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• Introduction
• Textual Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• Essays On Politics and Society
• Mignet’s French Revolution 1826
• Modern French Historical Works 1826
• Scott’s Life of Napoleon 1828
• Alison’s History of the French Revolution 1833
• The Monster Trial 1835
• Carlyle’s French Revolution 1837
• Armand Carrel 1837
• Michelet’s History of France 1844
• Guizot’s Essays and Lectures On History 1845
• Duveyrier’s Political Views of French Affairs 1846
• Vindication of the French Revolution of February 1848 1849
• Appendices
• Appendix A: Guizot’s Lectures On European Civilization (1836)
• Appendix B: French Texts of Material Quoted In Vindication of the French Revolution of February 1848 (1849)
• Appendix C: Textual Emendations
• Appendix D: Index of Persons and Works Cited, With Variants and Notes

ESSAYS ON POLITICS AND SOCIETY

MIGNET’S FRENCH REVOLUTION

1826

EDITOR’S NOTE

Westminster Review, V (Apr., 1826), 385-98. Headed. “Art. V.—Histoire de la Révolution Française, depuis 1789, jusqu’en 1814. / Par F[rançois] A[uguste] Mignet Paris [ Firmin Didot], 1824, 2 vols. [sic for 2 parts.] 8vo. Pp. 735. / History of the French Revolution. By F.A. Mignet, 8vo. 2 vols. / 12mo. 2 vols. 1826. [London:] Hunt and Clarke.” Running titles: “French Revolution,” Unsigned. Not republished. Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A review of Mignet’s History of the French Revolution, in the 10th number of the Westminster Review” (MacMinn, 7). There is no separate copy of this article in Mill’s library, Somerville College.

For comment on the essay, see xxxix-xlii and xciv-xcv above.

Mignet’s French Revolution

this is a very sprightly narrative of the French Revolution, in two small volumes: which is as much as to say, that it is calculated to be most extensively popular. It possesses, indeed, all the requisites for a popular history. It tells an interesting story; it tells it in an interesting manner; it is not too long to be readable; it addresses itself to the reigning sentiment in the nation for which it is written, and there is just philosophy enough in it to persuade common readers that they are deriving instruction, while there is not enough to task their attention or their patience. There is a sort of middle point which it is difficult to hit exactly, between a philosophical history and a mere narrative. M. Mignet seems to have aimed at this point; he has at any rate attained it.

The old mode of writing a history resembled the mode of writing a novel; with only this difference, that the facts were expected to be true. In both cases there was a story to be told, and he who told it best was the best novelist, or the best historian. The poems which preceded the first histories, and which were probably intended, with some qualifications, to pass for histories, were written with the same ends in view as the prose histories which followed them. Greater license of amplification was, indeed, allowed to the poet, but in other respects the standard of excellence was the same: he who raised the most vivid conceptions, and the most intense emotions, was the greatest master of his art. This mode of writing history attained its highest excellence in the hands of the Greek and Roman historians. Livy, perhaps, exemplifies it in its purest state. In what remains of his history we have a surprising instance of the perfection to which the art of narration may be carried, where no other part of the duties of a historian is attended to; and for that very reason. Thucydides, with the exception of his early chapters,^[*] which consist chiefly of a comment upon evidence, may be regarded as another variety of the same class. Each stands preeminent among his countrymen in the talent of narrative, each avoids generalization, and when he has any reflections to make, puts them into the mouth of one of the dramatis personae; retaining the character of the story-teller, even when he puts on that of the orator or the politician.

Between this style of historical composition, and the more modern one, which makes history subservient to philosophy, in which the narrative itself is but a secondary object, the illustration of the laws of human nature and human society being the first, there is an intermediate style, which endeavours to unite the characteristic properties of both the others. In this the primary object is still the gratification of that large class, who read only for amusement. With this purpose long inductions of facts or trains of reasoning being inconsistent, they are accordingly avoided, or banished to an appendix. Dramatic interest is with these, as with the first class of historians, the main object; but such general reflections are interspersed, drawn from the surface of the subject, as may be comprehended without any effort of attention, by an ordinary understanding. The common reader is thus provided with such instruction, or supposed instruction, as his habits of mind render him capable of receiving, and is possessed with a high idea of the powers of the writer, who can communicate wisdom in so easy and entertaining a form. Of the popularity which may be acquired by this mode of writing history, the success of Hume is a striking example.^[*] Excelling all modern historians in his powers of narrative, he has also obtained credit for the profundity of his reflections. That his reputation for this quality is so widely diffused, is of itself a sufficient proof that it is undeserved. Had his reflections been really profound, we may venture to affirm that they would have been less popular. By a profound reflection, is meant a reflection, the truth of which is not obvious at first sight, and to a cursory reader, but which, in proportion as a man grows wiser, and takes a deeper insight into things, forces itself upon his assent.

When we say, that M. Mignet seems to have formed himself in this school, and that he is the highest specimen of it, among recent writers, which our recollection suggests to us, we have conveyed, we think, a tolerably accurate conception of his character as a historian. Little, therefore, remains to be done beyond the selection of such passages as seem best adapted to exhibit the degree in which he possesses the various attributes of his class: for we do not purpose to enter at present into the general question of the French revolution; it being our intention, at no distant period, to treat of that subject at greater length.^[†] In the main, our view of the subject accords with that of M. Mignet; and for this reason, among others, we are anxious that his work should be extensively circulated in this country. There is nothing more disgraceful to Englishmen than their utter ignorance, not only of the causes and effects, but of the very events, the story, of the French revolution. With the majority of them, even of those among them who read and think, the conception they have of that great event is all comprehended in a dim but horrible vision of mobs, and massacres, and revolutionary tribunals, and guillotines, and fishwomen, and heads carried on pikes, and noyades, and fusillades, and one Robespierre, a most sanguinary monster. What the Tory prints choose to tell them of this most interesting period of modern history, so much they know, and nothing more: that is, enough to raise in their minds an intense yet indefinite horror of French reforms and reformers, and as far as possible of all reforms and reformers. Now, however, when they have ceased to tremble for themselves, and to start from their sleep at the terrific idea of a landing of French Jacobins or a rising of English ones to confiscate their property and cut their throats, they can, perhaps, bear to look at the subject without horror; and we exhort them to buy and read M. Mignet’s work, that they may know in what light the revolution is regarded by the nation which saw and felt it, which endured its evils, and is now enjoying its benefits.

M. Mignet, in his two volumes, had not space to do more than relate the story of the revolution. Proofs, in seven hundred pages, he could give none; his work is not even attended by the pièces justificatives, which usually follow in the train of a French history. The revolution has been long une cause jugée, in the minds of all disinterested persons in France; and none of M. Mignet’s countrymen would have asked him for his proofs, who would have been capable of being convinced by them if offered. To an English reader, this omission will diminish in some degree the value of the book. A writer who opposes the current opinion, has need of all the proofs he can muster. Happily, the proofs are not scanty, and are, even in this country, accessible.^[*] We purpose to lay some of them before our readers ere long.

M. Mignet’s narrative powers are of a high order. He has mastered the grand difficulty in narration; he is interesting, without being voluminous; concise, without being vague and general Former writers on the French revolution had either lost themselves in a sea of details, dwelling on circumstance after circumstance with such painful minuteness that he who had patience to read to the end of the story had time before he arrived there to forget the beginning; or had contented themselves with a meagre abstract, describing the most remarkable scenes in terms so general as to have fitted a hundred other scenes almost as well. In narrative, as in description, it is impossible to excite vivid conceptions, in other words it is impossible to be interesting, without entering somewhat into detail. A particular event cannot be characterized by a general description. But details are endless. Here then is the dilemma. All the details it is not possible to give, not only because nobody would read them, but because if read they would defeat their own purpose. If the reader’s conception wants vivacity where there are no details, where there is excess of details it wants distinctness. The multitude of the parts injures the ensemble. The difficulty is in the apt selection of details. It is in judging which of the individualizing features it is best to delineate, when there is not room for all: it is in fixing upon those features which are the most strikingly characteristic, or which, if delineated, will of themselves suggest the remainder, that the rarest quality, perhaps, of the skilful narrator displays itself. M. Mignet possesses this quality in an extraordinary degree. His narrative may be pronounced a model of the apt selection of details. No one has better allied circumstantiality with condensation. We have all heard of graphic descriptions. M. Mignet’s is a graphic narrative: and whoever looks even at the outside of the voluminous compilations which are called Histories of the Revolution, and then turns to M. Mignet’s small volumes, will wonder by what art he can abridge so much, with so little of the appearance of an abridgement.

We quote the following sketch of the state of affairs at the opening of the Etats Généraux, partly for the complete justification which it affords of the early revolutionists, and partly as a specimen of the manner in which M. Mignet has executed one of the most important parts of his task:

Of the rapidity and dramatic interest of his narrative, the following passage is an example. He has just been relating the early acts of the Constituent Assembly.

We give the sequel of this passage in the original, despairing to preserve its spirit in a translation.

After every allowance is made (and much ought to be made) for the deep interest of the events themselves, great praise is still due to the powers both of narration and description, which the above passage displays.

M. Mignet generally subjoins to each chapter a résumé of the progress of events during the period which it embraces. The same sort and degree of talent is manifested in these résumés which is conspicuous in the body of the work. We quote the following, though one of the longest, not because it is the best, but because it contains a summary view of the early history of the Revolution:

We have given this and other extracts in a translation with reluctance. Our only remaining specimen shall be in the original language.

The following is a brief but interesting résumé of the decline and fall of the virtuous and unfortunate Gironde:

Did space permit, we would gladly quote M. Mignet’s characters of the leading members of the Constituent Assembly. In general it appears to us that the characters of eminent men, which we read in historians, are very little to be depended upon. It is no easy matter to draw a character at once correct and complete, even of one who is personally known to us, if there be any thing about him more than common; but from hearsay, or from his public acts, it may be pronounced impossible. The troubled period, however, of the French revolution exhibited many of its actors in such varied situations, several of them very trying ones, that the data it affords for judging of their characters, though far from adequate, are less scanty than ordinary. M. Mignet has turned these data to the best account. His portraits seem accurate, and they are, at any rate, animated.

Our preliminary observations will have prepared the reader to find that we cannot speak altogether so favourably of M. Mignet’s reflections as of his narrative. The prevailing vice of French writers, since Montesquieu, is that of straining at point, at sententiousness, at being striking—we want a word—at producing an effect by mere smartness of expression; and from this vice M. Mignet’s work, though one of the best of its kind, is not wholly free. The sort of writers in whom this defect is conspicuous, and of whom, in recent times, Madame de Staël is one of the most favourable specimens, can never communicate a fact without edging in, to account for it, some axiom or principle, wide in its extent and epigrammatic in its form. Generalization in history is so far from being blamable, that history would be of no use without it, but general propositions intended to be of any use, concerning the course of events in matters where large bodies of men are concerned, cannot be compressed into epigrams; for there is not one of them that is true without exception, and an epigram admits not of exceptions. What do these generalizations amount to? Commonly to this: that something which has happened once or twice will happen always.

M. Mignet’s generalizations are, in most cases, the generalizations of an acute mind; but in his anxiety to be sententious, he almost always overdoes the generalization; he affirms that to be true in all cases which is only true in some, or enunciates without qualification a proposition which must be qualified to be defensible. He generalizes upon first impressions; and as first impressions are sometimes right, he often, by generalizing on the first impression of a remarkable fact, stumbles upon a valuable and even a recondite truth—a truth which, if it did not stand single among so many faux brillans, might be supposed to have emanated from a mind profoundly versed in human nature. When this happens, the point of the expression adds great force to the sentiment, and imprints it in the imagination. Here, however, M. Mignet is far excelled by Madame de Staël, whose chief merit, in our opinion, is the unrivalled felicity with which she has given expression to many important truths suggested to her forcibly by the circumstances of the times in which she lived, which will be remembered long after the brilliant paradoxes and pompous inanities, which she threw out in such abundance along with them, shall be forgotten.

M. Mignet has been occasionally betrayed into dressing up a truism in epigrammatic guise, and bringing it out with the air of an oracle, as a piece of consummate wisdom. The following maxims—“C’est toujours sur le passé qu’on règle sa conduite et ses espérances” (p. 458). “Tout ce qui existe s’étend” (p. 166), to account for the rapid growth of the Jacobin club. “Il ne suffit pas d’être grand homme, il faut venir à propos” (p. 107). “Dès qu’il y a des partis déplacés dans un état, il y a lutte de leur part,” &c. (p. 204), and several others, are examples.

The following are obvious cases of incorrect generalization: “Tous les partis sont les mêmes, et se conduisent par les mêmes maximes, ou si l’on veut par les mêmes nécessités” (p. 518), merely because the Girondists and the Montagnards died with equal courage.

“Quand on sait ce qu’on veut, et qu’on le veut vite et bien, on l’emporte toujours” (p. 357). Had he said souvent, the proposition would have been true: as it stands, it is extravagant.

“En révolution les hommes sont mûs par deux penchans, l’amour de leurs idées et le goût du commandement” (p. 442). Two very powerful forces, it is true; but that they are far from being the only ones which act upon man, “en temps de révolution,” is evident enough. The other principles of human nature are not suspended, during that period, or any other.

“En révolution les hommes sont facilement oubliés, parce que les peuples en voient beaucoup et vivent vite. Si l’on ne veut pas qu’ils soient ingrats, il ne faut pas cesser un instant de les servir à leur manière” (pp. 160-1). A general proposition grounded on one or two instances, and only on the surface of those.

The next two are examples of important truths, or rather of approximations to important truths, spoiled by their epigrammatic form: “On est bientôt, en révolution, ce qu’on est cru être” (p. 311). “Le plus grand tort des partis, après celui d’être injustes, est celui de ne vouloir pas le paraître” (p. 317).

To have expressed accurately what there is of truth in these maxims, in such manner as to be intelligible, would have spoiled all the point of the phrase.

The following remark, with a slight qualification, contains the expression of an important fact: “Dès qu’on est en révolte, le parti dont l’opinion est la plus extrême et le but le plus précis, l’emporte sur ses associés” (p. 388). The party which has the most definite purpose commonly prevails; and this (as it happens) is generally the party which goes to the greatest lengths in matter of opinion. The men who have no fixed set of opinions follow the march of events: those who have, lead it.

The following is a profound remark, happily expressed: “Barrère, qui, comme tous les esprits justes et les caractères faibles, fut pour la modération, tant que la peur ne fit pas de lui un instrument de cruauté et de tyrannie” (p. 363). It is most true, as is hinted in this passage, that the great incentive to cruelty is fear.

The last observation which we shall quote, relates to the formation of a judicial establishment; and, though somewhat loosely expressed, indicates an acute perception of an important principle of legislation: “Ce redoutable pouvoir, lorsqu’il relève du trône, doit être inamovible pour être indépendant; mais il peut être temporaire lorsqu’il relève du peuple, parce qu’en dépendant de tous, il ne dépend de personne” (p. 153).

We shall now take our leave of M. Mignet’s work, by recommending the perusal of it to all who desire either to be amused by a most entertaining and well told story, or to learn, by a few hours reading, what intelligent Frenchmen think and say on the subject of the French Revolution.

MODERN FRENCH HISTORICAL WORKS

1826

EDITOR’S NOTE

Westminster Review, VI (July, 1826), 62-103. Headed: “Art. IV.—Histoire Physique, Civile, et Morale de Paris, depuis les premiers temps historiques jusqu’à nos jours: contenant par ordre chronologique, la description des accroissemens successifs de cette ville et de ses monumens anciens et modernes; la notice de toutes ses institutions, tant civiles que religieuses; et, à chaque période, le tableau des moeurs, des usages, et des progrès de la civilisation. Ornée de gravures représentant divers plans de Paris, ses monumens et ses édifices principaux [1821-25], Par J[acques] A[ntoine] Dulaure, de la Société Royale des Antiquaires de France. Seconde édition, considérablement augmentée en texte et en planches. 10 vols. 8vo. Paris [ Guillaume], 1823. / Histoire des Français. Par J[ean] C[harles] L[éonard] Simonde de Sismondi Les neuf premiers volumes. [Ultimately 31 vols.] 8vo. Paris [. Treuttel and Würtz], 1821, 1823, 1826.” Running titles. “Modern French Historical Works— / Age of Chivalry.” Unsigned Not republished Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A review of Dulaure’s History of Paris and Sismondi’s History of France. In the 11th number of the Westminster Review” (MacMinn, 7). There is no separate copy of this essay in Mill’s library, Somerville College.

For comment on the article, see xxxiii-xxxvii and xcv above.

Modern French Historical Works

though we have not, like so many of our contemporaries, made it our grand occupation, to impress our countrymen with a deep sense of their own wisdom and virtue, and to teach them how proud they ought to be of every thing English, more especially of every thing that is English and bad; we are far from being unconscious how much they have really to be proud of, and in how many respects they might be taken as models by all the nations of the world. If we saw them in any danger of forgetting their own merits, we too might preach them a sermon on that hacknied text. But it is not their failing to underrate themselves, or to overrate other nations. They are more in need of monitors than of adulators; and we cannot but think that it may be of some use to them to know, that if there are some points in which they are superior to their neighbours, there are others in which they are inferior; that they may learn something from other nations, as well as other nations from them.

While the Quarterly Review is labouring to convince us that we are a century and a half in advance of our nearest continental neighbours,^[*] it is impossible to shut our eyes to the fact, that those neighbours are at present making a much greater figure in the world of literature than ourselves. This is something quite new in the history of the two countries; it certainly was not the case before the French revolution; but it undoubtedly is the case now. While our littérateurs, with the usual fate of those who aim at nothing but the merely ornamental, fail of attaining even that; an entirely new class of writers has arisen in France, altogether free from that frivolousness which characterized French literature under the ancien régime, and which characterizes the literature of every country where there is an aristocracy. They write as if they were conscious that the reader expects something more valuable from them than mere amusement. Though many of them are highly gifted with the beauties of style, they never seem desirous of shewing off their own eloquence; they seem to write because they have something to say, and not because they desire to say something. In philosophy, they do not sacrifice truth to rhetoric; in history they do not sacrifice truth to romance. This change in the character of French literature is most of all remarkable in their historical compositions. The historians of ci-devant France were justly charged with despising facts, and considering, not what was true, but what would give scenic interest to their narrative; the French historians of the present day are distinguished by almost German research, and by a scrupulousness in producing vouchers for their minutest details, which forbids the idea of their having any thing in view but truth.

In the last five years France has produced many historical works of great importance; more than were ever produced by one nation within the same space of time. Some of these have been already mentioned in this journal;^[*] others we may perhaps take a future opportunity of making known to our readers. At the present moment, two of the most important lie before us; and we have derived so much instruction as well as gratification from their perusal, that we purpose giving in the present article some account of their contents.

M. Dulaure has named his work a history of Paris: the title is less attractive than the book. It is a history of Paris, even in the ordinary sense; but if it had been no more, we should have left it to antiquaries, and to the amateurs of steeples, columns, and old tomb-stones. M. Dulaure’s work, as a topographical history, is admirable; but it has other and far greater merits. Our histories of London are histories of buildings,^[†] but his subject is men. His history of Paris is a chapter of the history of mankind. After describing the city of Paris as it existed at each period of its history, he does what is not often done by antiquaries, he condescends to bestow some attention upon the inhabitants. This part of his book, which, we are happy to observe, has been detached from the rest, and printed as a separate work in two octavo volumes, is not so much a history of Paris, as a history of civilization in France; which is, to a great degree, the history of civilization in Europe. In it we may read how men were governed, and how they lived and behaved, in the good old times; subjects on which little is said in the vulgar histories, and that little is but little to be relied upon. M. Dulaure has one merit, which is not a common one with historians: he pays great regard to facts, and little to assertions. He has not been satisfied with taking upon trust from one author, what he had already taken upon trust from another. His work is not a mere register of the opinions of his predecessors, predecessors who did but register the opinions of their contemporaries. His ideas, such as they are, are his own.

M. de Sismondi is already known to the public as a historian. His History of France, though it has not done every thing which a history of France might have done, may be pronounced worthy of his reputation; and, when completed, will supply an important desideratum in literature. Indeed, when it is considered in what spirit, and with what objects, all former histories of France had been written, it is matter of congratulation that they were as dull in manner as they were dishonest in their purpose, and deceptious in their tendency; and that the sphere of their mischievousness was considerably narrowed, by the happy impossibility of reading them. We have in our own history a standing example how deep a root party lies may take in the public mind, when a writer, in whom the arts of the most consummate advocate are combined with all the graces of style, employs his skill in giving them the colour of truth.^[*] It is most fortunate, therefore, that the first readable history of France should be the production of a writer who is of no party, except that of human nature; who has no purpose to serve except that of truth, and whose only bias is towards the happiness of mankind. The chief defect of M. de Sismondi’s work, considered as a popular history, is the prolixity of the three first volumes; a space which, we should think, might have been better occupied than in relating how one dull, uninteresting battle or murder was succeeded by another exactly similar, in the reigns of the rois fainéans, or of the grandsons of Louis the Debonair. M. de Sismondi, perhaps, may urge in his defence, that his object was, to give a practical feeling of the state of society which he was describing: that, dull as these incidents are, their incessant recurrence was the sole characteristic of the period; a period the most distracted and miserable which is recorded in history: that to have merely related a battle and a murder or two, as a specimen of the rest, would have made but a feeble impression; and that it was necessary to convince the reader by tedious experience, that the history of the times consisted of nothing else. How far this apology might avail M. de Sismondi with ordinary readers, we do not consider ourselves perfectly qualified to judge: for ourselves, we think that our incredulity would have yielded to a less ponderous argument than three mortal volumes. It is but just to state, that these volumes do give, in a high degree, that practical feeling of the times, which they are apparently designed to convey, and that the reader who will have patience to go through them (for without reading them he will not fully understand the history of the subsequent period), will be amply repaid by the never-flagging interest which is kept up throughout the other six volumes.

All that is published of M. de Sismondi’s work, and the more novel and interesting part of M. Dulaure’s, relate to the middle ages; and to that period we shall, in the present article, confine our remarks; reserving the privilege of making ample use, on future occasions, of the important information which M. Dulaure has furnished relative to the later period of the French monarchy. Our purpose at present is, to do something towards forming, if possible, a correct estimate of what is called the age of chivalry. Hitherto, in this country especially, we have judged of that age from two or three of the facts, and no more: and even of those we have looked only at one side. The works before us are almost the first, in which any pains have really been taken to discover the truth with regard to the age of chivalry. In these, however, an ample stock of facts has been collected, and the subject is now ripe for a deliberate examination. All these facts lead but to one conclusion; and that conclusion is so directly at variance with the conceptions ordinarily entertained respecting the age of chivalry, that the very enunciation of it will be startling to the majority of readers; and it will not be embraced upon any evidence not absolutely irresistible. We are persuaded, however, that the more narrowly the records of the period are looked into, and the more accurately its real history becomes known, the more strictly conformable this conclusion will appear to historical truth.

The conclusion is, that the compound of noble qualities, called the spirit of chivalry (a rare combination in all ages) was almost unknown in the age of chivalry; that the age so called was equally distinguished by moral depravity and by physical wretchedness; that there is no class of society at this day in any civilized country, which has not a greater share of what are called the knightly virtues, than the knights themselves; that, far from civilizing and refining the rest of the world, it was not till very late, and with great difficulty, that the rest of the world could succeed in civilizing them.

If this conclusion be true, it must be obvious that there is not in all history a truth of greater importance. There is scarcely any portion of history the misapprehension of which has done more to rivet the most mischievous errors in the public mind. The age of chivalry was the age of aristocracy, in its most gigantic strength and wide-extending sway; and the illusions of chivalry are to this hour the great stronghold of aristocratic prejudices. All that is aristocratic in European institutions comes to us from those times. In those times lived our ancestors, whose wisdom and virtue are found so eminently serviceable in bearing down any attempt to improve the condition of their descendants. All those whose great grandfathers had names, and who think it more honourable (as it certainly is less troublesome) to have had brave and virtuous ancestors, than to be brave and virtuous themselves; all those who, loving darkness better than light, would have it thought that men have declined in morality in proportion as they have advanced in intelligence; all, in short, whose interest or taste leads them to side with the few in opposition to the many, are interested in upholding the character of the age of chivalry. “On nous a dit,” says M. de Sismondi,

Before we proceed to indicate, for we can but indicate, the evidence of the important proposition which is the grand result both of M. Dulaure’s and of M. de Sismondi’s work, we think it proper to exhibit a specimen of what may be termed a mild, candid, and well-bred mode of dealing with unwelcome assertions; for we are not, as yet, entitled to call them truths. It always gives us pleasure to meet with these virtues in a controversialist; and the serviles in France, to do them justice, seem nowise inferior to their English brethren in these points. No sooner did M. Dulaure’s work make its appearance than the hue and cry was raised against it. The sort of arguments, with which the book and its author were assailed, are nearly decisive of the great merit of both. Invective in general, and imputation of enmity to religion, royalty, and his country, in particular, these, together with defamation of his private character, are the reply which has been made to M. Dulaure’s work.^†

We own that we are in general predisposed in favour of a man whom we hear accused by a certain class of politicians of being an enemy to his country. We at once conclude, that he has either actually rendered, or shown himself disposed to render, some signal service to his country. We conclude, either that he has had discernment to see, and courage to point out, something in his own that stands in need of amendment, or something in another country which it would be for the advantage of his own to imitate; or that he has loved his country well enough to wish it free from that greatest of misfortunes, the misfortune of being successful in an unjust cause; or (which is the particular crime of M. Dulaure), that he has given his countrymen to know, that they once had vices or follies which they have since corrected, or (what is worse still), which they have yet to correct. Whoever is guilty of any one of these crimes in this country, is a fortunate man if he escapes being accused of un-English feelings. This is the epithet which we observe to be appropriated to those, whose wish is that their country should deserve to be thought well of. The man of English feelings is the man whose wish is, that his country should be thought well of; and, above all, should think well of itself, particularly in those points wherein it deserves the least. The modern English version of the maxim Spartam nactus es, hanc exorna,^[*] may be given thus—England is your country, be sure to praise it lustily. This sort of patriotism is, it would appear, no less in request with certain persons in France, than with the corresponding description of persons in England. Accordingly, M. Dulaure’s bold exposure of the vices and follies of his countrymen in the olden time, has been thought by many persons extremely un-French. But he shall speak for himself.

The countryman who, being present at a dispute in Latin, discovered which of the disputants was in the wrong, by taking notice which of them it was who lost his temper, would have had little difficulty in deciding between M. Dulaure and his ultra antagonists.

The tone of fearless honesty in the above passage, and the beautiful simplicity of its style, are maintained throughout the work, and may serve, once for all, as a specimen of its general character. Our whole remaining space will be far from sufficient to do justice to the more important subject of this article.

We premise, that whatever we may say against the age of chivalry, is or is not to be applied to chivalry itself, according to the ideas which the reader may attach to the term. If by chivalry be meant the feelings, habits or actions of an ordinary chevalier, we shall easily shew it to have been not admirable, but detestable. But if by chivalry be meant those virtues, which formed part of the ideal character of a perfect knight, it would be absurd to deny its beneficial tendency, or to doubt that the estimation in which those virtues were held contributed to render them more prevalent than they otherwise would have been, and by that means to elevate the moral condition of man. We propose only to inquire, to what extent any such virtues really were prevalent during the age of chivalry.

A few introductory observations on the feudal system (and on so hacknied a subject we promise that they shall be few) are an indispensable introduction to a view of that state of society of which the feudal system formed so important a feature.

It is now acknowledged, and therefore needs not here be proved, that the feudal system was not the work of contrivance, of skill devising means for the attainment of an end, but arose gradually, and, as it were, spontaneously, out of the pre-existing circumstances of society; and that the notion of its having been introduced into the countries of western Europe by their Gothic and Teutonic conquerors is wholly erroneous. It is now known that those barbarians were very like any other barbarians; and that without any refined notions of feudal or any other sort of polity, they spread themselves over the land and appropriated it. Their kings, like all other kings, had exactly as much power as they could get; that is to say, in a rude nation, more or less according to circumstances. Originally they enjoyed, during good behaviour, a considerable share of voluntary obedience, but had little power of enforcing any obedience which was not voluntary. They became powerful sovereigns, however, when the followers of a single chief, scattered in small parties over a large country, acquired the habit of looking to the king and not to their countrymen in a body, for protection in case of need.

The vigorous monarchs of the second race, from Pépin d’Héristal to Charlemagne, at first under the title of Maires du Palais, afterwards under that of kings, extended the Frankish empire over Germany, Italy, and a great part of Spain, as well as over Belgium and France. The military talents of these sovereigns, and the accession of power which they derived from their vast territorial acquisitions, put a finishing hand to the change which had been going on from the time of Clovis downwards, and the government of Charlemagne may be considered a despotic monarchy. As such, it shared the fate of other despotisms. After a few generations, the sceptre fell into the hands of princes entirely destitute of spirit and ability; the reins of government became relaxed; the power of the state became unequal to the protection of its subjects; disorder at first insensibly crept in, but soon advanced with gigantic strides; and the empire, which had spread itself from one end of Europe to the other, became incapable of opposing effectual resistance to the most contemptible aggressor.

In the despotic governments of Asia, this series of events has always been, from the beginning of history, of periodical recurrence. A Pepin founds a great empire, a Charlemagne consolidates it, which it then becomes the occupation of a series of Lothaires to lose. By the time it has reached the condition of Germany and France in the third and fourth generations of the descendants of Charlemagne, internal revolt or foreign invasion subverts the old dynasty, and establishes a new one; which, after a time, degenerates, and is in its turn displaced. Events took another turn among the conquerors of Europe. They had as yet no standing armies; the nurseries of that class of military adventurers who have always so much abounded in Asia, the materials and instruments of revolutions. Nor was a Genghis or a Timour found among the pirates of the north. The enemies whom Europe had to dread were a race who sought, not conquest, but plunder. The Danes or Normans, repelled from our own country by the vigour of Alfred, fell with redoubled fury upon France, and reduced its northern provinces almost to the condition of a desert. The government, which had, by this time, fallen into the last stage of decrepitude, could still less protect its subjects against these invaders, than it could protect them against one another.

A state of anarchy has this advantage over a despotism, that it invariably works its own cure. When the monarch could no longer protect his subjects, they were forced to protect themselves. Protect themselves they could not, except by combination: and they therefore combined. Where all were left to their own resources, it of course happened, that some had resources, and some had not. Those who had, were able to command assistance, and could therefore protect themselves: those who had not, were reduced to seek protection from others. The monarch, to whom they had been accustomed to look for protection, being no longer capable of affording it, their next recourse was to their strongest neighbour. Land was at that time the only source of wealth; the great landholder alone had the means of fortifying a castle, and maintaining a sufficient number of warriors to defend it. To him, therefore, all his neighbours, and among the rest the smaller landholders, had recourse. To induce the superior to extend his protection over their land and its produce, they had no return to offer except their aid in defending his. Here we see the principle of the feudal system. The forms of that system arose gradually; we have not room to show how.

The combination, which to its weaker members had been intended only as a means of defence, gave to its stronger head an accession of strength for purposes of attack. The weaker communities or principalities had often to sustain aggressions from the stronger; which they sometimes found themselves able to resist, and sometimes not. In the latter case, the same motives which had induced individuals to place themselves under the protection of a combination, induced the head of that combination, when in his turn attacked, to place himself under the protection of the head of a stronger combination than his own. And thus arose by degrees the great feudal principalities which we hear of for the first time during the decline of the Carlovingian race, and some of which were large and powerful kingdoms, when the authority of the feeble descendant of Charlemagne did not extend beyond the city of Laon and its vicinity.

In England, during the reign of Edward the Confessor, the formation of the feudal system had already proceeded thus far. Godwin Earl of Wessex, Leofric Earl of Mercia, Siward Earl of Northumberland, and others, were virtually independent princes, any one of them capable of coping single-handed with the acknowledged monarch of their common country. It has been supposed that the feudal system was introduced into England at the Conquest. But this is only so far true, that the great lords had not, until that epoch, become the vassals of the crown. In France and Germany, this last step in the formation of the feudal system was taken at a much earlier date; but in what manner, and when, is left, like every thing that is valuable in the history of that remote period, to inference and conjecture. It appears probable that the chiefs who, under the name of dukes and counts, had already exercised, by the king’s appointment, a delegated authority in the municipal towns, and who, in the decline of the royal power, had gradually withdrawn themselves from subjection, became the heads of all the greater combinations: or perhaps that the heads of those combinations found it convenient to obtain, from the petty prince who was still called king of France, a nominal delegation of his nominal authority, to facilitate the establishment of their ascendancy over the fortified towns; for an expiring authority always lingers in the towns for some time after it has lost all footing in the country. The transition was easy (when feudal ideas gained vigour) from this relation to the scarcely less nominal one of lord and vassal; for the paramountcy of the king was for many years almost a nominal privilege.

Thus arose the feudal system: of the workings of which we shall now attempt a rapid sketch. Our examples and proofs will be drawn chiefly from France. This, to an English reader, requires explanation. Our reasons for not selecting our own country as the theatre on which to exhibit feudality and its train of effects, are these:—In the first place, no one has yet been found to perform for England the service which has been performed by M. Dulaure for his own country; the toilsome and thankless service of dragging into light the vices and crimes of former days: and, secondly, the feudal system never existed in its original purity, in England. The kings of England enjoyed, from the Conquest downwards, a degree of power which the kings of continental Europe did not acquire till many generations later. There were no Godwins and Leofrics after the Conquest. The lands having come into the possession of the followers of the Conqueror at different times, as they were successively forfeited by their Saxon proprietors, all the various territorial acquisitions of a great baron were rarely situated in one part of the island, he was never strong enough in any one of his fiefs to establish his independence in that one, while the attempt, even if successful, would have involved the forfeiture of the rest. The king, therefore, was always stronger than any one, or any two or three, of his vassals. They could resist him only when combined. It is difficult to say how much of our present liberty we may not owe to this fortunate vigour of the royal authority, which compelled the barons to have recourse to parliaments, as the single means of effectual opposition to the encroachments of the king. This comparative strength of the general government of the country mitigated many of the worst evils of the feudal system. Great crimes could not be committed with the same impunity in England as in France. Private wars never prevailed to the same extent: it being the interest of the king to make himself the arbiter of all disputes, and his power being in general sufficient to enforce obedience. It was only in times of acknowledged civil war, such as the calamitous period which followed the usurpation of Stephen, that England was subject to those evils from which France never was free.

In Germany, on the other hand, the principal feudatories not only made themselves independent, but remained so. It is in France that we must contemplate the feudal system, if we wish to observe it in both its stages; the feudal aristocracy and the feudal monarchy; the period in which the great vassals were independent princes, and the period in which they were subjects. Each of these periods had its peculiar characteristics: we will begin with the first.

In the year 987, Hugh Capet, one of the chiefs who at that time shared France among them, usurped the throne. We have already stated the narrow limits, within which the possessions of the descendant of Charlemagne were at that time confined. Hugh Capet therefore acquired, as king of France, little territory beyond what he had previously held as count of Paris; a domain greatly inferior to that of the dukes of Burgundy or Normandy, or the counts of Flanders or Poitiers. It extended, in length, from Laon to Orleans, in breadth from Montereau to Pontoise. He and his immediate successors, being princes of no talent, instead of enlarging their territory or extending their influence, allowed what power they had to slip out of their hands; and, in the reign of Philip, third in descent from Hugh Capet, we find their authority bounded by the walls of five towns, Paris, Orleans, Etampes, Melun, and Compiègne.

The combinations which gave birth to the feudal system had, to a certain extent, answered their end. They afforded considerable protection against foreign, and some degree of protection against internal, assailants. The seed was put into the ground with some chance that he who sowed would be enabled to reap: and, from this time, progression in wealth and civilization recommenced. But, though some security to person and property is absolutely necessary to enable wealth to accumulate at all, the feudal system is a decisive experiment how small a portion of security will suffice.

Three classes composed, at this early period, the population of a feudal kingdom: the serfs who produced food, the nobles, or military caste, who consumed it, and a class of freemen who were neither nobles nor serfs: but this class, among the laity at least, soon terminated its short-lived existence. A class of freemen it can scarcely be called. Their freedom, the sort of freedom which they enjoyed, excluded them from protection, without exempting them from tyranny. The slave was at least secure from the oppressions of all masters but his own; the freeman was, like uninclosed land, the common property of all. We learn from the capitularies, or ordinances, of the Carlovingian race, that the ingenui, or free-born, were frequently forced to perform menial offices in the houses of the seigneurs: if poor, they were compelled to follow the nobles to the wars; if rich, they were amerced in an amount exceeding their property.^* They were thus driven to seek subsistence and comparative security by becoming the slaves of their oppressors. As for the serfs, they were, literally, in the condition of domestic cattle; their master considered them as such, and treated them in the same manner, or rather, much more cruelly, because he feared them more. They were liable, at his will, to the infliction of any amount of stripes; to the loss of their ears, eyes, nose, feet, or hands, and, finally, of their lives. Power absolutely unchecked, in the hands of such men as the feudal chieftains, men utterly unaccustomed to control any impulse of passion, had its customary effect. We are informed that a hundred and fifty lashes were a frequent punishment for the most trivial fault.^*

In order to form some further conception of this state of society, we have to imagine a perpetual civil war: war, not between two great divisions of the nation, which might rage in one district, leaving the others in tranquillity, but between every landed proprietor and his next neighbour.

That the knights of old were very easily affronted, is acknowledged by their panegyrists themselves. Even in these days, when that salutary instrument of moral discipline, the gallows, renders the consequences of an affront offered to an irascible neighbour somewhat less serious than formerly, we are not wont to regard irascible characters with much veneration or esteem. But we invest the irascible characters of former days with all the courage of a captain of dragoons, and so delighted are we with our own romantic conceptions, that we are ready to fall down and worship their imaginary original. When a knight was insulted, or thought fit to consider himself so, our notion is, that with scrupulous regard to all the niceties of modern honour, he sent his squire with a defiance to his enemy, challenging him to single combat. Possibly some knights might have been found who were thus punctilious; but the generality of them had a much less refined notion of the point of honour. Assassination, indeed, though horribly frequent, was but the exception, not the rule; or society must have ceased to exist. It was the labourers, and other cattle, on the offender’s estate, who in general paid the penalty of their master’s offence. The insulted party sallied out of his castle, and without any previous notice, proceeded to devastate the lands of his enemy; destroying the crops, burning the habitations, and carrying away both the species of live stock above spoken of. This done, he made haste to seek shelter in his castle, before his enemy had time to call together his vassals and pursue him. The other party, if he did not succeed in overtaking the plunderers, retaliated by entering upon the domain of the aggressor, and doing all the mischief he could. If they met, a battle took place; and woe to the vanquished! If unfortunate enough to be taken prisoner, he was subjected to the most excruciating torments, until forced to comply with whatever demands the victor’s rapacity might dictate. Catasta was the name of the most usual instrument of torture. The prisoner, being placed on an iron cage, or chained down upon an iron bed, was exposed, in that situation, to fire. One of M. Dulaure’s anecdotes will serve for illustration. Theobald V, Count of Chartres and Blois, a contemporary of our Henry II, and one of the most powerful feudatories north of the Loire, was engaged in hostilities with Sulpice, Seigneur of Amboise. His enemy fell into his hands, was put in irons, and exposed every day to the catasta. In vain did he offer large sums by way of ransom; the rapacity of the conqueror would be satisfied with nothing less than the possession of the town and castle of Chaumont. The required concession was at length extorted from the agonized captive: but his vassals still held the place, and refused to surrender it. His life speedily fell a sacrifice to this horrible torture.^*

The celebrated anecdote of King John and the Jew’s teeth,^[*] as it has, besides the cruelty, something whimsical in it, fixes itself in the memory; and is perpetually quoted as an extraordinary instance of the cruel treatment to which the Jews were subject in that reign. Yet what is this, compared to what we here see practised by one seigneur upon another? Judge what must have been the treatment of the mere knight, and still more that of the burgess and the slave.

The fortresses, in which the terrified cultivators took refuge, were generally strong enough to defy any means of attack which the art of war at that time afforded. But the strongest castle might be taken by treachery or surprise, and, on these occasions, men, women and children were cut to pieces. This, indeed, was in a manner the law of war. On the storming of a place, it was the ordinary course of events. We hear much of the horrible butcheries which were practised in the wars of religion, on the storming of a town. We imagine, few are aware that these butcheries were neither new nor extraordinary; that they were no more than what the barons practised in their most ordinary wars, both foreign and domestic, when they had not even the imaginary dictates of their horrible superstition to plead in excuse.

It was an easy transition from these exploits to highway robbery. This practice, we are accordingly informed, was universal among the poorer nobility. Any honest employment would have been disgraceful: they wanted money, if they had cities to pillage, it was well; if not, they pillaged travellers. An Indian Brahmin, when his profession fails him, is at liberty to engage in the occupations of that caste which is next in rank to his own: on a similar principle, the greatest chieftains of France, princes of the blood, and even kings themselves, when they could no longer support themselves by their respective vocations of governing and fighting, betook themselves to the profession of a highwayman as the next in dignity. Eudes I, Duke of Burgundy; another Eudes, brother to King Henry I; Philip, a son of King Philip I, and that monarch himself, are numbered among the high-born predecessors of Cartouche and Turpin. What was to them only an occasional resource, was to an inferior class of nobles their daily bread. Sometimes they sallied out, and waylaid pedlars on the highway, or pilgrims journeying with valuables to some sacred place: at other times they seized the peasants in the public market, stripped them of what they had, and detained them prisoners, or put them to the torture, to extort the disclosure of hidden treasure.

When Louis VI, surnamed le Gros, the fourth descendant of Hugh Capet who filled the throne, and the first who was worthy of it, arrived at the age of manhood, the royal authority was at the lowest ebb. For many years of his life, he found full occupation in reducing his immediate subjects, the petty landholders of the royal domain, to a moderate degree of obedience. A description of the state in which he found that portion of France, may serve as a specimen of what must have been the condition of the remainder.

Louis, who was not only king of France, but the immediate feudal superior of these freebooters, found himself not only no match for their united strength, but scarcely able to cope with the lord of a castle single-handed. He prudently limited his first undertakings to the protection of the monasteries against the extortions of the nobility. By this means he obtained the sanction of the church, and the co-operation of the abbey troops, by whose aid he repressed the disorders of the principal Châtelains, and brought most of them into comparative subjection to his authority.

The names and designations of some of these worthies have been preserved to us. Hugh de Pompone, Seigneur of Crécy, and Châtelain of Gournay, infested with his depredations, not only the highway, but the river Marne, stopping passengers by land and water, and levying contributions. When attacked by Louis, this bandit was defended by his father, Guy, Count of Rochefort, and by Theobald, Count of Champagne. The fortress of Montlhéri, the patrimony and residence of a branch of the Montmorency family, was the retreat of a band of robbers, who desolated the whole country from Corbeil to Châteaufort, and interrupted all communication between Paris and Orleans. Hugh, Seigneur of Puiset, a place situated not far from the road which connects Chartres with Orleans, plundered travellers to the very gates of Chartres. Louis reduced his castle, and retained him for some time in confinement; but on his succeeding, by the death of an uncle, to the county of Corbeil, the relinquishment of this inheritance in favour of Louis was the price of his release. This lesson produced no change in his habits of life. No sooner was Louis occupied in another quarter, than he rebuilt, in violation of an express engagement, the fortifications of Puiset, seized the king’s peasants in the public market-place, and extorted sums of money by way of ransom.

But these were vulgar trespasses, hardly worthy of mention. It was reserved for Thomas de Marne, a baron of Picardy, to exemplify in its perfection the true greatness of villainy. “This seigneur,” says the abbot of Nogent.^[*] quoted by M. de Sismondi,

It was not until the twenty-second year of his reign, that Louis could subjugate this demon in human form. For eighteen years at least of this long interval, he continued his execrable mode of life; and might have continued it longer, had he not, when besieged in his castle of Coucy, been mortally wounded and taken prisoner in a sortie. “The king,” says M. de Sismondi, “tried to induce him, in his last moments, to release the traders whom he had kidnapped on the highway; whom he kept in prison to extort a ransom, or tortured for his amusement: but even in the agonies of death Coucy refused all mercy, and seemed to regret the loss of dominion over his prisoners, much more than the termination of life.”^[†] Thus perished Thomas de Marne. But his eldest son Enguerrand de Coucy trod faithfully in his steps; and succeeded in making head against the whole power of the king. After being vainly besieged in the castle of la Fère, he was taken into favour, and received in marriage a princess of the blood royal.

In 1109, says M. Dulaure, one of those horrible occurrences, so frequent in the annals of feudality, took place at the castle of la Roche-Guyon on the Seine. The lord of this castle, Guy de la Roche-Guyon, is praised by contemporary writers for renouncing the practices of his father and grandfather: “Il était enclin à se conduire en homme probe et honnête, et s’abstenait de pillage et de vol: ‘Peut-être,’ adds one author, ‘se serait-il laissé aller aux habitudes de ses pères, s’il eût plus longuement vécu.’ ”^† This chief, whom the chronicler supposes to have died just in time to save his virtue, was assassinated by Guillaume his brother-in-law, who, with the aid of several knights, laid an ambuscade in the chapel of the castle, and murdered Guy, his wife and children, and every other human being in the place. Had this been all, he might have retained the castle to the end of his natural life: but he was suspected by the neighbouring barons of being in an understanding with the English. They resolved to dislodge him. Being besieged in the castle, he opened the gates, stipulating for his life and liberty. It seems that some of the besiegers were not parties to the capitulation. Guillaume was massacred, together with the rest of the besieged: we are not told whether by those who had not engaged for his safety, or by those who had.

