nobles
perished because they were noble. The men, women, and children, who had property, because they
had property to be robbed of. The priests were punished, after they had been robbed of their all, not
for their vices, but for their virtues and their piety,
which made them an honor to their sacred profession,
and to that nature of which we ought to be proud,
since they belollg to it. My Lord, nothing can be
learned from such examples, except the danger of
being kings, queens, nobles, priests, and children, to
be butchered on account of their inheritance. These
are things at which not vice, not crime, not folly,
but wisdom, goodness, learning, justice, probity, beneficence, stand aghast. By these examples our reason and our moral sense are not enlightened, but confounded; and there is no refuge for astonished and affrighted virtue, but being annihilated in humility
and submission, sinking into a silent adoration of
the inscrutable dispensations of Providence, and flying with trembling wings from this world of daring
crimes, and feeble, pusillanimous, half-bred, bastard
justice, to the asylum of another order of things, in
an unknown form, but in a better life.
Whatever the politician or preacher of September or of October may think of the matter, it is a
most comfortless, disheartening, desolating example.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 43
Dreadful is the example of ruined innocence and
virtte, and the completest triumph of the completest villany that ever vexed and disgraced mankind! The example is ruinous in every point of view, religious, moral, civil, political. It establishes that dreadful maxim of Machlliavel, that in great affairs
men are not to be wicked by halves. This maxim is
not made for a middle sort of beings, who, because
they cannot be angels, ought to thwart their ambition, and not endeavor to become infernal spirits. It is too well exemplified in the present time, where the
faults and errors of humanity, checked by the imperfect, timorous virtues, have been overpowered by those who have stopped at no crime. It is a dreadful part of the example, that infernal malevolence has had pious apologists, who read their lectures on
frailties in favor of crimes, - who abandon the weak,
and court the friendship of the wicked. To root out
these maxims, and the examples that support them,
is a wise object of years of war. This is that war.
This is that moral war. It was said by old Trivulzio,
that the Battle of Marignano was the Battle of the
Giants, -that all the rest of the mally lie lad seen
were those of the Cranes and Pygmies. This is true
of the objects, at least, of the contest: for the greater part of those which we have hitlerto contended for, in comparison, were the toys of children.
The October politician is so full of charity and
good-nature, that lie supposes that these very robbers
and murderers themselves are in a course of melioration: on what ground I cannot conceive, except on the long practice of every crime, and by its complete
success. He is an Origenist, and believes in the conversion of the Devil. All that runs in the place of
? ? ? ? 44 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
blood in his veins is nothing but the milk of human
kindness. He is as soft as a curd, - though, as a politician, he might be supposed to be made of sterner
stuff. HIe supposes (to use his own expression)
"that the salltary truths which lie inculcates are
making their way into their bosoms. " Their bosom
is a rock of granite, on which Falsehood has long
since built her stronghold. Poor Truth has had a
hard work of it, with her little pickaxe. Nothing
but gunpowder will do.
As a proof, however, of the progress of this sap of
Truth, lie gives us a confession they had made not
long before he wrote. "'Their fraternity' (as was
lately stated by themselves in a solemn report)'has
been the brotherllood of Cain and Abel,' and'they
have organized nothing but bankruptcy and famine. ' "
A very honest confession, truly, - and much in the
spirit of their oracle, Rousseau. Yet, what is still
more marvellous than the confession, this is the very
fraternity to which our author gives us such an obliging invitation to accede. There is, indeed, a, vacancy in the fraternal corps: a brother and a partner is
wanted. If we please, we may fill up the place of
the butchered Abel; and whilst we wait the destiny
of the departed brother, we may enjoy the advantages
of the partnership, by entering without delay into a
shop of ready-made bankruptcy and familne. These
are the douceurs by which we are invited to Regicide
fraternity and friendship. But still our author considers the confession as a proof that " truth is making its way into their bosoms. " No! It is not making its way into their bosoms. It llas forced its way into their mouths! The evil spirit by which they
are possessed, though essentially a liar, is forced by
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 45
the tortures of conscience to confess the truth, - to
confess enough for their condemnation, but not for
their amendment. Shakspeare very aptly expresses
this kind of confession, devoid of repentance, from the
mouth of an usurper, a murderer, and a regicide: --
",,e are ourselves compelled,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. "
Whence is their amendment? Why, the author
writes, that, on their murderous insurrectionary systenl, their own lives are not sure for an hour; nor
has their power a greater stability. True. They are
convinced of it; and accordingly the wretches have
done all they can to preserve their lives, and to secure their power; but not one step have they taken
to amend the one or to make a more just use of the
other. Their wicked policy has obliged them to make
a pause in the only massacres in which their treachery and cruelty had operated as a kind of savage justice, - that is, the massacre of the accomplices of their crimes: they liave ceased to shed the inhuman
blood of their fellow-murderers; but when they take
any of those persons who contend for their lawful
government, their property, and their religion, notwithstanding the truth which this author says is making its way into their bosoms, it has not taught them the least tincture of mercy. This we plainly see by
their massacre at Quiberon, where they put to death,
with every species of contumely, and without any exception, every prisoner of war who did not escape out
of their hands. To have had property, to have been
robbed of it, and to endeavor to regain it, - these are
crimes irremissible, to which every man who regards
his property or his life, in every country, ought well
? ? ? ? 46 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
to look in all connection with those with whom to
have had property was an offence, to endeavor to keep
it a second offence, to attempt to regain it a crime
that puts the offender out of all the laws of peace or
war. You cannot see one of those wretclhes without
all alarm for your life as well as your goods. Tlley
are like the worst of the French and Italian banditti,
who, whenever they robbed, were sure to murder. . Are they not the very same ruffians, thieves, assassins, and regicides that they were from the beginning? Have they diversified the scene by the least variety, or produced the face of a single new villany?