In this state was the royal domain, under the fifth of the Capets. But enough of causes; it is time to look at effects. Of the seventy-three years which composed the reigns of Hugh Capet, his son, and grandson, forty-eight were years of famine; being two out of three. Of these famines, pestilence was almost a uniform, cannibalism a frequent, accompaniment.^* So much for the feudal system, and the perpetual civil war which was its consequence. In the long reign of Charlemagne we hear only of two famines; and even under the feeble Louis le Débonnaire, whose reign was disgraced by so many rebellions, there is only mention of one.^† So much more destructive of security was feudal order, than what elsewhere goes by the name of civil war; and so endurable a thing is even despotism, compared with “liberty,” when all the liberty is for a few barons, and the mass of the people are slaves.

In this country, it has been the interest of the powerful, that the abominations of the clergy in the middle ages should be known; and accordingly they are known. But it has not been the interest of the powerful in this country, that the abominations of the barons should be known; and consequently they are not simply unknown, but their authors are believed to have been patterns of the noblest virtues. The clergy were, in reality, by many degrees the less wicked of the two. They at all times administered better justice to their vassals, than the military chiefs; they at all times discouraged depredations and private wars. True it is, that in their eyes these were secondary offences; it was not for such crimes that interdicts and excommunications were sent forth: these were reserved for the man who married his fourth cousin, or who presumed to summon an ecclesiastic before a secular court. Robbery and murder were not, it is true, sins of so black a dye as the foregoing; they were sins, however, and, as such, were condemned. To the exertions of the clergy was owing the truce of God, one of the most curious traits in the character of the times. In a council composed of laymen and ecclesiastics, held in the diocese of Perpignan, it was resolved that three days and two nights in each week should be allowed to the nobles, to fight, burn, and plunder, under certain restrictions; by which concession it was hoped to induce them to suspend those recreations during the remainder of the week. This attempt to compromise with the vices of the times, was not, we are told, at first, altogether unsuccessful. But the compact was not adopted in all the districts of France, nor even in the royal domain; and as there existed no means of enforcing its observance, it fell every where into desuetude. It being thought that the time allowed for pillage was possibly not quite long enough, it was enlarged to four days and three nights, and at length to nearly six days and five nights; but the shortest intermission of mutual devastation was more than could be endured.^*

During the succeeding reigns, the power of the crown was gradually on the increase, and that of the great feudatories on the wane. Many of the most powerful fiefs became, by marriage or otherwise, integral parts of the English or French monarchies. The expulsion of the English from the north of France, by Philip Augustus, added their possessions to the royal domain; and the enfranchisement of the large towns, which uniformly allied themselves with the king against their old masters, enabled him to break the power of the feudal aristocracy. While this great change in the frame of society was going on, no improvement took place in the moral habits of the nobility. They continued to rob on the highway, and to quarrel and fight with one another, as before. Nor was it till long after the reign of Saint Louis, that the châtelains of France universally abandoned the profession of a highwayman. “Tels,” says M. Dulaure,

It is not asserted, that there were no exceptions to this general depravity. All which is contended for is, that the virtuous characters of those days were as much less virtuous than those of our own, as the wicked characters were more wicked, and that they were proportionally much more rare. Such is not the impression conveyed by the romances of chivalry; and it is the misfortune of modern writers, that they have mistaken the romances of chivalry for the history of chivalry. We shall be told, that romances are good evidence of manners. We answer with M. Roederer:^‡ of manners, yes: of the characters of their heroes, not at all. The romances of chivalry did not even profess to represent the knights as they were, but as they ought to be. What would be thought of a writer who should seriously infer, that in the time of Richardson the character of an English gentleman resembled that of Sir Charles Grandison?^[*]

Even Mr. Hallam does not believe in the reality of knights-errant; of persons who travelled about, liberating captives, and redressing wrongs.^[†] But a romance must have a hero, and a hero must be a character to be admired. There never was a state of society (howsoever depraved) in which the character of a redresser of wrongs was not admired; on the contrary, it is admired in the direct ratio of the frequency of grievous wrongs. The romances of the east abound with good viziers: when the hero is a vizier, we may be sure he is always a good one: and how often does a good vizier arise? About as often as a good king: once in two hundred years.

One would expect to find the most admirable models of chivalrous virtue among those whose names and actions history has celebrated, and who were most admired by their contemporaries.^* In these respects no chevalier ever exceeded Richard Coeur de Lion. A few anecdotes, therefore, of his life, will go far to illustrate, not only the practical morality of the age, but moreover its theoretical standard of moral approbation. This mirror of chivalry is first introduced to our notice in the character of a rebellious and treacherous son, intrusted by his father with the government of a province, and exciting that province to rebel. As Duke of Aquitaine, we find him carrying off the wives and daughters of his principal vassals; and, after keeping them until he was weary of possession, giving them away in presents to his followers.^* When reconciled to his father, he turns round upon his former partizans, invades their territories, captures their towns, and loads them with exactions.^† Again and again received into favour, again and again did he rebel. At length his father died, and he succeeded to the throne. His first act, in this new situation, was to place his father’s treasurer, Stephen of Tours, seneschal of Anjou, in irons: nor did he release him until (says Roger de Hoveden) he had delivered up all the late king’s money, and his own, to the last penny.^‡

He appears to no greater advantage as a champion of the cross. It is related of him, that, when walking in the streets of Messina, he heard the cry of a hawk proceeding from the house of a peasant. A hawk, in England, was to plebeians a prohibited bird. Richard, forgetting that he was no longer in England, but in a country where the peasants had knives, and knew how to use them, entered the house, and took possession of the bird; but an assembled crowd speedily put him to flight. The same imperious temper and despotic habits soon after led him to commit a still greater outrage. A monastery, situated on the strait of Messina, appeared to him a convenient place for lodging his magazines: with him, to desire and to seize were one; he turned out the monks, and put a party of soldiers into their place. Disgusted at these and other acts of oppression, the inhabitants of Messina shut the gates upon Richard and his troops; a conflict ensued, and he forced his way into the place.^§ Another anecdote, which is related of him while at Messina, is strikingly characteristic of his jealous and vindictive disposition. In the crusading army he had no rival in warlike exercises, except a French knight, named Guillaume des Barres. On one occasion, while the knights were exercising without the walls, an ass passed by loaded with reeds, which then, as now, were used in that country as vine props. They seized the reeds, and commenced a mock fight. Richard and Guillaume des Barres were opposed to one another. Their reeds were shivered at the first shock, but the reed of Guillaume tore Richard’s cloak. This insignificant mischance provoked Richard to such a degree of fury, that he rushed upon his adversary, and strove violently to unhorse him. In this endeavour he was defeated, which inflamed his passion still more; he swore that he would be for ever the enemy of Guillaume des Barres, and was mean enough to require that the king of France should withdraw his protection from that knight, and banish him from Messina. Nor was it till long after, that, by the entreaties of Philip, aided by those of all the barons and prelates in the army, who placed themselves on their knees before him, he was prevailed upon to restrain his resentment during such time as he and Guillaume should both wear the badge of the crusade.^*

The conduct of Coeur de Lion, after the surrender of Acre, was even in that age remarkable for its ferocity. The garrison and inhabitants were to remain prisoners for forty days, at the expiration of which term, if not previously ransomed, they were to be at the mercy of the conqueror. Not being ransomed, they were, by Richard’s order, put to death in cold blood.^†

On his return to England, having laid siege to Nottingham, he erected a gibbet within sight of the walls, and hanged several men-at-arms whom he had taken prisoners, to strike terror into the besieged.^‡

At a later period, we find him raising the wind in a manner truly royal, by turning off his chancellor,^[*] and declaring all the acts of that functionary null and void; obliging those whose titles were thus invalidated, to purchase valid ones, or forfeit their right.

We soon after find him swearing a truce with the king of France, and violating it immediately.^§ Nor was this his last breach of faith. After resigning, by solemn treaty, the paramountcy of Auvergne to his rival the king of France, and even undertaking to aid him in enforcing the right against the unwilling Auvergnats, he broke the treaty, and made an alliance with the Auvergnats against their new liege lord. He very soon broke his faith with them too, and concluding a separate truce, looked on quietly, and saw them subdued. The truce expired, and hostilities renewed between the two kings. Richard had the assurance to renew his correspondence with the Auvergnats, claim their performance of the engagement which he himself had violated, and exhort them to renew the war. They were too prudent to be again deceived; and the royal troubadour consoled himself by composing satirical verses upon what he termed their breach of faith.^¶

But the reader has probably had enough of the “glory of chivalry.”^[*] To be the glory of chivalry, indeed, nothing was necessary but the reputation of military prowess: a reputation founded upon achievements in war, and superiority in jousts and tournaments. The pomp and pageantry which adorned these exhibitions have captivated the imaginations, not only of contemporaries but of posterity; and when the imagination is gained, the reason, as experience shows, very seldom fails to follow. That the characteristics of a knight were undaunted courage and the most ardent desire of glory, is a proposition which has hitherto been taken for granted by the admirers, and hardly denied by the impugners of chivalry; and when we wish to say of any one that he is a pattern of all the military virtues, our expression is, that he is worthy of the age of chivalry. Now this proceeds, as it appears to us, upon a complete misapprehension. That courage and the love of glory were not uncommon among the knights, it would be absurd to doubt; since these are qualities which are never wanting, where there are dangers, and a public opinion. But that either quality was universal among them is the dream of a romancer; and we will venture to affirm, that there is more real courage in a single regiment of the British or French army in the year 1826, than there was in the whole chivalry of France or England five centuries ago.

We must not be misled by the great estimation in which military prowess was held. This is no proof of its universality, but the reverse. When particular examples of any virtue are extravagantly praised, it is a certain sign that the virtue is rare. It is pertinently remarked (we believe, by M. Dulaure), that there are at this day hundreds in the French army who possess all the heroic qualities which immortalized Bayard,^* but who are utterly unknown, precisely because there are so many. Thus it is that we continue to talk of the continence of Scipio; yet, what mighty matter did this continence amount to? He did not ravish a beautiful woman, whom the fortune of war had thrown into his hands.^[†] Now, if this be greatness, what subaltern officer, we were going to say, common soldier, in the British army, is not as great a man as Scipio? As a proof of Scipio’s continence, the story is ridiculous; but, as a proof of the lawless and brutal incontinence of his contemporaries, this one anecdote, though it be but an anecdote, is worth a thousand volumes.

The ardour of the knights for military enterprises was indeed universal. But this ardour was no proof of exalted courage. Their military enterprises exposed them to hardly any danger. Cased in impenetrable armour, they could in general defy all attempts on life or limb; and the battles of chivalry, how destructive soever to the almost unarmed infantry, were rarely fatal to the men-at-arms. It might be, that a few knights were trampled on by horses, or crushed, in falling, by the weight of their armour. But if unhorsed, and at the victor’s mercy, their lives were scarcely ever in any danger, except from private vengeance; it was neither esteemed dishonourable to give, nor to accept, a ransom; it was the law of war. To compare the courage of an average knight, with that of a modern private soldier, would be like drawing a comparison, for endurance of cold, between a man wrapped up in furs, and a barefooted and naked savage.^*

Trifling, however, as was the danger of their warlike enterprises, they always courted in preference the least hazardous even of these. In their hostilities with one another, we have already mentioned that it was their great endeavour, after devastating the country, to escape to their strongholds without the risk of an engagement. They always preferred to encounter the inhabitants of the towns, who were destitute of defensive armour, and of whom they might hope to cut down thousands without the loss of a man. If, indeed, we look for real courage in the feudal times, we must seek it among those brave citizens, who did not fear, under such tremendous disadvantages, to face these terrible opponents in the field, in defence of all that they held dear. Among the few pages of the feudal annals which it gives pleasure to read, is that which records the glorious struggle which the burgesses of Flanders, forsaken and sold by their ally Edward I of England, maintained against Philippe le Bel and the whole chivalry of France. Thousands and thousands of them were cut to pieces; but they triumphed!

The taste of the chevaliers for tournaments, and other warlike exercises, may be as easily explained as their love of military adventure. M. de Sismondi treats both merely as the resources of désoeuvré savages to expel ennui. They sought excitement in the lists and in the field, as our German ancestors sought it by staking their liberty on the throw of a die. “Un esprit inquiet, un vague désir d’aventures, le besoin d’émotions, et l’espoir d’améliorer sa condition par la violence plus que par l’industrie, formaient alors le caractère de la noblesse Française.”^* The following passage characterizes chivalry with equal vigour and accuracy. We give it in the original, because it is at the same time a specimen of the style of M. de Sismondi’s work:

M. de Sismondi’s two great stimuli, cupidity and ennui, were quite capable of leading them into danger, but it required another sort of qualities to bring them successfully out of it. As often as the demand for excitement and the demand for plunder brought a large number of them together in one enterprise, the same passions invariably hurried them into irregularities which put to hazard, if they did not frustrate, the success of the expedition. Their impatience of subordination made them regardless of discipline, and uncontrollable by the authority of their commander; their habitual thoughtlessness rendered them incapable of directing their own conduct, and they would not suffer it to be directed by any one else. Let the admirer of chivalry read the history of any enterprise of real danger in which they were ever engaged; of any of the crusades for example, more especially of the two last; let him mark, not only the rapine and cruelty, but the stupidity, the supineness, the headlong confidence, the incapacity of foreseeing and providing against the most obvious difficulties, which rendered their whole career one series of blunders and misfortunes. If he weighs all this, and moreover bethinks himself of the peculiar character of their warfare, by which even personal prowess was made to depend almost entirely on the steeds, the armour, and the bodily strength of the combatants,^* he must acknowledge that the far-famed knights of the middle ages were nearly as destitute even of the military virtues, in any extended sense of the term, as they were of all other virtues whatsoever.

So much for the “cheap defence of nations.” Now for the “nurse of manly sentiment and heroic virtue.”^[*]

The characteristic virtues of chivalry, according to Mr. Hallam, were loyalty, courtesy, and munificence.^[†] Its claim to these qualities has in general been allowed; and it has, on this foundation, been without further question admitted to have been the great refiner of manners, and purifier of morals. Is this notion well grounded, or not? Let us inquire.

If by munificence be meant, according to Mr. Hallam’s definition, “disdain of money,”^[‡] meaning disdain of wealth, not only this quality did not characterize the age of chivalry, but the diametrically opposite qualities did. In no age was the thirst for plunder a more all-engrossing passion, nor the source of more numerous or greater crimes. But if it be only meant, that the wealth which was lightly got was lightly squandered; that the feudal chief was profuse in bestowing upon the instruments of his strength, or the ministers of his vanity or his amusement, gifts which cost him nothing but the groans of his bondmen, or the blood of those of his neighbour; the little value set upon wealth thus obtained, is only a proof how lightly the crimes by which it was purchased weighed upon the conscience of the offender. When all that had been got by one crime had been expended, what could be more obvious than, by another crime, to get more?

Loyalty is defined by Mr. Hallam to mean, fidelity to engagements. By courtesy, was meant, not only ceremonious politeness, but good feeling and good conduct towards each other, and particularly towards prisoners.^[§] Of both these qualities there were shining examples towards the conclusion of the age of chivalry. There was but little of either in the earlier period; and at no time were these virtues very commonly practised. While the feudal nobility retained their turbulent independence, no perfidy was thought too odious in order to gain an end, nor any abuse of power too flagrant when practised upon the defenceless. The treacherous devices which they employed to entrap one another, the horrid cruelties which they practised upon one another when entrapped, the assassinations which they sometimes perpetrated, sometimes (though more rarely) suborned, and of which the altar was not unfrequently the scene, are topics which we have already in some measure illustrated, and have not room to exhibit further. When one baron took a fancy to the wife of another, it appears, from several instances related by M. de Sismondi, that he made no scruple of carrying off the object of his passion, and marrying her; so much for the loyalty, the courtesy, and we will add, the religion, of the times.^*

But when the greater barons ceased to be independent sovereigns, and the smaller barons and knights to be subjects and retainers of those sovereigns; when their exploits came to be performed in national armies, and their virtues and vices to be exhibited on a great theatre, exposed to the view of whole nations; they then became, for the first time, amenable to a sort of public opinion. It is when individuals come under the influence of public opinion, that they begin to exhibit some glimmerings of virtue. But what kind of virtue? This will depend upon the kind of public to whose opinion they are amenable. The only public to which the knights of chivalry were amenable, was a public composed of one another. The opinion which other classes might form concerning their conduct, was a matter of too little importance to them to be at all regarded.

The consequences of this situation well deserve to be traced. Though it is not true of every individual that his interest makes his morality, it is strictly true of every class of men. When a set of persons are so situated as to be compelled to pay regard to the opinion of one another, but not compelled to pay any regard to the opinion of the rest of the world, they invariably proceed to fabricate two rules of action; one rule for their behaviour to one another, another rule for their behaviour to all persons except themselves. This was literally, strictly, what the chevaliers did. A chevalier was bound by the opinion of the chevaliers to keep his word with another chevalier, and to treat him, when a prisoner, with gentleness and respect. His own interest would prompt him to do so, if a man of common prudence; since he could not know how soon he might be a prisoner, and might have occasion to be released upon parole, or promise of ransom. But we are not to suppose that it was necessary for a knight to fulfil his engagements with any one except a knight. Exactly as the profligate man of fashion of the present day will pay a gaming debt to the last farthing, though it leave him pennyless, while he internally resolves never to pay his tradesmen at all: so would a baron keep his word with another baron, and break his word, and his oath too, with a low-born bourgeois.

History, though conversant only with events upon a great scale, affords abundant evidence to bear out this assertion. Notwithstanding the rapacity and avarice of the barons, their profusion rendered them in general needy. The towns, which at first were part of their domain, amenable to their jurisdiction and subject to their arbitrary exactions, took advantage of their wants to purchase, among other privileges, that of having an adminstration of justice and a municipal government of their own. This was a concession which nothing but the most pressing necessities could ever have extorted from those haughty superiors, and which they never afterwards thought of without resentment. No opportunity was missed of resuming the concession, and re-establishing their former supremacy over the town; retaining, however, the purchase-money of freedom. The pages of M. de Sismondi exhibit such numerous examples of this kind of perfidy, that it is impossible to suppose that it could have been considered at all disgraceful. Every privilege, in fact, which a town could succeed in wringing from the penury of its lord, was the commencement of a long struggle between the town and the seigneur; the seigneur struggling to get back his power, the townsmen to prevent him. If the lord succeeded, any new attempt to throw off his authority was called rebellion, and treated accordingly; for this also see Sismondi, passim.

King John of France, who was taken prisoner at Poitiers, is related to have said, that if truth and good faith had disappeared from the earth, they ought to be found on the lips and in the hearts of monarchs. This John, who was surnamed the Good, and who, if the anecdote be authentic, could talk in such magnifient terms about justice and good faith, had solicited and obtained from the pope, a few years before, for himself and his successors, a curious sort of privilege: it was that of violating all vows made and to be made, all oaths taken and to be taken, which they could not conveniently keep, quae servare commode non possetis, commuting them for other pious works.^*

This John, who was a contemporary of the Black Prince and of Bertrand du Guesclin, and who lived, therefore, in the halcyon days of chivalrous virtue, had, it seems, but an indifferent opinion of the knights of his day. He accused the French knights of having become insensible to honour and fame: Honoris et famae, proh dolor! neglectâ pulchritudine.^† The same prince, on hearing the song of Roland, observed, Il y a long-temps qu’on ne voit plus de Roland en France. An old captain, who was present, did not deny the fact, but threw all the blame of it upon the monarch himself: On en verrait encore s’ils avaient un Charlemagne à leur tête.^‡ Deceived, like ourselves, by romances, even the chevaliers of that day looked back, it seems, with admiration, to the imaginary heroism of their forefathers. Yet this was the most shining period of the age of chivalry. It was also the last. A few years after, chivalry silently expired. The use of fire-arms became general. Cuirasses, as it turned out, were not bullet-proof. The chevaliers tried hard to render them so, by making them thicker and thicker, heavier and heavier, till at last (says Lanoue) Il n’y avait homme de trente ans qui n’en fût estropié.^§ Finding that all this would not save them from gunpowder, the cowards forsook the field, and abandoned the defence of their country and their liege-lord to hired soldiers—to plebeians.

Such was the age of chivalry. But to all our denunciations of the vices of that age, one glorious exception must be made. Either the whole testimony of history is false, or Saint Louis never violated his word, nor swerved from what he thought the dictates of his conscience. Historians have not done justice to Saint Louis. He has been pictured as a virtuous man, but a slave to priestcraft. Nothing can be more unfounded. His mind was strongly tinctured with the superstitions of the age; he conceived the deity not as an indulgent father, but as an irritable and jealous master; all this is true: but it is not true that he was priest-ridden; for he several times resisted not only his clergy, but the pope himself.^* He followed the dictates of his own mind. His ideas of religious duty were his own; and every action of his life was governed by them. He thought it his duty to persecute, and he did persecute; he thought it his duty to be an ascetic, and he was an ascetic; but he also thought it his duty to keep his word, and he kept it inviolably; he thought it a sin even to retain what his predecessors had unjustly acquired, and he made restitution with the most scrupulous exactness. He was a perfect specimen of a mind governed by conviction; a mind which has imperfect and wrong ideas of morality, but which adheres to them with a constancy and firmness of principle, in its highest degree perhaps the rarest of all human qualities.

When we contemplate one who in so barbarous an age, and under all the temptations of power, although misled by a bad religion, did not make that religion a substitute for morality, but devoted himself to the fulfilment of his real duties, with the same earnestness as his imaginary ones, we admire even the power over himself which his austerities display; we lament the erroneousness of his opinions, but we venerate the man. Very differently are we affected by the religion which characterized the times. The knights and nobles of the day were as pious, many of them, as Saint Louis himself; but how different a piety! All his intolerance was theirs, without a spark of his virtue. When we read of their crusades, their pilgrimages, and their persecutions, we are apt, by a natural mistake, to speak of their fanaticism. But fanaticism is far too respectable a name. Fanaticism supposes principle: the notion of fulfilling a duty. Their fires were kindled not to fulfil a duty, but to escape from its fulfilment. They thought to strike a bargain with Omnipotence; to compound for one crime by practising another. It was not from principle, but from mere selfishness, that they burned heretics, slaughtered Saracens, and plundered Jews. They imagined that he who sacrificed hecatombs of unbelievers to the God of mercy, was freed from every moral obligation towards his fellow-men. Never did their religion for a moment stand in the way of their passions. In sacking a town, neither priests, nor nuns, nor crosses, nor relics, were sacred to them.^† In their private wars, the church lands, being an easier prey, were even less respected than those of one another; nor were their devastations restrained by that excommunication which encroachments upon that species of property invariably entailed. But they had been taught that by giving way to their darling passions, their avarice and cruelty, against the miscreants who denied the faith, they atoned for the indulgence of the same passions against the true believers. The publication of a crusade, especially against the emperor or the Albigenses, was commonly accompanied by an offer to the champions of the cross, of—what? Remission of all sins, past and future, in the other world, together with permission to rob their creditors in this. They were exempted, during the crusade, from the payment of interest on their debts. The cunning priests, who added this earthly recompense to the heavenly one, knew well the sort of persons with whom they had to deal. That some of the crusading knights were mainly influenced by motives of religion, is as true, as that some were influenced by the desire of military glory; but the great bulk were influenced by nothing but M. de Sismondi’s “deux mobiles de la noblesse,” cupidity and ennui.

There is one feature in the chivalrous character which has yet to be noticed; we mean, its gallantry. And this we shall think it necessary to examine the more fully, because we are persuaded that nine-tenths of the admiration of chivalry are grounded upon it. We own it is hard to speak ill of men who could make vows to their lady-love that they would wear a scarf over one eye till they should have signalized her charms by some exploit, or who could leave the ranks and challenge one another to single combat, to settle which man of them adored the most beautiful mistress. We trust, however, that without treason to the fair sex, of which we profess ourselves devoted admirers, it may be permitted to doubt whether these fopperies contributed much to the substantial happiness of women, or indicated any real solicitude for their welfare. To us it seems very clear, that such demonstrations of eagerness, not to make a woman happy, but to make the whole world acknowledge the pre-eminence of her charms, had their source in mere vanity, and the love of distinction; and that the knight who fought a duel concerning the beauty of his mistress, because she was his mistress, would have done the same thing for his falcon, if it had been the fashion.

If it could be proved that women, in the middle ages, were well treated, it would be so decisive a proof of an advanced stage of civilization, as it would require much evidence to rebut. That they were so treated, however, is not to be believed without proof. That a knight prided himself upon the beauty of his mistress, and deemed his honour concerned in maintaining it at the sword’s point, is no proof. In the Asiatic kingdoms, in which, above all countries in the world, women are not only practically ill-treated, but theoretically despised, the whole honour of a family is considered to be bound up in its women. If their seclusion is intruded upon; if the foot of a stranger profanes the zenana, the disgrace is indelible. This is one species of foppery: the gallantry of the middle ages was another: and, like the ceremonious politeness which distingished alike the chevaliers and the orientals, they characterize that period in the progress of society, which may be termed the age of false refinement, and which is situated half way between savage and civilized life.

Good treatment of women, we have already observed, is one of the surest marks of high civilization. But it seems to be very little considered, in what good treatment of women consists. It does not consist in treating them as idols to be worshipped, or as trinkets to be worn for display; any more than in shutting them up like jewels in a case, removed from the light of the sun and the sight of men. In both cases, this treatment is a proof that they are valued; else why are so much pains taken about them? But in both cases they are valued exactly like beautiful trinkets; the value set upon them is quite compatible with perfect indifference to their happiness or misery.

Professor Millar, perhaps the greatest of philosophical inquirers into the civilization of past ages, has observed, with truth, that during the savage state, when the attention of men is wholly engrossed by the pursuit of the necessaries of life, the pleasures of sex are little regarded, and little valued; but as soon as the satisfaction of their more pressing wants gives leisure to cultivate the other enjoyments within their reach, these pleasures are among the first which engage their attention. If the savage state is, of all others, that in which the sexual passion is weakest, the half-savage state, or the state immediately bordering on barbarism, is that in which it is strongest.^[*] This remark explains the treatment of women in feudal Europe, as well as in Asia, different as their condition in these two states of society may appear. In Asia, where food could always be obtained with comparatively trifling labour, and where very little clothing and lodging were necessary either to existence or to comfort, the savage or hunting state seems never to have existed; the pleasures of sex were probably cultivated from the beginning, and, man abusing his natural superiority, the women were made slaves. In Europe, on the contrary, as among the North American Indians, women were not valued as sources of pleasure, and were not valuable for the labour of hunting, in that state of society the only kind of hard labour. No motives, therefore, existed for reducing them to bondage; and when these barbarians over-spread the Roman empire, and, possessing themselves of the land, began to lead an idle life instead of a laborious one, this new state of society found the women free. From this circumstance arose the different situation of women in Asia and in feudal Europe. In the latter, where they were free, to obtain the woman who was the object of desire became often a matter of extreme difficulty, and generally could not be effected without her own consent: in the former, where they were slaves, to obtain any number of women independently of their consent, became, to a rich man, a matter of no difficulty at all; and his solicitude was transferred to the means of keeping them.

We thus see that the seclusion of women in Asia, and the idolatry of them in Europe, were both marks of the same low state of civilization. The latter, no doubt, gave to some women for a time more power. But we must not overrate the value of this power to their happiness. The question is not, how much power a knight would give his mistress leave to fancy she exercised over him, in order that she might consent to his obtaining power over her; but in what manner he employed his power over her when obtained. Of the domestic lives of the knights, we have hardly any direct information; and in the absence of any, we may proceed upon the general presumption, that men who were brutal towards one another, would not be less brutal towards their wives. Allowing that a woman who had been an object of desire, and who was still a source of vanity from her personal charms, might command tolerable treatment on account of those charms, while they lasted, and on account of her children at a later period; we profess ourselves not to be of the number of those who sympathize exclusively with beautiful women. Although the heroines of romances were somehow always beautiful, it may yet be inferred, from the inherent probabilility of the thing, that there were ugly women in those days as well as in our own; though we are left to conjecture what sort of treatment may peradventure have been undergone by such ill-fated females, if any such there were. A knight who had to maintain at the point of the sword, that his lady was the most beautiful lady in the whole world, would, in common prudence, attach himself to some fair one, whose pretensions to that character might be maintained without subjecting him to any extraordinary degree of ridicule. We know, in point of fact, that a small number of beautiful women engrossed all the admiration and all the vows of all the knights, and that the large and unattractive majority were altogether neglected. It is the treatment of them, however, and not that of their more attractive sisters, which is the test of civilization.

There is positive evidence, how little regard was paid by a warrior of the age of chivalry, to the feelings even of the object of his passion, when he had the power of gratifying that passion independently of her consent. If a baron happened to be smitten by the charms of the daughter of one of his vassals, he demanded of her father, as a matter of course, that she should be yielded up to his embraces.^* The frequency of rapes and abductions, even in the case of women of elevated rank, is another important proof how little connection the foppish gallantry of that age had with the real happiness of the sex affected to be adored. We have mentioned in a former page the chivalrous treatment of the Gascon ladies by Coeur de Lion. Matilda, daughter of Malcolm III, King of Scotland, while residing in England previously to her marriage with our Henry I, is well known to have taken the habit of a nun, “not,” says Hume, “with a view of entering into a religious life, but merely in consequence of a custom, familiar to the English ladies, who protected their chastity from the brutal violence of the Normans, by taking shelter under that habit, which, amidst the horrible licentiousness of the times, was yet generally revered.”^*

We reject the giants of romance; why should we continue to believe in the reality of the knights-errant, their antagonists? Yet if both are the representatives of really existing personages, let us remember that the knights who liberated imprisoned damsels were few, while the giants who held these damsels in durance were many; and that the prototypes of the giants were knights and noblemen, though they were not knights-errant.

Though it is almost unnecessary to add, that whatever portion of power or good treatment the women enjoyed, was confined entirely to the women of rank, and that all other women were, like their husbands, slaves; we will, however, conclude our observations on this subject, by a very sensible passage from M. Roederer’s work, already alluded to, in which this as well as some other very pertinent observations are forcibly put. The age of chivalry, he says,

We have dwelt so long upon the period of the feudal aristocracy, that we have not time to give a detailed character of the feudal monarchy; and perhaps it will be better, before attempting the task, to wait for the additional materials which we may expect to find in the next portion of M. de Sismondi’s history. We shall content ourselves with mentioning a few facts, merely to show that the aristocracy did not change its character during the two or three centuries which followed its subjugation by the crown.

Enguerrand de Coucy, having seized two young noblemen, who, with their preceptor, had trespassed on his forests in pursuit of rabbits, hanged them all three. In the reign of any other prince than Saint Louis, he might possibly have come off with impunity. Saint Louis at first intended to put him to death, but at the intercession of all the great barons, he contented himself with imposing a heavy fine, and three years exile in Palestine, with the forfeiture of the seignorial rights of haute justice, and garenne: of keeping rabbits, and of judging men.^*

Guy de Montfort assassinated Henry, son of Richard, Duke of Cornwall, before the altar, at Viterbo.^†

Saint Louis besieged the castle of La Roche de Gluy upon the Rhone, to punish its lord for practising robbery on the highway: having made himself master of the castle, he restored it to its owner, first stipulating for the discontinuance of his depredations.^‡

The next person of whom we shall make mention is Amalric, Viscount of Narbonne, who, having the droit de justice, violated the laws, and, what was of more consequence, offended the monarch, by putting to death two of his own vassals, notwithstanding their appeal to the royal court. Amalric’s sovereign was far from being a Saint Louis; he imprisoned the rebellious vassal for a time, then took him from prison and put him at the head of an army.^§

Jourdain de l’Isle, sire (seigneur) of Casaubon, after receiving the royal pardon eighteen times for different offences, was hanged the nineteenth for rape, rapine, and murder. This happened under Charles IV, in 1323.

Hannot and Pierre de Léans were hanged in 1332, for assassinating la demoiselle Péronne d’Estreville in the church.

Mathieu de Houssaie was condemned to a gibbet in 1333; Jourdan Ferron, a damoiseau or page, in the same year. In the following year eleven nobles were executed (suppliciés) for the assassination of Emeri Béranger.

Adam de Hordain, another knight, was hanged in 1348, and so on.^¶ It was not till the climax of the power of Louis XIV, that the nobles were reduced into perfect obedience to the laws.

As the king’s government, however, increased in strength, assassination became too dangerous to be openly practised, and a safer mode of taking vengeance upon an enemy now came into vogue. Accusations of poisoning became frequent, and gained general credit. The imperfection of the courts of justice, and the peculiar nature of this crime, generally prevented the fact from being judicially proved; but the generality of the suspicion is a sufficient proof of the spirit of the times. Another mode of getting rid of an enemy was suggested by the superstitions of the day. The practice of enchantments, for the destruction of particular persons, became very frequent. The efficacy of these operations was imaginary, but the intention was real. Waxen images, says M. Dulaure, play a very conspicuous part in French history. A waxen image was constructed, as nearly as possible resembling the person intended to be destroyed; a priest was employed to baptise the image by the name of the intended victim, and it was then tortured, mutilated, or pierced through and through, with the proper forms of incantation. The effect of the operation thus performed upon the image, was supposed to be felt by its human namesake in his own person.

The gradual disuse of trial by battle, which was abolished by Saint Louis in his own domains, and discouraged every where, both by him and his successors; the substitution of technical procedure in the king’s court, and the gradual supercession of the seignorial jurisdictions by the royal ones, gave rise and encouragement to another sort of crime, judicial perjury. This, which is perhaps the most pernicious of offences, because it destroys the efficacy of the remedy against all others, and the frequency of which is, for that and other reasons, one of the most decisive tests of the moral depravity of a nation, became, if we may credit historians, horribly frequent. Corruption in the judges also became a common offence.^*

When the nobles no longer enjoyed any power of their own, except over their serfs and domestics, they had no chance for importance but by resorting to the court, and rivalling with one another in magnificence and servility.^† The means of magnificence had to be squeezed out of their vassals, whose situation consequently became more miserable than ever.^‡ The same cause brought about a considerable change in the manners of the nobility. No longer permitted to seek excitement in private wars, they sought it in the licentiousness of a court. Intrigue took the place of rape, as poisoning had done of assassination. The manners of the later period of the age of chivalry, and of the age which immediately succeeded it, as they are pictured in Brantôme^[*] and other works of his day, were dissolute to a degree never since equalled. Nor did their debauchery resemble the refined gallantry of the court of Louis XV; it was coarse and gross to a degree of which even the language of Rabelais is hardly an exaggeration. To sum up all in few words: when the vices of a highwayman ended, the vices of a courtier began.

We had intended to quote some striking anecdotes of the times; such as the expedition of the pastoureaux, the destruction of the Templars, the pretended conspiracy of the lepers to poison the fountains and subvert Christianity: and to have sketched the persecutions of the Jews and of the Albigenses, and the still more extraordinary persecution of the mendicant Franciscans, for offending the pope, by denying that their meat was their own at the moment when they were putting it into their mouths. But these, and innumerable other interesting facts, which M. Dulaure and M. de Sismondi have recorded, we must content ourselves with exhorting the reader to gather from those authors themselves. Both works are as delightful in style, as they are important in matter. The manner of M. Dulaure is characterized by extreme neatness and exquisite simplicity, and carries the reader along with it, by its deep earnestness, and high tone of moral feeling. To one who is daily sickened by the repulsive tone of heartless levity, and recklessness about good and evil, which is one of the besetting sins of our own literature in the present day, this quality of M. Dulaure’s work renders it peculiarly attractive.^* M. de Sismondi’s style is more diffuse, but almost always sprightly, and frequently eloquent. His eloquence, however, flows naturally from him; neither he nor M. Dulaure is infected by that rage for fine writing, which is the bane of all real eloquence; they never declaim, never hunt after common-place metaphors, but speak the plain and unaffected language of men who wish that the reader should think of their ideas more than of themselves.

There is little appearance in M. Dulaure’s work of a generalizing, that is, of a philosophical, mind: he states the facts as he finds them, praises and censures where he sees reason, but does not look out for causes and effects, or parallel instances, nor applies the general principles of human nature to the state of society he is describing, to show from what circumstances it became what it was. It is true he does not profess to be a historian, but only to sketch a tableau moral M. de Sismondi aims much more at generalization; and the reflections with which he frequently commences his chapters, exhibit far more of the genuine philosophy of history, than is to be found in any other work on the middle ages (those of Professor Millar excepted)^[*] with which we are acquainted.

The badness of those ages will now be thoroughly understood by a large class of readers in France. In this country, we cannot hope that it will be comprehended as yet. There is no popular book on the middle ages in our language; nor any book in which the truth is plainly and fully told concerning chivalry and its times. Millar’s Historical View of the English Government, though admirable as far as it goes, is rather a history of institutions, than of morals and manners, and when it does touch upon the latter, is not detailed enough to give any thing like a vivid conception of the times. The design of the work, moreover, is confined to our own country. Yet he is almost the only writer we have, who has made the middle ages a subject of philosophical investigation. There is, indeed, Mr. Hallam; but we should be much surprised if the nation which has produced a Millar, could admire or read the History and Government of Europe during the Middle Ages. This work appears to us equally faulty in the design and in the execution. In the first place, the design is fundamentally bad. The work is neither a history of Europe, nor a history of European civilization. Considered as a history of Europe, it is the most meagre of abstracts. Conceive an attempt to write “the history of France from its conquest by Clovis to the invasion of Naples by Charles VIII,” in one chapter of ninety-nine quarto pages! It is evident that nothing worth relating of the history of France could be included in that compass: it is not a historical sketch, but a chronological table, or the table of contents to a historical work; and it is long since we remember to have read ninety-nine duller pages. If, on the other hand, the work was intended to be a history, not of Europe, but of its civilization, why encumber it with several hundred pages of tiresome and useless narrative? Even in the dissertations, which compose the remainder of the work, we cannot help seeing much more of pretension than of real merit. Mr. Hallam is not wanting in liberality; his leanings are in general towards the side of the many; his incidental remarks are frequently pointed in expression, and occasionally soar somewhat above the level of common-place. But he has neither discernment enough to see through any reigning error, nor philosophy enough to trace the causes and consequences of the things which he describes; but deals out little criticisms and little reflections, and little scraps of antiquarian lore, which neither throw any light upon the condition of mankind in the middle ages, nor contribute either to support or illustrate any important principle: in fine, he has succeeded in rendering a sketch of one of the most remarkable states of society ever known, at once uninstructive and tiresome. The best part of his work is that which relates to our own country. In this part he must be allowed the merit of having resorted to the original authorities, and established several interesting points of constitutional history. But considering him as a historian of the middle ages, we are compelled to pronounce his work an utter failure. Its want of merit is rendered still more striking, when compared with the merit of other writers. To appreciate Mr. Hallam, it is not even necessary to have read Millar; it is sufficient to have read Sismondi.

SCOTT’S LIFE OF NAPOLEON

1828

EDITOR’S NOTE

Westminster Review, IX (Apr., 1828), 251-313. Headed: “Art. I.—The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, Emperor of the French. With a Preliminary View of the French Revolution. By the Author of ‘Waverley,’ &c. [Walter Scott.] In Nine Volumes. Edinburgh [: Cadell; London. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green], 1827.” Running titles: “French Revolution— / Scott’s Life of Napoleon.” Unsigned. Pamphlet offprint, with title page reading: “A / Critical Examination / of the / Preliminary View / of the / French Revolution, / prefixed to / Sir Walter Scott’s Life of Bonaparte. / With Observations on the Work Itself. / From the Westminster Review, No. XVIII.” Printed London. Hansard, 1828. Headed: “Critical Examination, &c. &c. &c.” Paginated 1-63; no running titles. Unsigned. Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A review of Sir Walter Scott’s Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, in the 18th number of the Westminster Review” (MacMinn, 10). The copies of the offprint in Mill’s library, Somerville College, have no corrections or emendations.

For comment on the essay, see xliii-xlvi and xcv-xcvi above.

Scott’s Life of Napoleon

sir walter scott cannot write any thing which, as a literary composition, will not be read with pleasure; and if it were possible to consider the work before us merely as a well-told story, we are not sure that it is inferior even to the most perfect of his former productions. Few books, indeed, have ever afforded so much for minute criticism to fasten upon; and that description of critics with whom the substitution of one connecting particle where another would have been more appropriate is a crime for which all the higher excellencies of composition cannot atone, have made so great a noise concerning its small blemishes, that comparatively little has been heard of its uncommon merits.^[*] But the extreme of carelessness in the minutiae of style, a fault always more endurable than the opposite one of a too studious and visible attention to them, is pardonable, and almost allowable, in a writer who has merits of so much higher a rank than mere correctness. In Sir Walter Scott, no faults are worth noting except those which impair the effect of beauties. The author who could conceive and execute the admirable narrative of Napoleon’s first Italian expedition, in the third volume,^[†] could afford to be inelegant, to be even ungrammatical, in every page. His occasional repetitions, and the intermixture of many inappropriate, among many felicitous, similies, will be forgiven by those who know how few writers are capable of unfolding a complicated and intricate train of events so that it shall appear simple and intelligible, and of maintaining, throughout a voluminous work, so lively, rapid, and spirited a style, that the interest never flags, the attention never is wearied; in which qualities this work pre-eminently excels.

But these excellencies do not suffice to constitute a history. From that which is offered to the public as a record of real events, something more is required than that it should be sprightly and entertaining. The Life of Napoleon would be admirable as a romance: to have made it any thing higher, would have required far other endowments than had been displayed even in the most finished performances of the Author of Waverley.^[‡]

If it be any part of the duty of an historian to turn the facts of history to any use; and if a fact can be of use only by being made subservient either to the confirmation or illustration of a principle; the historian who is fit for his office must be well disciplined in the art of connecting facts into principles, and applying principles to the explanation of facts: he must be a man familiar with generalization and general views; a man whose knowledge is systematic, whose mind can embrace classes as well as individuals, who can discriminate between the results of narrow and partial observation, and those of enlarged experience; in short, a philosopher. Further, if it be ever the duty of an historian to elicit real facts, from vague, scanty, or conflicting, testimony, it is necessary that he should be profoundly skilled in the difficult art of weighing evidence: he must be capable of combining together a chain of circumstances, each of which proves nothing by itself, but every thing when skilfully combined; he must be practised in striking the balance between opposing testimonies, or between testimony on the one side and probability on the other; he must be, to sum up this also in one word, a consummate judge. Sir Walter Scott’s title to these high qualifications still remained to be established. It is in the present volumes that we must look for the proof of it, if proof is to be found.

Of the degree in which he possessed those more common qualities, which suffice for giving a correct statement of ordinary events—the qualities of industry, candour, and impartiality—the public had some means of judging from his previous performances. And first, with respect to industry; while his earlier writings had proved how much he is capable of, his later ones had afforded no less conclusive evidence, that any degree of pains employed upon his productions, more than was necessary to their sale, was, in his estimation, superfluous. Applying himself in this frame of mind to the composition of an historical work, it was not very likely that he should have recourse to any other than the vulgar authorities, nor, consequently, that he should take any other than the vulgar view of the events which he relates. And the celerity with which he projected and completed a work which, to execute it tolerably, would have required many years reading, was a satisfactory proof, if there were no other, that, on this point at least, the presumption had not been fallacious.

With respect to his candour: if the studied forbearance towards political adversaries which distinguishes his writings, had flowed from a genuine, passionate, and overpowering love of truth, there would have been room for highly favourable anticipations indeed. But the prevailing tone of his works in every other respect, forbids us to ascribe to any such cause his specious semblance of impartiality. There is sufficient evidence in Sir Walter Scott’s writings, that he is a person of a mild and tolerant disposition, constitutionally exempt from acrimony of all kinds, with a decided bias towards aristocratic persons and aristocratic opinions, but not attaching so much importance to the difference between one opinion and another, as to feel, even towards persons of the most opposite principles, much positive dislike. This original liberality, and almost indifference, in matters of opinion, enabled him to fall easily into a practice which he appears to have prescribed to himself from an early period—that of adopting such a mode of writing as should be best calculated to win the good word and good opinion of every body. For this purpose he has laboured, with a skill and success surpassing all previous example; and since to please all is to please persons of all political opinions, the precise degree of compromise conducive to this end, was very accurately calculated, and studiously employed. All the substantial advantage in point of opinion must, indeed, be given to the aristocracy, because they, being accustomed to entire subservience, can ill bear any thing which falls far short of it; while, on the other hand, even democrats and democratic principles must be treated with a certain appearance of respect, because, the object being to please every body, it will not do to make intemperate and offensive attacks either upon men or opinions in which any considerable section of the reading public take an interest. But the democrats, being accustomed to pure abuse, are tolerably well satisfied when they meet with a writer in whom the abuse is a little qualified; and their favour is sufficiently attained by keeping somewhat to the liberal side of high Tory opinions, and allowing a fair share of the common feelings and intellect of men, to persons who, by Tory writers in general, are considered as destitute of them, being addicted to the notion that the House of Commons should represent the people, and similar heterodoxies. By this mark, accordingly, Sir Walter Scott has guided himself; and has taken pains to be, on all occasions, a little more just towards the friends of the people than is usual with their enemies. His Old Mortality is a miserable travestie of the Scottish Covenanters, compared with Laing’s History, or Mr. Galt’s Ringan Gilhaize;^[*] and so is his View of the French Revolution, compared with Mignet or Bailleul.^[†] But a bigotted Tory can scarcely read either work without some mitigation of his prejudices. Sir Walter Scott is not the man from whom it could be expected that he should be an unbiassed judge between the aristocracy and the people; but considering him as the advocate of the aristocracy against the people, he is not altogether an illiberal or disingenuous one.