Tedet harum quotidianarum formarumn. Oh! but I
shall be answered, " It is now quite another thing;
-they are all changed. You have not seen them ill
their state dresses;-this makes an amaziing difference. The new habit of the Directory is so clharmingly fancied, that it is impossible not to fall in love
with so well-dressed a Constitution; -- the costume
of the sans-culotte Constitution of 1793 was absolutely
insufferable. The Committee for Foreign Affairs were
such slovens, and stunk so abominably, that no inuscadin ambassador of the smallest degree of delicacy
of nerves could come within ten yards of them; but
now they are so powdered, and perfnlued, and ribanded, and sashed, and plumed, that, though they are
grown infinitely more insolent in their fine clothes
even than they were in their rags, (and that was
enough,) as they now appear, there is somethinlg in
it more grand and noble, something more suitable
to an awful Roman Senate receiving the homage of
dependent tetrarchs. Like that Senate, (their perpetual model for conduct towards other nations,)
they permit their vassals (during their good pleas
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 47
ure) to assume the name of kings, in order to bestow
more dignity on tile suite and retinue of the sovereign Republic by the nominal rank of their slaves:
Ut habeant instrumenta servitutis et ree. s. " All this
is very fine, undoubtedly; and ambassadors whose
hands are almost out for want of employment may
long to have their part in this august ceremony of
the Republic one and indivisible. But, with great
deference to the new diplomatic taste, we old people
must retain some square-toed predilection for the
fashions of our youth.
I am afraid you will find me, my Lord, again falling into my usual vanity, in valuing myself on thle
eminent men whose society I once enjoyed. I remember, in a conversation I once had with my ever dear friend Garrick, who was the first of actors, because
he was tile most acute observer of Nature I ever
knew, I asked him how it happened, that, whenever
a senate appeared on the stage, the audience seemed
always disposed to laughter. HIe said, tile reason
was plain: the audience was well acquainted with
the faces of most of the senators. They knew that
they were no other than candle-snuffers, revolutionary scene-shifters, second and third nmob, prompters, clerks, executionlers, who stand with tlleir axe on
their shoulders by the wheel, grinners in the pantomime, murderers in tragedies, who make ugly faces under black wigs, -- in short, tile very scum and
refilse of the theatre; and it was of course that the
contrast of the vileness of the actors with the pomp
of their habits naturally excited ideas of contempt
and ridicule.
So it was at Paris on the inaugural day of the Constitution for the present year. The foreign ministers
? ? ? ? 48 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
were ordered to attend at this investiture of the
Directory; -- for so they call the managers of their
burlesque government. The diplomacy, who were
a sort of strangers, were quite awe-struck with the
"pride, pomp, and circumstance" of this majestic
senate; whilst the sanls-culotte gallery instantly recognized their old insurrectionary acquaintance, burst
out into a horse-laugh at their absurd finery, and
held them in infinitely greater contempt than whilst
they prowled about the streets in the pantaloons of
the last year's Constitution, when their legislators
appeared honestly, with their daggers in their belts,
and their pistols peeping out of their side-pocketholes, like a bold, brave banditti, as they are. The
Parisians (and I am much of their mind) think that
a thief with a crape on his visage is much worse than
a barefaced knave, and that such robbers richly deserve all the penalties of all the black acts. In this
their thin disguise, their comrades of the late abdicated sovereign canaille hooted and hissed them, and
from that day have no other name for them than
what is not quite so easy to render into English,
impossible to make it very civil English: it belongs,
indeed, to the language of the halles but, without being instructed in. that dialect, it was the opinion of
the polite Lord Chesterfield that no man could be a
complete master of French. Their Parisian brethren called them gueux plumes, which, though not elegant, is expressive and characteristic: feathered scoundrels, I think, comes the nearest to it in that kind of English. But we are now to understand that
these gueux, for no other reason, that I can divine,
except their red and white clothes, form at last a
state with which we may cultivate amity, and have a
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 49
prospect of the blessings of a secure and permanent
peace. In effect, then, it was not with the men, or
their principles, or their politics, that we quarrelled:
our sole dislike was to the cut of their clothes.
But to pass over their dresses, -- good God! in
what habits did the representatives of the crowned
heads of Europe appear, when they came to swell the
pomp of their humiliation, and attended in solemn
function this inauguration of Regicide? That would
be the curiosity. Under what robes did they cover
the disgrace and degradation of the whole college
of kings? What warehouses of masks and dominoes
furnished a cover to the nakedness of their shame?
The shop ought to be knownl; it will soon have a
good trade. Were the dresses of the ministers of
those lately called potentates, who attended on that
occasion, taken from the wardrobe of that propertyman at the opera, from whence my old acquaintance, Anacharsis Clootz, some years ago equipped a body
of ambassadors, whom he conducted, as from all the
nations of the world, to the bar of what was called
the Constituent Assembly? Among those mock ministers, one of the most conspicuous figures was the representative of the British nation, who unluckily
was wanting at the late ceremony. In the face of all
the real ambassadors of the sovereigns of Europe was
this ludicrous representation of their several subjects,
under the name of oppressed sovereigns,* exhibited to
the Assembly. That Assembly received an harangue,
in the name of those sovereigns, against their kings,
delivered by this Clootz, actually a subject of Prussia,
under the name of Ambassador of the Human Race.
* Sourerains opprinmes. - See the whole proceeding in the ProcesVerbal of the National Assembly.
VOL. VI. 4
? ? ? ? 50 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
At that time there was only a feeble reclamation fromr
one of the ambassadors of these tyrants and oppressors. A most gracious answer was given to the ministers of the oppressed sovereigns; and they went so far on that occasion as to assign them, in that assumed character, a box at one of their festivals.
I was willing to indulge myself in an hope that this
second appearance of ambassadors was only an insolent mummery of the same kind; but, alas! Anacharsis himself, all fanatic as he was, could not have imagined that his opera procession should have been
the prototype of the real appearance of the representatives of all the sovereigns of Europe themselves, to
make the same prostration that was made by those
who dared to represent their people in a complaint
against them. But in this the French Republic has
followed, as they always affect to do, and have hitherto done with success, the example of the ancient Romans, who shook all governments by listening to the complaints of their subjects, and soon after brought
the kings themselves to answer at their bar. At this
last ceremony the ambassadors had not Clootz for
their Cotterel. Pity that Clootz had not had a reprieve from the guillotine till he had completed his
work! But that engine fell before thi curtain had
fallen upon all the dignity of the earth.
On this their gaudy day the new Regicide Directory sent for that diplomatic rabble, as bad as themselves in principle, but infinitely worse in degradation.
They called them out by a sort of roll of their nations,
one after another, much in the manner in which they
called wretches out of their prison to the guillotine.
When these ambassadors of infamy appeared before
them, the chief Director, in the name: of the rest,
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 51
treated each of them with a short, affected, pedantic,
insolent, theatric laconium, -- a sort of epigram of
contempt. When they had thus insulted them in a
style and language which never before was heard, and
which no sovereign would for a moment endure from
another, supposing any of them frantic enough to use
it, to finish their outrage, they drummed and trumpeted the wretches out of their hall of audience.
Among the objects of this insolent buffoonery was
a person supposed to represent the King of Prussia.
To this worthy representative they did not so much as
condescend to mention his master; they did not seem
to know that he had one; they addressed themselves
solely to Prussia in the abstract, notwithstanding the
infinite obligation they owed to their early protector
for their first recognition and alliance, and for the
part of his territory he gave into their hands for the
first-fruits of his homage. None but dead monarchs
are so much as mentioned by them, and those only to
insult the living by an invidious comparison. They
told the Prussians they ought to learn, after the
example of Frederick the Great, a love for France.
What a pity it is, that he, who loved France so well
as to chastise it, was not now alive, by an unsparing
use of the rod (which, indeed, he would have spared
little) to give them another instance of his paternal
affection! But the Directory were mistaken. These
are not days in which monarchs value themselves upon the title of great: they are grown philosophic: they are satisfied to be good.
Your Lordship will pardon me for this no very long
reflection on the short, but excellent speech of the
plumed Director to the ambassador of Cappadocia.
The Imperial ambassador was not in waiting, but they
? ? ? ? 52 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
found for Austria a good Judean representation.
With great judgment, his Highness, the Grand Duke,
had sent the most atheistic coxcomb to be found in
Florence, to represent at the bar of impiety the House
of Apostolic Majesty, and the descendants of the pious,
though high-minded, Maria Theresa. He was sent to
humble the whole race of Austria before those grim
assassins, reeking with the blood of the daughter of
Maria Theresa, whom they sent half dead, in a dungcart, to a cruel execution; and this true-born son of apostasy and infidelity, this renegado from the faith
and from all honor and all humanity, drove an Austrian coach over the stones which were yet wet with her blood, -- with that blood which dropped every
step through her tumbrel, all the way she was drawn
from the horrid prison, in which they had finished all
the cruelty and horrors not executed in the face of
the sun. The Hungarian subjects of Maria Theresa,
when they drew their swords to defend her rights
against France, called her, with correctness of truth,
though not with the same correctness, perhaps, of
grammar, a king: "l Moriamur pro rege nostro, Maria
Theresa. " SHE lived and died a king; and others will
have subjects ready to make the same vow, when, in
either sex, they show themselves real kings.
When the Directory came to this miserable fop,
they bestowed a compliment on his matriculation
into their philosophy; but as to his master, they
made to him, as was reasonable, a reprimand, not
without a pardon, and an oblique hint at the whole
family. What indignities have been offered through
this wretch to his master, and how well borne, it is
not necessary that I should dwell on at present. I
hope that those who yet wear royal, imperial, and
? ? ?
common feeling of mankind. If I had but one hour
to live, I would employ it in decrying this wretched
system, and die with my pen in my hand to mark out
the dreadful consequences of receiving an arrangement of empire dictated by the despotism of Regicide to my own country, and to the lawful sovereigns of
the Christian world.
I trust I shall hardly be told, in palliation of this
shamefiul system of politics, that the author expresses his sentiments only as doubts. In such things, it may be truly said, that " once to doubt is once to be
resolved. . " It would be a strange reason for wasting
the treasures and shedding the blood of our country,
to prevent arrangements on the part of another power, of which we were doubtful whether they might not be even to our advantage, and render our neighbor less than before the object of our jealousy and alarm. In this doubt there is much decision. No nation would consent to carry on a war of skepticism.
But the fact is, this expression of doubt is only. a
mode of putting an opinion, when it is not the drift
of the author to overturn the doubt. Otherwise, the
doubt is never stated as the author's own, nor left, as
here it is, unanswered. Indeed, the mode of stating
the most decided opinions in the form of questions is
so little uncommon, particularly since the excellent
queries of the excellent Berkeley, that it became for
a good while a fashionable mode of composition.
Here, then, the author of the Fourth Week of
October is ready for the worst, and would strike the
bargain of peace on these conditions. I must leave it
to you and to every considerate man to reflect upon
the effect of this on any Continental alliances, present
or future, and whether it would be possible (if this
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 29
book was thought of the least authority) that its
maxims with regard to our political interest must not
naturally push them to be beforehand with us in the
fraternity with Regicide, and thus not only strip us
of any steady alliance at present, but leave us without any of that communion of interest which could
produce alliances in future. Indeed, with these maxims, we should be well divided from the world.
Notwithstanding this new kind of barrier and security that is found against her ambition in her conquests, yet in the very same paragraph he admits, that, " for the present, at least, it is subversive of the
balance of power. " This, I confess, is not a direct
contradiction, because the benefits which he promises
himself from it, according to his hypothesis, are future and more remote.
So disposed is this author to peace, that, having
laid a comfortable foundation for our security in the
greatness of her empire, he has another in reserve, if
that should fail, upon quite a contrary ground: that
is, a speculation of her crumbling to pieces, and being thrown into a number of little separate republics. After paying the tribute of humanity to those who will be ruined by all these changes, on the
whole he is of opinion that "the change might be
compatible with general tranquillity, and with the establishment of a peaceful and prosperous commerce
among nations. " Whether France be great or small,
firm and entire or dissipated and divided, all is well,
provided we can have peace with her.
But without entering into speculations about her
dismemberment, whilst she is adding great nations
to her empire, is it, then, quite so certain that the
dissipation of France into such a cluster of petty
? ? ? ? 30 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
republics would be so very favorable to the true balance of power in Europe as this author imagines it would be, and to the commerce of nations? I greatly
differ from him. I perhaps shall prove in a future
letter, with the political map of Europe before my
eye, that the general liberty and independence of the
great Christian commonwealth could not exist with
such a dismemberment, unless it were followed (as
probably enough it would) by the dismemberment
of every other considerable country in Europe: and
what convulsions would arise in the constitution of
every state in Europe it is not easy to conjecture
in the mode, impossible not to foresee in the mass.