The work may be appropriately divided into two parts; the History of the French Revolution, and that of the Reign of Napoleon Bonaparte. This is somewhat more than a merely chronological division. The two subjects are as unlike as those of the Iliad and of the Odyssey; though, like these, they form a portion of the same series of events, and concern in part the same persons. The former period seems to contain nothing but what is extraordinary; the latter, hardly any thing but what is common-place. The reign of Napoleon affords little or nothing to the historian, except ordinary characters and ordinary events. The career which he ran, had been trodden times out of number by successful adventurers; there have never been wanting just such men as he, when such prizes have been attainable by them: the most obvious causes suffice to account for every event in his history: to comprehend it thoroughly, there needed no extraordinary depth of philosophy; the lowest impulses of the lowest description of human beings are the moving principle of the whole, and few men know and understand less of these than they ought. Where one man is the sole disposer of events, history is easily written: it is only to study the character of that one man: if this be vulgar, all is vulgar; if it be peculiar, he who has seized its peculiarities has the key to all which may appear remarkable in the events of the period. The lines of Napoleon’s character are few, and strongly marked: to trace them correctly, far inferior powers to those of Sir Walter Scott would have been sufficient. And if his story be inaccurate, as we have no doubt that it is, in many of the details, those details are of such sovereign unimportance for any purpose of utility or instruction, that we, for our share, should have little objection, provided they be amusing, to dispense altogether with their being true.

To write the history of the French Revolution was a task requiring far other powers, involving far other difficulties. To say that, on no occasion, did surprising events succeed one another with such breathless rapidity, that never were effects so extraordinary produced by such a complication of causes, nor in so short a space of time, would be to form a very inadequate idea of the peculiarities of that momentous period, considered as a theme for history. It was marked by a characteristic still more embarrassing to such men as those by whom history is commonly written. The moving forces in this vast convulsion, the springs by which so much complex machinery was now set in motion, now stopt, now swept away, were of a class for the laws of whose action the dictionary of historical common-places does not yet afford one established formula—a class which the routine-historian has not yet been taught by familiarity to fancy that he understands. Heretofore, when a change of government had been effected by force in an extensive and populous country, the revolution had been made always by, and commonly for, a few: the French Revolution was emphatically the work of the people. Commenced by the people, carried on by the people, defended by the people with a heroism and self-devotion unexampled in any other period of modern history, at length terminated by the people when they awoke from the frenzy into which the dogged resistance of the privileged classes against the introduction of any form whatever of representative government, had driven them; the French Revolution will never be more than superficially understood, by the man who is but superficially acquainted with the nature and movements of popular enthusiasm. That mighty power, of which, but for the French Revolution, mankind perhaps would never have known the surpassing strength—that force which converts a whole people into heroes, which binds an entire nation together as one man, was able, not merely to overpower all other forces, but to draw them into its own line, and convert them into auxiliaries to itself. The vulgar politician finds to his confusion (if indeed it is in the power of any vulgar politician to make the discovery), that all the causes which he is in the habit of calling in upon other occasions to account for every thing in history which perplexes him, are powerless here; that party interests, and class interests, and personal interests, and individual depravity, and individual virtue, and even the highest endowments of individual intellect and genius, appear to influence the train of events only when they fall in with it, and add force to the current, which, as often as they are thrown into opposition with it, they are found inadequate to withstand. The rules by which such a period is to be judged of, must not be common rules: generalizations drawn from the events of ordinary times, fail here of affording even that specious appearance of explanation, which is the utmost that such empirical philosophy can ever accomplish. The man who is yet to come, the philosophical historian of the French Revolution, will leave these solemn plausibilities far behind, and will draw his philosophy from the primaeval fountain of human nature itself. Whatever else he may derive from what are called the records of past times, a lesson which he will not learn from them is, what is meant by a people; or from what causes, and in obedience to what laws, the thing, which that name expresses, is accustomed to act, on those rare occasions on which the opportunity of acting is allowed to it, and it is quite possible to be a tolerable poet, and much more than a tolerable novelist, without being able to rise to the comprehension of that one idea, or to know more of those laws and those principles than a child in the cradle.

We have stated but a part of the inherent difficulties of the subject. That the very facts of the French Revolution, from the multitude of conflicting testimonies, are incapable of being elicited but by one who possesses all the endowments of the most sagacious and practised judge, is still but a part, perhaps not the greatest part, of those difficulties. Suppose the facts ascertained—to interpret and account for them would demand, along with the most minute knowledge of the circumstances of France and of the French people for centuries back, a mind profoundly conversant with human nature under all the modifications superinduced by acting upon the extensive theatre of a whole nation; and the deepest insight into the springs of human society, into the causes by the perpetual and often unseen agency of which, a nation is made to be what it is, in respect to civilization, morals, modes of thinking, physical condition, and social relations. Nor is this all. To judge of the French Revolution, is to judge statesmen, and the acts of statesmen, in novel and critical situations. It is to form an estimate of great changes in the government and institutions of a country; of new laws established, of old ones overthrown, and of the manner in which the helm of government was conducted through a course beset with perils and difficulties more trying, perhaps, than were ever before experienced by a great and powerful nation. It is not too much to expect, that the writer, whose judgment is to guide that of his readers in such high concerns, shall himself know as much as philosophy and experience can teach, of the science of government and legislation: that he shall be well skilled both in the theory and in the practice of politics; shall know at the same time what is best in itself, and how to make allowance for the obstacles and counteracting forces, which often render what is not best in itself, necessary either as a precaution or as a compromise.

To this rare combination of qualities, Sir Walter Scott has no claim. In political and social philosophy his principles are all summed up in the orthodox one, that whatever is English is best; best, not for England only, but for every country in Christendom, or probably the world. By starting from this point it must be acknowledged that much trouble is saved, and not a little of what is apt to be thought the duty of a historian, very comfortably abridged. To a mind properly imbued with this axiom, to sit in judgment upon the statesmen or institutions of other countries is an easy task. To inquire patiently into the suitableness of a system of government to the nature of man in general, or to the circumstances of any nation in particular; to examine how far it did or did not provide for the exigencies of that nation; to take account of the degree in which its framers might expect that causes peculiar to that nation would promote, modify, or impede, its action; and, if it be pronounced bad, to consider what means they had by whom it was adopted, of establishing any thing better; all this, to a person of such enlarged views, is unnecessary labour. Sir Walter Scott settles all these questions in a moment, by a summary appeal to that ever-ready standard of comparison, English practice. Whatever he finds here established, or whatever bears the same name with any thing which is here established, is excellent, and if the statesmen of France, unfortunately for themselves, not judging of things by the same comprehensive rule, formed a different opinion, the folly thus evinced accounts for all the subsequent misfortunes of their country. Should an institution happen not to be English, it is condemned: and here something more of thought is required in making out a case against it, though not much; for nobody is ignorant how ridiculously easy it is to find inconveniences and dangers on one side of every political question, sufficient to decide it, if we only take care to keep our eyes well shut to the inconveniences and dangers on the other. Although, too, no other reasons for condemnation should be discoverable, there is one argument against all systems that are not English, which can never be wanting; they are untried theories: no free institutions except ours, according to our author, having ever had the sanction of experience; for it never occurs to him that the principle of an institution may have been tried successfully any number of times, although the exact model may be to be found nowhere.

While Sir Walter Scott’s acquirements are of this mean description, in the science of politics, and the philosophy of the social union, he is almost equally deficient in that acquaintance with facts, without which the most philosophical statesman is no better qualified to judge what is fittest for a nation, than the most profound physician to prescribe what is fittest for a patient whom he has not seen. There is no proof, in this work of Sir Walter Scott, that he has taken the trouble to make himself well acquainted with the state of France at the time when the Revolution broke out; with the physical condition and mental peculiarities of the people, the habitual feelings and modes of thinking of the different classes of society, and the working of the great machine of government in the detail. Not only is there no proof that he has made himself well acquainted with these circumstances, but there is conclusive proof that he has not made himself acquainted with them at all; that he has scarcely so much as adverted to them as being among the things which it is necessary for a historian of the Revolution to know; and has therefore committed all the mistakes that are incident to a historian who is thoroughly unacquainted with the spirit of the times which he is describing. His complete ignorance of the position in which individuals and parties were placed, leads him regularly to ascribe their actions to other than the true causes. He blames men who did the best they could, for not doing better; treats men who had only a choice of inconveniences, as if they were the masters of events, and could regulate them as they pleased; reproaches men who were beset by dangers on both sides, because they did not, to avoid the dangers on one side, precipitate themselves into those on the other; goes to search for discreditable motives at an immense distance, when the most creditable ones were obviously afforded by the state of affairs; and judges of the conduct of men in the crisis of a revolution, by the same standard which he would have applied to persons securely in possession of the governing power in peaceable times.

Such and no higher being the qualifications which Sir Walter Scott brings to the task of making an estimate, moral and philosophical, of the French Revolution; the reader may judge what is the value of his opinions on the subject, and how well the conception which his book conveys of the Revolution resembles its real character. The work has, in addition to these, all the defects of a book hastily written: it is utterly without research. The author has been satisfied with resorting to the most hackneyed and obvious authorities: he has read perhaps one or two of the professed histories of the period; some of the more popular of the memoirs he has consulted, but we find it difficult to believe that he has read them: he has left but few references at the bottom of the page to betray to the public in general the superficiality of his reading, but, that some even of these few are made from memory, is demonstrated by his referring, for proof of an assertion, to the very passage which proves the assertion to be false.^* The documents which breathe the living spirit of the time, the only monuments of really cotemporary history, (which is the most different thing imaginable from history written by cotemporaries, after they have undergone a thousand changes of opinion and feeling, and when the genuine impression of the present events has faded from their recollection) are the decrees of the national assemblies, the speeches of their members, the papers laid before them, and the immensely numerous books, pamphlets, and periodicals, of the day. These genuine authorities, as neither fame nor profit was to be got by consulting them, our author had not thought it necessary to consult. We doubt whether he has given, to more than two or three of them, even the most cursory perusal.

It may be thought surprising, that a book should be offered to the public, by so distinguished a writer, as the history of so recent and so universally interesting a period, in which so little pains have been taken to ensure that which, all other qualities being put out of the question, is at any rate a sine quâ non of history, namely, truth. But our author enjoyed two advantages, either of which would have made it safe for him to deviate from the truth even more widely than he has: he wrote for readers thoroughly ignorant of the subject, and for readers the whole of whose prepossessions were more or less strongly on his side. For being ignorant of the subject, some of his readers have the excuse, that to this very hour there does not exist one tolerable account of this remarkable portion of history, in the English tongue. But the number of Englishmen to whom works written in the French language are accessible, is now so great, that the marvellous extent of their ignorance respecting the French Revolution, must be regarded as a proof, that this reading nation chuses to read dissertations on Aeolic Digammas, or Iron Masks,^[*] or any other matter of frivolous and idle curiosity, sooner than any thing which will furnish them with evidence upon matters on which their minds have been made up without it. For ignorance has not here had the effect which conscious ignorance in a well-regulated mind ought to have, that of preventing them from forming any opinion. Acted upon as their ignorance has been, from day to day and from year to year, by the torrents of unmeasured and undiscriminating invective which have been poured forth against the Revolution, by men who knew nearly as little about it as the public themselves, but who knew perfectly what mode of treating the subject would be acceptable to those on whom the reputation and the sale of their lucubrations depended; a feeling has been generated, which predisposes men to credit upon any evidence or no evidence, any assertion with respect to the French Revolution or revolutionists, provided only it be sufficiently unfavourable: and he who would seek to refute even the most extravagant of these assertions, finds it difficult to obtain a hearing, and scarcely possible to persuade.

It cannot, however, be deemed of small importance to the best interests of mankind, that the opinions which they form on such a subject as the French Revolution, should be correct opinions. So long as all who hold the lot of mankind to be capable of any material improvement, or conceive that any good can be accomplished by taking the powers of government out of the hands of those who are interested in abusing them, are deemed to be sufficiently answered by pointing to the calamitous issue of that great experiment; so long it will be a duty not to suffer that its history should be rendered the fitter to form the groundwork of these decisive conclusions, by being falsified and garbled. It is not in such an article as the present, that we can pretend to sketch the true history or trace the character of the French Revolution. But we can at least shew that Sir Walter Scott is not to be trusted; which we the more willingly do, as, in refuting his misrepresentations, we are exposing à fortiori those of the crowd of hirelings, who with inferior abilities, but with the same purposes, daily essay to fling each his minute and separate portion of dirt upon some of the noblest deeds and brightest characters in history. Such men are not important enough for any other chastisement than they may indirectly suffer, from the blow aimed at a more formidable enemy, and we shall mention them no further in this notice.

The work opens with a sketch of the state of France before the Revolution, and a view of the remote causes of that catastrophe. The whole of this is comprehended in two chapters, which consist of seventy-nine pages: a shorter space, therefore, than is frequently taken up by the dull introductions of our author’s novels, is all that he allows for what ought to be the quintessence of the internal history of France during more than a century. To have executed this portion of his task well, would of itself have required more reading and research than he has given to the entire work. It is almost unnecessary to say, therefore, that he has performed it ill, and has not only failed to communicate full and accurate knowledge, but has betrayed the lamentable extent of his own ignorance. This is the more to be regretted, as he has stated the little which he knows, with considerable force, and very tolerable fairness. The influence of such an aristocracy as that of France upon the national literature, is powerfully delineated; the character of the noblesse and clergy, during the fifty years preceding the Revolution, is traced with an indulgent, but with no feeble hand: and the exclusion of the tiers-état, that is, of almost the whole of the talent, and much the greater part of the opulence, of France, from all employment or influence in the affairs of the state, is deservedly reprobated. Our author, however, shares the vulgar error, which considers this monopoly of office as the principal, and almost the sole, cause of the Revolution: at least we may gather as much from the fulness with which he developes and expatiates upon it, while all the other causes are lumped together in a short and passing notice. This is by no means a trifling error; on the contrary, few can be named, which have contributed more to prevent the Revolution from being understood, or to lend an apparent sanction to the conclusions which aristocratic logic has drawn from it for aristocratic purposes. We dwell not upon the gross injustice towards the eminent men who originally took the lead in the Revolution, and whom this theory represents as ambitious spirits, struggling for no higher object than the removal of their personal disabilities, instead of patriots striving to free their country from a yoke which weighed it down to the earth. We shall not insist upon this, characteristic though it be—for thus it is that our author always contrives to disguise or throw into the shade whatever is exalted in purpose or generous in sentiment, in those whose principles he disapproves, while he gives credit to the royalists for the most chivalrous disinterestedness and honour, not only without evidence, but in direct contradiction to the testimony of the better members of their own body. But (to say no more upon this point) mark the implied imputation upon the French people, which this theory of the Revolution conveys. If the excesses of the Revolution had no greater provocation than our author tells us of, what must not we think of them? Slur over the fact that every man’s liberty was at the mercy of every minister or clerk of a minister, or lacquey of a minister, or mistress of a lacquey of a minister—that every man’s property was at the mercy of intendants and subdélégués, and the whole fry of agents and sub-agents in one of the most odious systems of fiscal tyranny ever known; sink all this, and a hundred things besides, and fix upon non-admissibility to office as the great practical grievance of the tiers-état, and what is the inference? For our author certainly will not succeed in persuading anybody, that it was the ineligibility of the merchants and avocats of Paris and Bordeaux to public offices, and of their sons to promotion in the army, which caused the peasants of several of the provinces of France to rise in arms and burn the houses of their seigneurs:^[*] the provocations, therefore, which are assigned, being obviously insufficient, and the real ones having been carelessly overlooked or purposely passed over, the only explanation which seems to offer itself is the perversity of the people: of whose supposed readiness at all times, unless kept down by terror, to rise against their superiors and make war upon person and property, another example is thus manufactured.

Sir Walter Scott may be well assured that the grievances which could excite in the peasantry feelings of such bitter hatred towards the privileged classes, were grievances which affected themselves, and not other people. The Roman tribune understood the nature of the people much better, when he reproached them with being abundantly eager and zealous when their efforts were required to prevent the usurpation of their lands, or protect their persons from the rapacity and cruelty of their creditors, but deaf to the call of their leaders when there was nothing to contend for except the privilege of rewarding those leaders with offices and honours.^[*] The feelings of the people are not wont to be excited by an abstract principle. It is not a distant or a contingent evil which works upon them. The tyranny which excites them to resistance must be felt, not conceived; they must discover it by their sensations, not by their reason. The abuses which they resent, are those which bear upon their direct interests; which “come home to their business and bosoms.”^[†] Never yet did a people hate their superiors, but for some real or imagined wrong; never were they stimulated to such outrages as those which signalized the breaking out of the French Revolution, except by the intolerable pressure of active, grinding oppression. And in no country, pretending to civilization, had the peasantry been so borne down by oppression as in France. “Les jeunes gens et les étrangers,” says Madame de Staël.

Our author himself observes, that in La Vendée alone had the privileged classes done their duty towards the cultivators of the soil, and that in La Vendée alone was any stand made by those cultivators in their defence.^[‡] This observation is an approach to the true theory of the causes of the Revolution, and is conceived in a spirit of which it were to be wished that there were more frequent examples in these volumes. Indications of such a spirit are indeed not rare in his occasional remarks; in which respect he resembles many other writers, who have falsified history in the gross, as thoroughly as himself. He is far too acute not to see a part of the truth; far too slightly acquainted with the monuments of the times, to have the faintest or most distant perception of it as a whole. We may perhaps take some future opportunity of making known to our readers, what substantial reasons the peasants had for detesting both the government and their seigneurs. In the meantime, we shall do no more than refer them to a book which is in every man’s hands. If, in place of his first two chapters, Sir Walter Scott had merely reprinted the concluding dissertation in the first volume of Arthur Young’s excellent work on France,^[*] he would have done more to convey a just idea of the causes of the French Revolution than will be done by twenty such productions as his “Preliminary View.” We believe, that most men who have read that dissertation, will exclaim with its author, who had himself seen and heard all he describes—that no man of common sense and feeling can lament the fall of such a government, or look with any but a mitigated severity upon the terrible retribution which an oppressed people exacted from their tyrants the moment they were free.

Among the causes which most powerfully promoted, or at least directed, the tendency to change, our author justly assigns a high rank to the increased influence of literature. And here we may be sure that the opportunity is eagerly seized, of recommending himself to our moral public, by an invective against the French philosophers, as they are termed; principally upon the two points of licentiousness and irreligion. In the course of this diatribe, our author manifests no very accurate knowledge of the writings or lives of these objects of his somewhat undiscriminating dislike. As for fairness, it would be too much to expect it from such a writer on such a subject; and accordingly we are not surprised to find the immense benefits which the philosophers conferred upon their country and mankind, altogether overlooked, while whatever either is, or can be made to appear, objectionable in them or in their works, is grossly exaggerated. Thus, they are gravely stated to have been engaged in a sort of “anti-crusade,” not only against Christianity, but against “religious principles of every kind;”^[†] a description which, if applicable at all, can apply only to one or two of them, and those neither the ablest nor the most influential, perhaps to one only, and him not a Frenchman, the Baron d’Holbach; while on the other hand, how large a portion of the writings of Rousseau, and especially of Voltaire, is taken up in maintaining and enforcing the being and attributes of God, is known to every one who has read them. The ancient fiction of a “league,” a “conspiracy,”^[‡] is revived; when it is notorious, that the supposed heads of this conspiracy, Voltaire and Rousseau, were at open war with each other, that Condorcet, in like manner, did not disguise his contempt for Mably,^[§] that Turgot wrote against Helvétius,^[¶] while equal dissensions and differences of opinion existed among the less distingished thinkers and writers of the class; and that nothing like an organized system of concert or co-operation ever existed among any portion of their number. Our author can know little of French literary history, or he would not talk of the close union and alliance which existed among the philosophers, “and more especially the Encyclopedists”^[*] —we presume, between Diderot and d’Alembert—for of these two individuals only was this formidable corps, whose name has so long resounded from every corner of Europe, composed; they having written (with scarcely any exception but that of a small number of articles by Voltaire) the whole of the moral, theological, and metaphysical part of the Encyclopédie;^[†] and it is worthy of remark, that of this pair of conspirators against religion, d’Alembert never published a single line against it. With respect to licentiousness, our author forgets that what was the vice of their age and of the society in which they moved, cannot with justice be laid at their door; it was not they who made French society what it was; on the contrary, it was through the influence principally of their writings, that it ever became any thing else. It is high time that Sir Walter Scott should be told, if he has not yet found it out, that licentiousness was a quality with which what are termed the philosophers were not more, but, on the contrary, less chargeable, than most writers of their day; that none of the authors peculiarly remarkable for it were to be found in their ranks, while several of those most distinguished by it (among whom it is sufficient to name Piron) were no less characterized by a bitter hostility against the persons and principles of the philosophers: that the virtues most opposite to licentiousness, found in Rousseau, if not always a consistent, at least an enthusiastic, advocate, and that many of the most distinguished among the philosophical writers, as Condillac, Condorcet, and above all, Turgot, were pure on this point, some of them to a degree of scrupulosity. However, it must be admitted, that several of the writers whom our author mentions, have produced works in some degree deserving the character which he assigns to them. Most certainly we do not quarrel with him for expressing his disapprobation of these writings: he should remember, however, that there ought to be bounds even to the most merited censure, and that there is still an immense distance between any licentiousness of which they can be accused, and that libertinism, which he justly characterizes as inconsistent with manly and virtuous patriotism. Because the ideas prevalent in a country allow a certain latitude of speaking, or even of acting, with respect to the branch of morality here concerned, it does not follow that all who in any degree avail themselves of this licence must therefore make the pursuit of sensual gratifications the business of their lives. Such an occupation, like the inordinate pursuit of every other merely individual enjoyment, is incapable of co-existing with any nobler aspirations, and if it does not begin, is sure to terminate, in utter selfishness; but it is false that voluptuousness, in this sense of the word, was, or is, more prevalent in France than in any other nation; and most especially is it false that any portion of the philosophers, either in their own lives, or in the doctrines and principles they inculcated, are chargeable with it.^*

Our author does not, like others of the alarmists, represent the philosophers, with the “licence and infidelity”^[*] which they promoted, as the sole causes of, and movers in, the Revolution. He owns that a great political change would have been needed, and would have taken place,

• —disturb the peace of all the world
• To rule it when ’twas wildest.^*

Now, inasmuch as the most moral and religious people that ever existed, the English of the reign of Charles I, carried their “changes and alterations” so far as to abolish monarchy and cut off the king’s head, we see that our author’s ideas of avoiding “extremes” and redressing “obvious and practical errors,” are of a tolerably radical extent.

It well becomes him to rail at theorists, who can overlook such a fact because it interferes with his theory. But it is ever thus with those who style themselves par excellence the men of practice and experience.

Our author takes a juster view of the causes which produced the errors of the Revolution, in the following acute and original remarks on the state of infancy in which the public mind had been kept by the restraints on the press.

This is well thought, and well expressed; and the illustration which concludes the first paragraph, has a merit which our author’s figurative illustrations do not always possess; it really illustrates.

The reign of Louis XVI previous to the Revolution, is sketched in our author’s usual lively manner; the character of that well-meaning, but weak and vacillating prince, is justly estimated, and the series of blunders by which the court not only precipitated the crisis, but threw away the chances of giving it a direction favourable to themselves, are tolerably exposed.^[*] But what our author sees and condemns in these proceedings is their weakness only, not their wickedness. The frantic struggles of enraged despotism to put down by force that rising spirit of liberty, which it already hated and feared with as much intensity as now after twenty years of exile—these are to be mildly censured, not for the atrocity of the end, but for the inefficacy of the means, and because the conspirators, being as imbecile as they were base, had the awkwardness to endanger their precious persons and privileges by the consequences of failure. A government, beggared by its profligate expenditure, exhausts every illegal resource, and tries all that can be done by the most desperate and tyrannical expedients to extort money from the people without giving them in return those constitutional reforms to which they were entitled; and this conduct appears to our author highly blameable, because it was bad policy, and rendered the crown “odious and contemptible.”^[†] A government does its utmost to tread out the few sparks which centuries had not extinguished of freedom and constitutional control—it does this not so much as a year before the assembly is convened, which is destined to give to France a representative constitution; and this our author condemns—why? Because it excites “national discontent!”^[‡] So liberal and indulgent is Sir Walter Scott towards the royalists: but his liberality and indulgence stop there. When every violence which tyranny prompted and fear would permit, has been tried in vain, this government at length has recourse to the people, and condescends to ask for what it has at last found that it no longer has power to seize: the National Assembly meets, and by means of a temporary popular enthusiasm, wrings from the government ten times as many of its unjust privileges, as the parliaments had ever dreamed of questioning; it adds, by its reforms, the parliaments themselves, and the whole of the privileged classes, to the number of its enemies;—and now, if the Assembly is not so silly as to suppose that the power of misrule has been resigned willingly, if it harbours even a suspicion that the fate of the parliaments is in reserve for it, or takes the commonest precaution to secure itself against the hostility of the court, and of the numerous and powerful classes whom it has offended,—not only its conduct is disapproved of, but its motives are misconstrued, and its whole system of action tortured and perverted. “Et voilà justement comme on écrit l’histoire.”^*

There is something amusing in the naïveté with which our author lays it down, that the elections ought to have been tampered with, to obtain returns favourable to the court; evidently without the slightest suspicion that a course so perfectly according to the English model, can deserve or incur the disapprobation of any body. He says, with equal gravity, that the public mind ought to have been preoccupied with arguments of a sound and virtuous tendency. This is extremely fine; but by whom preoccupied? By the court and aristocracy of France? “Sound and virtuous”^[*] arguments from such a quarter would indeed have been something new. By Necker? Does our author suppose that he could have retained his office for an hour, if he had attempted to promulgate among the people, either in his ministerial or in his private capacity, ideas of rational freedom? Necker shewed himself, on more than one occasion during the Revolution, unequal to the great difficulties of his very trying situation; but a writer who can so little appreciate those difficulties is scarcely entitled to sit in judgment on him, and affect to point out by what means he might have been more successful.

There was a reason, more than Sir Walter Scott dreams of, for doing nothing to gain over the tiers-état to the court. Nobody doubted that they would be on the side of the court, without prompting. It was not from the commons, but from the privileged orders, that all resistance to the will of the monarch had previously come; it was they who, when called upon for the sacrifice of their pecuniary immunities, had demanded the convocation of the Etats Généraux to sustain them in their refusal. The commons, it was well known, were, and with good reason, inveterately hostile to the privileged orders, but they neither were, nor did any one suppose them to be, disaffected to the king; on the contrary, the privileged classes openly proclaimed that the tiers-état would be, as it had ever been, in favour of the king, and against liberty, that is, against aristocratical ascendancy. Accordingly the court party took no trouble to gain the tiers-état, while, on the contrary, every man and even every woman about the palace was assiduously engaged in paying court to the deputies of the noblesse, from whom alone any resistance was apprehended; and succeeded in gaining those who had taken the lead in the previous resistance, d’Epréménil and d’Antraigues.^*

That chivalrous loyalty, therefore, which Sir Walter Scott admires in the noblesse, only commenced when they discovered that other persons than themselves were about to gain the ascendancy in the Etats Généraux, and that the engine which they had constructed in hopes to wield it against the royal authority, was wrested from them and turned against themselves, by that people whom they had scorned. Then, they were extremely willing to make a parade of their loyalty; as some of them who had never before mentioned the name of God but in mockery, became patterns of devotion from the moment when they had hopes that the yell of fanaticism might serve them to incite the country-people against the Assembly.^* Then they were ready to die for that king, whom many of them had ridiculed and lampooned; that queen, whose character they had been the first to vilify;^† and that despotism, against which, for their own purposes, they had struck the first blow.^‡ Yet, amid all this pretence, still true to their character, they thought merely of their own privileges, and not for one instant of his safety whom they professed to serve. The majority fled to the courts of other despots, there to stir up foreign enemies, to make war upon their country in the name of their king: that king being all the time, as they studiously gave out, a captive in the hands of the very men whom they thus irritated to frenzy. Those who remained proclaimed everywhere the king’s insincerity, made his name a pretext for all their liberticide intrigues, and leagued themselves with the worst of the Jacobins to promote every measure which they thought calculated to raise the disorder to its height, in order to ruin those whom they hated bitterest of all, the partisans of an orderly and well-regulated liberty.^*

We have now arrived at the opening of the Revolution itself; and from this point we can no longer give to our author’s attempt at history, even that qualified praise which we have bestowed upon the introductory chapters. From this point it conveys none but false impressions: it is a story skilfully, and even artfully constructed for a purpose. We have no intention of imputing insincerity to Sir Walter Scott. Though he obviously attempts throughout to impress the reader with a certain view of the facts, he probably is himself persuaded that this view is the true one. But that important branch of the talent of the narrator, which Sir Walter Scott in his character of a romancer pre-eminently possesses, the art of so relating every incident that it shall strike the reader not as an isolated incident, but as a part of the train of events,—of keeping the whole posture of affairs, such as it is supposed to be in the story, constantly present to the reader’s conception, and almost to his sight—is a talent most delightful in a novelist, most dangerous when the subject is real history, and the author’s view of the posture of affairs happens to be wrong. It is nothing less than the art of so dressing up a fact, as to make it appear to mean more than it does; of so relating and arranging the events to be related, as to make them tell a different story from what would be implied in the mere chronological recital of them. We are far from maintaining that this mode of relating facts is always blameable. We by no means affirm that an historian should be required to state first the naked facts, without any admixture of inference, and then speculate upon causes, motives, and characters, if he pleases. It would often be impossible to find room for all the facts, upon which inferences of this sort may very properly have been founded; and such part of the facts as are related, when the nature of the case does not permit the introduction of the whole, may justifiably be coloured, that is, although not sufficient in themselves to prove the theory, may be so related as to suggest it, if the theory be true, and evidence to prove it be produceable on fit occasions. Our quarrel with Sir Walter Scott is, that his theory is not true: that his view of the rationale of the French Revolution is not capable of being proved, but capable, on the contrary, of being disproved by the most cogent evidence. And if this be so, it undoubtedly is a great additional evil, that what cannot be proved is insinuated almost in every sentence; that the language in which the events are related, invariably implies a particular mode of accounting for them; that every separate fact as it arises, finds the reader artificially prepared to put that interpretation upon it which the author’s system requires; that causes are feigned, and the events so managed as to appear the natural consequences of them; that the hypothesis is slid in and gains credence under cover of the facts, because they are so related as seemingly not to allow of any other explanation.

During the Revolution, a variety of shades of opinion manifested themselves, and a variety of distinct and hostile parties grew up, among the defenders of the popular cause. The vulgar mouth-pieces of aristocracy to whom in our own country the office of forming the public sentiment on the Revolution was abandoned, have generally lumped all these parties and opinions together, in order that all of them, and the Revolution itself, might share the opprobrium which is justly due to the terrorists alone. Sir Walter Scott is quite superior to these low artifices: but he has fallen into an error as gross, and far more plausible. He has committed the very common blunder of ascribing to persons what was the effect of circumstances, and to settled design what was the result of immediate impulse. Every one of his characters has a part premeditated and prepared, and is ready to march upon the stage and enact it at the precise moment when his entrée will produce the most striking scenic effect. All the parties which gradually arose during the Revolution are represented as already existing from its commencement. At the very opening of the drama, we have already Constitutionalists, Republicans, and Jacobins, all of whom are described as even then entertaining all the opinions, and prosecuting systematically all the designs, which they manifested when they were most conspicuous, and most powerful. The struggle between the people and the court is made to appear, in all its stages, to have arisen solely from the endeavours of these different parties to carry their supposed designs into effect: the events are, with much skill, so presented as on every occasion to make the revolutionists appear the aggressors; they are pictured as omnipotent, having nothing to fear, nothing, for any good purpose, to desire; while the court and the aristocracy are represented from the first in no character but that of helpless unresisting victims, altogether without power even of self-defence, and quite impotent for attack. If any precaution, therefore, is taken, under the idea that any attack from that quarter is possible, it is held up as a studied indignity, intended to prepare the way for the subversion of the throne, and clear the ground for trying quackish political experiments, at the expense of a nation’s happiness.

Now there is not a word of all this but what is purely fabulous. There is not a truth in history more firmly established, than the non-existence of any republican party at the commencement of the Revolution. The wishes of all then centered in a constitutional monarchy. There may have been, and probably were, speculative philosophers, at that time as at most others, who preferred in the abstract a republican form of government; but, if such there were, they had not the remotest idea of introducing it into France; and it is not proved that at this early period so much as one member of the Constituent Assembly was even in this speculative sense a republican. If any were so, they were of the number of those whom Sir Walter Scott acknowledges to have been, in their conduct, supporters of monarchy.^* The men who formed the extremity of the côté gauche, who were esteemed the most exagérés among the democrats, were Barnave, Duport, and the Lameths: yet all these, when at length there was a republican party, were its most determined opponents, and threw away safety, fortune, popularity, every thing which they most valued, to save the throne. One of the Lameths, even, on the subversion of monarchy, expatriated with La Fayette, and shared with him that memorable captivity which the brutal vengeance of an infuriated despot^[*] inflicted, and in which the author of “New Morality,” in a spirit worthy of his sarcasm upon Ogden, found matter for savage exultation.^[†]

The very name of a French republic was scarcely breathed, never publicly pronounced, until the king’s flight from Paris: when two years experience, terminated by that ill-fated attempt, had clearly proved the impossibility of trusting to his good faith, so long as all who surrounded him were inveterately hostile to the new order of things; when the experiment of a free constitution with him at its head, had decidedly failed, and all discerning persons saw the impossibility of arriving at a settled government, or maintaining the authority of the laws, while the executive authority was in hands which could not safely be intrusted with the power necessary to enforce them. It was not till after ample and melancholy experience of this fact, that some of those who afterwards composed the Girondist party became republicans; but even then, by the great majority of that party, nothing more was at first thought of than a change of monarch; and nothing more would have been thought of to the last, if the Duke of Orleans, the only member of the royal family who was not inveterately hostile to the popular cause, had been of a character to possess, or to deserve, the smallest portion of public respect.

It may surprise some readers to find that Sir Walter Scott makes no allusion to the Orleanist party, which used to be employed with so much effect, in the character of a bugbear, by the enemies of liberal principles in France. This party, which was supposed to comprise all the abler and more energetic of the adherents of the popular cause, was represented as compassing the king’s destruction as a means, and, as an end, the elevation of the Duke of Orleans either to the regency or to the throne, and of themselves to the principal offices of state. As it is unquestionable that Orleanists, if not an Orleanist party, did at one time exist, the discerning reader, when he finds that Sir Walter Scott is generous enough to forego all the advantages which the impugners of the popular leaders have derived from the connexion of several of them with that unhappy man, is apt to think that a writer with his partialities would hardly have been so unnecessarily candid on this point, without some ulterior object. Sir Walter Scott has sagacity enough to know, that different imputations suit different times, and that attacks upon visionary theorists take much better now, in this country at least, than accusations of aiming at personal aggrandizement under the mask of popular principles. This we suspect to be the true reason of his conjuring up a republican party, and putting aside not only what is fictitious, but what is true, in the denunciations of royalist writers against the Orleanists. For it is impossible that he should be ignorant (scanty and careless as his reading on the subject of the Revolution has been), that not Republicanism but Orleanism was the only reproach, connected with designs against the king, which was imputed at the time to any individual member of the Constituent Assembly: not Republicanism but Orleanism was the accusation brought against the only member of it, whom our author singles out by name as one of the republican party;^* and, in fact, the only shade of opinion which existed in the Assembly beyond what our author terms the party of Bailly and La Fayette, was Orleanism. The difference between the Orleanists and the other section of the popular party did not consist in a greater hostility to royalty; for, on the contrary, their leader Mirabeau was inclined, as his speeches prove, to give a larger share of power to the king than even Necker himself, the largest indeed which was at all consistent with the circumstances of the time, or perhaps with constitutional freedom.^[*] The distinction lay in this—that, while both parties desired a monarchical and representative government, La Fayette and the majority felt sufficient confidence in the good intentions of Louis, to be desirous of retaining him at its head, while the other party would have preferred his peaceable deposition, and the elevation of some individual to the constitutional throne, who had never known what it was to be a despot. All the more discerning among the friends of freedom, and especially Mirabeau, perhaps the only true statesman whom the Revolution produced, thoroughly distrusted the king. They knew, what in our times some other persons ought to have learned,—that it is next to an impossibility for a monarch, used to absolute power, to accommodate himself to limitations; and they were convinced that Louis, at least, was not the man who would be an exception to the rule. Incapable of maintaining and abiding by his firmest convictions, if they were in opposition to the will of those by whom he was immediately surrounded, he was formed to be the tool of any person who had the opportunity and the will to use him as such: completely at the beck of his queen and her counter-revolutionary counsellors, he had shewn by his conduct both before and immediately after the meeting of the Etats Généraux, that he was capable of being hurried into every extreme of despotism by such counsellors, although he personally did not share the passions in which their counsels originated: and the patriots thought, not without reason, that the man who, after saying that nobody except Turgot and himself desired the good of the people,^[†] could dismiss this same Turgot a few months afterwards, at the persuasion of the very men of whose worthlessness he was so clearly convinced, was a man whose good feelings were no security against the worst conduct. Having this opinion of Louis, these statesmen, though fully aware of all the objections to the Duke of Orleans as a man, still thought, that owing the crown to the new order of things, and being unable to maintain it by any support but that of the friends of freedom, he would be less objectionable as the head of a constitutional monarchy, than a man who thought himself, and was thought by a powerful party, to be a despot by divine right. Our Revolution of 1688 formed at once a precedent for such a settlement of affairs, and an example of its beneficial effects. It is deeply to be regretted that uncontrollable circumstances prevented these views from being realized. As it turned out, the change of dynasty was only thought of for an instant, not by a party, but by scattered individuals, and thought of merely, like the republic at a later period, as a pis aller. The nullity of the Duke of Orleans as a politician, which became more clearly manifested by subsequent events, and the complete annihilation of the little character he possessed, detached from him all the more sincere and disinterested of his adherents; and when Louis had so acted that even Sir Walter Scott admits he ought not to have been replaced on the throne,^[*] these and many others, being of the same opinion with Sir Walter Scott, became republicans because they had no choice.^*

But it is not the republicans alone that have had the misfortune to offend our author: the constitutional royalists come in for nearly an equal share of his displeasure. Much good indignation, and no inconsiderable quantity of what is intended to be wit, is expended upon them, for rejecting the counsels of experience, and attempting to renovate the constitution of France by means of abstract and untried theories. It is with such vulgar weapons, that Sir Walter Scott does not disdain to assail some of the most remarkable men who have ever figured in public affairs. To point out the real faults in the conduct of the early revolutionists—to shew in what respects the means which they employed, were ill-suited to attain the ends which they had in view,—this, it is not every body who is capable of; but if to dub them theorists be sufficient, then there is not a creature so dull, so ignorant, so thoroughly mean in understanding and void of ideas, who is not perfectly competent to condemn philosophers and statesmen without a hearing, and decide at his ease all the questions which perplexed the most thinking men of their day. It seems no more than reasonable to demand, in behalf of conclusions which are the result of thought, that some portion of thought shall also be deemed necessary in order to criticize them; and that a body of men, who comprised in their ranks nearly all the political wisdom which could be found in an age and country abounding in it, shall at least be thought worthy of having their motives and reasons weighed, and of being condemned, if condemned they must be, for the injustice or inexpediency of their course of action, not for its novelty.

It cannot be denied that the early revolutionists did attempt to discover what was the best possible form of government; and, having, in their own opinion, found it, did endeavour to bring the government of their own country as nearly into accordance with it as they could. We shall not seek to defend them against these imputations; but, if our author’s objection to their scheme of government be that it was untried, we are entitled to require him to shew that there was any tried scheme, which would have afforded better prospects of success.

His opinion on the subject might have been foretold. It is, that they should have adopted the English constitution; or something as nearly resembling it as possible.

Now this, from a writer who is perpetually crying out against visionary projects, is a tolerable specimen of a visionary project; and its author is justly chargeable with the very fault which he imputes to the revolutionists, that of being so wedded to a favourite system, as to insist upon introducing it at all hazards, even when the very circumstances which constitute its excellence at other times, would infallibly work its destruction.

It is not on account of the imperfections of the British constitution, great as we deem these to be, on its native soil, that we blame those who, at this period of the Revolution, sought to introduce it into France. With all its defects, we are well content that foreign nations should look to it as their model; for there is little danger of their copying it in those parts which are the cause of our evils. It is not probable that they should fail of making their Lower House a real representative organ: and as we should be satisfied with this in our own country, so we are of opinion that in any other, the British constitution, with this modification alone, would suffice for good government.

But what may be very true of a settled order of things, it may be altogether absurd to affirm of a revolution. Why do the King and the House of Peers, in this country, never convert the powers which they constitutionally possess, to the overthrow of the constitution and the abolition of the House of Commons? Nobody supposes that it is because they would not; for it is the theory of our constitution, that every one who has power seeks its enlargement, and, in times more favourable to them, they have attempted such things. It is because they could not; and because, power to effect such schemes being manifestly wanting, the desire never arises in their minds. Nobody, however, will deny that it is in their power to impede and thwart in a hundred ways the operations of the Commons, and even to put a stop to the business of government altogether. They have, therefore, much power, capable of being mischievously employed. Our security against their so employing it is, that they could serve no purpose by doing so, except that of destroying the constitution; and, of success in such a design, they well know that they have no chance. Give them a chance, and you will soon know the mischief which they can still do. Let the time ever come, when by the exercise of their powers in a manner opposed to the end for which those powers were given, the king may hope to erect an absolute monarchy, or the peers to establish themselves in undivided rule as an aristocratical senate, and we are justified in saying that either their powers must be suspended, or the government cannot be carried on. Such was the posture of affairs during the French Revolution; and he who does not carry this conviction along with him through the whole of its history, will never form a rational conception of the Revolution in any of its stages, much less as a whole.

If the attempt to establish a government of two chambers on the English model, had been made, the Upper House must have been formed from among the high noblesse and clergy, either by the king’s choice, or by the suffrages of the privileged orders themselves. In whichever way selected, this second chamber would have been, as the high noblesse and the high clergy almost universally were, inveterately hostile to nearly every necessary reform, and (as soon as they saw that they were not about to have absolute control over the legislature) to the representative system itself. Not one of the great objects of the Revolution would, with their consent, have been effected; and either those objects must have been renounced, or it would have been necessary to decide which chamber should turn the other out of doors, or, what is most probable, the court would have taken advantage of their dissensions to discredit them in the public mind, and would have availed itself of the authority of one branch of the legislature to rid itself for ever of both. This is what stamps the conduct and counsels of Mounier (whom our author characterizes as one of the wisest men in France),^[*] of Lally Tolendal, and the remainder of the modérés (or monarchiens, as they were afterwards called), with absurdity; and marks them as altogether unequal to the difficulties of the crisis which they had aided so powerfully in bringing on. That the intentions of these men were good, is not to be denied; but the good intentions of men, who not only give the most unseasonable and ruinous advice, but desert their post and abandon their country because that advice is not listened to, are of little use. The emigration of Mounier and Lally, at the time when, if ever, the presence of wise and moderate men was required, admits of but one excuse, and that is, the supposition that they were conscious of being deficient in all the qualities which could be available in troubled times, and felt that the moment was past when such men as they were, could act a part in the Revolution.^*

Our author next pronounces that the Assembly erred, by not giving sufficient power to the king.^[*] He gets over all the difficulties of this question very summarily. It was surely very foolish in the Assembly to waste so much time and labour in anxious deliberation on points which our author settles so perfectly at his ease. Nothing can be more conclusive than the case he can always make out against them; nothing more completely satisfactory than the reasons he gives, to prove them always in the wrong; and the chief impression which is made upon the reader, is one of astonishment, that a set of persons should have been found so perversely blind to considerations so obviously dictated by sound policy and common sense. But when we examine the original authorities, we find that these considerations were no more unknown or unheeded by the Assembly than by our author himself. The difference in point of knowledge between them and him consisted chiefly in this, that they likewise knew the reasons which made for the other side of the question, and might therefore be pardoned if, being thus burthened with arguments on both sides, they were slower to decide, and sometimes came to a different decision from that which, as long as we confine ourselves to one, appears so eminently reasonable.

The point which Sir Walter Scott so quietly disposes of was, in fact, the great difficulty of their situation. There is no denying, that the king, or whoever else is placed at the head of the executive, ought to have more power than the Constituent Assembly gave him. And most of the popular leaders felt this strongly enough; all, after a very short experience of the constitution they had framed. In truth, the executive had not power enough to enforce obedience to the laws, or to prevent, in many places, the most worthless part of the population, often headed and organized by professional robbers, from availing themselves of the universal relaxation of restraint, and perpetrating the most horrid enormities. The popular party knew all this; but they knew also, that every atom of power which they gave to the executive over the military, through whom alone these disorders could have been suppressed, would be employed at the first favourable opportunity to put down the Revolution and restore absolute monarchy. It was this conviction, strong from the first, and continually gaining strength by the conduct of the court from 1789 to 1792, which finally brought on, and rendered imperatively necessary, the subversion of the throne. And it is this conviction which induced even d’Escherny, a writer who regards the republicans with horror, and calls the constitution of 1791 un systême monstrueux, to declare, that the day of the 10th of August decided whether France should be governed by an absolute king, or by demagogues, meaning the republican leaders.^*

“Avant d’avoir une monarchie constitutionnelle,” says M. Bailleul, “il fallait vaincre les hommes puissans qui n’en voulaient pas. Les erreurs viennent de ce qu’on confond toujours les institutions avec les combats qu’il fallait livrer pour les obtenir.”^† This is a truth which, as applied to the French Revolution, our author cannot or will not see. In reading him, nobody would ever guess, that France had for the time no choice but between an absolute monarchy and a republic. Of the first we should never learn from him that there was the least danger; and to the latter, France according to him was only brought by the criminal recklessness of a set of hair-brained enthusiasts, wild in their ends and unscrupulous in the choice of their means, who were willing to let murder and rapine loose upon society, to deluge their country with bloodshed, and stain their consciences with guilt, for the mere difference between monarchical and republican forms.

“N’est-il pas bien étrange de voir,” says M. Bailleul, “et ceux qui prennent le titre d’historiens, et ceux qui prétendent faire de la morale sur la révolution, en saisir l’esprit, comme Madame de Staël,” and we will add, like Sir Walter Scott, “faire une abstraction entière et complète de l’attaque, ne s’occuper que de ceux contre qui elle est dirigée, signaler comme des forfaits, non seulement les coups que par erreur ou par esprit de vertige, ils se sont portés entr’eux, mais appeler surtout crimes, forfaits, les combats qu’ils ont livrés aux ennemis de la patrie?”^‡ This sentence might be imagined to have been written on purpose to describe the work before us. Our author systematically “makes abstraction of the attack,” and treats the defence as a premeditated and unprovoked aggression. This it is to start with false ideas, and read just enough to be confirmed in them—not enough to correct them.

Burke has asserted, in one of his rhapsodies against the French Revolution, that, from the day when the Etats Généraux assembled at Versailles, despotism was no more.^[*] We will not take this assertion in the sense in which it was meant; for, in that sense, nothing was ever thrown out even by that author in his wildest moments, more glaringly absurd. But there is a sense in which it is perfectly well founded; that despotism, and the National Assembly, could not subsist together; and that the existence of the one necessarily implied the subversion of the other. The popular party were thoroughly aware of this. So were the royalists. They knew that, not indeed when the Assembly met, but as soon as it shewed itself firmly determined that France should be free, she was free, and could not be again enslaved while the Assembly remained, to guard and consolidate her freedom. Accordingly, the dissolution of the Assembly entered into all their plans; and they never, for a single moment, ceased plotting to accomplish it. We agree with Burke, that the Revolution, so far as it was necessary or justifiable, was terminated when the Assembly met. From that time the struggle was not for a revolution, but against a counter-revolution. To the well-grounded apprehension of such a calamity, and to the precautions necessary to be taken in order to guard against it, ought really to be ascribed all those proceedings, both of the constitutionalists and of the Gironde, which, in the former party, our author imputes to the desire of reducing the royal authority to a name; in the latter, to a fanatical hatred even of the name.^[†]

Could the revolutionists forget that the attempt to put down the Revolution had once been made, and had failed only because the military had remembered that they were citizens before they were soldiers? We allude to the events which preceded the insurrection of Paris and the destruction of the Bastille.

Few of our readers, we hope, are ignorant, that in July 1789, when the Constituent Assembly had only sat for a few weeks, when it had done nothing, as yet, of what our author deems blameable in its proceedings; when his friends Lally and Mounier were still predominant in its counsels; when it had scarcely begun to occupy itself with the reform of abuses, or the establishment of a constitution, and had only had time to shew that it would not resign the entire power of legislation to the privileged classes, by giving to each order a separate voice; so early as this, troops from distant parts of the kingdom were marched upon Paris; a large force, under an avowed anti-revolutionist,^[‡] was encamped in its immediate vicinity, and artillery was moved upon that city and upon Versailles, sufficient for a siege. At this juncture, Necker, and all the ministers not decidedly hostile to the new order of things, received an abrupt dismissal, and Necker was banished from France. They were succeeded by men notoriously inimical to the Revolution;^[*] men odious to the people, some of them for their personal corruption, all for their political views, and every thing seemed prepared for dissolving the Assembly and crushing resistance by force of arms. That this purpose was really entertained, none but the most prejudiced and dishonest even among the royalist writers have hitherto been bold enough to deny. The king in person, at the famous séance royale, had threatened the Assembly with dissolution if it did, what it had nevertheless done.^* The courtiers themselves made no secret of what was intended: with their accustomed fool-hardiness, they openly triumphed in the approaching humiliation of the popular party, and punishment of its leaders; and it is a fact known to many now living, that several members of the minority of the noblesse, who had relatives or friends connected with the court, were warned by them to save themselves, by a timely flight, from the death or captivity which was in store for them.^† At this crisis the people rose in arms, organized the burgher-milita afterwards called the National Guard, were joined by a portion of the military, took the Bastille, and reduced the court to the necessity of indefinitely postponing the execution of its criminal design. Now let us hear our author speculate, and conjecture, and calculate, probabilities, in opposition to the plain and well-established facts above related.

And accordingly, the insurrection is ascribed to “dark intrigues,”^[*] which had been long formed by the Republican and Jacobin parties for the subversion of the throne. Thus far Sir Walter Scott. Now hear the marquis de Ferrières; himself a member of the Assembly, a deputy of the noblesse, who always voted with the noblesse, and who is so far from being a revolutionist, that there are few of the revolutionists to whom he will allow the common merit of sincerely desiring the public good: “Trente régimens,” says he, “marchaient sur Paris. Le prétexte était la tranquillité publique; l’objet réel, la dissolution des états” (Vol. I, p. 71); with much more to the same effect, from which we shall quote only what follows. The circumstances which it relates took place on the very day on which the Bastille was taken, and are the more memorable from the allusion made to them the next day by Mirabeau, in perhaps the most splendid apostrophe recorded in history.^[†]

Is this sufficient? We are curious to know what more unexceptionable evidence our author can demand. No doubt he disbelieves Ferrières—though he too can quote Ferrières when it answers his purpose. No doubt he disbelieves Madame de Staël;^* he disbelieves Bailly;^† he disbelieves Dumouriez—a writer to whom, on other occasions, he gives even more credit than is due, and who informs us, that, even at Cherbourg, the royalists were exulting in their anticipated victory, and triumphing in the thought that the minority of the noblesse were, perhaps, already in the Bastille.^‡ But we will make free to inquire, does he disbelieve two persons, who ought to know whether the design existed or not; viz. the person who planned it, and the person who was to have executed it—the minister Breteuil, and the minister and commander of the troops, the Maréchal de Broglie himself? The former boasted, both subsequently and at the time, not only of the conspiracy, but of what were to have been its sanguinary consequences; and named several of the very men who were marked out to pay with their lives the penalty of having wished their country to be free. As for Broglie, the letter is extant in which he offered himself to be the wretched instrument in the perpetration of crimes, compared with which those of the butcher of Porlier and Lacy are innocence itself.^[*] “Avec cinquante mille hommes,” says he, “je me chargerais volontiers de dissiper tous ces beaux esprits qui calculent sur leurs prétentions, et cette foule d’imbécilles qui écoutent, applaudissent, et encouragent. Une salve de canons, ou une décharge de coups de fusils, aurait bientôt dispersé ces argumentateurs, et remis la puissance absolue qui s’éteint, à la place de cet esprit républicain qui se forme.” See the Correspondence published at Paris and London in 1789, and never disavowed; or the History, by the abbé de Montgaillard.^§ We shall now adopt the words of the latter author.

Let no man wonder that Mounier and Lally, men whose love of freedom was sufficiently lukewarm to suit even Sir Walter Scott, were doomed to perish on the same scaffold with Barnave and Mirabeau. To have desired the liberty of France was an offence which nothing could redeem. By being more scrupulous, more moderate, a less envenomed opponent than the rest, all which was ever gained was, to be more bitterly detested. An enemy always hates those most whom he most fears; a criminal ever most abhors those among his pursuers whom he believes to be most inflexibly virtuous.

It is of little use to heap up quotations in order to convince a writer who, by an elaborate argument, concludes that it is most likely a thing is white, when every credible person who has seen it assures him that it is black. yet we cannot refrain from quoting one passage more; it is from Lacretelle; an author whose principles are those of the most decided royalism, and who has written a History of the Constituent Assembly, in a spirit generally as unfair as that of Sir Walter Scott, but who, on this occasion, pays the following tribute to truth:

This is the testimony which Sir Walter Scott would refute by a ratiocination: and what a ratiocination! Nothing can be more engaging than the amiable simplicity which it betokens, if the author is himself persuaded by his own reasoning. That want of preparation, or rather of means adequate to the intended purpose, which was really owing to blind, besotted, headlong confidence, imagining that the troops had only to show themselves and all would be quiet, he, good man, esteems a demonstrative proof that no violence was intended! Truly it is no wonder that they were unprepared, when, on the very day of the capture of the Bastille, at the very instant when a deputation of the Assembly was waiting upon the king, to represent to him the state of Paris, and express their alarms; “l’intendant de Paris était dans la chambre, en bottes et le fouet à la main, assurant que tout était tranquille;”^* when, “le soir même du 14 Juillet, on regardait à Versailles dans les cercles des femmes à-la-mode et des petits-maîtres, tous les avis que l’on recevait de Paris comme autant de fables; à les entendre, il ne s’agissait que de quelques misérables, dont la maréchaussée ferait justice.”^†

Hear Ferrières again: “La cour, habituée à voir Paris trembler sous un lieutenant de police, et sous une garde de huit cents hommes à cheval, ne soupçonna pas même une résistance. Elle ne prévit rien, ne calcula rien, ne songea pas même à s’assurer des soldats dont elle voulait faire l’instrument de ses desseins.” (Vol. I, p. 75.) And again, speaking of the ministers, “Ils regardaient la situation de Paris comme l’effet d’une émeute passagère; ils ne doutaient pas qu’à l’approche des troupes le peuple tremblant ne se dispersât, que les chefs consternés ne vinssent implorer la clémence du monarque” (p. 116). He even intimates a suspicion that they allowed the insurrection to proceed, in order that they might have a better excuse for the rigorous measures which they had previously resolved upon (p. 115).^‡

No wonder that the king had not given the necessary orders, when he was kept in such profound ignorance of what was passing, that he did not even know of the insurrection, and the capture of the Bastille, until the duc de Liancourt, a member of the popular party in the Assembly, who had access to him by office, as grand master of his wardrobe, awakened him in the night, and apprised him of those events which his counsellors had till then concealed from him: “Mais, dit le roi, après un silence, c’est une révolte.—Sire, c’est une Révolution.”^§

Our readers must excuse us for dwelling a little longer on this great aera in the history of the Revolution. If the events themselves are important, the manner in which they are here treated is no less curious, as a specimen of the book. We are presented with a lecture, in a strain of lofty morality, on the duties which were incumbent upon Louis in this great emergency.^[*] We are told, that he ought to have marched into Paris at the head of his guards, and put down the insurrection by the strong hand of power: his life itself was not too much to be sacrificed in the performance of this sacred obligation, so exalted is Sir Walter Scott’s idea of the duties of kings; but, when the revolt was quelled, our author is pleased to say that Louis would have been infinitely criminal, if he had not given to his subjects a national representation. This is excellent advice, and admirably, no doubt, the latter part of it would have been observed, if the enterprise had succeeded; but we could have suggested something which would have been still better, viz. not to attempt to deprive his subjects of the national representation which they already possessed. This would have been less grand; it would not have called upon the monarch for any exposure of his life; but it would have prevented the insurrection. To tell us that Louis ought to have put down the tumults and to have renounced despotism, when if he had renounced despotism there would have been no tumults to put down, is a very pleasant way of begging the question against the people. Other persons besides kings would have reason to be thankful for a similar lesson of morality. You rob a man of his watch: the man discovering the theft, seizes you by the collar, and insists upon your giving back the stolen property: at this juncture Sir Walter Scott comes up, and lectures you as follows: Knock down the insolent aggressor: when you have done this, I shall then hold you infinitely criminal, if you do not restore to him his watch; but in the mean time, I will gladly assist you in chastising him, his violence deserves it!

We must not pass unnoticed another characteristic trait in our author’s narrative of these transactions. When the soldiers, who were intended to overawe Paris, fraternized with the people, and refused to fire upon their fellow citizens, he can find no means of accounting for conduct so extremely un-military, except the influence of debauchery. “They were plied,” says he, “with those temptations which are most powerful with soldiers—wine, women, and money, were supplied in abundance—and it was amidst debauchery and undiscipline that the French army renounced their loyalty, which used to be even too much the god of their idolatry, and which was now destroyed like the temple of Persepolis, amidst the vapours of wine, and at the instigation of courtezans.”^*

Does not Sir Walter Scott richly deserve the pointed sarcasm of Madame de Staël, upon the royalist party? “Un des grands malheurs de ceux qui vivent dans les cours, c’est de ne pouvoir se faire une idée de ce que c’est qu’une nation.”^† Once more, does our author really not believe in the possibility of public spirit or patriotism, or if these expressions do not please him, sincere enthusiasm? The alternative was that of being slaves or freemen, of enslaving their countrymen or helping them to be free; and he can find no more creditable motive for preferring freedom, than wine, women, and money! If Sir Walter Scott had one tenth part as much knowledge of the Revolution, as an author who writes its history ought to have, he would have known that the sentiments which, according to him, it required debauchery to excite in the regiments assembled at the metropolis, were shared by the military without the aid of debauchery, all over France. Let him read, for example, the address of the garrison of Strasbourg to the National Assembly on the 16th October, 1789, a perfect model of propriety and good taste:^‡ let him read in Dumouriez’s Memoirs^§ the conduct of the garrison of Cherbourg; let him read in Bouillé’s Memoirs,^¶ or in Soulavie’s Annals of Louis XVI,^[*] or in the Life of Malesherbes, the refusal of the troops in Dauphiné, even before the Revolution, to act against the people:^** let him read in the Histoire de la Révolution par Deux Amis de la Liberté, numerous instances of the most sublime disinterestedness and self-devotion in these very gardes-françaises whom he has so unjustly inculpated, and he will then see whether these were men who needed the “vapours of wine” and the “instigation of courtezans,” to impel them to act as citizens and freemen ought.^[†]

We make no apology for having detained our readers so long on the first and greatest epoch of the Revolution. Where, from the immensity of the subject, much must necessarily be left undone, it is better to establish one important point thoroughly, than a hundred imperfectly. If the reader is now convinced, that Sir∥ Walter Scott has altogether misunderstood and misrepresented that event upon which all the subsequent history of the Revolution turns (and if he is not, we utterly despair of making any impression upon him), he will be willing to believe without much further proof, that the other great events of the Revolution are similarly dealt with. Yet, in alluding to the plots and aggressions of the royalist party against the order of things established by the Constituent Assembly, we cannot help pausing for a moment at the famous fifth of October, 1789, to give a further specimen of our author’s fitness for the office of an accurate and impartial historian.

We need scarcely remind any reader, not thoroughly unacquainted with the facts of the Revolution, that, on the occasion to which we allude, the king was brought from Versailles to the Tuileries, under circumstances of considerable indignity, by a mob of Parisians who sallied out from Paris for this if for any preconcerted purpose, and by a portion of whom, during their stay at Versailles, various excesses were committed, and in particular an attempt was made (there is too much reason to believe) against the life of the queen. In all this, our author is very perfect; but he never hints that a plot existed among the royalists to convey the king to Metz, and placing him under the protection of the anti-revolutionary general Bouillé, to commence a civil war; that a variety of other intrigues were on foot for effecting a counter-revolution, and that the removal of the king from Versailles to Paris, was really on the part of the revolutionists a defensive act. Yet he would have found all this asserted not only by many writers of the constitutional party, but by the royalist Ferrières;^* it has been avowed by Breteuil, Bouillé,^[*] and the comte de Mercy, then ambassador of Austria at the court of France;^† and it may be gathered even from the proceedings before the Châtelet, notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of that tribunal to disguise it. Our author does not scruple to quote Ferrières for an insignificant expression vaguely attributed to Barnave, which he imagines can be turned in some manner to the discredit of that distinguished person.^[†] We have seen, however, that Sir Walter Scott can be very incredulous, as well as very easy of belief, when a favourite hypothesis is concerned. Even if he did not give credit to the assertion of Ferrières with respect to the royalist plots, that assertion proves at least, that their reality was generally believed; and might have suggested to our author that there may have been a more creditable motive for wishing to bring the king to Paris, than the desire of placing him and the Assembly “under the influence of popular frenzy.”^[‡]

But our author had a different theory. We need scarcely say, that in his theory all is ascribed to the manoeuvres of the republican party; his established mode of accounting for all the commotions under the first two national assemblies. The imputed object of these agitators, is of course the establishment of a republic; and he insinuates that regicide formed, even at this time, part of their ultimate intentions. Need we repeat, that this pretended republican party is a mere fiction of his own brain; that no such party existed for nearly two years afterwards; and that most of the men who subsequently composed it were, at this time, peaceably following their professions at Bordeaux or Marseilles? Will our author pretend that Mirabeau and the Duke of Orleans were republicans, or will he deny, that, by the universal admission of revolutionists and royalists, this affair was concerted by them, if concerted at all? Sir Walter Scott is not contented with inventing leaders for this popular tumult, he must invent subordinate agents for it too. “The Jacobins were the first to sound the alarm through all their clubs and societies.”^[*] The reader may form some conception of the accuracy of this history, and of the spirit in which it is written, when we inform him, that at this time the Jacobin club did not exist, much less any of the affiliated societies. The “alarm” was sounded, to use our author’s expression, not in any club or society, but in the district assemblies, and in a place tolerably well known in the Revolution, to wit, the gardens of the Palais-Royal; not by Jacobins, but by all the more ardent and enthusiastic partisans of the Revolution, to whom indeed it is sufficiently fashionable to give that now opprobrious name, but who had nothing whatever in common with the party called the Terrorists, to whom alone the appellation of Jacobins is usually given by our author.

The reader must forgive us, if a desire to do justice to the wisest, most honest, and most calumniated, body of legislators, who ever held in their hands the destinies of a nation, induces us to be more prolix than may perhaps suit that class of minds, to whom the truth or falsehood of an historical statement is matter of indifference compared with its liveliness or dulness. It is for the maligner of the Constituent Assembly, it is for the apologist, the panegyrist, of the vindictive and sanguinary satellites of despotism, it is for him to be amusing, he knows that his readers, at least those whom he chiefly cares for, are to the full as eager to believe him, as he to be believed. It is for Sir Walter Scott to assert: our part must be to prove. Assertion is short, and proof is long: assertion is entertaining, and proof is dull: assertion may be read, as glibly and as cursorily as it is written; proof supposes thought in the writer, and demands it of the reader. Happy the historian who can permit himself to assert, for he will count ten readers to one of him who is compelled to prove!

There was scarcely a month during the first three years of the Revolution, which was not signalized by some plot or counter-revolutionary movement in the interior.^* In the south of France, large bodies of armed men were repeatedly collected, for the avowed purpose of restoring the ancient order of things. The assemblages which took place and the camps which were formed at Jalès and elsewhere, form a highly important, though to most persons almost an unknown, chapter of the history of the Revolution.^* Armed bodies of emigrant Frenchmen were constantly hovering over the frontiers, by the connivance, and at length with the open encouragement, of the neighbouring powers: while France might be said to be without an army for her defence, the officers being counter-revolutionists almost to a man, feuds existing in most of the regiments between them and the soldiers, which were fomented even by the royalists, in order to disorganize the army, and disable it from offering any effectual resistance.^† The ministers of the king were several of them declared anti-revolutionists. The courtiers and the privileged classes were continually giving out, that the emigrants were on the point of returning with a powerful army to dissolve the Assembly, and deliver its leaders to the rigour of the law.^‡ The royalists openly and universally asserted that the king was insincere in his professions of attachment to the new institutions; and nothing contributed more than these reports, to convert the enthusiastic attachment which was universally manifested towards him when he gave in his adhesion to the constitution, into suspicion and hatred. Ferrières has no doubt that, if Louis had put forth his authority, and exerted his personal influence over the troops, he could have crushed the Assembly;^§ and so conscious were the popular leaders of their own insecurity, that the abbé Sieyès said to a person, from whom we have the information, toutes les nuits je vois ma tête rouler sur le plancher. Even in 1791, the aristocrats, according to Ferrières, “ne parlaient que de guerre, de sang, et de vengeance.”^¶ It was suspected at the time, it is now fully established by the avowals of the minister Bertrand de Moleville (who enters into the minutest details on the subject), that the king was in regular correspondence with the emigrants and with foreign powers, to procure his restoration to absolute authority by Austrian bayonets. Meanwhile he continued to profess, in language apparently the most feeling and sincere, his adherence to the new order of things. He came spontaneously to the Assembly on the 4th of February, 1790, to associate himself formally (such was his expression) with the plans and proceedings of the Assembly; and professed a devoted attachment to the new constitution, in a really eloquent and affecting speech, if we could suppose it to be sincere, which rendered him for a considerable time the idol of the people.^[*] At the federation of July 1790^∥ (an event of which, strange to say, our author makes no mention), he solemnly swore adherence to the constitution; he spontaneously renewed his oath but a few weeks before his flight from Paris;^* he spontaneously addressed to his ambassadors abroad, for communication to the courts at which they were accredited, a long letter, embodying every thing in sentiment which was constitutional, and revolutionary, and such as La Fayette himself would have dictated, together with the firmest assurances that he highly approved of the Revolution; that France’s greatest enemies were the enemies of the new order of things, and that the pretence that he was not free was a calumny:^† again and again he solemnly assured La Fayette, Rochambeau, and others, that he had no intention of flying; and this almost up to the very day when he fled to join the allies, leaving behind him a solemn protestation against all which had been done since the 5th of October 1789, from which date, he pretended, his want of liberty had rendered the sanction which he had given to all the decrees of the Assembly, a nullity.^[*]

We do not recite these facts for the sake of casting reproach upon the memory of Louis. His faults have been bitterly expiated. But, in bare justice to the men who, after all this, had the generosity to replace him on the throne, it ought to be considered whether they had not reason to be niggardly of power to such a king, so circumstanced; a king, whose word, whose oath, was an empty sound; a king, incapable of adhering to his firmest convictions, and surrounded by persons who, if he formed an honest resolution, never suffered him to keep it.

If we have had any success at all in convincing our readers, we have now made it apparent to them, that the Constituent Assembly understood their own position, and that of their country, far better than Sir Walter Scott imagines, and that if they did not adopt the course which he, judging after the event, imagines would have prevented the ills which befel their country, it was not because they were less wise than he, but because they were wiser. No course which they could have adopted would have been so dangerous, as to establish a vigorous and efficient executive government with Louis at its head. And few will blame them for not having adopted the only third course which was open to them, the deposition and confinement of the king; few will deny that, before proceeding to this last and most painful extremity, such a scheme of limited monarchy as they attempted was an experiment which they would not have been excusable if they had refused to try. It is on the probabilities of success which this scheme held out, that we ground the justification of the Constituent Assembly; it is on the failure of the experiment, that we rest our defence of the Gironde, or, as our author terms it, the Republican party, who succeeded them.

None have sustained so much injustice at the hands of our author as this last, and most unfortunate party: of none have the conduct and aims been so miserably misunderstood, so cruelly perverted. The following extract is a very favourable specimen of his mode of treating them.

After saying that the Girondist party was “determined that the Revolution should never stop until the downfal of the monarchy,” our author continues:

• For letting Rapine loose, and Murther,
• To rage just so far, but no further;
• And setting all the land on fire,
• To burn to a scantling, but no higher.^*

He afterwards terms them, in a spirit of more bitter contempt, “the association of philosophical rhapsodists, who hoped to oppose pikes with syllogisms, and to govern a powerful country by the discipline of an academy.”^†

He derides “the affected and pedantic fanaticism of republican zeal of the Girondists, who were amusing themselves with schemes, to which the country of France, the age and the state of manners were absolutely opposed.”^‡

And elsewhere, he calls them, “the Brissotin, or Girondist faction” (he seldom, if ever, terms the supporters of despotism a faction), “who, though averse to the existence of a monarchy, and desiring a republic instead, had still somewhat more of principle and morals than the mere Revolutionists and Jacobins, who were altogether destitute of both.”^*

The utmost which he can find to say in behalf of the purest and most disinterested body of men, considered as a party, who ever figured in history, among whose leaders not so much as one man of even doubtful integrity and honour can be found, is, that they had “somewhat more” of principle and morals, than persons who were “altogether destitute of both”!

His commendations of one of their number are less sparingly bestowed.

Unquestionably nothing can be better deserved than this panegyric; but why is a particular individual singled out to be the subject of it, when he, although excellent, was only one among many, alike in all the noble qualities which adorned this favourite of our author, and for the misery of France, alike also in their unhappy fate? Justice required that the same measure should be dealt out to them as to Barbaroux, even if it were true that their zeal for the liberty of their country was a “mistaken” zeal, and that they were for using the “revolutionary means of insurrection and violence” to establish a republic. But their zeal was not a mistaken zeal, and they were not for establishing a republic by insurrection and violence; most of them did not contemplate a republic at all, and designed at most nothing further than to depose the king, and elevate the young prince royal, under the direction of a council of regency, to the constitutional throne.

These may be startling assertions to some, who have formed their opinions solely from the indefatigable perseverance with which Sir Walter Scott, almost in every page, assures us of the contrary: but however paradoxical here, on the other side of the channel they are established truths, which few persons indeed of any party think of disputing, and of which nothing but the profound ignorance of our countrymen on the Revolution, could render it necessary to offer any proof: especially as this is not in any degree a question of opinion and reasoning, but one of mere fact and evidence, which every person, who has read the authorities carefully, is competent to decide.

We have already mentioned, that the first germ of a republican party appeared in France, when the king, after a long course of dissimulation and insincerity, fled from the capital, and was brought back by force. Notwithstanding the decisive evidence which he had thus afforded of his undiminished hostility to the constitution, the predominant party in the Constituent Assembly thought fit to restore him to the throne. We are far from contending that they ought to have acted otherwise, although Sir Walter Scott is of that opinion, and maintains that they were alike wrong in again offering, and Louis in accepting, the constitutional crown.^[*] What is now his opinion, was that of many of the more ardent revolutionists at the time; and, among the rest, of a few who subsequently became aggregated to the Gironde party; for the great majority, including those from whom that party derives its distinctive name, were not in Paris until they came thither as members of the second National Assembly. In July 1791, before the resolution had been definitively taken to reinstate the king, a meeting was held in the Champ de Mars to subscribe a petition calling for his dethronement.^[†] In this document no change in the monarchical constitution of France, as decreed by the Constituent Assembly, was hinted at: but the acknowledged fact, that the petition was drawn up by Brissot, whose speculative opinions were certainly republican, together with an expression of Brissot and Pétion, about the same time, which is recorded by Madame Roland, “qu’il fallait préparer les esprits à la république,”^[‡] and the fact, that a newspaper under the title of The Republican was set on foot at this period by Brissot and Condorcet (although it only reached the second number), seem to render it probable, that if they had succeeded in obtaining the deposition of Louis, they would really have made an effort for the establishment of a republican government in preference to a change of monarch.^* When the Assembly, however, under the guidance of Barnave and Chapelier, esteemed up to that time the most democratic of the popular leaders, re-established royalty in the person of the former sovereign, the idea of a republic was dropped, and the two or three men who had entertained it became amalgamated with the general body of the Girondist party, who, as we have previously stated, were not republicans.

The difference between the Constitutionalists and the Gironde, at the opening of the second, or Legislative Assembly, is thus expressed by Mignet: “Il [the Gironde party] n’avait alors aucun projet subversif; mais il était disposé à défendre la révolution de toutes les manières, à la différence des constitutionnels, qui ne voulaient la défendre qu’avec la loi.”^[§] This assertion of Mignet (whom however we do not cite as an authority, since he was not, any more than ourselves, a contemporary and actor in the scene) is borne out by the direct testimony of every credible witness who had any tolerable means of knowing the fact. It is demonstrated as cogently by the recorded acts and speeches of the men themselves.

Sir Walter Scott, as we have already observed, has allowed, has asserted indeed, with more confidence than we should venture to do, that the reasons for deposing Louis preponderated, at the time of his return from Varennes, over those for retaining him on the throne.^[*] These reasons, which our author considered sufficient, could be no others, than the certainty of the king’s insincerity, and the necessity of having a first magistrate sincerely attached to the constitution. Let us reflect how vastly more imminent that necessity had become, in the interval which separated the meeting of the second National Assembly from the memorable 10th of August 1792.

During this period, a new and most formidable element of danger had been introduced into the already perilous and embarrassing state of public affairs. A foreign despot had not only countenanced the emigrants in their warlike preparations, and in assuming a hostile attitude on the frontier, but had presumed to require, as a condition of friendship between the two governments, the re-establishment of the monarchy upon the footing of the royal declaration of the 23rd of June, 1789.^[†] War had ensued; its commencement had been disastrous, an invasion was at hand, and the disorganization of the army, from the general relaxation of discipline, the emigration of most of the officers, and the want of military experience in the soldiers, had reached to such a height, that nothing but the most unheard-of efforts, such efforts as were at last made by Dumouriez and Carnot, could give the nation a chance of saving herself from the enemies of her freedom. It was not in such times as these that France could be preserved by men who were only half desirous that she should extricate herself from her difficulties. There were needed other “organizers of victory”^[‡] than a chief magistrate who sympathized with the invaders of his country more than with his country itself. It was not from Louis that exertions could be expected for the prosecution of a war against his own brothers, and the assertors of his absolute authority. Yet not so soon did the Gironde renounce the hope of saving at once their country and the king. Louis, who was as vacillating in his choice of counsellors as in his counsels, had changed from a purely royalist to a mixed administration composed of constitutionalists and royalists. The divisions which speedily arose in this motley ministry (our author is here, as usual, most elaborately wrong) had terminated by the dismissal of the leading constitutional minister,^[§] which the Assembly soon caused to be succeeded by the forced retirement of his royalist colleagues. Louis selected his next ministers from the ranks of the Gironde; and so far was this party from entertaining any hostility to the king, that Roland and Clavières, as Madame Roland informs us,^[*] were at first completely the dupes of his apparent sincerity. Had he consented to the strong measures which they deemed necessary to secure the constitution against its foreign and internal enemies, they would have continued in office, and Louis probably, had remained constitutional monarch of France. But he refused to sanction the two decrees of the Assembly, for the banishment of the non-juring priests,^* and for the formation of a camp of twenty thousand men under the walls of Paris.^[†] The discussions consequent on this refusal occasioned the dismissal of the Girondist ministers, and ultimately produced the downfall of the throne: not however until the leading Girondists had made another effort to save the unfortunate and misguided monarch, which we shall relate in the words of their friend and apologist Bailleul.

This Mémoire, admirable for its good sense and good feeling, may be seen in the Appendix to the second volume of the Memoirs of Dumouriez, as recently reprinted at Paris.^[†] It is with difficulty that we refrain from increasing the length of an already long article, by transcribing this document into our pages. We beseech the reader to refer to it, to read it diligently, and then endure, if he can, to hear these men represented as conspirators, who plotted the destruction of royalty, who watched the king’s acts with a desire to find them such as afforded a hold for misrepresentation, and were never so well pleased as when he rendered himself unpopular, and gave pretexts for holding up his office as a nuisance, and himself as an enemy of the people. We cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of employing, for the expression of our own feelings, the affecting words of M. Bailleul.

Greatly as we have already exceeded the usual limits of an article, we cannot permit ourselves to leave the stain which is attempted to be cast upon men in so many respects admirable, imperfectly washed away. We should feel as if we had violated a duty, if we did not exhibit by ample evidence how unanimously men of all parties have concurred in exculpating the Girondists from the imputations now sought to be fixed upon them by Sir Walter Scott. We shall offer no apology to the reader for heaping up a multitude of attestations; we do not solicit his attention to this mass of evidence, we demand it. We demand it in the name and in behalf of the whole human race, whom it deeply imports that justice should be done, at least by another age, to the few statesmen who have cared for their happiness. Does the man exist who, having read the accusation brought against such men, will consider it too much trouble to listen to the defence? Let such amuse themselves with romance; it belongs to other men to read history.

Our first quotation shall be drawn from the Histoire de la Révolution de France, par Deux Amis de la Liberté, one of the most impartial works which have appeared on the subject of the Revolution, and written, as our quotation will shew, in a spirit very far indeed from being favourable to the Gironde:

Compare this account of the conduct and designs of the Gironde with that of Sir Walter Scott. Need we say more?

Our next citation shall be from Toulongeon, also a constitutional monarchist, equal to the author last quoted in impartiality, and far superior to him in philosophy. We shall not quote from this writer any of the passages in which he denies the existence of a republican party at the commencement of the Revolution. In his account of the events which followed the king’s flight, he says, “La république n’était alors même, ni dans l’opinion de ceux qui réfléchissaient, ni dans le sentiment de ceux qu’il détermine toujours seuls” (Vol. II, p. 49). Of the Gironde at the opening of the second national assembly, he remarks, “Ce parti ne voulait pas la république; mais la marche de ce parti rendit la république nécessaire” (Vol. II, p. 91). Even in June, 1792, “Vergniaud, Isnard, étaient des chefs du parti de la Gironde: ils voulaient mettre l’autorité royale dans leur dépendance; mais ils ne voulaient pas la détruire en l’avilissant” (Vol. II, p. 171). Again, “Vergniaud, Guadet, tout ce qu’on appelait la Gironde, parce que les députés de ce département s’y faisaient le plus remarquer, voulut d’abord gouverner la royauté, plus encore par son influence et par son crédit, que par l’autorité, qu’ils aimaient mieux distribuer qu’exercer; et lorsque la royauté fut abolie, ils voulurent fonder la république par les moyens licites et avec les formes légales” (Vol. III, p. 9). And, finally, of Vergniaud, on the very day of the subversion of the throne, “Au dix Août, il voulait encore une monarchie systématique peut-être, mais tempérée. Dès que le mot république fut proclamé, il fut républicain.” (Vol. IV, p. 11.)^[*] These are Sir Walter Scott’s fanatical enthusiasts, who plotted the destruction of royalty for years before, and made no scruple of employing insurrection and bloodshed to realize their visionary projects of a pure republic.

“Quoique la faction des Girondins,” says Soulavie, “fût un composé de toute sorte d’opinions, sa majorité a voulu une régence pendant la minorité du fils de Louis XVI, pour gouverner et pour perdre la reine, dont les projets connus de contre-révolution mettaient en péril, non-seulement l’existence politique mais la vie même des Girondins.”^* If we were disposed to place much dependence upon anecdotes, which are only related by this author, we could transcribe several which he adduces to show that not only down to the subversion of the throne, but almost to the very day when the convention met and the republic was proclaimed, neither the Gironde nor the Montagne had finally decided upon establishing it: we could quote the story which he tells of the almost ludicrous consternation of Condorcet and Sieyès, when this event was reported to them,^† and the declaration of the minister Montmorin to Soulavie himself, that a republic was then the least bad of all governments which were likely to be established, but that what the Gironde desired was a regency, which would be infinitely worse.^[*] As we have less confidence, however, in the testimony of Soulavie, than in that of either of the writers whom we have before quoted, we allude to his evidence only in confirmation of theirs, and shall proceed to show that the royalists themselves, even those among them who have spoken of the Gironde with the most bitter hatred, have by no means accused them of being republicans, but of wishing for a king who should distribute honours and places among themselves, or, at most, of being indifferent to every form of government, provided they themselves were at the head of it. We have no apprehension that these last imputations should be believed, for Sir Walter Scott himself does ample justice to the character of the Girondists, as far as regards personal views; but, that the only accusation brought against them by their bitterest enemies should be that of selfish ambition,^[†] proves at least the extreme absurdity of the charge of fanatical republicanism, and the following passages further add the direct testimony of the most decided, and the most trustworthy of the royalist writers, to the fact that most of these statesmen were not republicans.

We shall begin with Ferrières, generally the most candid and impartial of the royalists, but whose moderation entirely deserts him when he touches upon the Girondists. This writer particularly distinguishes the Girondist party from the republicans. Among the latter, he ranks Buzot and Pétion; but of the Girondists, especially the deputies of the Gironde itself, Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonné, Ducos, and Fonfrède, he says, “Les Girondins étaient assez indifférens à la forme du gouvernement pourvu qu’ils gouvernassent et qu’ils pussent disposer de l’argent et des places; mais sentant que les constitutionnels ne lâcheraient pas leur proie, ils se rallièrent aux républicains, attendant à prendre un parti décidé d’après les événemens, et à se vendre à la cour ou à se donner à la république, selon que l’exigeraient leurs intérêts et les circonstances” (Vol. III, pp. 16-17). Assuredly, if these persons had shown the slightest symptom of fanatical attachment to a republican government, and hatred of royalty, such things could not have been said of them. Again, long after the insurrection, or rather tumult, of the 20th June 1792, we are told by Ferrières, “les Girondins ne voulaient qu’effrayer la cour. La déchéance n’entrait pas alors dans leurs vues,” (Vol. III, p. 165): that Pétion opposed the insurrection of the 10th of August, because it was the wish of the Gironde that the deposition of Louis should be decreed by the Assembly, and executed without tumult or violence (p. 178); that the Gironde had no concern in that insurrection (p. 180); that they were astonished at it (p. 182); that even at the opening of the convention, “la république n’était point définitivement arrêtée dans l’opinion des Girondins” (p. 245); and was carried independently of them, by what he terms the republican party.

Our next authority shall be Bertrand de Moleville, a royalist far more inveterately prejudiced than Ferrières; a man who avowedly disapproves of the introduction of any form of representative government into France, and cannot quite reconcile himself to its existence in England; and this man, it is important to observe, was a minister of Louis within a few months preceding his deposition. This author always speaks of the Girondists in the bitterest terms, and even accuses them of what we believe was never imputed to them by any other writer (it was scarcely insinuated even in the acte d’accusation against them, by the horrible Amar),^[*] we mean personal corruption. After speaking of the letter (formerly alluded to) which was addressed to the king by the trois scélérats (it is thus that he designates Vergniaud, Guadet, and Gensonné)^* —of which letter he seems to confess that he knew the contents only at second-hand (he certainly gives a most incorrect account of them), he next describes a plan of insurrection, which he affirms to have been devised by the Gironde in consequence of the ill success of their attempt to conciliate the king; and hereupon he observes.

The abbé Georgel, a Jesuit, than whom the abbé Barruel himself scarcely regards the Revolution with a more frantic abhorrence, takes precisely the same view of the conduct and designs of the Gironde.^* We shall not prolong our article by quoting, in the ipsissima verba of this author, any portion of his dull abuse. The substance of it is all contained in the passages which we have already quoted from Bertrand and Ferrières.

It will be thought, probably, that we have rather been too profuse than too sparing of evidence to prove Sir Walter Scott ignorant of his subject, and the story of the reckless enthusiasm and republican zeal of the Girondists a romance. It will amuse the reader to compare the above quotations with the passages which we previously transcribed from Sir Walter Scott. They contradict him point-blank in every particular, whether of praise or of blame. In support of his view of the Gironde we can find only one authority, that of Madame de Staël;^[*] the most questionable of all witnesses, when she deposes to any facts but those within her own immediate observation. We have not nearly exhausted the evidence on the other side. We have cited as yet none of the witnesses who may be supposed partial to the Gironde, except Bailleul, from whom, moreover, we have drawn but a small part of the testimony which his highly instructive pages afford. We shall only further direct the attention of the reader to Lavallée, a writer of no very decided political opinions, but friendly to the Gironde, being personally acquainted with their principal leaders, and having been an employé of Roland, when minister of the interior. From him we have an interesting statement of what passed at a secret meeting of the leading Girondists and one or two other persons. They were all agreed that France was in a state nearly approximating to anarchy; that it would remain so, until there was a change of government; and that, with a view to this change, it was above all to be desired, that the king should voluntarily abdicate; but they were by no means agreed, supposing that a change could be brought about, what the change should be. Brissot declared strongly for a republic; Gensonné desired time for consideration; Condorcet and Guadet were not indisposed to a proposition which was made, of elevating the prince of Conti to the Regency; and, when the meeting broke up, nothing had been resolved upon.^† If any decision was subsequently come to, the appointment of the Girondist ministry, which took place subsequently, must naturally have altered it; and what is known of their subsequent plans has been already stated.

We shall here take our leave, both of the Girondists and of Sir Walter Scott. We have left much unsaid, which cannot so properly be said on any other occasion; many misrepresentations unanswered, which it would have been of importance to expose. We would willingly have entered into considerable details respecting the royalist party, whose faults our author has extenuated as much as he has exaggerated those of the revolutionists; respecting the Montagnards, some of whom individually he has treated with great injustice, and of whose character and principles of action, as a body, he has no more than the most superficial conception; respecting the libéraux of the present day, whom he has treated, in the latter part of his work, with greater asperity and unfairness than is shewn towards the revolutionists themselves.^* We could have wished to take notice of his sophisms on the Napoleon Code,^[*] and on every subject, without exception, connected with English institutions and English politics; sophisms which are adapted to the state of all these different questions twenty years ago, and which prove that from that time he has kept his eyes closed to all that has been passing around him, and can neither accommodate his mode of defence to the present modes of attack, nor to the existing state of the public mind. But we must forbear all this, and in conclusion, we shall only say, that with all the faults which we have pointed out and all those which we have not pointed out in this book, the lover of truth has reason to rejoice at its appearance. Much as Sir Walter Scott has wronged the honest part of the revolutionists, the general opinion has hitherto wronged them far more; and to have much chance of correcting that opinion, it was perhaps necessary to temporize with it, and at first give into some portion of the prevailing error. The work contains juster views, and above all, breathes a less malignant spirit, than almost any other Tory publication on the Revolution, and will so far work a beneficial effect upon many minds, which would turn from a perfectly true history of the Revolution without examination or inquiry. We have, therefore, pointed out the errors of this work, not with any wish to see its influence diminished, far less with any hostility towards the author, for whom, politics apart, we share that admiration which is felt by every person possessing a knowledge of the English language. We have been influenced solely by the conviction, that if some readers can as yet endure no more than a part of the truth, there are many who are fully prepared to listen to the whole; and that our remarks have a greater chance of being extensively read and attended to, by being connected, however indirectly, with so celebrated a name.

ALISON’S HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

1833

EDITOR’S NOTE

Monthly Repository, n.s. VII (July, and Aug., 1833), 507-11, and 513-16. Title footnoted: “History of Europe during the French Revolution, embracing the period from the Assembly of the Notables in 1789, to the establishment of the Directory in 1796. By Archibald Alison, F.R.S.E. Advocate. In 2 vols. 8vo. [Edinburgh: Blackwood: London: Cadell,] 1833.” Running titles: “The French Revolution.” Unsigned. Most of the second part (Aug., 1833) republished in Dissertations and Discussions, I, 56-62, entitled: “A Few Observations on the French Revolution,” with the title footnoted: “From a review of the first two volumes of Alison’s History of Europe, Monthly Repository, August 1833.” Running titles: “The French Revolution.” Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A review of Alison’s History of the French Revolution in the Monthly Repository for July and August 1833” (MacMinn, 32-3). The copy of the article (tear-sheets) in Mill’s library, Somerville College, headed in Mill’s hand, “From the Monthly Repository for July & August 1833,” contains two corrections also in Mill’s hand (here adopted), at 116.14 “this” is altered to “his”, at 119.2 “our” is altered to “an”.

The following text, taken from the Monthly Repository (our usual rule of using the latest version as copy-text here not applying to D&D because only part of the text was republished), is collated with those in D&D, 1st ed. (1859), and 2nd ed. (1867). In the footnoted variants, “59” indicates D&D, 1st ed., and “67” indicates D&D, 2nd ed.

For comment on the essay, see xlvi-l and xcvi-xcvii above.

Alison’s History of the French Revolution

of history, the most honoured, if not honourable species of composition, is not the whole purport biographic? History, it has been said, is the essence of innumerable biographies.^[*] Such, at least, it should be: whether it is, might admit of question. But, in any case, what hope have we in turning over those old interminable chronicles, with their garrulities and insipidities; or still worse, in patiently examining those modern narrations, of the philosophic kind, where philosophy, teaching by experience, must sit like owl on house-top, seeing nothing, understanding nothing, uttering only, with solemnity enough, her perpetual most wearisome hoo, hoo,—what hope have we, except the for most part fallacious one of gaining some acquaintance with our fellow-creatures, though dead and vanished, yet dear to us; how they got along in those old days, suffering and doing, to what extent, and under what circumstances, they resisted the devil, and triumphed over him, or struck their colours to him, and were trodden under foot by him; how, in short, the perennial battle went, which men name life, which we also in these new days, with indifferent fortune, have to fight, and must bequeath to our sons and grandsons to go on fighting, till the enemy one day be quite vanquished and abolished, or else the great night sink and part the combatants; and thus, either by some Millennium or some new Noah’s Deluge, the volume of universal history wind itself up! Other hope, in studying such books, we have none and that it is a deceitful hope, who that has tried knows not? A feast of widest biographic insight is spread for us; we enter full of hungry anticipation, alas! like so many other feasts, which life invites us to, a mere Ossian’s feast of shells,^[†] the food and liquor being all emptied out and clean gone, and only the vacant dishes and deceitful emblems thereof left! Your modern historical restaurateurs are indeed little better than high-priests of famine, that keep choicest china dinner-sets, only no dinner to serve therein. Yet such is our biographic appetite, we run trying from shop to shop, with ever new hope, and, unless we could eat the wind, with ever new disappointment.^*

Thus writes, although in a publication unworthy of him, an author whom the multitude does not yet, and will not soon understand. The biographic aspect here so exclusively dwelt upon, is indeed not the only aspect under which history may profitably and pleasantly be contemplated: but if we find ourselves disappointed of what it ought to afford us in this kind, most surely our search will be equally vain for all other fruit. If what purports to be the history of any portion of mankind, keep not its promise of making us understand and represent to ourselves what manner of men those were whose story it pretends to be, let it undertake what else it may, it will assuredly perform nothing.