Speculate on, good my Lord! provided you ground
no part of your politics on such unsteady speculations. But as to any practice to ensue, are we not yet cured of the malady of speculating on the circumstances of things totally different from those in which we live and move? Five years has this monster continued whole and entire in all its members. Far from falling into a division within itself, it is augmented by tremendous additions. We cannot bear to look that frightful form in the face, as it is, and
in its own actual shape. We dare not be wise; we
have not the fortitude of rational fear; we will not
provide for our future safety; but we endeavor to
hush the cries of present timidity by guesses at what
may be hereafter,
" To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow. "
Is this our style of talk, when
" all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death"?
Talk not to me of what swarm of republics may come
from this carcass! It is no carcass. Now, now,
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 31
whilst we are talking, it is full of life and action.
What say you to the Regicide empire of to-day?
Tell me, my friend, do its terrors appall you into
an abject submission, or rouse you to a vigorous defence? But do - I no longer prevent it - do go on,
-- look into futurity. Has this empire nothing to
alarm you when all struggle against it is over, when
mankind shall be silent before it, when all nations
shall be disarmed, disheartened, and truly divided by
a treacherous peace? Its malignity towards humankind will subsist with undiminished hleat, whilst the
means of giving it effect must proceed, and every
means of resisting it must inevitably and rapidly
decline.
Against alarm on their politic and military empire
these are the writer's sedative remedies. But he
leaves us sadly in the dark with regard to the moral
consequences, which he states have threatened to demolish a system of civilization under which his country enjoys a prosperity unparalleled in the history of man. We had emerged from. our first terrors, but
here we sink into them again, - however, only to
shake them off upon the credit of his being a man
of very sanguine hopes.
Against the moral terrors of this successful empire
of barbarism, though he has given us no consolation
here, in another place he has formed other securities,
- securities, indeed, which will make even the enormity of the crimes and atrocities of France a benefit
to the world. We are to be cured by her diseases.
We are to grow proud of our Constitution upon the
distempers of theirs. Governments throughout all
Europe are to become much stronger by this event.
This, too, comes in the favorite mode of doubt and
? ? ? ? 32 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
perhaps. " To those," he says, "who meditate on
the workings of the human mind, a doubt may
perhaps arise, whether the effects which I have described," (namely, the change he supposes to be wrought on the public mind with regard to the
French doctrines,) "though at present a salutary
check to the dangerous spirit of innqvatioll, may
not prove favorable to abuses of power, by creating
a timidity in the just cause of liberty. " Here the
current of our apprehensions takes a contrary course.
Instead of trembling for the existence of our government from the spirit of licentiousness and anarchy, the author would make us believe we are to tremble
for our liberties from the great accession of power
which is to accrue to government.
I believe I have read in some author who criticized
the productions of the famous Jurieu, that it is not
very wise in people who dash away in prophecy, to
fix the time of accomplishment at too short a period.
Mr. Brothers may meditate upon this at his leisure.
He was a melancholy prognosticator, and has had
the fate of melancholy men. But they who prophesy
pleasant things get great present applause; and in
days of calamity people have something else to think
of: they lose, in their feeling of their distress, all
memory of those who flattered them in their prosperity. But merely for the credit of the prediction, nothing could have happened more unluckily for the
noble lord's sanguine expectations of the amendment
of the public mind, and the consequent greater security to government, from the examples in France, than what happened in the week after the publication
of his hebdomadal system. I am not sure it was not
in the very week one of the most violent and danger
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 33
ous seditious broke out that we have seen in several
years. This sedition, menacing to the public security,
endangering the sacred person of the king, and violating in the most audacious manner the authority
of Parliament, surrounded our sovereign with a murderous yell and war-whoop for that peace which the noble lord considers as a cure for all domestic disturbances and dissatisfactions.
So far as to this general cure for popular disorders.
As for government, the two Houses of Parliament,
instead of being guided by the speculations of the
Fourth Week in October, and throwing up new barriers against the dangerous power of the crown, which the noble lord considered as no unplausible subject of
apprehension, the two Houses of Parliament thought
fit to pass two acts for the further strengthening of
that very government against a most dangerous and
wide-spread faction.
Unluckily, too, for this kind of sanguine speculation,
on the very first day of the ever-famed "' last week of
October," a large, daring, and seditious meeting was
publicly held, from which meeting this atrocious attempt against the sovereign publicly originated.
No wonder that the author should tell us tlhat the
whole consideration might be varied whilst he was
writing those pages. In one, and that the most material instance, his speculations not only might be, but were at that very time, entirely overset. Their warcry for peace with France was the same with that of this gentle author, but in a different note. His is the
gemitus columbce, cooing and wooing fraternity; theirs
the funereal screams of birds of night calling for their
ill-omened paramours. But they are both songs of
courtship. These Regicides considered a Regicide!
VOL. VI. 3
? ? ? ? 34 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
peace as a cure for all their evils; and so far as I can
find, they showed nothing at all of the timidity which
the noble lord apprehends in what they call the just
cause of liberty.
However, it seems, that, notwithstanding these awkward appearances with regard to the strength of government, he has still his fears and doubts about our liberties. To a free people this would be a matter of
alarm; but this physician of October has in his shop
all sorts of salves for all sorts of sores. It is curious
that they all come from the inexhaustible drug-shop
of the Regicide dispensary. It costs him nothing to
excite terror, because he lays it at his pleasure. He
finds a security for this danger to liberty from the
wonderful wisdom to be taught to kings, to nobility,
and even to the lowest of the people, by the late transactions.
I confess I was always blind enough to regard the
French Revolution, inl the act, and much more in the
example, as one of the greatest calamities that had
ever fallen upon mankind. I now find that in its effects it is to be the greatest of all blessings. If so,
we owe amende honorable to the Jacobins. They, it
seems, were right; and if they were right a little ear~lier than we are, it only shows that they exceeded us
in sagacity. If they brought out their right ideas
somewhat in a disorderly manner, it must be remembered that great zeal produces some irregularity;
1)ut when greatly in the right, it must be pardoned by
those who are very regularly and temperately in the
wrong. The master Jacobins had told me this a
thousand times. I never believed the masters; nor
do I now find myself disposed to give credit to the
disciple. I will not muclh dispute with our author,
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 35
which party has the best of this Revolution, -- that
which is from thence to learn wisdom, or that which
from the same event has obtained power. The dispute o0l the preference of strength to wisdom may perhaps be decided as Horace has decided the controversy between Art and Nature. I do not like to leave all the power to my adversary, and to secure
nothing to myself but the untimely wisdom that is
taught by the consequences of folly. I do not like
my share in the partition: because to his strength my
adversary may possibly add a good deal of cullning,
whereas my wisdom may totally fail in producing to
me the same degree of strength. But to descend
from the author's generalities a little nearer to meaning, the security given to liberty is this, -- " that governments will have learned not to precipitate
themselves into embarrassments by speculative wars.