This is what a perfect biography, could such be obtained, of any single human being, would do for us, or more properly enable us to do for ourselves, and the perfection of a history, considered in its biographic character, would be to accomplish something of the same kind for an entire nation or an entire age. Thus in respect to the French Revolution, though complete insight is not to be had, we should have been thankful for anything that could have aided us in forming for ourselves even an imperfect picture of the manner in which a Frenchman, at the period of the breaking out of the Revolution lived: what his thoughts were habitually occupied with; what feelings were excited in him by the universe, or by any of the things that dwell therein; above all, what things he fixed his desires upon; what he did for his bread; what things he cared for besides bread; with what evils he had to contend, and how he was enabled to bear up against them; what were his joys, what his consolations, and to what extent he was able to attain them. Such clear view of him and of his circumstances, is the basis of all true knowledge and understanding of the Revolution. Having thus learnt to understand a Frenchman of those days, we would next be helped to know, and to bring vividly before our minds, the new circumstances in which the Revolution placed him, how those circumstances painted themselves to his eyes, from his point of view; what, as a consequence of the conception he formed of them, he thought, felt, and did, not only in the political, but perhaps still more in what may be called “the private biographic phasis; the manner in which individuals demeaned themselves, and social life went on, in so extraordinary an element as that; the most extraordinary, one might say, for the ‘thin rind of habit’ was utterly rent off, and man stood there with all the powers of civilization, and none of its rules to aid him in guiding these.”^[‡]

Such things we would willingly learn from a history of the Revolution; but who among its historians teaches the like? or has ought of that kind to teach? or has ever had the thought strike him that such things are to be taught or learnt? Not Mr. Alison’s predecessors, of whom, nevertheless, there must be some twenty who have written better books than his; far less Mr. Alison himself. How should he? When in the course of ages a man arises who can conceive a character, though it be but of one being, and can make his readers conceive it too, we call him a dramatist, and write down his name in the short list of the world’s great minds; are we then entitled to expect from every respectable, quiet, well-meaning Tory gentleman, that he shall be capable of forming within himself, and impressing upon us, a living image of the character and manner of existence, not of one human being, but of a nation or a century of mankind? To throw our own mind into the mind and into the circumstances of another, is one of the most trying of all exercises of the intellect and imagination, and the very conception how great a thing it is, seems to imply the capacity of at least partially performing it.

Not to judge Mr. Alison by so high a standard, but by the far lower one of what has actually been achieved by previous writers on the subject, let us endeavour to estimate the worth of his book, and his qualifications as a historian.

And first, of his merits. He is evidently what is termed a kind-hearted, or, at the very least, a good-natured man. Though a Tory, and, therefore, one in whom some prejudices against the actors in the Revolution might be excused, he is most unaffectedly candid and charitable in his judgment of them. Though he condemns them as politicians, he is more indulgent to them as men than even we are, who look with much less disapprobation upon many of their acts. He has not, indeed, that highest impartiality which proceeds from philosophic insight, but abundance of that lower kind which flows from milkiness of disposition. He can appreciate talent; he does not join in the ill-informed and rash assertion of the Edinburgh Review, reechoed by the Quarterly, that the first authors of the French Revolution were mediocre men;^[*] on the contrary, speaking in his preface of the Constituent Assembly, he talks of its “memorable discussions,” and of himself as “most forcibly impressed with the prodigious, though often perverted and mistaken ability, which distinguished them.”^[†] Mr. Alison has a further merit, and in a man of his quality of mind it is a most positive one—he is no canter. He does not think it necessary to profess to be shocked, or terrified, at opinions or modes of conduct contrary to what are deemed proper and reputable in his own country. He does not guard his own respectability by a saving clause, whenever he has occasion to name or to praise even a Mirabeau. We should never think of this as a quality worthy of particular notice in a mind accustomed to vigorous and independent thought; but in whatever mind it exists, it is evidence of that which is the first condition of all worth, a desire to be rather than to seem.

Having said thus much on the favourable side, turn we to the other column of the account, and here we have to say simply this, that, after reading both these volumes carefully through, we are quite completely unable to name any one thing that Mr. Alison has done, which had not been far better done before; or to conjecture what could lead him to imagine that such a work as he has produced was any desideratum in the existing literature on the subject. It is hard to say of any book that it is altogether useless; that it contains nothing from which man, woman, or child can derive any one particle of benefit, learn any one thing worth knowing; but a more useless book than this of Mr. Alison’s, one which approaches nearer to the ideal of absolute inutility, we believe we might go far to seek.

We have not often happened to meet with an author of any work of pretension less endowed than Mr. Alison with the faculty of original thought; his negation of genius amounts almost to a positive quality. Notwithstanding, or, perhaps, in consequence of, this deficiency, he deals largely in general reflections; which accordingly are of the barrenest; when true, so true that no one ever thought them false; when false, nowise that kind of false propositions which come from a penetrating but partial or hasty glance at the thing spoken of, and, therefore, though not true, have instructive truth in them; but such as a country-gentleman, accustomed to be king of his company, talks after dinner. The same want of power manifests itself in the narrative. Telling his story almost entirely after Mignet and Thiers,^[*] he has caught none of their vivacity from those great masters of narration; the most stirring scenes of that mighty world-drama, under his pen turn flat, cold, and spiritless. In his preface he apologizes for the “dramatic air” produced by inserting fragments of speeches into his text:^[†] if the fact were so, it would be a subject of praise, not of apology; but if it were an offence, we assure Mr. Alison that he never would be found guilty of it; nothing is dramatic which has passed through the strainer of his translations; even the eloquence of Mirabeau cannot rouse within him one spark of kindred energy and fervour. In the humbler duties of a historian he is equally deficient; he has no faculty of historical criticism, and no research; his marginal references point exclusively to the most obvious sources of information; and even among these he refers five times to a compilation, for once to an original authority. In this he evinces a candour worthy of praise, since his crowded margin betrays that scantiness of reading which other authors leave theirs blank on purpose to conceal. We suspect he has written his book rather from memory and notes than with the works themselves before him; else how happens it that he invariably misspells the name of one of the writers, he oftenest refers to?^* why are several of the names which occur in the history, also misspelt, in a manner not to be accounted for by the largest allowance for typographical errors? why are there so many inaccuracies in matter of fact, of minor importance indeed, but which could hardly have been fallen into, by one fresh from the reading of even the common histories of the Revolution? The very first and simplest requisite for a writer of French history, a knowledge of the French language, Mr. Alison does not possess in the necessary perfection. To feel the higher excellences of expression and style in any language implies a mastery over the language itself, and a familiarity with its literature, far greater than is sufficent for all inferior purposes. We are sure that any one who can so completely fail to enter into the spirit of Mirabeau’s famous “Dites-lui que ces hordes étrangères dont nous sommes investis,”^[*] of that inspired burst of oratory upon la hideuse banqueroute,^[†] and of almost everything having any claim to eloquence which he attempts to render, must be either without the smallest real feeling of eloquence, or so inadequately conversant with the French language, that French eloquence has not yet found its way to his soul. We are the more willing to give Mr. Alison the benefit of this excuse, as we find his knowledge of French at fault in far smaller things. He mistakes l’impôt du timbre for a tax on timber; fourche, apparently from not understanding what it is, he translates a fork, and chariot a chariot. The waggoner Cathelineau he terms a charioteer, and the victims of the revolutionary tribunal are carried from the prison to the guillotine in a chariot. Mr. Alison might with as much reason call the dead-cart, during the plague of London, by that name.

If our sole object were to declare our opinion of Mr. Alison’s book, our observations might stop here. But Mr. Alison’s subject seems to require of us some further remarks, applicable to the mode in which that subject is treated by English writers generally, as well as by him.

* * * * *

^aHistory is interesting under a two-fold aspect, it has a^bscientific^b interest, and a ^cmoral^c or ^dbiographic^d interest. A scientific, inasmuch as it exhibits the general laws of the moral universe acting in circumstances of complexity, and enables us to trace the connexion between great effects and their causes. A moral or biographic interest, inasmuch as it ^erepresents to us^e the characters and lives of human beings, and calls upon us, according to their deservings or to their fortunes, for ^four sympathy, our admiration, or our censure^f .

^gNow, without^g entering at present, more than to the extent of a few words, into the ^hscientific^h aspect of the history of the French Revolution, or stopping to define the place which we would assign to it as an event in universal history, we need not fear to declare utterly unqualified for estimating the French Revolution any one who looks upon it as arising from causes peculiarly French, or otherwise than as one turbulent passage in a progressive ⁱrevolutionⁱ embracing the whole human race. All political revolutions, not effected by foreign conquest, originate in moral revolutions. The subversion of established institutions is merely one consequence of the previous subversion of established opinions. The ^jhundred^j political revolutions of the last three centuries were but a few outward manifestations of a moral revolution, which dates from the great breaking loose of the human faculties commonly described as the “revival of letters,” and of which the main instrument and agent was the invention of printing. How much of the course of that moral revolution yet remains to be run, or how many political revolutions it will yet generate before it be exhausted, no one can foretell. But it must be the shallowest view of the French Revolution, which can ^know^k consider it as any thing but a mere ^lincident^l in a great change in man himself, in his ^mbelief^m , in his principles of conduct, and therefore in the outward arrangements of society; a change ⁿwhich is but half completed, and which is now in a state of more rapid progress here in England, than any where elseⁿ .

Now if this view be just^o, which we must be content for the present to assume^o , surely for an English historian, writing at this particular time concerning the French Revolution, there was something pressing for consideration of greater interest and importance than the degree of praise or blame due to the few individuals who, with more or less ^pof^p consciousness what they were about, happened to be personally implicated in that strife of the elements.

But also, if, feeling his incapacity for treating history from the scientific point of view, an author thinks fit to confine himself to the ^qmoral^q aspect, surely some less common-place moral result, some more valuable and more striking practical lesson, might admit of being drawn from this extraordinary passage of history, than merely this, that men should beware how they begin a political convulsion, because they never can tell how or when it will end; which happens to be the one solitary general inference, the entire aggregate of the practical wisdom, deduced therefrom in Mr. Alison’s book.

Of such stuff are ordinary ^rmen’s^r moralities composed. Be good, be wise, always do right, take heed what you do, for you know not what may come of it. Does Mr. Alison, or any one, really believe that any human thing, from the fall of man to the last bankruptcy, ever went wrong for want of such maxims as these?

A political convulsion is a fearful thing: granted. Nobody can be assured beforehand what course it will take: we grant that too. What then? No one ought ever to do any thing which has any tendency to bring on a convulsion: is that the principle? But there never was an attempt made to reform any abuse in Church or State, never any denunciation uttered, or mention made of any political or social evil, which had not some such tendency. Whatever excites dissatisfaction with any one of the arrangements of society, brings the danger of a forcible subversion of the entire fabric so much the ^snearer: does^s it follow that there ought to be no censure of any thing which exists? Or is this abstinence, peradventure, to be observed only when the danger is considerable? But that is whenever the evil complained of is considerable; because the greater the evil, the stronger is the desire excited to be freed from it, and because the greatest evils are always those which it is most difficult to get rid of by ordinary means. It would follow, then, that mankind are at liberty to throw off small evils, but not great ones, that the most deeply-seated and fatal diseases of the social system are those which ought to be left for ever without remedy.

Men are not to make it the sole object of their political lives to avoid a revolution, no more than of their natural lives to avoid death. They are to take reasonable care to avert both those contingencies when there is a present danger, but ^tthey are^t not to forbear the pursuit of any worthy object for fear of a mere possibility.

Unquestionably it is possible to do mischief by striving for a larger measure of political reform than the national mind is ripe for; and so forcing on prematurely a struggle between elements, which, by a more gradual progress, might have been brought to harmonize. And every honest and considerate ^uman^u , before he engages in the career of a political reformer, will inquire whether the moral state and intellectual culture of the people are such as to render any great improvement in the management of public affairs possible. But he will inquire too, whether the people are likely ever to be made better, morally or intellectually, without a ^vprevious^v change in the government. If not, it may still be his duty to strive for such a change at whatever ^wrisks^w .

What decision a perfectly wise man, at the opening of the French Revolution, would have come to upon these several points, he who knows most will be most slow to pronounce. By the Revolution, substantial good has been effected of immense value, at the cost of immediate evil of the most tremendous kind. But it is impossible, with all the light which has been, or probably ever will be, obtained on the subject, to do more than conjecture whether France could have purchased improvement cheaper; whether any course which could have averted the Revolution, would not have done so by arresting all improvement, and barbarizing down the people of France into the condition of Russian boors.

A revolution, which is so ugly a thing, certainly cannot be a very formidable thing, if all is true ^xthe Tories^x say of it. For, according to them, it has always depended upon the will of some small number of persons, whether there should be a revolution or ^yno^y . They invariably begin by assuming that great and decisive immediate improvements, with a certainty of subsequent and rapid progress, and the ultimate attainment of all ^zpractical^z good, may be had by peaceable means at the option of the leading reformers, and that to this they voluntarily prefer civil war and massacre for the sake of marching somewhat more directly and rapidly towards their ultimate ends. Having thus made out a revolution to be so mere a bagatelle, that, except by the extreme of knavery or folly, it may always be kept at a distance; there is little difficulty in proving all revolutionary leaders knaves or fools. But unhappily theirs is no such enviable position; a far other alternative is commonly offered to them. We will hazard the assertion, that there ^anever^a yet happened a political convulsion, originating in the desire of reform, where the choice did not, in the full persuasion of every person concerned, lie between ^ball^b and ^cnothing^c ; where the actors in the revolution had not thoroughly made up their minds, that, without a revolution, the enemies of all reform would have the entire ascendency, and that not only there would be no present improvement, but the door would for the future be shut against ^dall^d endeavour towards it.

Unquestionably, such was the conviction of those who took part in the French Revolution, during its earlier stages. ^eThey^e did ^fnot^f choose the way of blood and violence in preference to the way of peace and discussion. Theirs was the cause of law and order. The States General at Versailles were a body, legally assembled, legally and constitutionally sovereign of the country, and had every right which law and opinion could bestow upon them, to do all that they did. But as soon as they did any thing disagreeable to the king’s courtiers, (at that time they had not even ^gbegun^g to make any alterations in the fundamental institutions of the country,) the king and his advisers took steps for appealing to the bayonet. Then, and not till then, the adverse force of an armed people stood forth in defence of the highest constituted authority—the legislature of their country—menaced with illegal violence. The Bastille fell; the popular party became the stronger; and success, which so often is said to be a justification, has here proved the reverse: men who would have^h ranked with Hampden and Sidney, if they had quietly waited to have their throats cut, ⁱbecomeⁱ odious monsters because they have been victorious.

We have not now time nor space to discuss the quantum of the guilt which attaches, not to the authors of the Revolution, but to the ^jsubsequent, to the various^j revolutionary governments, for the crimes of the Revolution. Much was done which could not have been done except by bad men. But whoever examines faithfully and diligently the records of those times, whoever can conceive the circumstances and look into the minds^k of the men who planned and ^lwho^l perpetrated those enormities, will be the more fully convinced, the more he considers the facts, that all which was done had one sole object. That object was, according to the phraseology of the time, to save the Revolution; to ^msave^m it, no matter by what means; to defend it against its irreconcilable enemies, within and without; to prevent the undoing of the whole work, the restoration of all ⁿwhichⁿ had been demolished, and the extermination of all who had been active in demolishing; to keep down the royalists, and drive back the foreign invaders; as the means to these ends to erect all France into a camp, subject the whole French people to the obligations and the arbitrary discipline of a besieged city, and to inflict death, or suffer it with equal readiness—death or any other evil—for the sake of succeeding in the object.

But nothing of all this is dreamed of in Mr. Alison’s philosophy:^[*] he knows not enough, ^oneither of his professed subject, nor^o of the universal subject, the nature of man, to have got even thus far, to have made this first step towards understanding what the French Revolution was. In this he is without excuse, for had he been even moderately read in the French literature, ^psubsequent^p to the Revolution, he would have found this view of the details of its history familiar to every writer and to every reader.^a

It was scarcely worth while to touch upon the French Revolution for the sake of saying no more about it than we have now said; yet it is as much, perhaps, as the occasion warrants. Observations entering more deeply into the subject will find a fitter opportunity when it shall not be necessary to mix them up with strictures upon an insignificant book.

THE MONSTER TRIAL

1835

EDITOR’S NOTE

Monthly Repository, n.s. IX (June, 1835), 393-6. Headed by title. Running titles as title. Signed “A.” Not republished. Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “An article headed ‘The Monster Trial’ in the Monthly Repository for June 1835” (MacMinn, 44). The copy (tear-sheets) in Mill’s library, Somerville College, headed in Mill’s hand, “From the Monthly Repository for June 1835”, has no corrections or emendations. In the Somerville College copy of the Examiner for 26 Jan., 1834, from which Mill here quotes, there is one correction, “institution” for “constitution” (127:18), which is here accepted.

The long quotation from Mill’s own unheaded leader in the Examiner is collated with the original. In the footnoted variants, “34” indicates the Examiner.

For comment on the essay, see lx-lxii and xcvii-xcviii above.

The Monster Trial

so little is the general course of French affairs attended to in this country, that when, as at present, some single event, either from its importance or its strangeness, attracts a certain degree of notice, its causes, and all which could help to explain it, have been forgotten. It is true that the most assiduous reader of only the English newspapers, even if he retained all he had read, would understand little or nothing of the real character of events in France, for the editors of the English newspapers are as ignorant of France as they probably are of Monomotapa; and their Paris correspondents, being mostly Frenchmen, write as if for Frenchmen, and repeat the mere gossip of the day, pre-supposing as already known all which Englishmen would care to know. By being the solitary exception to this rule, the writer who signed “O.P.Q.”^[*] in the Morning Chronicle gained a temporary popularity, merely because, unlike the rest of the fraternity, he assumed that his readers knew nothing, and had to learn everything. In the Examiner alone, for the last four years, those who take interest in the fate of that great country, which divides with ourselves the moral dominion of Europe, have had the passing events placed carefully before them with regular explanatory comments.^[†]

From that paper we quote part of an article which appeared on the 26th January, 1834, descriptive of the character and objects of that portion of the French republicans against whom the procès-monstre^[‡] is mainly directed.

In April, 1834, about three months after the above article was written, the leaders in a general strike of the silk-weavers of Lyons, which had just terminated unsuccessfully, were prosecuted by order of government; and this prosecution, together with the knowledge that the detestable law^[†] then in progress through the Chambers for putting down all associations unlicensed by government would be applied to the extinction of trades’ unions, provoked the unfortunate insurrection at Lyons, which lasted five days, and was with some difficulty suppressed. This was not a political, but a trades’ union insurrection. The government, however, took that base advantage of the alarm excited by it which all French governments have long been accustomed to take of all events exciting a panic among those who have something to lose. They got up an insignificant riot in the streets of Paris, called it an insurrection, took the most violent measures for repressing it, (a house was broken open, and all the inhabitants, twenty or thirty in number, butchered by the troops,) and availed themselves of the excuse for seizing the persons and papers of all the leading members of the Société des Droits de l’Homme.^[‡] Not one of those leaders was even suspected of being concerned in either of the two insurrections, but the opportunity was thought a good one for laying, under colour of law, the clutches of the government upon the correspondence of the society. It is now a year that these distinguished persons have been kept in prison; and that time has been employed in manufacturing, from the papers which government got into its possession, evidence of a plot. The next desideratum was, to bring the prisoners before a tribunal which would be sure to convict them. Paris juries had been tried, and found not sufficiently docile. They had always scouted the miserable attempts to hunt down innocent men on charges of treason and conspiracy; and memorable had been the exposure, on more than one such occasion, of the malignant and fraudulent artifices of the government. There was, however, a resource. In servile imitation of the English constitution, the Chamber of Peers had been, by the French charter, invested with the power of trying ministers for treason or malversation on the prosecution of the Chamber of Deputies.^[*] This provision Louis Philippe, following a questionable precedent of Louis XVIII’s reign, has applied to the case of persons who are not ministers, nor prosecuted by the Chamber of Deputies; and has brought the pretended authors of the pretended republican conspiracy of Paris, along with the presumed authors of the real trades’ union revolt at Lyons, before the Chamber of Peers, that is, before a body named by the government, and mostly holding places under it.

Nothing can denote more complete ignorance of France than the daily speculations in our liberal newspapers as to the embarrassments which the Chamber of Peers is supposed to have brought upon itself by consenting to be made the tool of the government in this matter, and the loss it is likely to sustain in public estimation. The Chamber of Peers is so happily situated, that it cannot possibly suffer any loss of public estimation; any change on that score must be to its advantage. It is as completely insignificant as our House of Lords would be if it were a body of mere pensioners, not hereditary, containing as little talent as at present, and scarcely any fortune. The Chamber of Peers, previously to this trial, was heartily despised. It may now attain the more honourable, and, to a Frenchman especially, far more enviable position of being hated. By showing that it has still the power (in spite of the imbecility inherent in its constitution) of making itself formidable as an instrument of tyranny in the hands of the other two branches of the legislature, it may have a chance, which it certainly had not before, of regaining a certain sort of consideration. The Monster Trial is its last throw for political importance.

CARLYLE’S FRENCH REVOLUTION

1837

EDITOR’S NOTE

London and Westminster Review, V & XXVII (July, 1837), 17-53. Headed: “The French Revolution: A History. In three volumes. By Thomas Carlyle. Small 8vo. [London:] Fraser, 1837.” Running titles: “The French Revolution.” Signed “A.” Not republished. Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A review of Carlyle’s History of the French Revolution, in the same review [as ‘Taylor’s Statesman,’ by Mill and George Grote] for July 1837. (No. 10 and 53.)” (MacMinn, 48.) The copy (bound sheets) in Mill’s library. Somerville College, has no corrections or emendations.

In the extensive quotations, the footnotes that Mill takes from Carlyle are signalled by “[TC].”

For comment, see l-lv and xcix-c above.

Carlyle’s French Revolution

this is not so much a history, as an epic poem; and notwithstanding, or even in consequence of this, the truest of histories. It is the history of the French Revolution, and the poetry of it, both in one; and on the whole no work of greater genius, either historical or poetical, has been produced in this country for many years.

It is a book on which opinion will be for some time divided; nay, what talk there is about it, while it is still fresh, will probably be oftenest of a disparaging sort; as indeed is usually the case, both with men’s works and with men themselves, of distinguished originality. For a thing which is unaccustomed, must be a very small thing indeed, if mankind can at once see into it and be sure that it is good: when, therefore, a considerable thing, which is also an unaccustomed one, appears, those who will hereafter approve, sit silent for a time, making up their minds; and those only to whom the mere novelty is a sufficient reason for disapproval, speak out. We need not fear to prophesy that the suffrages of a large class of the very best qualified judges will be given, even enthusiastically, in favour of the volumes before us; but we will not affect to deny that the sentiment of another large class of readers (among whom are many entitled to the most respectful attention on other subjects) will be far different; a class comprehending all who are repelled by quaintness of manner. For a style more peculiar than that of Mr. Carlyle, more unlike the jog-trot characterless uniformity which distinguishes the English style of this age of Periodicals, does not exist. Nor indeed can this style be wholly defended even by its admirers. Some of its peculiarities are mere mannerisms, arising from some casual association of ideas, or some habit accidentally picked up; and what is worse, many sterling thoughts are so disguised in phraseology borrowed from the spiritualist school of German poets and metaphysicians, as not only to obscure the meaning, but to raise, in the minds of most English readers, a not unnatural nor inexcusable presumption of there being no meaning at all. Nevertheless, the presumption fails in this instance (as in many other instances); there is not only a meaning, but generally a true, and even a profound meaning; and, although a few dicta about the “mystery” and the “infinitude”^[*] which are in the universe and in man, and such like topics, are repeated in varied phrases greatly too often for our taste, this must be borne with, proceeding, as one cannot but see, from feelings the most solemn, and the most deeply rooted which can lie in the heart of a human being. These transcendentalisms, and the accidental mannerisms excepted, we pronounce the style of this book to be not only good, but of surpassing excellence; excelled, in its kind, only by the great masters of epic poetry; and a most suitable and glorious vesture for a work which is itself, as we have said, an epic poem.

To any one who is perfectly satisfied with the best of the existing histories, it will be difficult to explain wherein the merit of Mr. Carlyle’s book consists. If there be a person who, in reading the histories of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon (works of extraordinary talent, and the works of great writers)^[*] has never felt that this, after all, is not history—and that the lives and deeds of his fellow-creatures must be placed before him in quite another manner, if he is to know them, or feel them to be real beings, who once were alive, beings of his own flesh and blood, not mere shadows and dim abstractions; such a person, for whom plausible talk about a thing does as well as an image of the thing itself, feels no need of a book like Mr. Carlyle’s; the want, which it is peculiarly fitted to supply, does not yet consciously exist in his mind. That such a want, however, is generally felt, may be inferred from the vast number of historical plays and historical romances, which have been written for no other purpose than to satisfy it. Mr. Carlyle has been the first to shew that all which is done for history by the best historical play, by Schiller’s Wallenstein,^[†] for example, or Vitet’s admirable trilogy,^* may be done in a strictly true narrative, in which every incident rests on irrefragable authority; may be done, by means merely of an apt selection and a judicious grouping of authentic facts.

It has been noted as a point which distinguishes Shakespeare from ordinary dramatists, that their characters are logical abstractions, his are human beings: that their kings are nothing but kings, their lovers nothing but lovers, their patriots, courtiers, villains, cowards, bullies, are each of them that, and that alone; while his are real men and women, who have these qualities, but have them in addition to their full share of all other qualities (not incompatible), which are incident to human nature.^[*] In Shakespeare, consequently, we feel we are in a world of realities; we are among such beings as really could exist, as do exist, or have existed, and as we can sympathise with; the faces we see around us are human faces, and not mere rudiments of such, or exaggerations of single features. This quality, so often pointed out as distinctive of Shakespeare’s plays, distinguishes Mr. Carlyle’s history. Never before did we take up a book calling itself by that name, a book treating of past times, and professing to be true, and find ourselves actually among human beings. We at once felt, that what had hitherto been to us mere abstractions, had become realities; the “forms of things unknown,” which we fancied we knew, but knew their names merely, were, for the first time, with most startling effect, “bodied forth” and “turned into shape.”^[†] Other historians talk to us indeed of human beings; but what do they place before us? Not even stuffed figures of such, but rather their algebraical symbols; a few phrases, which present no image to the fancy, but by adding up the dictionary meanings of which, we may hunt out a few qualities, not enough to form even the merest outline of what the men were, or possibly could have been; furnishing little but a canvas, which, if we ourselves can paint, we may fill with almost any picture, and if we cannot, it will remain for ever blank.

Take, for example, Hume’s history; certainly, in its own way, one of the most skilful specimens of narrative in modern literature, and with some pretensions also to philosophy. Does Hume throw his own mind into the mind of an Anglo-Saxon, or an Anglo-Norman? Does any reader feel, after having read Hume’s history, that he can now picture to himself what human life was, among the Anglo-Saxons? how an Anglo-Saxon would have acted in any supposable case? what were his joys, his sorrows, his hopes and fears, his ideas and opinions on any of the great and small matters of human interest? Would not the sight, if it could be had, of a single table or pair of shoes made by an Anglo-Saxon, tell us, directly and by inference, more of his whole way of life, more of how men thought and acted among the Anglo-Saxons, than Hume, with all his narrative skill, has contrived to tell us from all his materials?

Or descending from the history of civilization, which in Hume’s case may have been a subordinate object, to the history of political events: did any one ever gain from Hume’s history anything like a picture of what may actually have been passing, in the minds, say, of Cavaliers or of Roundheads during the civil wars? Does any one feel that Hume has made him figure to himself with any precision what manner of men these were; how far they were like ourselves, how far different; what things they loved and hated, and what sort of conception they had formed of the things they loved and hated? And what kind of a notion can be framed of a period of history, unless we begin with that as a preliminary? Hampden, and Strafford, and Vane, and Cromwell, do these, in Hume’s pages, appear to us like beings who actually trod this earth, and spoke with a human voice, and stretched out human hands in fellowship with other human beings; or like the figures in a phantasmagoria, colourless, impalpable, gigantic, and in all varieties of attitude, but all resembling one another in being shadows? And suppose he had done his best to assist us in forming a conception of these leading characters: what would it have availed, unless he had placed us also in the atmosphere which they breathed? What wiser are we for looking out upon the world through Hampden’s eyes, unless it be the same world which Hampden looked upon? and what help has Hume afforded us for this? Has he depicted to us, or to himself, what all the multitude of people were about, who surrounded Hampden; what the whole English nation were feeling, thinking, or doing? Does he shew us what impressions from without were coming to Hampden—what materials and what instruments were given him to work with? If not, we are well qualified, truly, from Hume’s information, to erect ourselves into judges of any part of Hampden’s conduct!

Another very celebrated historian, we mean Gibbon—not a man of mere science and analysis, like Hume, but with some (though not the truest or profoundest) artistic feeling of the picturesque, and from whom, therefore, rather more might have been expected—has with much pains succeeded in producing a tolerably graphic picture of here and there a battle, a tumult, or an insurrection; his book is full of movement and costume, and would make a series of very pretty ballets at the Opera-house, and the ballets would give us fully as distinct an idea of the Roman empire, and how it declined and fell, as the book does. If we want that, we must look for it anywhere but in Gibbon. One touch of M. Guizot removes a portion of the veil which hid from us the recesses of private life under the Roman empire, lets in a ray of light which penetrates as far even as the domestic hearth of a subject of Rome, and shews us the government at work making that desolate;^[*] but no similar gleam of light from Gibbon’s mind ever reaches the subject; human life, in the times he wrote about, is not what he concerned himself with.

On the other hand, there are probably many among our readers who are acquainted (though it is not included in Coleridge’s admirable translation) with that extraordinary piece of dramatic writing, termed “Wallenstein’s Camp.”^[†] One of the greatest of dramatists, the historian of the Thirty Years’ War,^[*] aspired to do, in a dramatic fiction, what even his genius had not enabled him to do in his history—to delineate the great characters, and, above all, to embody the general spirit of that period. This is done with such life and reality through ten acts, that the reader feels when it is over as if all the prominent personages in the play were people whom he had known from his childhood; but the author did not trust to this alone: he prefixed to the ten acts, one introductory act, intended to exhibit, not the characters, but the element they moved in. It is there, in this preliminary piece, that Schiller really depicts the Thirty Years’ War; without that, even the other ten acts, splendid as they are, would not have sufficiently realized it to our conception, nor would the Wallensteins and Piccolominis and Terzskys of that glorious tragedy have been themselves, comparatively speaking, intelligible.

What Schiller must have done, in his own mind, with respect to the age of Wallenstein, to enable him to frame that fictitious delineation of it. Mr. Carlyle, with a mind which looks still more penetratingly into the deeper meanings of things than Schiller’s, has done with respect to the French Revolution. And he has communicated his picture of it with equal vividness; but he has done it by means of real, not fictitious incidents. And therefore is his book, as we said, at once the authentic History and the Poetry of the French Revolution.

It is indeed a favourite doctrine of Mr. Carlyle, and one which he has enforced with great strength of reason and eloquence in other places, that all poetry suitable to the present age must be of this kind:^[†] that poetry has not naturally any thing to do with fiction, nor is fiction in these days even the most appropriate vehicle and vesture of it; that it should, and will, employ itself more and more, not in inventing unrealities, but in bringing out into ever greater distinctness and impressiveness the poetic aspect of realities. For what is it, in the fictitious subjects which poets usually treat, that makes those subjects poetical? Surely not the dry, mechanical facts which compose the story; but the feelings—the high and solemn, the tender or mournful, even the gay and mirthful contemplations, which the story, or the manner of relating it, awaken in our minds. But would not all these thoughts and feelings be far more vividly aroused if the facts were believed, if the men, and all that is ascribed to them, had actually been; if the whole were no play of imagination, but a truth? In every real fact, in which any of the great interests of human beings are implicated, there lie the materials of all poetry; there is, as Mr. Carlyle has said, the fifth act of a tragedy in every peasant’s death-bed;^[‡] the life of every heroic character is a heroic poem, were but the man of genius found, who could so write it! Not falsification of the reality is wanted, not the representation of it as being any thing which it is not; only a deeper understanding of what it is; the power to conceive, and to represent, not the mere outside surface and costume of the thing, nor yet the mere logical definition, and caput mortuum of it—but an image of the thing itself in the concrete, with all that is loveable or hateable or admirable or pitiable or sad or solemn or pathetic, in it, and in the things which are implied in it. That is, the thing must be presented as it can exist only in the mind of a great poet: of one gifted with the two essential elements of the poetic character—creative imagination, which, from a chaos of scattered hints and confused testimonies, can summon up the Thing to appear before it as a completed whole: and that depth and breadth of feeling which makes all the images that are called up appear arrayed in whatever, of all that belongs to them, is naturally most affecting and impressive to the human soul.

We do not envy the person who can read Mr. Carlyle’s three volumes, and not recognize in him both these endowments in a most rare and remarkable degree. What is equally important to be said—he possesses in no less perfection that among the qualities necessary for his task, seemingly the most opposite to these, and in which the man of poetic imagination might be thought likeliest to be deficient; the quality of the historical day-drudge. A more pains-taking or accurate investigator of facts, and sifter of testimonies, never wielded the historical pen. We do not say this at random, but from a most extensive acquaintance with his materials, with his subject, and with the mode in which it has been treated by others.

Thus endowed, and having a theme the most replete with every kind of human interest, epic, tragic, elegiac, even comic and farcical, which history affords, and so near to us withal, that the authentic details of it are still attainable; need it be said, that he has produced a work which deserves to be memorable? a work which, whatever may be its immediate reception, “will not willingly be let die;”^[*] whose reputation will be a growing reputation, its influence rapidly felt, for it will be read by the writers; and perhaps every historical work of any note, which shall hereafter be written in this country, will be different from what it would have been if this book were not.

The book commences with the last illness of Louis XV which is introduced as follows:

The loathsome deathbed of the royal debauchee becomes, under Mr. Carlyle’s pencil, the central figure in an historical picture, including all France: bringing before us, as it were visibly, all the spiritual and physical elements which there existed, and made up the sum of what might be termed the influences of the age. In this picture, and in that of the “Era of Hope” (as Mr. Carlyle calls the first years of Louis XVI,)^[†] there is much that we would gladly quote. But on the whole we think these introductory chapters the least interesting part of the book; less distinguished by their intrinsic merit, and more so by all the peculiarities of manner which either are really defects, or appear so. These chapters will only have justice done them on a second reading, once familiarized with the author’s characteristic turn of thought and expression, we find many passages full of meaning, which, to unprepared minds, would convey a very small portion, if any, of the sense which they are not only intended, but are in themselves admirably calculated to express, for the finest expression is not always that which is the most readily apprehended. The real character of the book, however, begins only to display itself when the properly narrative portion commences. This, however, is more or less the case with all histories, though seldom to so conspicuous an extent.

The stream of the narrative acquires its full speed about the hundred and sixty-fifth page, and the beginning of the fourth book. The introductory rapid sketch of what may be called the coming-on of the Revolution, is then ended, and we are arrived at the calling together of the States General. The fourth book, first chapter, opens as follows:

The next Chapter is “The Election.”

Has the reader often seen the state of an agitated nation made thus present, thus palpable? How the thing paints itself in all its greatness—the men in all their littleness! and this is not done by reasoning about them, but by showing them. The deep pathos of the last paragraph, grand as it is, is but an average specimen, as, indeed, is the whole passage. In the remaining two volumes and a half there are scarcely five consecutive pages of inferior merit to those we have quoted. The few extracts we can venture to make, will be selected, not for peculiarity of merit, but either as forming wholes in themselves, or as depicting events or situations, with which the reader, it may be hoped, is familiar.^† For the more he previously knew of the mere outline of the facts, the more he will admire the writer, whose pictorial and truly poetic genius enables him for the first time to fill up the outline.

Our last extract was an abridged sketch of the State of a Nation: the next shall be a copious narrative of a single event: the far-famed Siege of the Bastille. How much every such passage must suffer by being torn from the context, needs scarcely be said; and nothing that could be said, could, in this case, make it adequately felt. The history of the two previous days occupies twenty-two pages, rising from page to page in interest. We begin at noon on the fourteenth of July:

We quote next the passage on the Burning of Châteaux. Mr. Carlyle gives rather a different account from what English people have been used to, of that feature of the Revolution:

We shall now give a still more striking scene; the opening of the “Insurrection of Women.”^[†]

Here opens a new chapter.

We cannot stop here. See the beginning of the next chapter.

We skip 20 pages, and pass to a later part of the same incident.

And what (it may be asked) are Mr. Carlyle’s opinions?

If this means, whether is he Tory, Whig, or Democrat; is he for things as they are, or for things nearly as they are;^[‡] or is he one who thinks that subverting things as they are, and setting up Democracy is the main thing needful? we answer, he is none of all these. We should say that he has appropriated and made part of his own frame of thought, nearly all that is good in all these several modes of thinking. But it may be asked, what opinion has Mr. Carlyle formed of the French Revolution, as an event in universal history; and this question is entitled to an answer. It should be, however, premised, that in a history upon the plan of Mr. Carlyle’s, the opinions of the writer are a matter of secondary importance. In reading an ordinary historian, we want to know his opinions, because it is mainly his opinions of things, and not the things themselves, that he sets before us; or if any features of the things themselves, those chiefly, which his opinions lead him to consider as of importance. Our readers have seen sufficient in the extracts we have made for them, to be satisfied that this is not Mr. Carlyle’s method. Mr. Carlyle brings the thing before us in the concrete—clothed, not indeed in all its properties and circumstances, since these are infinite, but in as many of them as can be authentically ascertained and imaginatively realized: not prejudging that some of those properties and circumstances will prove instructive and others not, a prejudgment which is the fertile source of misrepresentation and one-sided historical delineation without end. Every one knows, who has attended (for instance) to the sifting of a complicated case by a court of justice, that as long as our image of the fact remains in the slightest degree vague and hazy and undefined, we cannot tell but that what we do not yet distinctly see may be precisely that on which all turns. Mr. Carlyle, therefore, brings us acquainted with persons, things, and events, before he suggests to us what to think of them: nay, we see that this is the very process by which he arrives at his own thoughts; he paints the thing to himself—he constructs a picture of it in his own mind, and does not, till afterwards, make any logical propositions about it at all. This done, his logical propositions concerning the thing may be true, or may be false; the thing is there, and any reader may find a totally different set of propositions in it if he can; as he might in the reality, if that had been before him.

We, for our part, do not always agree in Mr. Carlyle’s opinions either on things or on men. But we hold it to be impossible that any person should set before himself a perfectly true picture of a great historical event, as it actually happened, and yet that his judgment of it should be radically wrong. Differing partially from some of Mr. Carlyle’s detached views, we hold his theory, or theorem, of the Revolution, to be the true theory; true as far as it goes, and wanting little of being as complete as any theory of so vast and complicated a phenomena can be. Nay, we do not think that any rational creature, now that the thing can be looked at calmly, now that we have nothing to hope or to fear from it, can form any second theory on the matter.

Mr. Carlyle’s view of the Revolution is briefly this: That it was the breaking down of a great Imposture: which had not always been an Imposture, but had been becoming such for several centuries.

Two bodies—the King and Feudal Nobility, and the Clergy—held their exalted stations, and received the obedience and allegiance which were paid to them, by virtue solely of their affording guidance to the people: the one, directing and keeping order among them in their conjunct operations towards the pursuit of their most important temporal interests; the other, ministering to their spiritual teaching and culture. These are the grounds on which alone any government either claims obedience or finds it: for the obedience of twenty-five millions to a few hundred thousand never yet was yielded to avowed tyranny.

Now, this guidance, the original ground of all obedience, the privileged classes did for centuries give. The King and the Nobles led the people in war, and protected and judged them in peace, being the fittest persons to do so who then existed; and the Clergy did teach the best doctrine, did inculcate and impress upon the people the best rule of life then known, and did believe in the doctrine and in the rule of life which they taught, and manifested their belief by their actions, and believed that, in teaching it, they were doing the highest thing appointed to mortals. So far as they did this, both spiritual and temporal rulers deserved and obtained reverence, and willing loyal obedience. But for centuries before the French Revolution, the sincerity which once was in this scheme of society was gradually dying out. The King and the Nobles afforded less and less of any real guidance, of any real protection to the people; and even ceased more and more to fancy that they afforded any. All the important business of society went on without them, nay, mostly in spite of their hindrance. The appointed spiritual teachers ceased to do their duty as teachers, ceased to practise what they taught, ceased to believe it, but alas, not to cant about it, or to receive wages as teachers of it. Thus the whole scheme of society and government in France became one great Lie: the places of honour and power being all occupied by persons whose sole claim to occupy them was the pretence of being what they were not, of doing what they did not, nor even for a single moment attempted to do. All other vileness and profligacy in the rulers of a country were but the inevitable consequences of this inherent vice in the condition of their existence. And, this continuing for centuries, the government growing ever more and more consciously a Lie, the people ever more and more perceiving it to be such, the day of reckoning, which comes for all impostures, came for this: the Good would no longer obey such rulers, the Bad ceased to be in awe of them, and both together rose up and hurled them into chaos.

Such is Mr. Carlyle’s idea of what the Revolution was. And now, as to the melancholy turn it took, the horrors which accompanied it, the iron despotism by which it was forced to wind itself up, and the smallness of its positive results, compared with those which were hoped for by the sanguine in its commencement.

Mr. Carlyle’s theory of these things is also a simple one: That the men, most of them good, and many of them among the most instructed of their generation, who attempted at that period to regenerate France, failed in what it was impossible that any one should succeed in: namely, in attempting to found a government, to create a new order of society, a new set of institutions and habits, among a people having no convictions to base such order of things upon. That the existing government, habits, state of society, were bad, this the people were thoroughly convinced of, and rose up as one man, to declare, in every language of deed and word, that they would no more endure it. What was, was bad; but what was good, nobody had determined; no opinion on that subject had rooted itself in the people’s minds; nor was there even any person, or any body of persons, deference for whom was rooted in their minds and whose word they were willing to take for all the rest. Suppose, then, that the twelve hundred members of the Constituent Assembly had even been gifted with perfect knowledge what arrangement of society was best:—how were they to get time to establish it? Or how were they to hold the people in obedience to it when established? A people with no preconceived reverence, either for it or for them; a people like slaves broke from their fetters—with all man’s boundless desires let loose in indefinite expectation, and all the influences of habit and imagination which keep mankind patient under the denial of what they crave for, annihilated for the time, never to be restored but in some quite different shape?

Faith, doubtless, in representative institutions, there was, and of the firmest kind; but unhappily this was not enough; for all that representative institutions themselves can do, is to give practical effect to the faith of the people in something else. What is a representative constitution? Simply a set of contrivances for ascertaining the convictions of the people; for enabling them to declare what men they have faith in; or, failing such, what things the majority of them will insist upon having done to them—by what rule they are willing to be governed. But what if the majority have not faith in any men, nor know even in the smallest degree what things they wish to have done, in what manner they would be governed? This was the condition of the French people. To have made it otherwise was possible, but required time; and time, unhappily, in a Revolution, is not given. A great man, indeed, may do it, by inspiring at least faith in himself, which may last till the tree he has planted has taken root, and can stand alone; such apparently was Solon,^* and such perhaps, had he lived, might have been Mirabeau: nay, in the absence of other greatness, even a great quack may temporarily do it; as Napoleon, himself a mixture of great man and great quack, did in some measure exemplify. Revolutions sweep much away, but if any Revolution since the beginning of the world ever founded anything, towards which the minds of the people had not been growing for generations previous, it has been founded by some individual man.

Much more must be added to what has now been said, to make the statement of Mr. Carlyle’s opinions on the French Revolution anything like complete; nor shall we any further set forth, either such of those opinions as we agree in, or those, far less numerous, from which we disagree. Nevertheless, we will not leave the subject without pointing out what appears to us to be the most prominent defect in our author’s general mode of thinking. His own method being that of the artist, not of the man of science—working as he does by figuring things to himself as wholes, not dissecting them into their parts—he appears, though perhaps it is but appearance, to entertain something like a contempt for the opposite method; and to go as much too far in his distrust of analysis and generalization, as others (the Constitutional party, for instance, in the French Revolution) went too far in their reliance upon it.

Doubtless, in the infinite complexities of human affairs, any general theorem which a wise man will form concerning them, must be regarded as a mere approximation to truth; an approximation obtained by striking an average of many cases, and consequently not exactly fitting any one case. No wise man, therefore, will stand upon his theorem only—neglecting to look into the specialties of the case in hand, and see what features that may present which may take it out of any theorem, or bring it within the compass of more theorems than one. But the far greater number of people—when they have got a formula by rote, when they can bring the matter in hand within some maxim “in that case made and provided” by the traditions of the vulgar, by the doctrines of their sect or school, or by some generalization of their own—do not think it necessary to let their mind’s eye rest upon the thing itself at all; but deliberate and act, not upon knowledge of the thing, but upon a hearsay of it; being (to use a frequent illustration of our author) provided with spectacles, they fancy it not needful to use their eyes.^[*] It should be understood that general principles are not intended to dispense with thinking and examining, but to help us to think and examine. When the object itself is out of our reach, and we cannot examine into it, we must follow general principles, because, by doing so, we are not so likely to go wrong, and almost certain not to go so far wrong, as if we floated on the boundless ocean of mere conjecture; but when we are not driven to guess, when we have means and appliances^[†] for observing, general principles are nothing more or other than helps towards a better use of those means and appliances.

Thus far we and Mr. Carlyle travel harmoniously together; but here we apparently diverge. For, having admitted that general principles (or formulae, as our author calls them, after old Mirabeau, the crabbed ami des hommes)^[‡] are helps to observation, not substitutes for it, we must add, that they are necessary helps, and that without general principles no one ever observed a particular case to any purpose. For, except by general principles, how do we bring the light of past experience to bear upon the new case? The essence of past experience lies embodied in those logical, abstract propositions, which our author makes so light of:—there, and no where else. From them we learn what has ordinarily been found true, or even recal what we ourselves have found true, in innumerable unnamed and unremembered cases, more or less resembling the present. We are hence taught, at the least, what we shall probably find true in the present case; and although this, which is only a probability, may be lazily acquiesced in and acted upon without further inquiry as a certainty, the risk even so is infinitely less than if we began without a theory, or even a probable hypothesis. Granting that all the facts of the particular instance are within the reach of observation, how difficult is the work of observing, how almost impossible that of disentangling a complicated case, if, when we begin, no one view of it appears to us more probable than another. Without a hypothesis to commence with, we do not even know what end to begin at, what points to enquire into. Nearly every thing that has ever been ascertained by scientific observers, was brought to light in the attempt to test and verify some theory. To start from a theory, but not to see the object through the theory; to bring light with us, but also to receive other light from whencesoever it comes; such is the part of the philosopher, of the true practical seer or person of insight.

Connected with the tendency which we fancy we perceive in our author, to undervalue general principles, is another tendency which we think is perceptible in him, to set too low a value on what constitutions and forms of government can do. Be it admitted once for all, that no form of government will enable you, as our author has elsewhere said, “given a world of rogues, to produce an honesty by their united action;”^[*] nor when a people are wholly without faith either in man or creed, has any representative constitution a charm to render them governable well, or even governable at all. On the other hand, Mr. Carlyle must no less admit, that when a nation has faith in any men, or any set of principles, representative institutions furnish the only regular and peaceable mode in which that faith can quietly declare itself, and those men, or those principles, obtain the predominance. It is surely no trifling matter to have a legalized means whereby the guidance will always be in the hands of the Acknowledged Wisest, who, if not always the really wisest, are at least those whose wisdom, such as it may be, is the most available for the purpose. Doubtless it is the natural law of representative governments that the power is shared, in varying proportions, between the really skilfullest and the skilfullest quacks; with a tendency, in easy times, towards the preponderance of the quacks, in the “times which try men’s souls,”^[*] towards that of the true men. Improvements enough may be expected as mankind improve, but that the best and wisest shall always be accounted such, that we need not expect; because the quack can always steal, and vend for his own profit, as much of the good ware as is marketable. But is not all this to the full as likely to happen in every other kind of government as in a representative one? with these differences in favour of representative government, which will be found perhaps to be its only real and universal pre-eminence: That it alone is government by consent—government by mutual compromise and compact; while all others are, in one form or another, governments by constraint: That it alone proceeds by quiet muster of opposing strengths, when that which is really weakest sees itself to be such, and peaceably gives way; a benefit never yet realized but in countries inured to a representative government; elsewhere nothing but actual blows can show who is strongest, and every great dissension of opinion must break out into a civil war.

We have thus briefly touched upon the two principal points on which we take exception, not so much to any opinion of the author, as to the tone of sentiment which runs through the book; a tone of sentiment which otherwise, for justness and nobleness, stands almost unrivalled in the writings of our time. A deep catholic sympathy with human nature, with all natural human feelings, looks out from every page of these volumes; justice administered in love, to all kind of human beings, bad and good; the most earnest exalted feeling of moral distinctions, with the most generous allowances for whatever partial confounding of these distinctions, either natural weakness or perverse circumstances can excuse. No greatness, no strength, no goodness or lovingness, passes unrecognized or unhonoured by him. All the sublimity of “the simultaneous death-defiance of twenty-five millions”^[†] speaks itself forth in his pages—not the less impressively, because the unspeakable folly and incoherency, which always in real life are not one step from, but actually pervade, the sublimities of so large a body (and did so most notably in this instance) are no less perceptible to his keen sense of the ludicrous. We presume it is this which has caused the book to be accused, even in print, of “flippancy,” a term which appears to us singularly misapplied.^[‡] For is not this mixture and confused entanglement of the great and the contemptible, precisely what we meet with in nature? and would not a history, which did not make us not only see this, but feel it, be deceptive; and give an impression which would be the more false, the greater the general vivacity and vigour of the delineation? And indeed the capacity to see and feel what is loveable, admirable, in a thing, and what is laughable in it, at the same time, constitutes humour; the quality to which we owe a Falstaff, a Parson Adams, an Uncle Toby, and Mause Headriggs and Barons of Bradwardine without end.^[*] You meet in this book with passages of grave drollery (drollery unsought for, arising from the simple statement of facts, and a true natural feeling of them) not inferior to the best in Mr. Peacock’s novels; and immediately or soon after comes a soft note as of dirge music, or solemn choral song of old Greek tragedy, which makes the heart too full for endurance, and forces you to close the book and rest for a while.

Again, there are aphorisms which deserve to live for ever; characters drawn with a few touches, and indicating a very remarkable insight into many of the obscurest regions of human nature; much genuine philosophy, disguised though it often be in a poetico-metaphysical vesture of a most questionable kind; and, in short, new and singular but not therefore absurd or unpractical views taken of many important things. A most original book; original not least in its complete sincerity, its disregard of the merely conventional: every idea and sentiment is given out exactly as it is thought and felt, fresh from the soul of the writer, and in such language (conformable to precedent or not) as is most capable of representing it in the form in which it exists there. And hence the critics have begun to call the style “affected;”^[†] a term which conventional people, whether in literature or society, invariably bestow upon the unreservedly natural.^*

In truth, every book which is eminently original, either in matter or style, has a hard battle to fight before it can obtain even pardon for its originality, much less applause. Well, therefore, may this be the case when a book is original, not in matter only or in style only, but in both; and, moreover, written in prose, with a fervour and exaltation of feeling which is only tolerated in verse, if even there. And when we consider that Wordsworth, Coleridge, and others of their time, whose deviation from the beaten track was but a stone’s throw compared with Mr. Carlyle, were ignominiously hooted out of court by the wise tribunals which in those days dispensed justice in such matters, and had to wait for a second generation before the sentence could be reversed, and their names placed among the great names of our literature, we might well imagine that the same or a worse fate awaits Mr. Carlyle; did we not believe that those very writers, aided by circumstances, have made straight the way^[*] for Mr. Carlyle and for much else. This very phenomenon, of the different estimation of Wordsworth and Coleridge, now, and thirty years ago, is among the indications of one of the most conspicuous new elements which have sprung up in the European mind during those years: an insatiable demand for realities, come of conventionalities and formalities what may; of which desire the literary phasis is, a large tolerance for every feeling which is natural and not got-up, for every picture taken from the life and not from other pictures, however it may clash with traditionary notions of elegance or congruity. The book before us needs to be read with this catholic spirit; if we read it captiously, we shall never have done finding fault. But no true poet, writing sincerely and following the promptings of his own genius, can fail to be contemptible to any who desire to find him so; and if even Milton’s Areopagitica,^[†] of which now, it would seem, no one dares speak with only moderate praise, were now first to issue from the press, it would be turned from with contempt by every one who will think or speak disparagingly of this work of Mr. Carlyle.

We add one short extract more from near the end of the book; a summing up, as it were, of the morality of the great catastrophe:

ARMAND CARREL

1837

EDITOR’S NOTE

Dissertations and Discussions, 2nd ed. (1867), I, 211-83, where the title appears as “Armand Carrel. / Biographical Notices by MM. Nisard and Littré”; the title is footnoted, “London and Westminster Review, October 1837.” Reprinted from L&WR, XXXVIII (Oct., 1837), 66-111, where it is headed: “Art IV.—Armand Carrel, his Life and Character. From the French of D. Nisard. Preceded by a Biographical Sketch, abridged from the French of E. Littré. London: Hooper (not yet published).” (For reasons given in the Textual Introduction, cii above, references in the text are not to this work, but to Jean Marie Napoléon Désiré Nisard, “Armand Carrel,” La Revue des Deux Mondes, XII [Oct., 1837], 5-54; and Emile Littré, “Notice biographique,” in Oeuvres littéraires et économiques d’Armand Carrel, ed. Charles Romey [Paris: Guillaumin and Lecou, 1854], 5-66.) Running titles: “Armand Carrel.” Signed “A.” Also pamphlet offprint, with a title page reading: “Life and Character / of / Armand Carrel. / From the ‘London and Westminster Review,’ No. XI and LIV. / London: / Printed by C. and W. Peynell, / Little Pulteney Street. / MDCCCXXXVII.” Repaginated [1]-47, [48] blank. Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “An article entitled ‘Armand Carrel’ in the same number of the same review [as ‘Parties and the Ministry’]” (MacMinn, 49). A copy of the pamphlet reprint in Mill’s library, Somerville College, has no corrections or emendations.

The following text, taken from the 2nd ed. of D&D (the last in Mill’s lifetime) is collated with that in D&D, 1st ed., the pamphlet offprint, and that in the L&WR. The two long quotations from Mill’s letter of 25 Nov., 1833, are collated with the original as printed in Earlier Letters. In the footnoted variants, “33” indicates the letter to Carlyle in Earlier Letters, “37¹” indicates L&WR, “37²” indicates the pamphlet offprint, “59” indicates D&D, 1st ed. (1859), and “67” indicates D&D, 2nd ed. (1867).

For comment on the essay, see lxii-lxvii and c-ciii above.

Armand Carrel

^athese little works are^a the tribute paid by ^btwo^b distinguished ^cwriters^c to one whose memory, though he was but shown to the world, the world will not, and must not be suffered to let die.^[*] Cut off at the age of thirty-six by that union of misfortune and fault (Schicksal und eigene Schuld)^[†] to which it has been asserted that all human miscarriages are imputable, he lived long enough to show that he was one of the few, never ^dso few as in these latter times^d , who seem raised up to turn the balance of events at some trying moment in the history of nations, and to have or to want whom, at critical periods, is the salvation or the destruction of an era.

^e We seize ^fthe^f opportunity to contribute what we can, as well from our own knowledge as from the materials supplied by MM. Nisard and Littré, towards a true picture of a man, more worthy to be known, and more fit to be imitated, than any who has occupied a position in European politics for many years. It has not been given to those who knew Carrel, to see him in any of those situations of outward power and honour, to which he would certainly have forced his way, and which, instead of being honours to ^ghim^g , it was reserved for him perhaps to rescue from ignominy. The man whom not only his friends but his enemies, and all France, would have proclaimed President or Prime Minister with one voice, if any of the changes of this changeable time had again given ascendancy to the people’s side, is gone^h ; and his place is not likely to be again filled in our time. But there ⁱareⁱ left to us his memory, and his example ^jWe can still^j remember and meditate on what he was, how much and under how great disadvantages he accomplished, and what he would have been. We can learn from the study of him, what we all, but especially those of kindred principles and aspirations, must be, if we would make those principles effectual for good, those aspirations realities, and not the mere dreams of an idle and self-conceited imagination.

Who, then, and what was Armand Carrel? “An editor of a republican newspaper,” exclaims some English Tory, in a voice ^kby^k which it is doubtful whether the word “republican” or “newspaper” is uttered ^lin^l the most scornful intonation. Carrel was the editor of a republican newspaper: his glory consists precisely in this, that being that, and by being that, he was ^mthe greatest political leader of his time^m . And we do not mean by a political leader one who can create and keep together a political party, or who can give it importance in the State, or ⁿevenⁿ who can make it deserve importance, but who can do any and every one of all these, and do them with an easy superiority of genius and character, which renders competition hopeless. Such was Carrel, Ripened by years and favoured by opportunity, he might have been the Mirabeau or the Washington of his age, or both in one.

The life of Carrel may be written in a few sentences. “Armand Carrel,” says M. Littré,

Thus far M. Littré, a man who does not cast his words at random—a witness, whose opinions indeed are those of Carrel, but whose life is devoted to other pursuits than politics, and whose simplicity and purity of character, esteemed by men who do not share his opinions, peculiarly qualified him to declare of Carrel that which ^othe best^o men in France, of whatever party or shade of opinion, feel, M. Nisard, the representative of a much fainter shade of liberalism than M. Littré, does but fill up the same outline with greater richness of detail, with the addition of many interesting traits of personal character, and with a more analytical philosophy. From the two together we have learned the facts of the early life of Carrel, and many particulars of his habits and disposition, which could be known only to familiar companions. On the great features which make up a character, they show us almost nothing in Carrel which we had not ourselves seen in him: but, in what they have communicated, we find all those details which justify our general idea; and their recollections bear to our own the natural relation between likenesses of the same figure taken from different points. We can therefore, with increased confidence, attempt to describe what Carrel was; what the world has lost in him, and in what it may^p profit by his example.

The circumstance most worthy of commemoration in Carrel is not that he was an unblemished patriot in a time of general political corruption; others have been that, others are so even at present. Nor is it that he was the first political writer of his time: he could not have been this, if he had not been something to which his character as a writer was merely subsidiary. There are no great writers but those whose qualities as writers are built upon their qualities as human beings—are the mere manifestation and expression of those qualities: all besides is hollow and meretricious, and if a writer who assumes a stile for the sake of stile, ever acquires a place in literature, it is in so far as he ^qassumes^q the stile of those ^rwhose stile is not assumed^r ; of those to whom language altogether is but the utterance of ^stheir feelings, or the means to their practical ends^s .

Carrel was one of these; and it may even be said that ^t being a writer was to him merely an accident. He was neither by character nor by preference a man of speculation and discussion, for whom the press, if still but a means, is the best and often the sole means of fulfilling his vocation. The career of an administrator or that of a ^umilitary commander^u would have been more to Carrel’s taste, and in either of them he would ^vprobably^v have excelled. The true idea of Carrel is not that of a literary man, but of a man of action, using the press as his instrument; and in no other aspect does his character deserve more to be studied by those of all countries, who^w are qualified to resemble him.

He was a man called to take an active part in the government of mankind, and needing an engine with which to move them. Had his lot been cast in the cabinet or in the camp, of the cabinet or of the camp he would have made his instrument. Fortune did not give him such a destiny, and his ^xprinciples^x did not permit him the means by which he could have acquired it. Thus excluded from the region of deeds, he had still that of words; and words are deeds, and the cause of deeds. Carrel was not the first to see, but he was the first practically to realize, the new destination of the political press in modern times. It is now beginning to be felt that journalism is to modern Europe what political oratory was to Athens and Rome, and that, to become what it ought, it should be wielded by the same sort of men: Carrel seized the sceptre of journalism, and with that, as with the ^ybaton^y of a general-in-chief,^z ruled amidst innumerable difficulties and reverses that “fierce democracy,”^[*] which he perhaps alone of all men living, trampled upon and irritated as it has been, could have rendered at once gentle and ^apowerful^a .

Such a position did Carrel occupy, for a few short years in the history of his time. A brief survey of the incidents of his career and the circumstances of his country, will show how he ^bacquitted^b himself in this situation. That he committed no mistakes in it, we are nowise concerned to prove. We may even, with the ^cmodesty^c befitting a distant observer, express our opinion as to what his mistakes were. But we have neither known nor read of any man of whom ^dit could be said^d with assurance that, in Carrel’s circumstances and at his years, he would have committed fewer; and we are certain that there ^ehave^e been none whose achievements would have been greater, ^for whose^f errors nobler or more nobly redeemed.

Carrel was the son of a merchant of Rouen. He was intended for business, but his early passion for a military career induced his father (a decided royalist) to send him to the Ecole Militaire of St. Cyr. “His literary studies,” says M. Nisard,

On leaving St. Cyr he entered the army as a sub-lieutenant, the grade answering in the French army to that of an ensign in the English.

In this early direction of the tastes and pursuits of Carrel, we may trace the cause of almost his only defects, and of his greatest qualities. From it he doubtless derived the practicalness (if the word may be pardoned) in which the more purely speculative Frenchmen of the present day (constituting a large proportion of the most accomplished minds of our age) it may be said without disrespect to them, are generally deficient; and of which in England we have too much, with but little of the nobler quality which in Carrel it served to temper and rein in. It is easy to be practical, in a society all practical: there is a practicalness which comes by nature, to those who know ^hlittle^h and aspire to nothing, exactly this is the sort which the vulgar form of the English mind exemplifies, and which all the English institutions of education, whatever else they may teach, are studiously conservative of, but the atmosphere which kills so much thought, sobers what it spares, and the English who think at all, speculating under the restraining influence of such a medium, are guided more often than the thinkers of other countries into the practicalness which, instead of chaining up the spirit of speculation, lights its path and makes safe its footsteps.

What is done for the best English thinkers by the influences of the society in which they ⁱgrow upⁱ , was done for Carrel by the inestimable advantage of an education and pursuits which had for their object not thinking or talking, but doing. ^jHe who thinks without any experience in action, or without having action perpetually in view; whose mind has never had anything to do but to form conceptions, without ever measuring itself or them with realities,^j may be a great man; thoughts may originate with him, for which the world may bless him to the latest generations^k . There ought to be such men, for they see many things which even wise and strong minds, which are engrossed with active life, never can be the first to see. But the man to lead his age is he who has been familiar with thought directed to the accomplishment of immediate objects, and who has been accustomed to see his theories brought early and promptly to the test of experiment; the man who has seen at the end of every theorem to be investigated, a problem to be solved; who has learned early to weigh the means which can be exerted against the obstacles which are to be overcome, and to make an estimate of means and of obstacles habitually a part of all his theories that have for their object practice, either at the present or at a more distant period. This was essentially Carrel’s distinguishing character among ^lthe popular party in his own country;^l and it is a side of his character which, naturally perhaps, has hardly yet been enough appreciated in France. In it he resembled Napoleon, who had learnt it in the same school, and who by it mastered and ruled, as far as so selfish a man could, his country and age. But Napoleon’s really narrow and imperfectly cultivated mind, and his peremptory will, turned aside contemptuously from all speculation, and all attempt to stand up for speculation, as bavardage^m . Carrel, born at a more fortunate time, and belonging to a generation whose best heads and hearts war and the guillotine had not swept away, had an intellect capacious enough to appreciate and sympathize with whatever of truth ⁿandⁿ ultimate value to mankind there might be in all theories, together with a rootedly practical turn of mind, which seized and appropriated to itself such part only of them as might be realized, or at least might be hoped to be realized, in his own day. As with all generous spirits, his hopes sometimes deceived him as to what his country was ripe for; but a short experience always corrected his mistake, and warned him to point his efforts towards some more attainable end.

Carrel entered into life, and into a military life, at a peculiar period. By foreign force, and under circumstances humiliating to the military pride of the nation, the Bourbons had been brought back. With them had returned the emigrants with their feudal prejudices, the ultra-Catholics with their bigotry and pretensions to priestly domination. Louis XVIII, taking the advice of Fouché, though in a different sense from that in which it was given, had lain down in the bed of Napoleon, “s’était couché dans les draps de Napoléon”—had preserved that vast net-work of administrative tyranny which did not exist under the old French government, which the Convention created for a temporary purpose, and which Napoleon made permanent;^[*] that system of ^obureaucracy^o , which leaves no free agent in all France, except the man at Paris who pulls the wires; which regulates from a distance of several hundred miles, the repairing of a shed or the cutting down of a tree, and allows not the people to stir a finger even in their local affairs, except indeed by such writing and printing as a host of restrictive laws permitted to them, and (if they paid 300 francs or upwards in direct taxes) by electing and sending to Paris the two-hundredth or three-hundredth ^pfractional^p part of a representative, there to vote such things as the Charter of Louis XVIII placed within the competency of the national council.^[*] That Charter, extorted from the prudence of Louis by the necessities of the times, and “broken ere its ink was dried,” alone stood between France and a dark, soul-stifling and mind-stifling despotism, combining ^qsome of^q the worst of the evils which the Revolution and Napoleon had cleared away, with the worst of those which they had brought.

By a combination of good sense and ^rfolly^r , of which it is difficult to say which ^swas^s most profitable to the cause of freedom, the Bourbons saw the necessity of giving a representative constitution, but not that of allying themselves with the class in whose hands that constitution had placed so formidable a power. They would have found them tractable enough; witness the present ruler of France,^[†] who has “lain down in the sheets of Napoleon” with considerably more effect. The Constitution of 1814, like that of 1830 which followed it, gave a share of the governing power exclusively to the rich:^[‡] if the Bourbons would but have allied themselves with the majority of the rich instead of the minority, they would have been on the throne now, and with as absolute a power as any of their predecessors, so long as they conformed to that condition. But they would not do it: they would not see that the only aristocracy possible in a wealthy community, is an aristocracy of wealth: Louis during the greater part of his reign, and Charles during the whole of his, bestowed exclusively upon the classes which had been powerful once, those favours which, had they been ^tshared^t with the classes which were powerful ^unow^u , would have rendered the majority of those classes the most devoted adherents of the throne. For the sake of classes who had no longer ^vthe principal^v weight in the country, and whose power was associated with the recollections of ^wall^w which the country ^xmost^x detested, the Bourbons not only slighted the new aristocracy, but kept both them and the people in perpetual alarm, both for ^ywhatever^y was dearest to them in the institutions which the Revolution had given, and which had been cheaply purchased by the sacrifice of a whole generation, and even for the “material interests”^[*] (such as those of the possessors of national property) which had grown out of the Revolution, and were identified with it. The Chamber of Deputies, therefore, or, as it might have been called, the new Estate of the Rich, worked like the Comitia Centuriata of the Roman Commonwealth, which, in this respect, it resembled. Like the Comitia Centuriata, it was, from the principle of its constitution, the organ of the rich; and like that, it served as an organ for popular purposes so long as the predominant section of the rich, being excluded from a direct share in the government, had a common interest with the people. This result might have been foreseen; but the Bourbons either did not foresee it, or thought themselves strong enough to prevent it.

At the time, however, when Carrel first entered into life, any one might have been excused for thinking that the Bourbons, if they had made a bad calculation for the ultimate ^zduration^z of their dynasty, had made a good one for ^aits present interests^a . They had ^bput down,^b with triumphant success, a first attempt at resistance by the new aristocracy.

A Chamber of furious royalists, elected immediately after the second restoration (afterwards with affectionate remembrance called the chambre introuvable, from the impossibility of ever ^cagain^c getting a similar one), had sanctioned or tolerated excesses against the opposite party, worthy only of the ^dmost^d sanguinary times of the Revolution; and had carried their enterprises in behalf of feudalism and bigotry to a pitch of rashness by which Louis, who was no fanatic, was seriously alarmed: and in September 1817, amidst the applauses of all France, he dissolved the Chamber, and called to his councils a semi-liberal ministry. The indignation and alarm excited by the conduct of the royalists, produced a reaction among the classes possessed of property, in favour of liberalism. By the law as it then stood, a fifth part of the Chamber went out every year:^[†] the elections in 1818 produced hardly any but liberals; those in 1819 did the same; and those of 1820, it was evident, would give the liberal party a majority. The electoral body too, as, fortunately, electoral bodies are wont, had not confined its choice to men who represented exactly its own interests and sentiments, but had mingled with them the ablest and most honoured of its temporary allies, the defenders of the “good old cause.”^[*] The new aristocracy could still hear, and not repudiate, the doctrines of 1789, pronounced with the limitations dictated by experience, from the eloquent lips of Foy, and Benjamin Constant, and Manuel. It could still patronize a newspaper press, ^efree for the first time since 1792^e , which raised its voice for those doctrines, and for an interpretation of the charter in the spirit of them. Even among the monied classes themselves there arose, as in all aristocracies there will, some men whose talents or sympathies make them the organs of a better cause than that of^f aristocracy. Casimir Périer had not yet sunk the defender of the people in the defender of his counting-house; and Laffitte was then what he is still, and will be to the end of his disinterested and generous career. Among the new members of the legislature there was even found the Abbé Grégoire, one of the worthiest and most respected characters in France, but a ^gconspicuous member of the Montagne party in the Convention^g .^*

This rapid progress of the popular party to ascendancy was not what Louis had intended: he wished to keep the liberals as a counterpoise to the priestly party, but it never entered into his purposes that they should predominate in the legislature. His “système de bascule”, literally ^hsystem of see-saw^h , of playing off one party against another, and maintaining his influence by throwing it always into the scale of the weakest, required that the next move should be to the royalist side. Demonstrations were therefore made towards a modification of the electoral law; to take effect while the anti-popular party had still a majority, before the dreaded period of the next annual elections. At this crisis, when the fate of parties hung trembling in the balance, the Duc de Berri, heir presumptive to the throne, fell by the hand of an assassin. This catastrophe, industriously imputed to the renewed propagation of revolutionary principles, excited general horror and alarm. The new aristocracy recoiled from their alliance with liberalism. The crime of Louvel was as serviceable to the immediate objects of those against whom it was perpetrated, as the crime of Fieschi has been since. A change of ministry took place; laws were passed restrictive of the press, and a law which, while it kept within the letter of the charter by not disfranchising any of the electors, created within the electoral body a smaller body returning an additional number of representatives.^[*] The elections which took place in consequence, gave a decided majority to the feudal and priestly party; an ultra-royalist ministry was appointed; and the triumph of the ⁱretrogradesⁱ , the party of ancient privileges, seemed assured.

It is incident to a country accustomed to a state of revolution, that the party which is defeated by peaceful means will try violent ones. The popular party in France was now in a similar situation to the popular party in England during the royalist reaction which followed the dissolution of the last parliament of Charles II. Like them, they had recourse to what Carrel afterwards, in his History of the Counter-Revolution in England, called “the refuge of weak parties,” conspiracy.^[†] The military revolutions in Spain, Portugal, and Naples, had ^jinspired^j many ardent spirits in France ^kwith a desire to follow the example^k : from 1820 to 1822 ^lCarbonaro^l societies spread themselves over France, and military conspiracies continually broke out and were suppressed. It would have been surprising if Carrel, whose favourite heroes even at school were Hoche, Marceau, and Kléber, whose democratic opinions had attracted the notice of his superiors at St. Cyr, and to whose youthful aspirations no glory attainable to him appeared equal to that of the successful general of a liberating army, had not been implicated in some of these conspiracies. Like almost all the bravest and most patriotic of the young men in his rank of society entertaining liberal opinions, he paid his tribute to the folly of the day; and he had a narrow escape from discovery, of which M. Littré gives the following narrative.

Nine years later, M. Joubert was heading the party which stormed the Louvre on the 29th of July, and Carrel had signed the protest of the forty-two journalists, and given, by an article in the National, the first signal of resistance.^[†] This is not the only instance in the recent history of France, when, as during the first French Revolution, names lost sight of for a time, meet us again at the critical moments.

These attempts at insurrection did the Bourbons no damage, but caused them some uneasiness with regard to the fidelity of the army. The counter-revolutionary party, however, was now under the conduct of the only man of judgment and sagacity who has appeared in that party since the Revolution; M. de Villèle. This minister ^madopted (though, it is said, with misgiving and reluctance)^m the bold idea of conquering the disaffection of the army by sending it to fight against its principles. He knew that with men in the position and in the state of feeling in which it was, all depended on the first step, and that if it could but be induced to fire one shot for the drapeau blanc against the tricolore, its implicit obedience might be reckoned on for a long time to come.ⁿ Accordingly, constitutional France took the field against constitutional government in Spain, as constitutional England had done before in France—in order that Ferdinand, save the mark! might be restored to the enjoyment of liberty: and the history of the campaign, by which he was restored to it, ^ofurnishes^o a curious picture of a victorious army putting down by force those with whom it sympathized, and protecting them against the vengeance of allies whom it despised and detested.

At this period, political refugees, and other ardent lovers of freedom, especially military men, flocked to the Spanish standard; even England, as it may be remembered, contributing her share, in the persons of Sir Robert Wilson and others. Carrel, already obnoxious by his opinions to his superior officers, and now placed between the dictates of his conscience and those of military discipline, acted like Major Cartwright at the opening of the American war: he threw up his commission rather than fight in a cause he ^pabhorred^p . Having done this, he did what Major Cartwright did not: he joined the opposite party, passed over to Barcelona in a Spanish fishing-boat, and took service in the “foreign liberal legion,”^[*] commanded by a distinguished officer, Colonel Pachiarotti, an Italian exile.

We shall not trace Carrel through the vicissitudes of this campaign, which was full of hardships, and abounded in incidents honourable to him both as an officer and as a man. It is well known that in Catalonia the invading army experienced from Mina, Milans, and their followers, almost the only vigorous resistance it had to encounter; and in this resistance the foreign legion, in which Carrel served, bore a conspicuous part. Carrel himself has sketched the history of the contest in two articles in the Revue Française,^qmuch remarked at the time^q for their impartiality and statesmanlike views, and which first established his reputation as a writer.^[†]

In September 1823, the gallant Pachiarotti had already fallen; supported on horseback by Carrel during a long retreat after he was mortally wounded, and recommending with his dying breath to the good offices of the ^rpersons present^r , “ce brave et noble jeune homme.” What remained of the legion, after having had, in an attempt to relieve Figueras, two desperate encounters with superior force, at Llado and Llers, in which it lost half its numbers, capitulated,^* and Carrel became the prisoner of his former commanding officer, the Baron de Damas. As a condition of the surrender, M. de Damas pledged himself to use his utmost exertions for obtaining the pardon of all the French who were included in the capitulation. Though such a pledge was formally binding only on the officer who gave it, no government could without ^sdishonour^s have refused to fulfil its conditions; least of all the French cabinet, of which M. de Damas almost immediately afterwards became a member. But the rancour which felt itself restrained from greater acts of vindictiveness, with characteristic littleness took refuge in smaller ones. Contrary to the express promise of M. de Damas (on whose individual honour, however, no imputation appears to rest), and in disregard of the fact that Carrel had ceased to be a member of the army before he committed any act contrary to its laws, the prisoners, both officers and soldiers, were thrown into gaol, and Carrel was among the first selected to be tried by military law before a military tribunal. The first court-martial declared itself incompetent. A second was appointed, and ordered to consider itself competent. By this second court-martial he was found guilty, and sentenced to death. He appealed to a superior court, which annulled the sentence, on purely technical grounds. The desire of petty vengeance was now somewhat appeased. After about nine months of rigorous and unwholesome confinement, which he employed in diligent studies, chiefly historical, Carrel was brought a third time to trial before a third court-martial, and acquitted; and was once again, at the age of twenty-four, turned loose upon the world.

After some hesitations, and a struggle between the wishes of his family, which pointed to a counting-house, and his own consciousness of faculties suited for a different sphere, he became secretary to M. Augustin Thierry, one of that remarkable constellation of ^tcotemporary^t authors who have placed France at the head of modern historical literature. Carrel assisted M. Thierry (whose sight, since totally lost, had already been weakened by his labours) in collecting the materials for the concluding volume of his longest work, The History of the Conquest of England by the Normans:^[*] and it was by M. Thierry’s advice that Carrel determined to make literature his profession. M. Nisard gives an interesting account of the manner in which the doubts and anxieties of Carrel’s mother gave way before the authority of M. Thierry’s reputation.

Here then closes the first period of the life of Carrel; and the second, that of his strictly literary life, begins. This lasted till the foundation of the National, a few months before the Revolution of July.

The period of six years, of which we have now to speak, formed the culminating point of one of the most brilliant developments of the French national mind: a development which for intensity and rapidity, and if not for duration, for the importance of its durable consequences, has not many parallels in history. A large income not being in France, for persons in a certain rank of society, a necessary of life; and the pursuit of money being therefore not so engrossing an object as it is here, there is nothing to prevent the whole of the most gifted young men of a generation from devoting themselves to literature or science, if favourable circumstances combine to render it fashionable to do so. Such a conjuncture of circumstances was presented by the state of France, at the time when the Spanish war and its results seemed to have riveted on the necks of the French people the yoke of the feudal and sacerdotal party for many years to come. The Chamber was closed to all under the age of forty; and besides, at this particular period, the law of partial renewal had been abrogated, a septennial act had been passed,^[†] and a general election, at the height of the Spanish triumph, had left but sixteen Liberals in the whole Chamber of Deputies. The army, in a time of profound peace, officered too by the detested émigrés, held out no attraction. Repelled from politics, in which little preferment could be hoped for by a ^uroturier^u , and that little at a price which a Frenchman will least of all consent to pay—religious hypocrisy; the élite of the educated youth of France precipitated themselves into literature and philosophy, and remarkable results soon became evident.

The national intellect seemed to make a sudden stride, from the stage of adolescence to that of early maturity. It had reached the era corresponding to that in the history of an individual mind, when, after having been taught to think (as every one is) by teachers of some particular school, and having for a time exercised the power only in the path shown to it by its first teachers, it begins, without abandoning that, to tread also in other paths; learns to see with its naked eyes, and not through the eye-glasses of its teachers,^[*] and, from being one-sided, becomes many-sided^[†] and of no school. The French nation had had two great epochs of intellectual development. It had been taught to speak by the great writers of the seventeenth century,—to think by the philosophers of the eighteenth. The present became the era of reaction against the ^vnarrownesses^v of the eighteenth century, as well as against those narrownesses of another sort which the eighteenth century had left. The stateliness and conventional decorum of old French poetic and dramatic literature, gave place to a licence which made free scope for genius and also for absurdity, and let in new forms of the beautiful ^was well as many^w of the hideous. Literature shook off its chains, and used its liberty like a galley-slave broke loose; while painting and sculpture passed from one unnatural extreme to ^xanother^x , and the stiff school was succeeded by the spasmodic. This insurrection against the old traditions of classicism was called romanticism: and now, when the mass of ^yrubbish^y to which it had given birth has produced another oscillation in opinion the reverse way, one inestimable result seems to have survived it—that life and human feeling may now, in France, be painted with as much liberty as they may be discussed, and, when painted truly, with approval: as by George Sand, and in the best writings of Balzac. While this revolution was going on in the artistic departments of literature, that in the scientific departments was still more important. There was reaction against the metaphysics of Condillac and Helvetius; and some of the most eloquent men in France imported Kantism from Germany, and Reidism from Scotland, to oppose to it, and listening crowds applauded, and an “eclectic philosophy” was formed. There was reaction against the irreligion of Diderot and d’Holbach; and by the side of their irreligious philosophy there grew up religious philosophies, and philosophies prophesying a religion, and a general vague feeling of religion, and a taste for religious ideas. There was reaction against the premises, rather than against the conclusions, of the political philosophy of the Constituent Assembly: men found out, that underneath all political philosophy there must be a social philosophy—a study of agencies lying deeper than forms of government, which, working through forms of government, produce in the long run most of what these seem to produce, and which sap and destroy all forms of government that lie across their path. Thus arose the new political philosophy of the present generation in France; which, considered merely as a portion of science, may be pronounced ^zgreatly^z in advance of all the other political philosophies which ^ahad yet existed;^a —a philosophy rather scattered among many minds than concentrated in one, but furnishing a storehouse of ideas to ^bthose^b who meditate on politics, such as all ages and nations could not furnish previously; and inspiring at the same time more comprehensive, and therefore more cautious views of the past and present, and far bolder aspirations and anticipations for the future. It would be idle to hold up any particular book as a complete specimen of this philosophy: different minds, according to their capacities or their tendencies, have struck out or appropriated to themselves different portions of it, which as yet have only been partially harmonized and fitted into one another. But if we were asked for the book which up to the present time embodies the largest portion of the spirit, and is, in the French phrase, the highest expression, of this new political philosophy, we should point to the Democracy in America, by M. de Tocqueville.^[*]

It was above all, however, in history, and historical disquisition, that the new tendencies of the national mind made themselves way. And a fact may be remarked, which strikingly illustrates the difference between the French and the English mind, and the rapidity with which an idea, thrown into French soil, takes root, and blossoms, and fructifies. Sir Walter Scott’s romances have been read by every educated person in Great Britain who has grown up to manhood or womanhood in the last twenty years; and, except the memory of much pleasure, and a few mediocre imitations, forgotten as soon as read, they have left no traces that we know of in the national mind. But it was otherwise in France. Just as Byron, and the cast-off boyish ^cextravagances^c of Goethe and Schiller which Byron did but follow, have been the origin of all the sentimental ruffians, the Lacenaires in imagination and in action, with which the Continent swarms, but have produced little fruit of that description, comparatively speaking, in these islands; so, to compare good influences with bad^d , did Scott’s romances, and especially Ivanhoe,^[†] which in England were only the amusement of an idle hour, give birth ^e(or at least nourishment)^e to one of the principal intellectual products of our time, the modern French school of history. M. Thierry, whose Letters on the History of France gave the first impulse, proclaims the fact.^[*] Seeing, in these fictions, past events for the first time brought home to them as realities, not mere abstractions; startled by finding, what they had not dreamed of, Saxons and Normans in the reign of Richard I;^f thinking men felt flash upon them for the first time the meaning of that philosophical history, that history of human life, and not of kings and battles, which Voltaire talked of,^[†] but, writing history for polemical purposes, could not succeed in realizing. Immediately the annals of France, England, and other countries, began to be systematically searched; the characteristic features of society and life at each period were gathered out, and exhibited in histories, and speculations on history, and historical fictions. All works of imagination were now expected to have a couleur locale; and the dramatic scenes and romances of Vitet, Mérimée, and Alfred de Vigny, among the best productions of the romantic school ^gin those years^g , are evidences of the degree in which they attained it. M. de Barante wrote the history of two of the most important centuries ^hin^h his country’s annals, ⁱfrom the materials, and often in the words,ⁱ of Froissart and Comines.^[‡] M. Thierry’s researches into the early history of the town-communities, brought to light some of the most important facts of the progress of society in France and in all Europe.^[§] While Mignet and Thiers, in a style worthy of the ancient models, but with only the common ideas of their time, recounted the recent glories and sufferings of their country, other writers, among whom Auguste Comte ^jin his commencements,^j and the founders of the St. Simonian school were conspicuous, following in the steps of ^kVico, Herder, and Condorcet^k , analyzed the facts of universal history, and connected them by generalizations, which, if unsatisfactory in ^lsome^l respects, explained much, and placed much in a new and striking light; and M. Guizot, a man of a greater range of ideas and greater historical impartiality than ^mmost of^m these, gave to the world those immortal Essays and Lectures,^[*] for which posterity will forgive him ⁿthe grave faults of hisⁿ political career.

In the midst of an age thus teeming with valuable products of thought, himself without any more active career to engross his faculties, the mind of Carrel could not remain unproductive. “In a bookseller’s back-shop,” says M. Nisard (for the young author, in his struggle for subsistence, for a short time entered seriously into the views of his family, and embarked some money supplied by them in an unsuccessful bookselling speculation), “on a desk to which was fastened a great Newfoundland dog, Carrel, one moment absorbed in English memoirs and papers, another moment caressing his favourite animal, conceived and wrote his History of the Counter-Revolution in England.”^[†] It was published in February 1827; and though the age has produced historical works of profounder philosophical investigation, yet in its kind, and for what it aims at, it deserves to be considered one of the most finished productions of that remarkable era.

It is a history of the two last Stuarts, of their attempts to re-establish Popery and arbitrary power, their temporary success, and ultimate overthrow by the Revolution of 1688. Their situation and conduct presented so close a parallel to that which the two last Bourbons at that time exhibited in France, that the subject was a favourite one with the French writers of the period. There could not have been a more natural occasion for violent republicanism, or any kind of revolutionary violence, to display itself, if Carrel had been the fanatic which it is often supposed that all ^odemocratic^o reformers must be. But we find no republicanism in this book, no partisanship of any kind; the book is almost too favourable to the Stuarts; there is hardly anything in it which might not have been written by a clear-sighted and reflecting person of any of the political parties which divide the present day. But we find instead, in every page, distinct evidence of a thoroughly practical mind: a mind which looks out, in every situation, for the causes which were actually operating, discerns them with sagacity, sees what they must have produced, what could have been done to modify them, and how far they were practically misunderstood: a statesman, judging of statesmen by placing himself in their circumstances, and seeing what they could have done; not by the rule and square of some immutable theory of mutable things, nor by that most fallacious test for estimating men’s actions, the rightness or wrongness of their speculative views. If Carrel had done nothing else, he would have shown by this book that^p, like Mirabeau, he was not a slave to^p formulas;^[*] no pre-established doctrine as to how things ^qmust be^q , ever prevented him from seeing them as they ^rwere^r . “Everywhere and at all times,” says he, “it is the wants of the time which have created the conventions called political principles, and those principles have always been pushed aside by those wants.”^[†] “All questions as to forms of government,” he says in another place, “have their ^sdata^s in the condition of society, and nowhere else.”^[‡] The whole spirit of the new historical school is in these two sentences. The great character by which Carrel’s book differs from all other histories of the time, with which we are acquainted, is, that in it alone are we led to understand and account for all the vicissitudes of the time, from the ebb and flow of public opinion; the causes of which, his own practical sagacity, and a Frenchman’s experience of turbulent times, enabled Carrel to perceive and interpret with a truth and power that must strike every competent judge who compares his short book with the long books of other people. And we may here notice, as an example of the superiority of French historical literature to ours, that, of the most interesting period in the English annals, the period of the Stuarts, France has produced, within a very few years too, the best, the second-best, and the third-best history. The best is this of Carrel; the second-best is the unfinished work^* of M. Guizot, his History of the English Revolution^t ;^[§] the third in merit is M. Mazure’s History of the Revolution of 1688, a work of^u greater detail, and less extensive views, but which has brought much new information from Barillon’s papers and elsewhere, is unexceptionable as to impartiality, and on the whole a highly valuable accession to the literature of English history.^[¶]

The style of the Histoire de la Contre-Révolution, according to M. Nisard, did not give Carrel the reputation he afterwards acquired as a master of expression. But we agree with M. Nisard, a most competent judge, and a severe critic of his ^vcotemporaries^v , in thinking this judgment of the French public erroneous. We already recognise in this early performance, the pen which was afterwards compared to a sword’s point (il semblait écrire avec une pointe d’acier).^[*] It goes clean and sharp to the very heart of the thing to be said, says it without ornament or periphrasis, or phrases of any kind, and in nearly the fewest words in which so much could be told. The style cuts the meaning into the mind as with an edge of steel. It wants the fertility of fancy which Carrel afterwards displayed; an indispensable quality to a writer of the first rank, but one which, in spite of the authority of ^wCicero and^w Quintilian,^[†] we believe to be, oftener than is supposed, the last rather than the first quality which such writers acquire. The grand requisite of good writing is, to have something to say: to attain this, is becoming more and more the grand effort of all minds of any power, which embark in literature; and important truths, at least in human nature and life, seldom reveal themselves but to minds which are found equal to the secondary task of ornamenting those truths, when they have leisure to attend to it. A mind which has all natural human feelings, which draws its ideas fresh from realities, and, like all first-rate minds, varies and multiplies its points of view, gathers as it goes illustrations and analogies from all nature. So was it with Carrel. The fashion of the day, when he began, was picturesqueness of style, and that was what the imitative minds were all straining for. Carrel, who wrote from himself and not from imitation, put into his style first what was in himself first, the intellect of a great writer. The other half of the character, the imaginative ^xpart^x , came to maturity somewhat later, and was first decidedly recognised in the Essays on the War in Spain, which, as we have already said, were published in the Revue Française, a periodical on the plan of the English reviews, to which nearly all the most philosophical minds in France contributed, and which was carried on for several years with first-rate ability.

The editor of this review was M. Guizot. That Guizot and Carrel should for a time be found not only fighting under the same banner, but publishing in the same periodical organ, is a fact characteristic of the fusion of parties and opinions which had by this time taken place to oppose the progress of the counter-revolution.

The victory in Spain had put the royalists in complete possession of the powers of government. The elections of 1824 had given them, and their septennial act secured to them for a period, their chambre des trois cents, so called from the 300 feudalists, or creatures of the feudalists, who, with about 100 more moderate royalists, and sixteen liberals of different shades, made up the whole Chamber. It is for history, already familiar with the frantic follies of this most unteachable party, to relate all they did, or attempted; the forty millions sterling which they voted into their own pockets under the name of compensation to the emigrants, their law of sacrilege, worthy of the bigotry of the middle ages; the reestablishment of the Jesuits, the putting down of the Lancasterian schools, and throwing all the minor institutions of education (they did not yet openly venture upon the ^yUniversity^y ) into the hands of the priests.^[*] The madmen thought they could force back Catholicism upon a people, of whom the educated classes, though not, as they are sometimes represented, hostile to religion, but ^zeither simply indifferent or^z decidedly disposed to a religion of some sort or other, had for ever bidden adieu to that form of it, and could as easily have been made Hindoos or Mussulmans as Roman Catholics. All that bribery could do was to make hypocrites, and of these (some act of hypocrisy being a condition of preferment) there were many edifying examples; among others, M. Dupin, ^asince^a President of the Chamber of Deputies, who, soon after the accession of Charles X, devoutly followed the Host in a procession to St. Acheul.^* If our memory deceive us not, Marshal Soult was another of these illustrious converts; he became one of Charles X’s peers, and wanted only to have been his minister too, to have made him the Sunderland of the French 1688.