Sovereigns and princes will not forget that steadiness,
moderation, and economy are the best supports of the
eminoence on which they stand. " There seems to me
a good deal of oblique reflection in this lesson. As to
the lesson itself, it is at all times a good one. One
would think, however, by this formal introduction of
it as a recommendation of the arrangements proposed
by the author, it had never been taught before, either
by precept or by experience, - and that these maxims
are discoveries reserved for a Regicide peace. But is
it permitted to ask what security it affords to the liberty of the subject, that the prince is pacific or frugal? The very contrary has happened in our history. Our
best securities for freedom have been obtained fromn
princes who were either warlike, or prodigal, or both.
Although the amendment of princes in these points
can have no effect in quieting our apprehensions for
? ? ? ? 36 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
liberty on account of the strength to be acquired to
government by a Regicide peace, I allow that the
avoiding of speculative wars may possibly be an advantage, provided I well understand what the author
means by a speculative war. I suppose he means a
war grounded on speculative advantages, and not
wars founded on a just speculation of danger. Does
lie mean to include this war, which we are now carrying on, amongst those speculative wars which this
Jacobin peace is to teach sovereigns to avoid hereafter? If so, it is doing the party an important service. Does he mean that we are to avoid such wars as that of the Grand Alliance, made on a speculation
of danger to the independence of Europe? I suspect
he has a sort of retrospective view to the American
war, as a speculative war, carried on by England
upon one side and by Louis the Sixteenth on the
other. As to our share of that war, let reverence
to the dead and respect to the living prevent us fionm
reading lessons of this kind at their expense. I don't
know how far the author may find himself at liberty
to wanton on that subject; but, for my part, I entered
into a coalition which, when I had no longer a duty
relative to that business, made me think myself bound
in honor not to call it up without necessity. But if
he puts England out of the question, and reflects only
on Louis the Sixteenth, I have only to say,' Dearly
has he answered it! " I will not defend him. But
all those who pushed on the Revolution by which he
was deposed were much more in fault than he was.
They have murdered him, and have divided his kingdom as a spoil; but they who are the guilty are
not they who furnish the example. They who reign
through his fault are not among those sovereigns
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 37
who are likely to be taught to avoid speculative
wars by the murder of their master. I think the
author will not be hardy enough to assert that they
have shown less disposition to meddle in the concerns
of that very America than he did, and in a way not
less likely to kindle the flame of speculative war.
Here is one sovereign not yet reclaimed by these
healing examples. Will he point out the other sovereigns who are to be reformed by this peace? Their wars may not be speculative. But the world will not
be much mended by turning wars from unprofitable
and speculative to practical and lucrative, whether
the liberty or the repose of mankind is regarded. If
the author's new sovereign in France is not reformed by the example of his own Revolution, that Revolution has not added much to the security and
repose of Poland, for instance, or taught the three
great partitioning powers more moderation in their
second than they had shown in their first division
of that devoted country. The first division, which
preceded these destructive examples, was moderation
itself, in comparison of what has been donle since the
period of the author's amendment.
This paragraph is written with something of a
studied obscurity. If it means anything, it seems
to hint as if sovereigns were to learn moderation,
and an attention to the liberties of their people,
from the fate of the sovereigns who have suffered in
this war, and eminently of Louis the Sixteenth.
Will lie say whether the King of Sardinia's horrible tyranny was the cause of the loss of Savoy and of Nice'? What lesson of moderation does it teach the
Pope? I desire to know whether his Holiness is to
learn not to massacre his subjects, nor to waste and
? ? ? ? 38 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
destroy such beautiful countries as that of Avignon,
lest he should call to their assistance that great deliverer of nations, Jourdan Coupe-tete? What lesson
does it give of mnoderation to the Emperor, whose
predecessor never put one man to death after a general rebellion of the Low Countries, that the Regicides never spared man, woman, or child, whom they but suspected of dislike to their usurpations? What,
then, are all these lessons about the softening the
character of sovereigns by this Regicide peace? On
reading thifs section, one would imagine that the poor
tame sovereigns of Europe had been a sort of furious wild beasts, that stood in need of some uncommonly rough discipline to subdue the ferocity of their savage nature.
As to the example to be learnt from the murder
of Louis the Sixteenth, if a lesson to kings is not
derived from his fate, I do not know whence it can
come. The author, however, ought not to have left
us in the dark upon that subject, to break our shins
over his hints and insinuations. Is it, then, true, that
this unfortunate monarch drew his punishment upon
himself by his want of moderation, and his oppressing the liberties of which he had found his people
in possession? Is not the direct contrary the fact?
And is not the example of this Revolution the very
reverse of anything which can lead to that softening
of character in princes which the author supposes as
a security to the people, and has broughllt forward as
a recommendation to fraternity with those who have
administered that happy emollient in the murder
of their king and the slavery and desolation of their
country?
But the author does not confine the benefit of the
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 39
Regicide lesson to kings alone. He has a diffusive
bounty. Nobles, and men of property, will likewise
be greatly reformed. They, too, will be led to a review of their social situation and duties, --" and will
reflect, that their large allotment of worldly advantages is for the aid and benefit of the whole. " Is it,
then, from the fate of Juign6, Archbishop of Paris,
or of the Cardinal de Rochefoucault, and of so many
others, who gave their fortunes, and, I may say, their
very beings, to the poor, that the rich are to learn
that their "fortunes are for the aid and benefit of
the whole"? I say nothing of the liberal persons
of great rank and property, lay and ecclesiastic, men
and women, to whom we have had the honor and
happiness of affording an asylum: I pass by these,
lest I should never have done, or lest I should omit
some as deserving as any I might mention. Why
will the author, then. suppose that the nobles and
men of property in France have been banished, confiscated, and murdered, on account of the savageness
and ferocity of their character, and their being tainted with vices beyond those of the same order and
description in other countries? No judge of a revolutionary tribunal, with his hands dipped in their
blood and his maw gorged with their property, has
yet dared to assert what this author has been pleased,
by way of a moral lesson, to insinuate.
Their nobility, and their men of property, in a
mass, had the very same virtues, and the very same
vices, and in the very same proportions, with the
same description of men in this and in other nations. I must do justice to suffering honor, generosity, and integrity. I do not know that any time or any country has furnished more splendid exam
? ? ? ? 40 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
ples of every virtue, domestic and public. I do not
enter into the councils of Providence; but, humanly
speaking, many of these nobles and men of property,
from whose disastrous fate we are, it seems, to learn
a general softening of character, and a revision of our
social situations and duties, appear to me full as little deserving of that fate as the author, whoever he
is, can be. Many of them, I am sure, were such
as I should be proud indeed to be able to compare
myself with, in knowledge, in integrity, and in every other virtue. My feeble nature might shrink,
though theirs did not, from the proof; but my reason and my ambition tell me that it would be a good bargain to purchase their merits'with their fate.
For which of his vices did that great magistrate,
D'Esprdmenil, lose his fortune and his head? What
were the abominations of Malesherbes, that other excellent magistrate, whose sixty Oyears of uniform virtue was acknowledged, in the very act of his murder, by
the judicial butchers who condemned him? On account of what misdemeanors was he robbed of his property, and slaughtered with two generations of
his offspring, -- and the remains of the third race,
with a refinement of cruelty, and lest they should
appear to reclaim the property forfeited by the virtues of their ancestor, confounded in an hospital with
the thousands of those unhappy foundling infants
who are abandoned, without relation and without
name, by the wretchedness or by the profligacy of
their parents?
Is the fate of the Queen of France to produce this
softening of character? Was she a person so very
ferocious and cruel, as, by the example of her death,
to frighten us into common humanity? Is there no
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 41
way to teach the Emperor a softening of character,
and a review of his social situation and duty, but
his consent, by an infamous accord with Regicide,
to drive a second coach with the Austrian arms
through the. streets of Paris, along which, after a
series of preparatory horrors exceeding the atrocities
of the bloody execution itself, the glory of the Imperial race had been carried to an ignominious death?
Is this a lesson of moderation to a descendant of
Maria Theresa, drawn from the fate of the daughter of that incomparable woman and sovereign? If
he learns this lesson from such an object, and from
such teachers, the man may remain, but the king is
deposed. If he does not carry quite another memory
of that transaction in the inmost recesses of his heart,
he is unworthy to reign, he is unworthy to live. In
the chronicle of disgrace he will have but this short
tale told of him: " Ha was the first emperor of his
house that embraced a regicide; he was the last that
wore the imperial purple. " Far am I from thinking
so ill of this august sovereign, who is at the head of
the monarchies of Europe, and who is the trustee of
their dignities and his own.
What ferocity of character drew on the fate of
Elizabeth, the sister of King Louis the Sixteenth?
For which of the vices of that pattern of benevolence, of piety, and of all the virtues, did they put
her to death? For which of her vices did they put
to death the mildest of all human creatures, the Duchess of Biron? What were the crimes of those crowds of matrons and virgins of condition, whom they mas
sacred, with their juries of blood, in prisons and on
scaffolds? What were the enormities of the infant
king, whom they caused, by lingering tortures, to
? ? ? ? 42 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
perish in their dungeon, and whom if at last they
dispatched by poison, it was in that detestable crime
the only act of mercy they have ever shown?
What softening of character is to be had, what
review of their social situations and duties is to be
taught by these examples to kings, to nobles, to men
of property, to women, and to infants? The royal
family perished because it was royal. The nobles
perished because they were noble. The men, women, and children, who had property, because they
had property to be robbed of. The priests were punished, after they had been robbed of their all, not
for their vices, but for their virtues and their piety,
which made them an honor to their sacred profession,
and to that nature of which we ought to be proud,
since they belollg to it. My Lord, nothing can be
learned from such examples, except the danger of
being kings, queens, nobles, priests, and children, to
be butchered on account of their inheritance. These
are things at which not vice, not crime, not folly,
but wisdom, goodness, learning, justice, probity, beneficence, stand aghast. By these examples our reason and our moral sense are not enlightened, but confounded; and there is no refuge for astonished and affrighted virtue, but being annihilated in humility
and submission, sinking into a silent adoration of
the inscrutable dispensations of Providence, and flying with trembling wings from this world of daring
crimes, and feeble, pusillanimous, half-bred, bastard
justice, to the asylum of another order of things, in
an unknown form, but in a better life.
Whatever the politician or preacher of September or of October may think of the matter, it is a
most comfortless, disheartening, desolating example.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 43
Dreadful is the example of ruined innocence and
virtte, and the completest triumph of the completest villany that ever vexed and disgraced mankind! The example is ruinous in every point of view, religious, moral, civil, political. It establishes that dreadful maxim of Machlliavel, that in great affairs
men are not to be wicked by halves. This maxim is
not made for a middle sort of beings, who, because
they cannot be angels, ought to thwart their ambition, and not endeavor to become infernal spirits. It is too well exemplified in the present time, where the
faults and errors of humanity, checked by the imperfect, timorous virtues, have been overpowered by those who have stopped at no crime. It is a dreadful part of the example, that infernal malevolence has had pious apologists, who read their lectures on
frailties in favor of crimes, - who abandon the weak,
and court the friendship of the wicked. To root out
these maxims, and the examples that support them,
is a wise object of years of war. This is that war.
This is that moral war. It was said by old Trivulzio,
that the Battle of Marignano was the Battle of the
Giants, -that all the rest of the mally lie lad seen
were those of the Cranes and Pygmies. This is true
of the objects, at least, of the contest: for the greater part of those which we have hitlerto contended for, in comparison, were the toys of children.
The October politician is so full of charity and
good-nature, that lie supposes that these very robbers
and murderers themselves are in a course of melioration: on what ground I cannot conceive, except on the long practice of every crime, and by its complete
success. He is an Origenist, and believes in the conversion of the Devil. All that runs in the place of
? ? ? ? 44 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
blood in his veins is nothing but the milk of human
kindness. He is as soft as a curd, - though, as a politician, he might be supposed to be made of sterner
stuff. HIe supposes (to use his own expression)
"that the salltary truths which lie inculcates are
making their way into their bosoms. " Their bosom
is a rock of granite, on which Falsehood has long
since built her stronghold. Poor Truth has had a
hard work of it, with her little pickaxe. Nothing
but gunpowder will do.