In the meantime, laws were prepared against the remaining liberties of France, and against the institutions dearest to the people, of those which the Revolution had given. Not content with an almost ^cconstant^c censorship on the newspaper press, the faction proposed rigid restraints upon the publication even of books below a certain size. A law also was framed to re-establish primogeniture and entails, among a nation which universally believes that the family affections, on the strength of which it justly values itself, depend upon the observance of equal justice in families, and would not survive the revival of the unnatural preference for the eldest son. These laws passed the Chamber of Deputies amidst the most violent storm of public opinion which had been known in France since the Revolution. The Chamber of Peers, faithful to its mission as the Conservative branch of the Constitution, rejected them.^[*] M. de Villèle felt the danger, but a will more impetuous and a judgment weaker than his own, compelled him to advance. He created (or^d the King created) a batch of sixty-six peers, and dissolved the Chamber.

But affairs had greatly altered since the elections of 1824. By the progress, not only of disgust at the conduct of the faction, but of a presentiment of the terrible crisis to which it was about to lead, the whole of the new aristocracy had now gone over to the people. Not only they, but the more reasonable portion of the old aristocracy, the moderate royalist party, headed by Chateaubriand, and represented by the Journal des Débats, had early separated themselves from the counter-revolutionary faction of which M. de Villèle was the unwilling instrument. Both these bodies, and the popular party, now greatly increased in strength even among the electors, knit themselves in one compact mass to overthrow the Villèle Ministry. The ^eAide-toi Society^e , in which even M. Guizot acted a conspicuous part, ^fbut which was mainly composed^f of the most energetic young men of the popular party, conducted the correspondence and organized the machinery for the elections. A large majority was returned hostile to the ministry: they were forced to retire, and the King had to submit to a ministry of moderate royalists, commonly called, from its most influential member, the Martignac Ministry.

The short interval of eighteen months, during which this ministry lasted, was the brightest period which France has known since the Revolution; for a reason which well merits attention; those who had the real power in the country, the men of property and the men of talent, had not the power at the Tuileries, nor any near prospect of having it. It is the grievous misfortune of France, that being still new to constitutional ideas and institutions, she has never known what it ^gis^g to have a fair government,^h in which there ⁱisⁱ not one law for the party in power, and another law for its opponents. The French government is not a constitutional government—it is a despotism limited by a parliament; whatever party can get the executive into its hands, and induce a majority of the Chamber to support it, does practically whatever it pleases; hardly anything that it can be guilty of towards its opponents alienates its supporters, unless they fear that they are themselves marked out to be the next victims; and even the trampled-on minority fixes its hopes not upon limiting arbitrary power, but upon becoming the stronger party and tyrannizing in its turn. It is to the eternal honour of Carrel that he, and he almost alone, in a subsequent period far less favourable than that of which we are speaking, recognised the great principle of which all parties had more than ever lost sight;—saw that this, above all, was what his country wanted; unfurled the banner of equal justice and equal protection to all opinions, bore it bravely aloft in weal and woe over the stormy seas on which he was cast, and when he ^jsank, sank^j with it flying. It was too late. A revolution had intervened; and even those who suffered from tyranny, had learnt to hope for relief from revolution, and not from law or opinion. But during the Martignac Ministry, all parties were equally afraid of, and would have made equal sacrifices to avert, a convulsion. The idea gained ground, and appeared to be becoming general, of building up in France for the first time a government of law. It was known that the King was wedded to the counter-revolutionary party, and that without a revolution the powers of the executive would never be at the disposal of the new aristocracy of wealth, or of the men of talent who had put themselves at the head of it. But they had the command of the legislature, and they used the power which they had, to reduce within bounds that which ^kby peaceable means^k they could not hope to have. For the first time it became the object of the first speculative and practical politicians in France, to limit the ^lpower^l of the executive; to erect barriers of opinion, and barriers of law, which it should not be able to overpass, and which should give the citizen that protection which he had never yet had in France, against the tyranny of the magistrate: to form, as it was often expressed, les moeurs constitutionnelles, the habits and feelings of a free government, and establish in France, what is the greatest political blessing ^menjoyed^m in England, the national feeling of respect and obedience to the law.

Nothing could seem more hopeful than the progress which France was making, under the Martignac Ministry, towards this great improvement. The discussions of the press, and the teachings of the able men who headed the Opposition, especially the Doctrinaires (as they were called), M. Royer Collard, the Duc de Broglie, M. Guizot, and their followers, who then occupied the front rank of the popular party, were by degrees working the salutary feelings of a constitutional government into the public mind. But they had barely time to penetrate the surface. The same madness which hurled James II from his throne, was now fatal to Charles X. In an evil hour for France, unless England one day repay her the debt which she unquestionably owes her for the Reform Bill,^[*] the promise of this auspicious moment was blighted; the Martignac Ministry was dismissed, a set of furious émigrés were appointed, and a new general election having brought a majority still more hostile to them, the famous Ordonnances were issued,^[†] and the Bourbon Monarchy was swept from the face of the earth.

We have called the event which necessitated the Revolution of July, a misfortune to France. We wish earnestly to think it otherwise. But if in some forms that Revolution has brought ⁿconsiderableⁿ good to France, in many it has brought ^oserious^o ill. Among the evils which it has done we select two of the greatest^p : it stopped the progress of the French people towards recognising the necessity of equal law, and a strict definition of the powers of the magistrate; and it ^qchecked, and for a time almost suspended,^q the literary and philosophic movement which had commenced.

On the fall of the old aristocracy, the new oligarchy came at once into power. They did not all get places, only because there were not places for all. But there was a large abundance, and they rushed upon them like tigers upon their prey. No precaution was taken by the people against this new enemy. The discussions of the press in the years preceding, confined as they had been both by public opinion and by severe legal penalties, strictly within the limits of the Charter,^[‡] had not made familiar to the public mind the necessity of an extended suffrage; and the minds even of enlightened men, as we can ^rpersonally testify^r , at the time of the formation of the new government, were in a state of the utmost obtuseness on the subject. The eighty thousand electors had hitherto been on the side of the people, and nobody seemed to see any reason why this should not continue to be the case. The oligarchy of wealth was thus allowed quietly to instal itself; its leaders, and the men of literary talent who were its writers and orators, became ministers, or expectant ministers, and no longer sought to limit the power which was henceforth to be their own; by degrees, even, as others attempted to limit it, they violated in its defence, one after another, every salutary principle of freedom which they had themselves laboured to implant in the popular mind. They reckoned, and the event shows that they could safely reckon, upon the King whom they had set up; that he would see his interest in keeping a strict alliance with them. There was no longer any rival power interested in limiting that of the party in office. There were the people; but the people could not make themselves felt in the legislature; and attempts at insurrection, until the resistance becomes thoroughly national, a government is always strong enough to put down. There was the aristocracy of talent: and the course was adopted of buying off ^sthis^s with a portion of the spoil. One of the most deplorable effects of the new government of France, is the profligate immorality which it is industriously spreading among the ablest and most accomplished of the youth. All the arts of corruption which Napoleon exercised towards the dregs of the Revolution, are put in practice by the present ruler upon the élite of France: and few are they that resist. Some rushed headlong from the first, and met the bribers half way; others held out for a time, but their virtue failed them as things grew more desperate, and as they grew more hungry. Every man of literary reputation who will sell himself to the government, is gorged with places and loaded with decorations. Every rising young man, of the least promise, is lured and courted to the same dishonourable distinction. Those who resist the seduction must be proof against every temptation which is strongest on a French mind: for the vanity, which is the bad side of the national sociability and love of sympathy, makes the French, of all others, the people who are the most eager for distinction, and as there is no national respect for birth, and but little for wealth, almost the only adventitious distinctions are those which the government can confer. Accordingly the pursuits of intellect, but lately so ardently engaged in, are almost abandoned; no enthusiastic crowds now throng the lecture-room; M. Guizot has left his professor’s chair and his historical speculations, and would fain be the Sir Robert Peel of France; M. Thiers is trying to be the Canning; M. Cousin and M. Villemain have ceased to lecture, have ceased even to publish; M. de Barante is an ambassador; Tanneguy Duchâtel, instead of expounding Ricardo, and making his profound speculations known where they are more needed than in any other country in Europe, ^tbecame^t a Minister of Commerce who dared not act upon his own principles, and is waiting to be so again; the press, which so lately teemed with books of history and philosophy, now scarcely produces one, and the young men who could have written them are either placemen, or gaping place-hunters, disgusting the well-disposed of all parties by their avidity, and their open defiance of even the pretence of principle.^u

Carrel was exposed to the same temptations with other young men of talent, but we claim no especial merit for him in having resisted them. Immediately after the Revolution, in which, as already observed, he took a distinguished part, he was sent by the government on an important mission to the West: on his return he found himself gazetted for a prefecture; which at that time he might honestly have accepted, as many others did whom the conduct of the government afterwards forced to retire. Carrel used sportively to say that if he had been offered a regiment, he perhaps could not have found in his heart to refuse. But he declined the prefecture, and took his post as editor and chief writer of the National, which he had founded a few months before the Revolution, in conjunction with MM. Mignet and Thiers, but which M. Thiers had conducted until he and M. Mignet got into place. Carrel now assumed the management: and from this time his rise was rapid to that place in the eye of the public, which made him, at one period, the most conspicuous ^vprivate^v person in France. Never was there an eminence better merited; and we have now to tell how he acquired it, and how he used it.

It was by no trick, no compliance with any prevailing fashion or prejudice, that Carrel became the leading figure in politics on the popular side. It was by the ascendancy of character and talents, legitimately exercised, in a position for which he was more fitted than any other man of his age, and of which he at once entered into the true character, and applied it to its practical use. From this time we are to consider Carrel not as a literary man, but as a politician, and his writings are to be judged by the laws of popular oratory. “Carrel,” says M. Nisard,

and he recognised, that there is not only action upon the outward world, there is also action upon the spiritual world of thought and feeling, the action of the artist, the preacher, and the philosopher. “Thus completed,” says M. Nisard, “Carrel’s idea is the best theory of the art of composition:”^[*] as indeed it is; and it was the secret of Carrel’s success.

Of his eminence as a writer, there is but one opinion in France, there can be but one among competent judges in any country. Already, from the time of his Essays on the War in Spain, “nothing mediocre had issued from his pen.”^[‡] In the various papers, literary or political, which he published in different periodical works,

“All the qualities,” continues M. Nisard,

This from so sober a judge, and in an age and country which has produced Paul Louis Courier, is, we may hope, sufficient.

Both M. Littré and M. Nisard^[*] compare Carrel’s political writings, as literary productions, to the letters of Junius;^[†] though M. Nisard gives greatly the superiority to Carrel. But the comparison itself is an injustice to him. There never was anything less like popular oratory, than those polished but stiff and unnatural productions; where every cadence seems pre-determined, and the writer ^zknew^z the place of every subsequent word in the sentence, before he finally ^aresolved^a on the first. The Orations of Demosthenes, though even Demosthenes could not have extemporized them, are but the ideal and unattainable perfection of extemporaneous speaking: but Apollo himself could not have spoken the Letters of Junius, without pausing at the end of every sentence to arrange the next. A piece of mere painting, like any other work of art, may be finished by a succession of touches: but when spirit speaks to spirit, not in order to please but to incite, everything must seem to come from one impulse, from a soul engrossed for the moment with one feeling. It seemed so with Carrel, because it ^bwas^b so. “Unlike Paul Louis Courier,” says M. Littré, “who hesitated at a word, Carrel never hesitated at a sentence;”^[‡] and he could speak, whenever called upon, in the same style in which he wrote. His style has that ^cbreadth^c , which, in literature, as in other works of art, shows that the artist has a ^dcharacter^d —that some conceptions and some feelings predominate in his mind over others. Its fundamental quality is that which M. Littré has well characterized, la sûreté de l’expression;^[§] it goes straight home; the right word is always found, and never seems to be sought: words are never wanting to his thoughts, and never pass before them. “L’expression” (we will not spoil by translation M. Littré’s finely chosen phraseology) “arrivait toujours abondante comme la pensée, si pleine et si abondante elle-même;” “and if one is not conscious of the labour of a writer retouching carefully every passage, one is conscious of a vigorous inspiration, which endows everything with movement, form, and colour, and casts in one and the same mould the style and the thought.”^[¶]

It would have been ^ein complete contradiction to^e Carrel’s idea of journalism, for the writer to remain behind a curtain. The English idea of a newspaper, as a sort of impersonal thing, coming from nobody knows where, the readers never thinking of the writer, nor caring whether he thinks what he writes, as long as they think what he writes;—this would not have done for Carrel, nor been consistent with his objects. The opposite idea already to some extent prevailed in France: newspapers were often written in, and had occasionally been edited, by political characters, but no political character ^f(since the first Revolution) had^fmade itself by a newspaper. Carrel did so. To say that during the years of his management Carrel conducted the National, would give an insufficient idea. The National was Carrel; it was as much himself as was his conversation, as could have been his speeches in the Chamber, or his acts as a public functionary. “The National,” says M. Littré, “was a personification of Armand Carrel; and, if the journal gave expression to the thoughts, the impulses, the passions of the writer, the writer in his turn was always on the breach, prepared to defend, at the peril of his life or of his liberty, what he had said in the journal.”^[*]

He never separated himself from his newspaper. He never considered the newspaper one thing and himself another. What was said by a newspaper to a newspaper, he considered as said by a man to a man, and acted accordingly. He never said anything in his paper, to or of any man, which he would not have both dared, and thought it right, to say personally and in his presence. He insisted upon being treated in the same way; and generally was so; though the necessity in which he thought himself of repelling insult, had involved him in two duels before his last fatal one. Where danger was to be incurred in resisting arbitrary power, he was always the first to seek it: he never hesitated to throw down the gauntlet to the government, challenging it to try upon him any outrage which it was meditating against the liberty or the safety of the citizen. Nor was this a mere bravado: no one will think it so, who knows how unscrupulous are all French governments, how prone to act from irritated vanity more than from calculation, and how likely to commit an imprudence rather than acknowledge a defeat. Carrel thwarted a nefarious attempt of the Périer Ministry to establish the practice of incarcerating writers previously to trial. The thing had been already done in several instances, when Carrel, in a calm and well-reasoned article, which he signed with his name, demonstrated its illegality, and declared that if it was attempted in his own case he would, at the peril of his life, oppose force to force.^[†] This produced its effect: the illegality was not repeated; Carrel was prosecuted for his article, pleaded his own cause, and was acquitted; as on every subsequent occasion when the paper was prosecuted and he defended it in person before a jury. The National, often prosecuted, was never condemned but once, when, by a miserable quibble, the cause was taken from the jury to be tried by the court alone; and once again before the Chamber of Peers, an occasion which was made memorable by the spirit with which Carrel spoke out in the face of the tribunal which was sitting to judge him, what all France thinks of one of the most celebrated of its proceedings, the trial and condemnation of Marshal Ney.^[*] Nothing on this occasion could have saved Carrel from a heavy fine or a long imprisonment, had not a member of the Chamber itself, General Excelmans, hurried away^g by an irresistible impulse, risen^h in his place, acknowledged the sentiment, and repeated it.^[†]

Without these manifestations of spirit and intrepidity, Carrel, however he might have been admired as a writer, could not have acquired his great influence as a man; nor been enabled without imputation on his courage, to keep aloof from the more violent proceedings of his party, and discountenance, as he steadily did, all premature attempts to carry their point by physical force.

Whatever may have been Carrel’s individual opinions, he did not, in the National, begin by being a republican; he was willing to give the new chief magistrate a fair trial; nor was it until that personage had quarrelled with Lafayette, driven Dupont de l’Eure and Laffitte from office, and called Casimir Périer to his councils for the avowed purpose of turning back the movement, that Carrel hoisted republican colours. Long before this the symptoms of what was coming had been so evident, as to embitter the last moments of Benjamin Constant, if not, as was generally believed, to shorten his existence. The new oligarchy had declared, both by their words and their deeds, that they had conquered for themselves, and not for the people: and the King had shown his determination that through them he would govern, that he would make himself necessary to them, and be a despot, using them and rewarding them as his tools. It was the position which the King assumed as the head of the oligarchy, which made Carrel a republican. He was no fanatic, to care about a name, andⁱ was too essentially practical in his turn of mind to fight for a mere abstract principle. The object of his declaration of republicanism was a thoroughly practical one—to strike at the ringleader of the opposite party; and, if it were impossible to overthrow him, to do what was possible—to deprive him of the support of opinion.

Events have decided against Carrel, and it is easy, judging after the fact, to pronounce that the position he took up was not a wise one. We do not contend that it was so; but we do contend, that he might think it so, with very little disparagement to his judgment.

On what ground is it that some of the best writers and thinkers, in free countries, have recommended kingly government—have stood up for constitutional royalty as the best form of a free constitution, or at least one which, where it exists, no rational person would wish to disturb? On one ground only, and on one condition:—that a constitutional monarch does not himself govern, does not exercise his own will in governing, but confines himself to appointing responsible ministers, and even in that, does but ascertain and give effect to the national will. When this condition is observed—and it is, on the whole, faithfully observed in our own country—it is asked, and very reasonably, what more could be expected from a republic? and where is the benefit which would be gained by opening the highest office in the State, the only place which carries with it the most tempting part ^j(to common minds)^j of power, the show of it, as a prize to be scrambled for by every ambitious and turbulent spirit, who is willing to keep the community, for his benefit, in the mean turmoil of a perpetual canvass? These are the arguments used: they are, in the present state of society, unanswerable; and we should not say a word for Carrel, if the French government bore, or ever had borne, the most distant resemblance to this idea of constitutional royalty. But it never did: no French king ever confined himself within the limits which the best friends of constitutional monarchy allow to be indispensable to its innocuousness: it is always the king, and not his ministers, that governs; and the power of an English king would appear to Louis Philippe a mere mockery of royalty Now, if the ^kchief functionary^k was to be his own minister, it appeared to Carrel absolutely necessary that he should be a responsible one. The principle of a responsible executive appeared to him too all-important to be sacrificed. As the king would not content himself with being king, there must, instead of a king, be a removable and accountable magistrate.

As for the dangers of a republic, we should carry back our minds to the period which followed the Three Days, and to the impression made on all Europe by the ^lbravery^l , the ^mintegrity^m , the gentleness and chivalrous generosity, displayed at that time by the populace of Paris—and ask ourselves whether it was inexcusable to have hoped everything from a people, of whom the very lowest ranks could thus act? a people, too, among whom, out of a few large towns, there is little indigence; where almost every ⁿpeasantⁿ has his piece of land, where ^othe number of landed proprietors is more than half the number of^o grown-up men in the country, and where, by a natural consequence, the respect for the right of property amounts to a superstition? If among such a people there could be danger in republicanism, Carrel saw greater dangers, which could only be averted by republicanism. He saw the whole Continent armed, and ready at a moment’s notice to pour into France from all sides. He thought, and it was the principal mistake which he committed, that this collision could not be averted; and he thought, which was no mistake, that if it came, nothing would enable France to bear the brunt of it but that which had carried her through it before, intense popular enthusiasm. This was impossible with Louis Philippe: and if a levy en masse was to be again required of all citizens, it must be in a cause which should be worth fighting for, a cause in which all should feel that they had an equal stake.

These were the reasons which made Carrel declare for a republic. ^pThey^p are, no doubt, refuted by the fact, that the public mind was not ripe for a republic, and would not have it. It would have been better, ^qprobably^q , instead of the republican standard, to have raised, as Carrel afterwards did, that of a large parliamentary reform. But the public as yet were still less prepared to join in this demand than in the other. A republic would have brought this among other things, and although, by professing republicanism, there was danger of alarming the timid, there was the advantage of being able to appeal to a feeling already general and deeply rooted, the national aversion to the principle of hereditary privileges. The force of this aversion was clearly seen, when it extorted even from Louis Philippe the abolition of the hereditary peerage: and in choosing a point of attack which put this feeling on his side, Carrel did not show himself a bad tactician.

Nor was it so clear at that time that the public mind was not ripe. Opinion advances quickly in times of revolution; at the time of which we speak, it had set in rapidly in the direction of what was called “the movement;” and the manifestation of public feeling at the funeral of General Lamarque, in June 1832, was such, that many competent judges think it must have been yielded to, and the King must have changed his policy, but for the unfortunate collision which occurred on that day between the people and the troops, which produced a conflict that lasted two days, and led to the memorable ordonnance placing Paris under martial law.^[*] On this occasion the responsible editor of the National^[†] was tried on a capital charge for an article of Carrel’s,^[‡] published just before the conflict, and construed as an instigation to rebellion. He was acquitted not only of the capital, but of the minor offence; and it was proved on the trial, from an official report of General Pajol,^[§] the officer in command, that the conflict began on the side of the military, who attacked the people because ^r(as at the funeral of our Queen Caroline)^r an attempt was made to change the course of the procession, and carry Lamarque’s remains to the Pantheon. But, the battle once begun, many known republicans had joined in it; they had fought with desperation, and the blame was generally thrown upon them; from this time the fear of émeutes spread among the trading classes, and they rallied round the throne of Louis Philippe.

Though the tide now decidedly turned in favour of the party of resistance, and the moderate opposition headed by M. Odilon Barrot and M. Mauguin lost ^sthe greater part of^s its supporters, the republican opposition continued for some time longer to increase in strength: and Carrel, becoming more and more indisputably at the head of it, rose in influence, and became more and more an object of popular attention.

It was in the autumn of 1833 that we first saw Carrel. He was then at the height of his reputation, and prosperity had shed upon him, as it oftenest does upon the strongest minds, only its best influences. An extract from a letter written ^tnot long^t after will convey in its freshness the impression which he then communicated to an English observer.

This is a first impression, but it ^kwas^k confirmed by all that we afterwards saw and learnt. Of all distinguished Frenchmen whom we have known, Carrel, in manner, answered most to Coleridge’s definition of the manner of a gentleman, that which shows respect to others in such a way as implies an equally habitual and secure reliance on their respect to ^lhimself^l .^[†] Carrel’s manner was not of the self-asserting kind, like that of many of the most high-bred Frenchmen, who succeed perfectly in producing the effect they desire, but who seem to be desiring it: Carrel seemed never to concern himself about it, but to trust to what he was, for what he would appear to be. This had not always been the case; and we learn from M. Nisard, that in the time of his youth and obscurity he was sensitive as to the consideration shown him, and susceptible of offence. It was not in this only that he was made better by being better appreciated. Unlike vulgar minds, whose faults, says M. Nisard, “augment in proportion as their talents obtain them indulgence, it was evident to all his friends that his faults diminished, in proportion as his brilliant qualities, and the celebrity they gave him, increased.”^[*]

One of the qualities which we were most struck with in Carrel was his modesty. It was not that common modesty, which is but the negation of arrogance and overweening pretension. It was the higher ^mquality^m , of which that is but a small part. It was the modesty of one who knows accurately what he is, and what he is equal to, never attempts anything which requires qualities that he has not, and admires and values no less, and more if it be reasonable to do so, the things which he cannot do, than those which he can. It was most unaffectedly that he disclaimed all mastery of the details of politics. I understand, he said, the principles of a representative government. But he said, and we believe him to have sincerely thought, that when once a genuinely representative legislature should have been assembled, his function would be at an end. It would belong to more instructed men, he thought, to make laws for France; he could at most be of use in defending her from attack, and in making her laws obeyed. In this Carrel did himself less than justice, for though he was not, as he truly said, un homme spécial, though he had not ⁿprofoundlyⁿ studied political economy or jurisprudence, no man ever had a greater gift of attaching to himself men of special acquirements, or could discern more surely what man was fit for what thing. And that is the exact quality wanted in the head of an administration. Like Mirabeau, Carrel had a natural gift for being Prime Minister; like Mirabeau, he could make men of all sorts, even foreigners, and men who did not think themselves inferior to him but only different, feel that they could have been loyal to him—that they could have served^o and followed him in life and death, and marched under his orders wherever he chose to lead: sure, with him, of being held worth whatever they were worth, of having their counsels listened to by an ear capable of appreciating them, of having the post assigned to them for which they were fittest, and a commander to whom they could trust for bringing them off in any embarrassment in which he could ever engage them.

Shortly after we first knew Carrel, we had an opportunity of judging him in one of the most trying situations in which the leading organ of a movement party could be placed; and the manner in which he conducted himself in it, gave us the exalted idea which we never afterwards lost, both of his nobleness of character, and of his eminent talents as a political leader.

A small and extreme section of the republican body, composed of men, some of them highly accomplished, many of them pure in purpose and full of courage and enthusiasm, but without that practicalness which distinguished Carrel,—more highly endowed with talent for action, than with judgment for it,—had formed themselves into a society, which placed itself in communication with the discontented of the labouring classes, and got under their command the greater part of the insurrectionary strength of the party.^* These men raised the cry of social reform, and a modification of the constitution of property,—ideas which the St. Simonians had set afloat, in connexion with a definite scheme, and with speculative views the most ^aenlarged, and in several respects the most just,^a that had ever been connected with Utopianism^b. But^b these republicans had no definite plan; the ideas were comparatively vague and indeterminate in their minds, yet were sincerely entertained, and did not, whatever ignorant or cowardly persons might suppose, mean plunder for themselves and their associates. The Society published a manifesto, in which these aspirations were dimly visible, and in which they reprinted, with their adhesion, a Declaration of the Rights of Man, proposed by Robespierre in the National Convention,^[*] and by that body rejected. This document was harmless enough, and we could not see in it any of the anti-property doctrines that appeared to be seen by everybody else, for Paris was convulsed with apprehension on the subject. But whether it was the name of Robespierre, or the kind of superstition which attaches to the idea of property in France, or that the manifesto was considered a preliminary to worse things supposed to be meditated by its authors, the alarm of the middle classes was now thoroughly excited: they became willing to join with any men and any measures, in order to put down not only this, but every other kind of republicanism; and from this time, in reality, dates the passionate resistance to the democratic movement, which, with the assistance of Fieschi, was improved into the laws of September 1835,^[†] by which laws, and by the imprisonment and exile of its most active members, the republican party has been for the present silenced.

The conduct by which the prospects of the popular party were thus compromised, Carrel had from the first disapproved. The constitution of property appeared to him a subject for speculative philosophers,^c not for the mass: he did not think that the present idea of property, and the present arrangements of it, would last for ever unchanged, through the progressive changes of society and civilization; but he believed that any improvement of them would be the work of a generation, and not of an hour. Against the other peculiar views of this revolutionary party he had combated both in private and in the National. He had taken no part in their projects for arriving at a republic by an insurrection. He had set his face against their notion of governing by an active minority, for the good of the majority, but if necessary in opposition to ^dits^d will, and by a provisional despotism that was to terminate some day in a free government. A free, full, and fair representation of the people was his object; full opportunity to the nation to declare its will—the perfect submission of individual crotchets to that will. And without condemning the Republic of the Convention ^eunder the extraordinary circumstances which accompanied its brief career^e , he preferred to cite as an example the Republic of the United States; not that he thought it perfect, nor even ^fa^f model which France ought ^gin all respects^g to imitate, but because it presented^h to France an example of what she most wanted—protection to all parties alike, limitation of the power of the magistrate, and fairness as between the majority and the minority.

In the newspaper warfare, of an unusually vehement character, stirred up by the manifesto of the revolutionary republicans, Carrel was the last of the journalists to declare himself. He took some days to consider what position it most became him to assume. He did not agree in the conclusions of this party, while he had just enough of their premises in common with them, to expose him to misrepresentation. It was incumbent on him to rescue himself, and the great majority of the popular party, from responsibility for opinions which they did not share, and the imputation of which was calculated to do them so much injury. On the other hand, the party could not afford to lose these able and ⁱenergeticⁱ men, and the support of that portion of the working classes who had given their confidence to them. The men, too, were many of them his friends; he knew them to be good men, superior men, men who were an honour to their opinions, and he could not brook the cowardice of letting them be run down by a popular cry. After mature deliberation, he published in the National a series of articles, admirable for their nobleness of feeling and delicacy and dexterity in expression: in which, without a single subterfuge, without deviating in a word from the most open and straightforward sincerity, he probed the question to the bottom, and contrived with the most ^jexquisite^j address, completely to separate himself from all that was objectionable in the opinions of the manifesto, and at the same time to present both the opinions and the men in the most advantageous light, in which, without disguising his disagreement, it was possible to place them.^[*] These were triumphs which belonged only to Carrel; it was on such occasions that he showed, though in a bloodless field, the qualities of a consummate general.

In the deliberations of the republican party among themselves, Carrel was more explicit. The society which issued the manifesto, and which was called the Society of the Rights of Man, made an overture to a larger society, that for the Protection of the Liberty of the Press, which represented all the shades of republicanism, and invited them to adopt the manifesto. The committee or council of the association ^kwas^k convened to take the proposal into consideration: and Carrel, though on ordinary occasions he absented himself from the proceedings of such bodies, attended. At this deliberation we had the good fortune to be present, and we shall never forget the impression we received of the talents both of Carrel and of the leader of the more extreme party, M. Cavaignac. Carrel displayed the same powerful good sense, and the same spirit of conciliation, in discussing with that party his differences from them, which he had shown in his apology for them to the public. With the superiority of a really comprehensive mind, he placed himself at their point of view; laid down in more express and bolder terms than they had done themselves, and in a manner which startled men who were esteemed to go much ^lfarther^l than Carrel, the portion of ^mphilosophic^m truth which there was in the premises from which they had drawn their erroneous conclusions; and left them less dissatisfied than pleased, that one who differed from them so widely, agreed with them in so much more than they expected, and could so powerfully advocate a portion of their views. The result was that Carrel was chosen to draw up a report to the society, on the manifesto, and on the invitation to adopt it. His report, in which he utters his whole mind on the new ideas of social reform considered in reference to practice, remained unpublished: Carrel did not proclaim unnecessarily to the world the differences in his own party, but preferred the prudent maxim of Napoleon, il faut laver notre linge sale chez nous.^[†] But at a later period, when the chiefs of the extreme party were in prison or in banishment, the republican cause for the present manifestly lost, himself publicly calumniated (for from what calumny is he sacred whom a government ⁿdetests?ⁿ ) as having indirectly instigated the Fieschi atrocity, and his house searched for papers on pretence of ascertaining if he was concerned in it, which the cowardly hypocrites who sought to involve him in the odium never themselves even in imagination conceived to be possible; at this time, when no one could any longer be injured by setting his past conduct in its true light, Carrel published his Report on the Robespierre Manifesto: and under the title of Extrait du dossier d’un prévenu de complicité morale dans l’attentat du 28 Juillet,^[*] it subsists for any one to read, a monument at once of the far-sighted intellect of Carrel, and of his admirable skill in expression.

During the rapid decline of the republican party, we know little of what passed in Carrel’s mind; but our knowledge of him would have ^oled us to surmise^o what M. Nisard states to be the fact, that he became sensible of the hopelessness of the cause, and only did not abandon the advocacy of it as an immediate object, from a sense of what was due to the consistency which a public man is bound to maintain before the public, when it is the sacrifice of his interest only, and not of his honesty, that it requires of him; and of what was due to the simple-minded men whom he had helped to compromise, and whose whole stay and support, the faith which kept them honest men, and which saved them from despair, would have expired within them if Carrel had deserted them. As is beautifully said by M. Nisard,

^sThe doubts and misgivings, however, which Carrel is stated to have so painfully experienced, never affected the truth of his republican principles, but at most their immediate applicability. The very foundation of Carrel’s character was sincerity and singleness of purpose; and nothing would have induced him to continue professing to others, convictions which he had ceased to entertain.

^tWhile^t Carrel never abandoned republicanism, it necessarily, after the laws of September, ceased to be so prominent as before in his journal. He felt the necessity of rallying under one standard all who were agreed in the essential point, opposition to the oligarchy; and he was one of the most earnest in demanding an extension of the suffrage; that vital point, the all-importance of which France has been so slow to recognise, and which it is so much to be regretted that he had not chosen from the first, instead of republicanism, to be the ^uimmediate^u aim of his political life.^s

But the greatest disappointment which Carrel suffered was the defeat not of republicanism, but of what M. Nisard calls his “théorie du droit commun;”^[†] those ideas of moderation in victory, of respect for the law, and for the rights of the weaker party, so much more wanted in France than any political improvements which are possible where those ideas are not.

“I affirm,” says M. Nisard,

We can conceive few things more melancholy than the spectacle of one of the noblest men in France, if not the noblest, dying convinced against his will, that his country is incapable of freedom; and under whatsoever institutions, has only the choice, what man or what party it will be under the despotism of. But we have not Carrel’s deliberate opinion; we have but his feelings in the first agony of his disenchantment. That multitude of impartial men in all quarters of France, who responded for a short time so cordially to his voice, will again claim the liberties which, in a moment of panic, they have surrendered to a government they neither love nor respect, and which they submit to and even support against its enemies, solely in despair of a better.

But Carrel was not one of those whom disappointment paralyzes; unsuccessful in one worthy object, he always found another. The newspaper press, gagged by the September laws, no longer afforded him the same instrument of power, and he meditated a total or partial retirement from it, either to recruit himself by study, se retremper par l’étude, for which, even at an earlier period, he had expressed to us an earnest longing, or to write what he had for some time had in view, the History of Napoleon. But he would have been called from these pursuits into a more active life; at the impending general election, he would have been chosen a deputy, having already been once put up without his knowledge, and defeated only by one vote. What course he would have struck out for himself in the Chamber, we shall never know, but it is not possible to doubt that it would have been an original one, and that it would have been brilliant, and most beneficial to his country. So immensely the superior of all his rivals in the qualities which create influence, he would probably have drawn round him by degrees all the sections of the popular party; would have given, if any one could, unity, decision, and definiteness to their vague plans and divided counsels; and the destiny which he could not ^yconquer^y for himself as President of a Republic, he might one day have gloriously fulfilled as minister under a reformed legislature, if any such reform could in France (which he regarded as impossible) render royalty compatible with the prevalence of the popular interest. These are vain dreams now, but the time was, when it was not foolish to indulge in them. Such dreams were the comfort of those who knew him, and who knew how ill his country can supply his place. ^zHe was at once the Achilles and the Ulysses of the democratic party^z and the star of hope for France in any new convulsions, was extinguished when Carrel died.

It is bitter to lose such a man; bitterest of all to lose him in a miserable duel^a . But ill shall it fare with the government which ^bcan rejoice in the death of such an enemy^b , and the time may come when it would give its ^cmost precious treasures^c to recal from the grave the victim whom, whether intentionally on its part or not, its enmity has sent thither. The heir to the French throne^[*] is reported ^d to have said of Carrel’s death, that it was a loss to all parties; he, at least, will probably live to find it so. Such a government as that now existing in France cannot last; and whether it end peacefully or violently, whether the return tide of public opinion shall bear the present reigning family aloft on its surface, or whelm them in its depths, bitterly will that man be missed, who alone, perhaps, would have been capable of saying to that tremendous power. Thus far shalt thou go, and no ^efarther^e .^[†] There are in France philosophers superior to Carrel, but no man known by such past services, equal like him to the great practical questions which are coming, and whose whole nature and character speak out like his, to the best qualities and noblest sympathies of the French mind. He had all that was necessary to give him an advocate in every French breast, and to make all young and ardent Frenchmen see in him the ideal of their own aspirations, the expression of what in their best moments they would wish to be.

His death is not to be confounded with the vulgar deaths of those who, hemmed in between two cowardices, can resist the fear of death, but not the^f meaner fear of the tongues of their fellow-creatures. His duel was a consequence of the system which he adopted for repelling the insults to which, as a journalist identifying himself with his journal, he was peculiarly exposed; and which, not only for his influence as a public man, but for the respectability of the press, and for preserving that high tone of public discussion from which he himself never swerved, he thought it necessary not to pass unpunished. His system, alas! is sufficiently refuted by its having cost so precious a life, but it was his system. “He often repeated,” says M. Littré,

He died a martyr to the morality and dignity of public discussion: and though even that cause would have been far better served by his life than by such a death, he was the victim of his virtues, and of that low state of our civilization, after all our boasting, which has not yet ^hcontrived^h the means of giving ⁱtoⁱ a man whose reputation is important to him, ^jprotection^j against insult, but ^kleaves^k him to seek reparation sword in hand, as in the barbarous ages. While he lived, he did keep up in the press generally, something of that elevation of tone which distinguished it under the Restoration, but which in the débordement of political and literary profligacy since the Revolution ^lof 1830^l , it had become difficult to preserve: and all we ^mknow^m of the state of newspaper discussion since his death, exalts our sense of the moral influence which Carrel exercised over the press of France.

Carrel was of middle height, slightly made, and very graceful. Like ⁿmostⁿ persons of really fine faculties, he carried those faculties with him into the smallest things; and did not disdain to excel, being qualified to do so, in^o things which are great only to little men. Even in the details of personal equipments, his taste was watched for and followed by the amateurs of such matters. He was fond of all bodily exercises, and had, says M. Nisard, un peu de tous les goûts vifs,^[*] more or less of all strong and natural inclinations; as might be expected from his large and vigorous human nature, the foundation of strength of will, and which, combined with intellect and with goodness, constitutes greatness. He was a human being complete at all points, not a fraction or frustum of one.

“The distinctive feature of his character,” says M. Nisard,

There are stories told of him like those told of Goldsmith, or any other person of thoughtless generosity.^r As is often the case with persons of strong impulses, he was of a careless character when not under excitement, and his inattention sometimes caused inconvenience to himself, and made him give unintentional offence to others. But on occasions which called into action his strong will, he had the eye of an eagle: “he seized with a glance, as on a field of battle, the whole terrain on which he was placed; and astonished above all by the sureness of the instinct with which he divined the significance of small things. Small things,” continues M. Littré, “are those which the vulgar do not perceive; but when such things have produced serious effects, pause, quite disconcerted, before the irrevocable event which might so easily have been prevented.”^s[*]

His conversation, especially on political subjects, M. Nisard, comparing him with the best conversers in a country where the art of conversation is ^tfar^t more cultivated than it is here, declares to be the most perfect he ever heard: and we can add our testimony to his, that Carrel’s writings in the National seemed but the continuation of his conversation. He was fond of showing that he could do equal justice to all sides of a question: and he would

We have marked^w these traits of character, because they help to complete the picture of what Carrel was, and, while they give reality to our conception of him, and bring him home to the feelings as a being of our own flesh and blood, they all give additional insight into those great qualities which it is the object of this paper to commemorate. The mind needs such examples, to keep alive in it that faith in good, without which nothing worthy the name of good can ever be realized: it needs to be reminded by them that (as^x is often repeated by one of the ^ygreatest writers^y of our time) man is still man.^[*] Whatever man has been, man may be; whatever of heroic the heroic ages, whatever of chivalrous the romantic ages have produced, is still possible, nay, still is, and a hero of Plutarch may exist amidst all the pettinesses of modern civilization, and with all the cultivation and refinement, and^z the analyzing and questioning spirit of the modern European mind. The lives of those are not lost, who have lived^a enough to be an example to the world; and though his country will not reap the blessings his life might have conferred upon it, yet while the six years following the Revolution of 1830 shall have a place in history, the memory of Armand Carrel will not ^butterly perish^b

MICHELET’S HISTORY OF FRANCE

1844

EDITOR’S NOTE

Dissertations and Discussions, 2nd ed. (1867), II, 120-80. Headed as title, title footnoted, “Edinburgh Review, January 1844.” Running titles as title. Reprinted from Edinburgh Review, LXXIX (Jan., 1844), 1-39, where it is headed: “Art. I.—Histoire de France. Par M. [Jules] Michelet, Membre de l’Institut, Professeur d’Histoire au Collège Royal de France, Chef de la Section Historique aux Archives du Royaume 8vo Vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Paris. [Hachette,] 1833-42”; running titles; “Recent French Historians— / Michelet’s History of France.” Unsigned Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A review of Michelet’s History of France in the Edinburgh Review for January 1844 (No. 159)” (MacMinn, 56). The copy in Mill’s library, Somerville College (tear-sheets of ER), has, in Mill’s hand, “(Edinburgh Review, January 1844)”; there are no corrections or emendations in it.

The following text, taken from the 2nd ed. of D&D (the last in Mill’s lifetime) is collated with that in D&D, 1st ed. (1859), and that in ER. In the footnoted variants, “44” indicates ER, “59” indicates D&D, 1st ed., and “67” indicates D&D, 2nd ed. (1867).

For comment on the essay, see lxvii-lxxi and ciii-civ above.

Michelet’s History of France

it has of late been a frequent remark among Continental thinkers, that the tendencies of the age set strongly in the direction of historical inquiry, and that history is destined to assume a new aspect from the genius and labours of the minds now devoted to its improvement. The anticipation must appear at least premature to an observer in England, confining his observation to his own country. Whatever may be the merits, in some subordinate respects, of such histories as the last twenty years have produced among us, they are in general distinguished by no essential character from the historical writings of the last century. No signs of a new school have been manifested in them; they will be affirmed by no one to constitute an era, or even prefigure the era which is to come: save that the “shadow of its coming”^[*] rested for an instant on the lamented Dr. Arnold at the close of his career; while Mr. Carlyle has shown a signal example, in his French Revolution,^[†] of the epic tone and pictorial colouring which may be given to literal truth, when materials are copious, and when the writer combines the laborious accuracy of a chronicler with the vivid imagination of a poet.

But whoever desires to know either the best which has been accomplished, or what the most advanced minds think it possible to accomplish, for the renovation of historical studies, must look to the Continent; and by the Continent we mean, of course, in an intellectual sense, Germany and France. That there are historians in Germany, our countrymen have at last discovered. The first two volumes of Niebuhr’s unfinished work, though the least attractive part to ordinary tastes, are said to have had more readers, or at least more purchasers, in English than in their native language. Of the remaining volume a translation has lately appeared, by a different, but a highly competent hand.^[‡] Schlosser, if not read, has at least been heard of in England;^[*] and one of Ranke’s works has been twice translated:^[†] we would rather that two of them had been translated once. But, though French books are supposed to be sufficiently legible in England without translation, the English public is not aware, that both in historical speculations, and in the importance of her historical writings, France, in the present day, far surpasses Germany. What reason induces the educated part of our countrymen to ^aignore^a , in so determined a manner, the more solid productions of the most active national mind in Europe, and to limit their French readings to M. de Balzac and M. Eugène Sue, there would be some difficulty in precisely determining. Perhaps it is the ancient dread of French infidelity; perhaps the ancient contempt of French frivolity and superficiality. If it be the former, we can assure them that there is no longer ground for such a feeling; if the latter, we must be permitted to doubt that there ever was. It is unnecessary to discuss whether, as some affirm, a strong religious “revival” is taking place in France, and whether such a phenomenon, if real, is likely to be permanent. There is at least a decided reaction against the ^birreligion^b of the last age. The Voltairian philosophy is looked upon as a thing of the past; one of its most celebrated assailants has been heard to lament that it has no living representative sufficiently considerable to perform the functions of a “constitutional opposition” against the reigning philosophic doctrines. The present French thinkers, whether receiving Christianity or not as a divine revelation, in no way feel themselves called upon to be unjust to it as a fact in history. There are men who, not disguising their own unbelief, have written deeper and finer things in vindication of what religion has done for mankind, than have sufficed to found the reputation of some of its most admired defenders. If they have any historical prejudice on the subject, it is in favour of the priesthood. They leave the opinions of David Hume on ecclesiastical history^[‡] to the exclusive patronage (we are sorry to say) of Protestant writers in Great Britain.

With respect to the charge so often made against French historians, of superficiality and want of research, it is a strange accusation against the country which produced the Benedictines. France has at all times possessed a class of studious and accurate érudits, as numerous as any other country except Germany; and her popular writers are not more superficial than our own. Voltaire gave false views of history in many respects, but not falser than Hume’s; Thiers is inaccurate, but less so than Sir Walter Scott. France has done more for even English history than England has. The very first complete history of England, and to this day not wholly superseded by any other, was the production of a French emigrant, Rapin de Thoyras.^[*]c The histories and historical memoirs of the Commonwealth period, never yet collected in our own country, have been translated and published at Paris in an assembled form, under the superintendence of M. Guizot;^[†] to whom also we owe the best history, both in thought and in composition, of the times of Charles I.^[‡] The reigns of the last two Stuarts have been written, with the mind of a statesman and the hand of a vigorous writer, by Armand Carrel, in his Histoire de la Contre-révolution en Angleterre;^[§] and at greater length, with much research and many new facts, by M. Mazure.^[¶] To call these writings, and numerous others which have lately appeared in France, superficial, would only prove an entire unacquaintance with them.

Among the French writers now labouring in the historical field, we must at present confine ourselves to those who have narrated as well as philosophized; who have written history, as well as written about history. Were we to include in our survey those general speculations which aim at connecting together the facts of universal history, we could point to some which we deem even more instructive, because of a more comprehensive and far-reaching character, than any which will now fall under our notice. Restricting ourselves, however, to historians in the received sense of the word, and among them to those who have done enough to be regarded as the chiefs and representatives of the new tendency, we should say that the three great historical minds of France, in our time, are Thierry, Guizot, and the writer whose name, along with that of his most important production, stands at the beginning of the present article.

To assist our appreciation of these writers, and of the improved ideas on the use and study of history, which their writings exemplify and diffuse, we may observe that there are three distinct stages in historical inquiry.