As a proof, however, of the progress of this sap of
Truth, lie gives us a confession they had made not
long before he wrote. "'Their fraternity' (as was
lately stated by themselves in a solemn report)'has
been the brotherllood of Cain and Abel,' and'they
have organized nothing but bankruptcy and famine. ' "
A very honest confession, truly, - and much in the
spirit of their oracle, Rousseau. Yet, what is still
more marvellous than the confession, this is the very
fraternity to which our author gives us such an obliging invitation to accede. There is, indeed, a, vacancy in the fraternal corps: a brother and a partner is
wanted. If we please, we may fill up the place of
the butchered Abel; and whilst we wait the destiny
of the departed brother, we may enjoy the advantages
of the partnership, by entering without delay into a
shop of ready-made bankruptcy and familne. These
are the douceurs by which we are invited to Regicide
fraternity and friendship. But still our author considers the confession as a proof that " truth is making its way into their bosoms. " No! It is not making its way into their bosoms. It llas forced its way into their mouths! The evil spirit by which they
are possessed, though essentially a liar, is forced by
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 45
the tortures of conscience to confess the truth, - to
confess enough for their condemnation, but not for
their amendment. Shakspeare very aptly expresses
this kind of confession, devoid of repentance, from the
mouth of an usurper, a murderer, and a regicide: --
",,e are ourselves compelled,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. "
Whence is their amendment? Why, the author
writes, that, on their murderous insurrectionary systenl, their own lives are not sure for an hour; nor
has their power a greater stability. True. They are
convinced of it; and accordingly the wretches have
done all they can to preserve their lives, and to secure their power; but not one step have they taken
to amend the one or to make a more just use of the
other. Their wicked policy has obliged them to make
a pause in the only massacres in which their treachery and cruelty had operated as a kind of savage justice, - that is, the massacre of the accomplices of their crimes: they liave ceased to shed the inhuman
blood of their fellow-murderers; but when they take
any of those persons who contend for their lawful
government, their property, and their religion, notwithstanding the truth which this author says is making its way into their bosoms, it has not taught them the least tincture of mercy. This we plainly see by
their massacre at Quiberon, where they put to death,
with every species of contumely, and without any exception, every prisoner of war who did not escape out
of their hands. To have had property, to have been
robbed of it, and to endeavor to regain it, - these are
crimes irremissible, to which every man who regards
his property or his life, in every country, ought well
? ? ? ? 46 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
to look in all connection with those with whom to
have had property was an offence, to endeavor to keep
it a second offence, to attempt to regain it a crime
that puts the offender out of all the laws of peace or
war. You cannot see one of those wretclhes without
all alarm for your life as well as your goods. Tlley
are like the worst of the French and Italian banditti,
who, whenever they robbed, were sure to murder. . Are they not the very same ruffians, thieves, assassins, and regicides that they were from the beginning? Have they diversified the scene by the least variety, or produced the face of a single new villany?
Tedet harum quotidianarum formarumn. Oh! but I
shall be answered, " It is now quite another thing;
-they are all changed. You have not seen them ill
their state dresses;-this makes an amaziing difference. The new habit of the Directory is so clharmingly fancied, that it is impossible not to fall in love
with so well-dressed a Constitution; -- the costume
of the sans-culotte Constitution of 1793 was absolutely
insufferable. The Committee for Foreign Affairs were
such slovens, and stunk so abominably, that no inuscadin ambassador of the smallest degree of delicacy
of nerves could come within ten yards of them; but
now they are so powdered, and perfnlued, and ribanded, and sashed, and plumed, that, though they are
grown infinitely more insolent in their fine clothes
even than they were in their rags, (and that was
enough,) as they now appear, there is somethinlg in
it more grand and noble, something more suitable
to an awful Roman Senate receiving the homage of
dependent tetrarchs. Like that Senate, (their perpetual model for conduct towards other nations,)
they permit their vassals (during their good pleas
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 47
ure) to assume the name of kings, in order to bestow
more dignity on tile suite and retinue of the sovereign Republic by the nominal rank of their slaves:
Ut habeant instrumenta servitutis et ree. s. " All this
is very fine, undoubtedly; and ambassadors whose
hands are almost out for want of employment may
long to have their part in this august ceremony of
the Republic one and indivisible. But, with great
deference to the new diplomatic taste, we old people
must retain some square-toed predilection for the
fashions of our youth.
I am afraid you will find me, my Lord, again falling into my usual vanity, in valuing myself on thle
eminent men whose society I once enjoyed. I remember, in a conversation I once had with my ever dear friend Garrick, who was the first of actors, because
he was tile most acute observer of Nature I ever
knew, I asked him how it happened, that, whenever
a senate appeared on the stage, the audience seemed
always disposed to laughter. HIe said, tile reason
was plain: the audience was well acquainted with
the faces of most of the senators. They knew that
they were no other than candle-snuffers, revolutionary scene-shifters, second and third nmob, prompters, clerks, executionlers, who stand with tlleir axe on
their shoulders by the wheel, grinners in the pantomime, murderers in tragedies, who make ugly faces under black wigs, -- in short, tile very scum and
refilse of the theatre; and it was of course that the
contrast of the vileness of the actors with the pomp
of their habits naturally excited ideas of contempt
and ridicule.
So it was at Paris on the inaugural day of the Constitution for the present year. The foreign ministers
? ? ? ? 48 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
were ordered to attend at this investiture of the
Directory; -- for so they call the managers of their
burlesque government. The diplomacy, who were
a sort of strangers, were quite awe-struck with the
"pride, pomp, and circumstance" of this majestic
senate; whilst the sanls-culotte gallery instantly recognized their old insurrectionary acquaintance, burst
out into a horse-laugh at their absurd finery, and
held them in infinitely greater contempt than whilst
they prowled about the streets in the pantaloons of
the last year's Constitution, when their legislators
appeared honestly, with their daggers in their belts,
and their pistols peeping out of their side-pocketholes, like a bold, brave banditti, as they are. The
Parisians (and I am much of their mind) think that
a thief with a crape on his visage is much worse than
a barefaced knave, and that such robbers richly deserve all the penalties of all the black acts. In this
their thin disguise, their comrades of the late abdicated sovereign canaille hooted and hissed them, and
from that day have no other name for them than
what is not quite so easy to render into English,
impossible to make it very civil English: it belongs,
indeed, to the language of the halles but, without being instructed in. that dialect, it was the opinion of
the polite Lord Chesterfield that no man could be a
complete master of French. Their Parisian brethren called them gueux plumes, which, though not elegant, is expressive and characteristic: feathered scoundrels, I think, comes the nearest to it in that kind of English. But we are now to understand that
these gueux, for no other reason, that I can divine,
except their red and white clothes, form at last a
state with which we may cultivate amity, and have a
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 49
prospect of the blessings of a secure and permanent
peace. In effect, then, it was not with the men, or
their principles, or their politics, that we quarrelled:
our sole dislike was to the cut of their clothes.
But to pass over their dresses, -- good God! in
what habits did the representatives of the crowned
heads of Europe appear, when they came to swell the
pomp of their humiliation, and attended in solemn
function this inauguration of Regicide? That would
be the curiosity. Under what robes did they cover
the disgrace and degradation of the whole college
of kings? What warehouses of masks and dominoes
furnished a cover to the nakedness of their shame?
The shop ought to be knownl; it will soon have a
good trade. Were the dresses of the ministers of
those lately called potentates, who attended on that
occasion, taken from the wardrobe of that propertyman at the opera, from whence my old acquaintance, Anacharsis Clootz, some years ago equipped a body
of ambassadors, whom he conducted, as from all the
nations of the world, to the bar of what was called
the Constituent Assembly? Among those mock ministers, one of the most conspicuous figures was the representative of the British nation, who unluckily
was wanting at the late ceremony. In the face of all
the real ambassadors of the sovereigns of Europe was
this ludicrous representation of their several subjects,
under the name of oppressed sovereigns,* exhibited to
the Assembly. That Assembly received an harangue,
in the name of those sovereigns, against their kings,
delivered by this Clootz, actually a subject of Prussia,
under the name of Ambassador of the Human Race.
* Sourerains opprinmes. - See the whole proceeding in the ProcesVerbal of the National Assembly.
VOL. VI. 4
? ? ? ? 50 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
At that time there was only a feeble reclamation fromr
one of the ambassadors of these tyrants and oppressors. A most gracious answer was given to the ministers of the oppressed sovereigns; and they went so far on that occasion as to assign them, in that assumed character, a box at one of their festivals.
I was willing to indulge myself in an hope that this
second appearance of ambassadors was only an insolent mummery of the same kind; but, alas! Anacharsis himself, all fanatic as he was, could not have imagined that his opera procession should have been
the prototype of the real appearance of the representatives of all the sovereigns of Europe themselves, to
make the same prostration that was made by those
who dared to represent their people in a complaint
against them. But in this the French Republic has
followed, as they always affect to do, and have hitherto done with success, the example of the ancient Romans, who shook all governments by listening to the complaints of their subjects, and soon after brought
the kings themselves to answer at their bar. At this
last ceremony the ambassadors had not Clootz for
their Cotterel. Pity that Clootz had not had a reprieve from the guillotine till he had completed his
work! But that engine fell before thi curtain had
fallen upon all the dignity of the earth.
On this their gaudy day the new Regicide Directory sent for that diplomatic rabble, as bad as themselves in principle, but infinitely worse in degradation.
They called them out by a sort of roll of their nations,
one after another, much in the manner in which they
called wretches out of their prison to the guillotine.
When these ambassadors of infamy appeared before
them, the chief Director, in the name: of the rest,
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 51
treated each of them with a short, affected, pedantic,
insolent, theatric laconium, -- a sort of epigram of
contempt. When they had thus insulted them in a
style and language which never before was heard, and
which no sovereign would for a moment endure from
another, supposing any of them frantic enough to use
it, to finish their outrage, they drummed and trumpeted the wretches out of their hall of audience.
Among the objects of this insolent buffoonery was
a person supposed to represent the King of Prussia.
To this worthy representative they did not so much as
condescend to mention his master; they did not seem
to know that he had one; they addressed themselves
solely to Prussia in the abstract, notwithstanding the
infinite obligation they owed to their early protector
for their first recognition and alliance, and for the
part of his territory he gave into their hands for the
first-fruits of his homage. None but dead monarchs
are so much as mentioned by them, and those only to
insult the living by an invidious comparison. They
told the Prussians they ought to learn, after the
example of Frederick the Great, a love for France.
What a pity it is, that he, who loved France so well
as to chastise it, was not now alive, by an unsparing
use of the rod (which, indeed, he would have spared
little) to give them another instance of his paternal
affection! But the Directory were mistaken. These
are not days in which monarchs value themselves upon the title of great: they are grown philosophic: they are satisfied to be good.
Your Lordship will pardon me for this no very long
reflection on the short, but excellent speech of the
plumed Director to the ambassador of Cappadocia.
The Imperial ambassador was not in waiting, but they
? ? ? ? 52 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
found for Austria a good Judean representation.
With great judgment, his Highness, the Grand Duke,
had sent the most atheistic coxcomb to be found in
Florence, to represent at the bar of impiety the House
of Apostolic Majesty, and the descendants of the pious,
though high-minded, Maria Theresa. He was sent to
humble the whole race of Austria before those grim
assassins, reeking with the blood of the daughter of
Maria Theresa, whom they sent half dead, in a dungcart, to a cruel execution; and this true-born son of apostasy and infidelity, this renegado from the faith
and from all honor and all humanity, drove an Austrian coach over the stones which were yet wet with her blood, -- with that blood which dropped every
step through her tumbrel, all the way she was drawn
from the horrid prison, in which they had finished all
the cruelty and horrors not executed in the face of
the sun. The Hungarian subjects of Maria Theresa,
when they drew their swords to defend her rights
against France, called her, with correctness of truth,
though not with the same correctness, perhaps, of
grammar, a king: "l Moriamur pro rege nostro, Maria
Theresa. " SHE lived and died a king; and others will
have subjects ready to make the same vow, when, in
either sex, they show themselves real kings.
When the Directory came to this miserable fop,
they bestowed a compliment on his matriculation
into their philosophy; but as to his master, they
made to him, as was reasonable, a reprimand, not
without a pardon, and an oblique hint at the whole
family. What indignities have been offered through
this wretch to his master, and how well borne, it is
not necessary that I should dwell on at present. I
hope that those who yet wear royal, imperial, and
? ? ?