The type of the first stage is Larcher, the translator of Herodotus,^[*] who, as remarked by Paul Louis Courier, carries with him to the durbar of Darius the phraseology of the Court of Louis Quatorze;^* and, nowise behind him, an English translator of the Anabasis, who renders ἄνδρες στρατιῶται by “gentleman of the army.”^[*] The character of this school is to transport present feelings and notions back into the past, and refer all ages and forms of human life to the standard of that in which the writer himself lives. Whatever cannot be translated into the language of their own time, whatever they cannot represent to themselves by some fancied modern equivalent, is nothing to them, calls up no ideas in their minds at all. They cannot imagine anything different from their own everyday experience. They assume that words mean the same thing to a monkish chronicler as to a modern member of parliament. If they find the term rex applied to Clovis or Clotaire, they already talk of “the French monarchy,” or “the kingdom of France.” If among a tribe of savages newly escaped from the woods, they find mention of a council of leading men, or an assembled multitude giving its sanction to some matter of general concernment, their imagination jumps to a system of free institutions, and a wise contrivance of constitutional balances and checks. If, at other times, they find the chief killing and plundering without this sanction, they just as promptly figure to themselves an acknowledged despotism. In this manner they antedate not only modern ideas, but the essential characters of the modern mind; and imagine their ancestors to be very like their next neighbours, saving a few eccentricities, occasioned by being still Pagans or Catholics, by having no habeas corpus act, and no Sunday schools. If an historian of this stamp takes a side in controversy, and passes judgment upon actions or personages that have figured in history, he applies to them in the crudest form the canons of some modern party or creed. If he is a Tory, and his subject is Greece, everything Athenian must be cried down, and Philip and Dionysius must be washed white as snow, lest Pericles and Demosthenes should not be sufficiently black. If he be a Liberal, Caesar and Cromwell, and all usurpers similar to them, are “damned to everlasting fame.”^[*] Is he ^da disbeliever of revelation? a short-sighted,^d narrow-minded Julian becomes his pattern of a prince, and the heroes and martyrs of Christianity objects of scornful pity. If he is of the Church of England, Gregory VII must be an ambitious impostor, because Leo X was a self-indulgent voluptuary; John Knox nothing but a coarse-minded fanatic, because the historian does not like John Wesley. Humble as our estimate must be of this kind of writers, it would be unjust to forget that even their mode of treating history is an improvement upon the uninquiring credulity which contented itself with copying or translating the ancient authorities, without ever bringing the writer’s own mind in contact with the subject. It is better to conceive Demosthenes even under the image of Anacharsis Clootz, than not as a living being at all, but a figure in a puppet-show, of which Plutarch is the showman; and Mitford, so far, is a better historian than Rollin. He does give a sort of reality to historical personages: he ascribes to them passions and purposes, which, though not those of their age or position, are still human; and enables us to form a tolerably distinct, though in general an exceedingly false notion of their qualities and circumstances. This is a first step; and, that step made, the reader, once in motion, is not likely to stop there.

Accordingly, the second stage of historical study attempts to regard former ages not with the eye of a modern, but, as far as possible, with that of a ^ecotemporary^e ; to realize a true and living picture of the past time, clothed in its circumstances and peculiarities. This is not an easy task: the knowledge of any amount of dry generalities, or even of the practical life and business of his own time, goes a very little way to qualify a writer for it. He needs some of the characteristics of the poet. He has to “body forth the forms of things unknown.”^[†] He must have the faculty to see, in the ends and fragments which are preserved of some element of the past, the consistent whole to which they once belonged; to discern, in the individual fact which some monument hands down or to which some chronicler testifies, the general, and for that very reason unrecorded, facts which it presupposes. Such gifts of imagination he must possess; and, what is rarer still, he must forbear to abuse them. He must have the conscience and self-command to ^faffirm^f no more than can be vouched for, or deduced by legitimate inference from what is vouched for. With the genius for producing a great historical romance, he must have the virtue to add nothing to what can be proved to be true. What wonder if so rare a combination is not often realized?

Realized, of course, in its ideal perfection, it never is; but many now aim at it, and some approach it, according to the measure of their faculties. Of the sagacity which detects the meaning of small things, and drags to light the forgotten elements of a gone-by state of society, from scattered evidences which the writers themselves who recorded them did not understand, the world has now, in Niebuhr, an imperishable model. The reproduction of past events in the colours of life, and with all the complexity and bustle of a real scene, can hardly be carried to a higher pitch than by Mr. Carlyle. But to find a school of writers, and among them several of the first rank, who systematically direct their aims towards this ideal of history, we must look to the French historians of the present day.

There is yet a third, and the highest stage of historical investigation, in which the aim is not simply to compose histories, but to construct a science of history. In this view, the whole of the events which have befallen the human race, and the states through which it has passed, are regarded as a series of phenomena, produced by causes, and susceptible of explanation. All history is conceived as a progressive chain of causes and effects; or (by an apter metaphor) as a gradually unfolding web, in which every fresh part that comes to view is a prolongation of the part previously unrolled, whether we can trace the separate threads from the one into the other, or not. The facts of each generation are looked upon as one complex phenomenon, caused by those of the generation preceding, and causing, in its turn, those of the next in order. That these states must follow one another according to some law, is considered certain: how to read that law, is deemed the fundamental problem of the science of history. To find on what principles, derived from the nature of man and the ^glaws of the outward world^g , each state of society and of the human mind produced that which came after it; and whether there can be traced any order of production sufficiently definite, to show what future states of society may be expected to emanate from the circumstances which exist at present—is the aim of historical philosophy in its third stage.

This ultimate and highest attempt, must, in the order of nature, follow, not precede, that last described; for before we can trace the filiation of states of society one from another, we must rightly understand and clearly conceive them, each apart from the rest. Accordingly, this greatest achievement is rather a possibility to be one day realized, than an enterprise in which any great progress has yet been made. But of the little yet done in ^hthis^h direction, by far the greater part has hitherto been done by French writers. They have made more hopeful attempts than any one else, and have more clearly pointed out the path: they are the real harbingers of the dawn of historical science.

Dr. Arnold, in his Historical Lectures^[*] —which, (it should not be forgotten,) though the latest production of his life, were the earliest of his systematic meditations on general history—showed few and faint symptoms of having conceived, with any distinctness, this third step in historical study. But he had, as far as the nature of the work admitted, completely realized the second stage; and to those who have not yet attained that stage, there can scarcely be more instructive reading than his Lectures. The same praise must be given, in an even higher sense, to the earliest of the three great modern French historians, M. Augustin Thierry.

It was from historical romances that M. Thierry learned to recognise the worthlessness of what in those days were called histories;ⁱ Chateaubriand and Sir Walter Scott were his early teachers. He has himself described the effect produced upon him and others, by finding, in Ivanhoe,^[†] Saxons and Normans in the reign of Richard I.^[‡] Why, he asked himself, should the professed historians have left such a fact as this to be brought to light by a novelist? and what else were such men likely to have understood of the age, when so important and distinctive a feature of it had escaped them? The study of the original sources of French history, completed his conviction of the senselessness of the modern compilers. He resolved “to plant the standard of historical reform;”^[§] and to this undertaking all his subsequent life has been consecrated. His History of the Norman Conquest, though justly chargeable with riding a favourite idea too hard, forms an era in English history. In another of his works, the Lettres sur l’Histoire de France, in which profound learning is combined with that clear practical insight into the realities of life, which in France, more than in any other country except Italy, accompanies speculative eminence, M. Thierry gives a piquant exposure of the incapacity of historians to enter into the spirit of the middle ages, and the ludicrously false impressions they communicate of human life as it was in early times. Exemplifying the right method as well as censuring the wrong, he, in the same work, extracted from the records of the middle ages some portions, not large but valuable, of the neglected facts which constitute the real history of European society.^[¶] Nowhere, however, is M. Thierry’s genius so pleasingly displayed, as in his most recent publication, the work of his premature old age, written under the double affliction of blindness and paralysis—the Récits des Temps Mérovingiens.^[*] This book, the first series of which is all that has^j been published, was destined to paint—what till that time he had only discussed and described—that chaos of primitive barbarism and enervated civilization, from which the present nations of Europe had their origin, and which forms the transition from ancient to modern history. He makes the age tell its own story; not drawing anything from invention, but^k adhering scrupulously to authentic facts. As^l the history of the three centuries preceding Charlemagne was not worth writing throughout in^m fulness of detailⁿ , he contents himself with portions of it, selecting such as, while they are illustrative of the times, are also in themselves complete stories, furnished with characters and personal interest. The experiment is completely successful. The grace and beauty of the narration makes these true histories as pleasant reading as if they were a charming collection of fictitious tales; while the practical feeling they impart of the form of human life from which they are drawn—the familiar understanding they communicate of “la vie barbare,”—is unexampled even in fiction, and unthought of heretofore in any writing professedly historical. The narratives are preceded by an improved résumé of the author’s previous labours in the theoretical department of his subject, under the title of a Dissertation on the Progress of Historical Studies in France.^[†]

M. Guizot has a mind of a different cast from M. Thierry: the one is especially a man of speculation and science, as the other is, more emphatically, in the high European sense of the term, an artist; though this is not to be understood of either in an exclusive sense, each possessing a fair share of the qualities characteristic of the other. Of all Continental historians of whom we are aware, M. Guizot is the one best adapted to this country, and a familiarity with whose writings would do most to train^o and ripen among us the growing spirit of historical speculation.

M. Guizot’s only narrative work is the^p history, already referred to, of what is called in France the English Revolution. His ^qother^q principal productions are the Essais sur l’Histoire de France, published in 1822, and the Lectures,^[‡] which the whole literary public of Paris thronged to hear, from 1828 to 1830, and to which^r the political events of the last of those years put an abrupt termination. The immense popularity of these writings in their own country—a country not more patient of the “genre ennuyeux”^[*] than its neighbours—is a sufficient guarantee that their wearing the form of dissertation, and not of narrative, is, in this instance, no detriment to their attractiveness. Even the light reader will find in them no resemblance to the chapters on “manners and customs,” which, with pardonable impatience, he is accustomed to skip when turning over any of the historians of the old school. For in them we find only that dullest and most useless of all things, mere facts without ideas: M. Guizot creates within those dry bones a living soul.^[†]

M. Guizot does not, as in the main must be said of M. Thierry, remain in what we have called the second region of historical inquiry: he makes frequent and long incursions into the third. He not only inquires what our ancestors were, but what made them so; what gave rise to the peculiar state of society of the middle ages, and by what causes this state was progressively transformed into what we see around us. His success in this respect could not, in the almost nascent state of the science of history, be perfect; but it is as great as was perhaps compatible with the limits of his design. For (^sas M. Comte has^s well remarked) in the study of history, we must proceed from the ensemble to the details, and not conversely.^[‡] We cannot explain the facts of any age or nation, unless we have first traced out some connected view of the main outline of history. The great universal results must be first accounted for, not only because they are the most important, but because they depend on the simplest laws. Taking place on so large a scale as to neutralize the operation of local and partial agents, it is in them alone that we see in undisguised action the inherent tendencies of the human race. Those great results, therefore, may admit of a complete theory; while it would be impossible to give a full analysis of the innumerable causes which influenced the local or temporary development of some section of mankind; and even a distant approximation to it supposes a previous understanding of the general laws, to which these local causes stand in the relation of modifying circumstances.

But before astronomy had its Newton, there was a place, and an honourable one, for not only the observer Tycho, but the theorizer, Kepler. M. Guizot is the Kepler, and something more, of his particular subject. He has a real talent for the explanation and generalization of historical facts. He unfolds at least the proximate causes of social phenomena, with rare discernment, and much knowledge of human nature. We recognise, moreover, in all his theories, not only a solidity of acquirements, but a sobriety and impartiality, which neither his countrymen, nor speculative thinkers in general, have often manifested in so high a degree. He does not exaggerate the influence of some one cause or agency, sacrificing all others to it. He neither writes as if human affairs were absolutely moulded by the wisdom and virtue or the vices and follies of rulers; nor as if the general circumstances of society did all, and accident or eminent individuals could do nothing. He neither attributes everything to political institutions, nor everything to the ideas and convictions in men’s minds; but shows how they both co-operate, and react upon one another. He sees in European civilization the complex product of many conflicting influences, Germanic, Roman, and Christian; and of the peculiar position in which these different forces were brought to act upon one another. He ascribes to each of them its share of influence. Whatever may be added to his speculations in a more advanced state of historical science, little that he has done, will, we think, require to be undone; his conclusions are seldom likely to be found in contradiction with the deeper or more extensive results that may, perhaps, hereafter be obtained.

It speaks little for the intellectual tastes and the liberal curiosity of our countrymen, that they remain ignorant or neglectful of such writings. The Essays we have ^tseldom^t met with an Englishman who had read. Of the Lectures, one volume has been twice translated,^[*] and has had some readers, especially when M. Guizot’s arrival in England as the representative of his country, obtruded (as Dr. Chalmers would say)^[†] a knowledge of his existence and character upon London society. But the other five volumes are untranslated and unread, although they are the work itself, to which the first volume is, in truth, only the introduction. When the Villèle Ministry was overthrown, and the interdict removed by which the Government of the Restoration had chained up all independent speculation, M. Guizot reopened his lecture-room, after a suspension of near ten years. Half the academic season having then expired, he was compelled, not only to restrict his view of modern history to the merest outline, but to leave out half the subject altogether; treating only of the progress of Society, and reserving for the more extended labours of subsequent years, the development of the individual human being. Yet critics have been found in England, who, in entire ignorance that the volume before them was a mere preface, visited upon the author, as shortcomings in his own ^udoctrines^u , the lacunae unavoidably left in his first year’s lectures, and amply filled up in those of the succeeding seasons;—charging upon him as a grave philosophical error, that he saw in history only institutions and social relations, and altogether overlooked human beings.^[*]

What has obtained for the introductory volume the share of attention with which it (and not the others) has been treated by the English public, is perhaps that it bears as its second title, History of Civilization in Europe; while the other volumes, after the words Cours d’Histoire Moderne, bear the designation of “Histoire de la Civilisation en France,” and as such may have been deemed not specially interesting to England. But though this may avail in explanation, it is inadmissible as an excuse. A person must need instruction in history very much, who does not know that the history of civilization in France is that of civilization in Europe. The main course of the stream of civilization is identical in all the western nations; their origin was essentially similar—they went through the same phases—and society in all of them, at least until after the Reformation, consisted fundamentally of the same elements. Any one country, therefore, may, in some measure, stand for all the rest. But France is the best type, as representing best the average circumstances of Europe. There is no country in which the general tendencies of modern society have been so little interfered with by secondary and modifying agencies. In England, for example, much is to be ascribed to the peculiarity of a double conquest. While elsewhere ^vone^v race of barbarians overran an extensive region, and settled down amidst a subject population greatly more numerous, as well as more civilized, than themselves; the first invaders of England, instead of enslaving, exterminated or expelled the former inhabitants; and after growing up into a nation, were in their turn subdued by a race almost exactly on a level with them in civilization. The Scandinavian countries, on the other hand, and a great part of Germany, had never been conquered at all; and in the latter, much depended upon the elective character of the head of the empire, which prevented the consolidation of a powerful central government. In Italy, the early predominance of towns and town life; in Spain, the Moorish occupation and its consequences, coexisted as modifying causes with the general circumstances common to all. But in France, no disturbing forces, of anything like equal potency, can be traced; and the universal tendencies, having prevailed more completely, are more obviously discernible.

To any European, therefore, the history of France is not a foreign subject, but^w part of his national history. Nor is there anything partial or local in M. Guizot’s treatment of it. He draws his details and exemplifications from France; but his principles are universal. The social conditions and changes which he delineates, were not French, but European. The intellectual progress which he retraces, was the progress of the European mind.^x

A similar remark applies to the History of France, by M. Michelet, the third great French historian of the present era—a work which, even in its unfinished state, is the most important that he has produced, and of which it is now time that we should begin to give an account.

M. Michelet has, among the writers of European history, a position peculiarly his own.

Were we to say that M. Michelet is altogether as safe a writer as M. Thierry or M. Guizot—that his interpretations of history may be accepted as actual history—that those who dislike to think or explore for themselves, may sleep peacefully in the faith that M. Michelet has thought and explored for them—we should give him a different kind of praise from that which we consider his due, M. Michelet’s are not books to save a reader the trouble of thinking, but to make him boil over with thought. Their effect on the mind is not acquiescence, but stir and ferment.

M. Michelet has opened a new vein in the history of the middle ages. A pupil of M. Guizot, or at least an admiring auditor, who has learned from him most of what he had to teach, M. Michelet, for this very reason, has not followed in his wake, but consulted the bent of his own faculties, which prompted him to undertake precisely what M. Guizot had left undone. Of him it would be very unlikely to be said, even falsely, that he thought only of society. Without overlooking society, man is his especial subject. M. Guizot has neglected neither, but has treated them both conformably to the character of his own mind. He is himself two things—a statesman and a speculative thinker; and in his Lectures, when he leaves the province of the statesman, it is for that of the metaphysician. His history of the human mind is principally the history of speculation. It is otherwise with M. Michelet. His peculiar element is that of the poet, as his countrymen would say—of the religious man, as would be said in a religious age—in reality, of both. Not the intellectual life of intellectual men, not the social life of the people, but their internal life; their thoughts and feelings in relation to themselves and their destination; the habitual temper of their minds—not overlooking, of course, their external circumstances. He concerns himself more with masses than with literary individuals, except as specimens, on a larger scale, of what was in the general heart of their age. His chief interest is for the collective mind, the everyday plebeian mind of humanity—its enthusiasms, its collapses, its strivings, its attainments and failures. He makes us feel with its sufferings, rejoice in its ^yhopes. He^y makes us identify ourselves with the varying fortunes and feelings of human nature, as if mankind or Christendom were one being, the single and indivisible hero of a tale.

M. Michelet had afforded an earnest of these qualities in his former writings. He has written a history of the Roman Republic,^[*] in which he availed himself largely, as all writers on Roman history now do, of the new views opened by the profound sagacity of Niebuhr. One thing, however, he has not drawn from Niebuhr; for Niebuhr had it not to bestow. We have no right to require that an author, who has done in his department great things which no one before him had done, or could do, should have done all other good things likewise. But without meaning disparagement to Niebuhr, it has always struck us as remarkable, that a mind so fitted to throw light upon the dark places in the Roman manner of existence, should have exhausted its efforts in clearing up and rendering intelligible the merely civic life of the Roman people. By the aid of Niebuhr, we now know, better than we had ever reckoned upon knowing, what the Roman republic was. But what the Romans themselves were, we scarcely know better than we did before. It is true that citizenship, its ideas, feelings, and active duties, filled a larger space in ancient, than in any form of modern life; but they did not constitute the whole. A Roman citizen had a religion and gods, had a religious morality, had domestic relations; there were women in Rome as well as men; there were children, who were brought up and educated in a certain manner; there were, even in the earliest period of the Roman commonwealth, slaves. Of all this, one perceives hardly anything in Niebuhr’s voluminous work. The central idea of the Roman religion and polity, the family, scarcely shows itself, except in connexion with the classification of the citizens; nor are we made to perceive in what the beliefs and modes of conduct of the Romans, respecting things in general, agreed, and in what disagreed, with those of the rest of the ancient world. Yet the mystery of the Romans and of their fortunes must lie there. Now, of many of these things, one does learn something from the much smaller work of M. Michelet. In imaging to ourselves the relation in which a Roman stood, not to his fellow-citizens as such, but to the universe, we gain some help from Michelet—next to none from Niebuhr. The work before us has, in a still greater degree, a similar merit. Without neglecting the outward condition of mankind, but on the contrary throwing much new light upon it, he tells us mainly^z their inward mental workings. Others have taught us as much of how mankind acted at each period, but no one makes us so well comprehend how they felt. He is the subjective historian of the middle ages.

For his book, at least in the earlier volumes, is a history of the middle ages, quite as much as of France; and he has aimed at giving us, not the dry husk, but the spirit of those ages. This had never been done before in the same degree, not even by his eminent precursor, Thierry, except for the period of the Germanic invasions. The great value of the book is, that it does, to some extent, make us understand what was really passing in the collective mind of each generation. For, in assuming distinctness, the life of the past assumes also variety under M. Michelet’s hands. With him, each period has a physiognomy and a character of its own. It is in reading him that we are made to feel distinctly, how many successive conditions of humanity, and states of the human mind, are habitually confounded under the appellation of the Middle Ages. To common perception, those times are like a distant range of mountains, all melted together into one cloudlike barrier. To M. Michelet, they are like the same range on a nearer approach, resolved into its separate mountain masses, with sloping sides overlapping one another, and gorges opening between them.

The spirit of an age is a part of its history which cannot be extracted literally from ancient records, but must be distilled from those arid materials by the chemistry of the writer’s own mind; and whoever attempts this, will expose himself to the imputation of substituting ^aimagination^a for facts, writing history by divination, ^band the like^b . These accusations have been often brought against M. Michelet, and we will not take upon ourselves to say that they are never just; we think he is not seldom the dupe of his own ingenuity. But it is a mistake to suppose that a man of genius will be oftener wrong, in his views of history, than a dull unimaginative proser. Not only are the very errors of the one more instructive than the commonplaces of the other, but he commits fewer of them. It by no means follows, that he who cannot see so far as another, must, therefore, see more correctly. To be incapable of discerning what is, gives no exemption from believing what is not; and there is no perversion of history by persons who think, equal to those daily committed by writers who never rise to the height of an original idea.

It is true, a person of lively apprehension and fertile invention, relying on his sagacity, may neglect the careful study of original documents. But M. Michelet is a man of deep erudition, and extensive research. He has a high reputation among the French learned for his industry; while his official position, which connects him with the archives of the kingdom, has given him access to a rich source of unexplored authorities, of which he has made abundant use in his later volumes, and which promise to be of still greater importance in those yet to come. Even in its mere facts, therefore, this history is considerably in advance of all previously written. That his accuracy is not vulnerable in any material point, may be believed on the authority of the sober and right-minded Thierry, who, in the preface to the Récits, in a passage where, though Michelet is not named, he is evidently pointed at, blames his method as a dangerous one, but acquits M. Michelet himself as having been saved by “conscientious studies” from the errors into which his example is likely to betray young writers.^[*] The carefulness of his investigations has been impugned on minor points. An English Review has made a violent attack upon his account of Boniface VIII;^[†] and, from his references (which are always copious) it does not appear that he had consulted the Italian authorities on ^cwhom^c the reviewer relies.^[‡] But it is hard to try an historian by the correctness of his details ^don^d incidents only collaterally connected with his subject. We ourselves perceive that he sometimes trusts to memory, and is inaccurate in trifles; but the true question is—Has he falsified the essential character of any of the greater events of the time about which he writes? If he has not, but on the contrary, has placed many of ^ethose^e events in a truer light, and rendered their character more intelligible, than any former historian, to rectify his small mistakes will be a very fitting employment for those who have the necessary information, and nothing more important to do.

The History, though a real narrative, not a dissertation, is, in all its earlier parts, a greatly abridged one. The writer dwells only on the great facts which paint their period, or on things which it appears ^fto him^f necessary to present in a new light. As, in his progress, however, he came into contact with his new materials, his design has extended; and the fourth and fifth volumes, embracing the confused period of the wars of Edward III and Henry V, contain, though in a most condensed style, a tolerably minute recital of events. It is impossible for us to make any approach to an abstract of the contents of so large a work. We must be satisfied with touching cursorily upon some of the passages of history, on which M. Michelet’s views are the most original, or otherwise most deserving of notice.

In the first volume, he is on ground which had already been broken and well turned over by M. Thierry. But some one was still wanting who should write the history of the time, in a connected narrative, from M. Thierry’s point of view. M. Michelet has done this, and more. He has not only understood, like his predecessor, the character of the age of transition, in which the various races, conquered and conquering, were mixed on French soil without being blended; but he has endeavoured to assign to the several elements of that confused mixture, the share of influence which belongs to them over the subsequent destinies of his country.

It was natural that a subjective historian, one who looks, above all, to the internal moving forces of human affairs, should attach great historical importance to the consideration of Races. This subject, on British soil, has usually fallen into hands little competent to treat it soberly, or on true principles of induction; but of the great influence of Race in the production of national character, no reasonable inquirer can now doubt. As far as history, and social circumstances generally, are concerned, how little resemblance can be traced between the French and the Irish—in national character, how much! The same ready excitability; the same impetuosity when excited, yet the same readiness under excitement to submit to the severest discipline—a quality which at first might seem to contradict impetuosity, but which arises from that very vehemence of character with which it appears to conflict, and is equally conspicuous in Revolutions of Three Days, temperance movements, and meetings on the Hill of Tara. The same sociability and demonstrativeness—the same natural refinement of manners, down to the lowest rank—in both, the characteristic weakness an inordinate vanity, their more serious moral deficiency the absence of a sensitive regard for truth. Their ready susceptibility to influences, while it makes them less steady in right, makes them also less pertinacious in wrong, and renders them, under favourable circumstances of culture, reclaimable and improvable (especially through their more generous feelings) in a degree to which the more obstinate races are strangers. To what, except their Gaelic blood, can we ascribe all this similarity between populations, the whole course of whose national history has been so different? We say Gaelic, not Celtic, because the Kymri of Wales and ^gBretagne^g , though also called Celts, and notwithstanding a close affinity in language, have evinced throughout history, in many respects, an opposite type of character; more like the Spanish Iberians than either the French or Irish: individual instead of gregarious, tough and obstinate instead of impressible—instead of the most disciplinable, one of the most intractable Races among mankind.

Historians who preceded M. Michelet had seen chiefly the Frankish, or the Roman element, in the formation of modern France. M. Michelet calls attention to the Gaelic element. “The foundation of the French people,” he says, “is the youthful, soft, and mobile race of the Gaels, bruyante, sensual, and légère; prompt to learn, prompt to despise, greedy of new things.”^* To the ready impressibility of this race, and the easy reception it gave to foreign influences, he attributes the progress made by France. “Such children require severe preceptors. They will meet with such, both from the south and from the north. Their mobility will be fixed, their softness hardened and strengthened. Reason must be added to instinct, reflection to impulse.”^[*]

It is certain that no people, in a semi-barbarous state, ever received a foreign civilization more rapidly than the French Celts. In a century after Julius Caesar, not only the south, the Gallia Narbonensis, but the whole east of Gaul, from Treves and Cologne southwards, were already almost as Roman as Italy itself. The Roman institutions and ideas took a deeper root in Gaul than in any other province of the Roman empire, and remained long predominant, wherever no great change was effected in the population by the ravages of the invaders. But, along with this capacity of improvement, M. Michelet does not find in the Gauls that voluntary loyalty of man to man, that free adherence, founded on confiding attachment, which was characteristic of the Germanic tribes, and of which, in his ^hopinion^h , the feudal relation was the natural result. It is to these qualities, to personal devotedness and faith in one another, that he ascribes the universal success of the Germanic tribes in overpowering the Celtic. He finds already in the latter the root of that passion for equality which distinguishes modern France; and which, when unbalanced by a strong principle of sympathetic union, has always, he says, prevented the pure Celts from becoming a nation. Everywhere among the Celts, he finds equal division of inheritances, while in the Germanic races primogeniture easily established itself—an institution which, in a rude state of society, he justly interprets as equivalent to the permanence of the household, the non-separation of families.

We think that M. Michelet has here carried the influence of Race too far, and that the difference is better explained by diversity of position, than by diversity of character in the Races. The conquerors, a small body scattered over a large territory, could not sever their interests, could not relax the bonds which held them together. They were for many generations encamped in the country, rather than settled in it; they were a military band, requiring a military discipline, and the separate members could not ⁱventureⁱ to detach themselves from each other, or from their chief. Similar circumstances would have produced similar results among the Gauls themselves. They were by no means without something analogous to the German comitatus (as the voluntary bond of adherence, of the most sacred kind, between followers and a leader of their choice, is called by the Roman historians). The devoti of the Gauls and Aquitanians, mentioned by M. Michelet himself, on the authority of Caesar^* and Athenaeus,^[*] were evidently not clansmen. Some such relation may be traced in many other warlike tribes. We find it even among the most obstinately personal of all the races of antiquity, the Iberians of Spain; witness the Roman Sertorius and his Spanish body-guard, who slew themselves, to the last man, before his funeral pile. “Ce principe d’attachement à un chef, ce dévouement personnel, cette religion de l’homme envers l’homme,”^* is thus by no means peculiar to the Teutonic races. And our author’s favourite idea of the “profonde impersonnalité”^† inherent in the Germanic genius, though we are far from saying that there is no foundation for it, surely requires some limitation. It will hardly, for example, be held true of the English, yet the English are a Germanic people. They, indeed, have rather (or at least had) the characteristic which M. Michelet predicates of the Celts (thinking apparently rather of the Kymri than of the Gaels), “le génie de la personnalité libre;”^[†] a tendency to revolt against compulsion, to hold fast to their own, and assert the claims of individuality against those of society and authority. But though many of M. Michelet’s speculations on the characteristics of Races appear to us contestable, they are always suggestive of thought. The next thing to having a question solved, is to have it well raised. M. Michelet’s are views by which a thinker, even if he rejects them, seldom fails to profit.

From the Races, our author passes to the provinces, which, by their successive aggregation, composed the French monarchy. France is, in the main, peopled by a mixed race; but it contains several populations of pure race at its remoter extremities. It includes several distinct languages, and above all a great variety of climate, soil, and situation. Next to hereditary organization ^j(if not beyond it)^j , geographical peculiarities have a more powerful influence than any other natural agency, in the formation of national character. Any one, capable of such speculations, will read with strong interest the review of the various provinces of France, which occupies the first hundred and thirty pages of our author’s second volume. In this brilliant sketch, he surveys the local circumstances and national peculiarities of each province, and compares them with the type of character which belongs to its inhabitants, as shown in the history of each province, in the eminent individuals who have sprung from it, and in the results of intelligent personal observation even in the present day. We say even, because M. Michelet is not unaware of the tendency of provincial and local peculiarities to disappear. A strenuous asserter of the power of mind over matter, of will over spontaneous propensities, culture over nature, he holds that local characteristics lose their importance as history advances. In a rude age the “fatalities” of race and geographical position are absolute. In the progress of society, human forethought and purpose, acting by means of uniform institutions and modes of culture, tend more and more to efface the pristine differences. And he attributes, in no small degree, the greatness of France to the absence of any marked local peculiarities in the predominant part of her population. Paris, and an extensive region all round—from the borders of Brittany to ^kthe eastern limits^k of Champagne, from the northern extremity of Picardy to the mountains of Auvergne—is distinguished by no marked natural features; and its inhabitants—a more mixed population than any other in France—have no distinct, well-defined individuality of character. This very deficiency, or what might seem so, makes them the ready recipients of ideas and modes of action from all sides, and qualifies them to bind together heterogeneous populations in harmonious union, by receiving the influence and assuming the character of each, as far as may be, without exclusion of the rest. In those different populations (on the other hand), M. Michelet finds an abundant variety of provincial characteristics, of all shades and degrees, up to those obstinate individualities which cling with the tenacity of iron to their own usages, and yield only after a long and dogged resistance to the general movement of humanity. In these portraits of the provinces there is much to admire, and occasionally something to startle. The form and vesture are more poetical than philosophical; the sketch of Brittany wants only verse to be a fine poem. But, though fancifully expressed, there is in this survey of France much more which seems, than which is, fanciful. There is, as we believe, for much, if not most of it, a foundation of sober reason; and out of its poetry we could extract an excellent treatise in unexceptionable prose, did not our limits admonish us to hurry to those parts of the work which are of more universal interest.

From this place the book becomes a picture of the middle ages, in a series of Tableaux. The facts are not delivered in the dry form of chronological annals, but are grouped round a certain number of central figures or leading events, selected so that each half century has at least one Tableau belonging to it. The groups, we need scarcely add, represent the mind of the age, not its mere outward physiognomy and costume. The successive titles of the chapters will form an appropriate catalogue to this new kind of historical picture gallery:

The next chapter, being the first of the third volume, is headed, “The Sicilian Vespers;” the second, “Philippe le Bel and Boniface VIII.”

This arrangement of topics promises much; and the promise is well redeemed. Every one of the chapters we have cited is full of interesting aperçus, and fruitful in suggestions of thought.

Forced to make a selection, we shall choose among the features of the middle age as here presented, one or two of the most interesting, and the most imperfectly understood. Of the individual figures in our author’s canvass, none is more impressive than Hildebrand. Of the moral and social phenomena which he depicts, the greatest is the Papacy.

Respecting the Papal Church, and that, its greatest Pontiff, the ^lopinions^l of our author are such as, from the greater number of English readers, can scarcely hope for ready acceptance. They are far removed from those either of our Protestant or of our sceptical historians. They are so unlike Hume, that they stand a chance of being confounded with Lingard. Such, however, as they are, we think them well worth knowing and considering. They are, in substance, the opinions of almost every historical inquirer in France, who has any pretensions to thought or research, be he Catholic, Protestant, or Infidel. The time is past when any French thinker, worthy the name, looked upon the Catholic Hierarchy as having ^malways^m been the base and tyrannical thing which, to a great extent, it ultimately became. No one now confounds what the Church was, when its prelates and clergy universally believed what they taught, with what it was when they had ceased to believe. No one argues—from the conduct which they even conscientiously pursued when the human intellect, having got beyond the Church, became its most formidable foe—that it must therefore have been equally an enemy to improvement when it was at the head, instead of the rear, of civilization; when all that was instructed in Europe was comprised within its pale, and it was the authorized champion of intelligence and self-control, against military and predatory violence. Even the fraud and craft by which it often aided itself in its struggles with brute force; even the ambition and selfishness by which, in its very best days, its nobler aims, like those of all other classes or bodies, were continually tarnished—do not disguise from impartial thinkers on the Continent, the fact that it was the great improver and civilizer of Europe.

That the clergy were the preservers of all letters and all culture, of the writings and even the traditions of literary antiquity, is too evident to have been ever disputed. But for them, there would have been a complete break, in Western Europe, between the ancient and modern world. Books would have disappeared, and even Christianity, if it survived at all, would have existed merely as another form of the old barbarous superstitions. Some, too, are aware of the services rendered even to material civilization by the monastic associations of Italy and France, after the great reform by St. Benedict. Unlike the useless communities of contemplative ascetics in the East, they were diligent in tilling the earth and fabricating useful products; they knew and taught that temporal work may also be a spiritual exercise; and, protected by their sacred character from depredation, they set the first example to Europe of industry conducted on a large scale by free labour. But these things are commonly regarded as good which came out of evil; incidental benefits, arising casually, or providentially, from an institution radically vicious. It would do many English thinkers much good to acquaint themselves with the grounds on which the best Continental minds, without disguising one particle of the evil which existed, openly or latently, in the Romish Church, are on the whole convinced that it was not only a beneficent institution, but the only means capable of being now assigned, by which Europe could have been reclaimed from barbarism.

It is, no doubt, the characteristic evil incident to a corporation of priests, that the exaltation of their order becomes, in and for itself, a primary object, to which the ends of the institution are often sacrificed. That exaltation is the strongest interest of all its members, the bad equally with the good; for it is the means by which both hope to attain their ends. The maintenance of their influence is to them what the maintenance of its revenue is to a temporal government—the condition of its existence. The Romish Church, being more powerfully organized and more thoroughly disciplined than any other, pursued this end with inflexible energy and perseverance, and often by the most culpable means. False miracles, forged donations, ⁿpersecution of hereticsⁿ —these things we have no desire to extenuate; but he must be wretchedly ignorant of human nature, who believes that any great or durable edifice of moral power was ever raised chiefly by such means. It is in the decline, in the decrepitude of religious systems, that force and artifice come into the first rank as expedients for maintaining a little longer what is left of their dominion. Deep sincerity, entire absorption of themselves in their task, were assuredly as indispensable conditions, in the more eminent of the Popes, of the success which they met with, as in the heroes of the Reformation. In such men the power of the hierarchy might well become a passion; but the extension of that power was a legitimate object, for the sake of the great things which they had to accomplish by it.

Who, in the middle ages, were worthier of power, than the clergy? Did they not need all, and more than all the influence they could acquire, when they could not be kings or emperors, and when kings and emperors were among those whose passion and arrogance they had to admonish and govern? The great Ambrose, refusing absolution to Theodosius until he performed penance for a massacre,^[*] was a type of what these men had to do. In an age of violence and brigandage, who but the Church could insist on justice, and forbearance, and reconciliation? In an age when the weak were prostrate at the feet of the strong, who was there but the Church to plead to the strong for the weak? They were the depositaries of the only moral power to which the great were amenable; they alone had a right to remind kings and potentates of responsibility; to speak to them of humility, charity, and peace. Even in the times of the first ferocious invaders, the Récits of M. Thierry (though the least favourable of the modern French historians to the Romish clergy) show, at what peril to themselves, the prelates of the Church continually stepped between the oppressor and his victim. Almost all the great social improvements which took place, were accomplished under their influence. They at all times took part with the kings against the feudal anarchy. The enfranchisement of the mass of the people from personal servitude, they not only favoured, but inculcated as a Christian duty. They were the authors of the “Truce of God,” that well-known attempt to mitigate the prevailing brutalities, by a forced suspension of acts of vengeance and private war during four days and five nights of every week. They could not succeed in enforcing this periodical armistice, which was too much in advance of the time. Their worst offence was, that they connived at acts of unjust acquisition by friends and supporters of the Pope, and encouraged unprovoked aggressions, by orthodox princes, against less obedient sons of the Church. We may add, that they were seldom favourable to civil liberty; which, indeed, in the rude form in which its first germs grew up, not as an institution, but as a principle of resistance to institutions, found little favour with speculative men in the middle ages, to whom, by a not unnatural prejudice at such a time, peace and obedience seemed the ^oprimary^opconditions^p of good. But, in another sense, the Church was eminently a democratic institution. To a temporal society in which all rank depended on birth, it opposed a spiritual society in which the source of rank was personal qualities; in which the distinctions of people and aristocracy, freeman and bondman, disappeared—which recruited itself from all ranks—in which a serf might rise to be a cardinal, or even a pope; while to rise at all to any eminence, almost always required talents, and at least a reputation for virtue. In one of the earliest combinations made by the feudal nobles against the clergy, the league of the French Seigneurs in 1246, it stands in the foremost rank of accusation against them, that they were the “sons of serfs.”^*

Now we say that the priesthood never could have stood their ground, in such an age, against kings and their powerful vassals, as an independent moral authority, entitled to advise, to reprimand, and, if need were, to denounce, if they had not been bound together into an European body, under a government of their own. They must otherwise have grovelled from the first in that slavish subservience into which they sank at last. No local, no merely national organization, would have sufficed. The State has too strong a hold upon an exclusively national corporation. Nothing but an authority recognised by many nations, and not essentially dependent upon any one, could, in that age, have been adequate to the post. It required a Pope to speak with authority to Kings and Emperors. Had an individual priest ^qor prelate^q had the courage to tell them that they had violated the law of God, his voice, not being the voice of the Church, would not have been heeded. That the Pope, when he pretended to depose Kings, or made war upon them with temporal arms, went beyond his province, needs hardly, in the present day, be insisted on. But when he claimed the right of censuring and denouncing them, with whatever degree of solemnity, in the name of the moral law which all recognised, he assumed a function necessary at all times, and which, in those days, no one except the Church could assume, or was in any degree qualified to exercise. Time must show if the organ we now have for the performance of this office—if the censure by newspapers and public meetings, which has succeeded to censure by the Church—will be found in the end less liable to perversion and abuse than that was. However this may be, the latter form was the only one possible in those days.

Were the Popes, then, so entirely in the wrong, as historians have deemed them, in their disputes with the Emperors, and with the Kings of England and France? Doubtless they, no more than their antagonists, knew where to stop short. Doubtless, in the ardour of the conflict, they laid claim to powers not compatible with a purely spiritual authority, and occasionally put forth pretensions, which, if completely successful, would have plunged Europe into the torpor of an Egyptian hierarchy. But there never was any danger lest they should succeed too far. The Church was always the weaker party, and occupied essentially a defensive position.

We cannot feel any doubt that Gregory VII, whatever errors he may have committed, was right in the great objects which he proposed to himself. His life is memorable by two things—his contest with the State, and the reform in the Church itself, which preceded it. The Church was rapidly becoming secularized. He checked the evil, by enforcing the celibacy of the clergy. Protestant writers have looked upon this ordinance of the Catholic Church, as the joint product of pontifical ambition and popular fanaticism. We would not deny that fanaticism, or rather religious asceticism, had much to do with the popular feeling on the subject, and was perhaps the only lever by which the work could possibly have been accomplished. But we believe that in that age, without the institution of celibacy, the efficiency of the Church as an instrument of human culture was gone. In the early vigorous youth of the feudal system, when everything tended to become hereditary, when every temporal function had already become so, the clerical office was rapidly becoming hereditary too. The clergy were becoming a Braminical caste; or worse—a mere appendage of the caste of soldiery. Already the prelacies and abbacies were filled by the younger brothers of the feudal nobility, who, like their elder brethren, spent the greater part of their time in hunting and war. These had begun to transmit their benefices to their sons, and give them in marriage with their daughters. The smaller preferments would have become the prey of their smaller retainers. Against this evil, what other remedy than that which Gregory adopted did the age afford? Could it remain unremedied?

And what, when impartially considered, is the protracted dispute about investitures, except a prolongation of the same struggle? For what end did the princes of the middle ages desire the appointment of prelates? To make their profit of the revenues by keeping the sees vacant; to purchase tools, and reward adherents; at best, to keep the office in a state of complete subservience. It was no immoderate pretension in the spiritual authority to claim the free choice of its own instruments. The emperors had previously asserted a right to nominate the Pope himself, and had exercised that right in many instances. Had they succeeded, the spiritual power would have become that mere instrument of despotism which it became at Constantinople—which it is in Russia—which the Popes of Avignon became in the hands of the French kings. And even had the Pope maintained his own personal independence, the nomination of the national clergy by their respective monarchs, with no effectual concurrence of his, would have made the national clergy take part with the kings against their own order; as a large section of them always did, and as the whole clergy of France and England ended by doing, because in those countries the kings, in the main, succeeded in keeping possession of the appointment to benefices.

Even for what seems in the abstract a still more objectionable pretension, the claim to the exemption of ecclesiastics from secular jurisdiction, which has scandalized so grievously most of our English historians, there is much more to be said than those historians were aware of. What was it, after all, but the assertion, in behalf of the clergy, of the received English principle of being tried by their peers? The secular tribunals were the courts of a rival power, often in actual conflict with the clergy, always jealous of them, always ready to make use of its jurisdiction as a means of wreaking its vengeance, or serving its ambition; and were stained besides with the grossest corruption and tyranny. “These rights,” says M. Michelet,

On the other hand, Henry II, by the Constitutions of Clarendon, assumed to himself and his great justiciary a veto on the purely spiritual act of excommunication—the last resort of the Church—the ultimate sanction on which she depended for her moral jurisdiction.^[*] No one of the king’s tenants was to be excommunicated without his consent. On which side was here the usurpation? And in this pretension Henry was supported by the great majority of his own ^rbishops. So^r little cause was there really to dread any undue preponderance of popes over kings.

The Papacy was in the end defeated, even in its reasonable claims. It had to give up, in the main, all the contested points. As the monarchies of Europe were consolidated, and the Kings grew more powerful, the Church became more dependent. The last Pope who dared to defy a bad king, was made a prisoner in his palace, insulted and struck by the emissary of the tyrant.^[†] That Pope died broken-hearted; his immediate successor died poisoned.^[‡] The next was Clement V, in whom, for the first time, the Church sank into the abject tool of secular tyranny. With him commenced that new era of the Papacy, which made it the horror and disgust of the then rapidly improving European mind, until the Reformation and its consequences closed the period which we commonly call the middle age.

We know it may be said that long before this time venality was a current and merited accusation against the Papal court. We often find Rome denounced, by the indignation of ^scotemporaries^s , as a market in which everything might be bought. All periods of supposed purity in the ^tpast^t administration of human affairs are the dreams of a golden age. We well know that there was only occasionally a Pope who acted consistently on any high ideal of the pontifical character; that many were sordid and vicious, and those who were not, had often sordid and vicious persons around them. Who can estimate the extent to which the power of the Church, for realizing the noble aims of its more illustrious ornaments, was crippled and made infirm by these shortcomings? But, to the time of Innocent III, if not of Boniface VIII, we are unable to doubt that it was on the whole a source of good, and of such good as could not have been provided, for that age, by any other means with which we can conceive such an age to be compatible.

Among the Epochs in the progressive movement of middle-age history, which M. Michelet has been the first to bring clearly and vividly before us, there is none more interesting than the great awakening of the human mind which immediately followed the period of the First Crusade. Others before him had pointed out the influence of the Crusade in generating the feeling of a common Christendom; in counteracting the localizing influence of the feudal institutions, and raising up a kind of republic of chivalry and Christianity; in drawing closer the ties between chiefs and vassals, or even serfs, by the need which they mutually experienced of each other’s ^uvoluntary^u services; in giving to the rude barons of Western Europe a more varied range of ideas, and a taste for at least the material civilization, which they beheld for the first time in the dominions of the Greek Emperors and the Saracen Soldans. M. Michelet remarks that the effect even upon the religion of the time, was to soften its antipathies and weaken its superstitions. The hatred of Mussulmans was far less intense after the Crusade than at the beginning of it. The notion of a peculiar sanctity inherent in places, was greatly weakened when Christians had become the masters of the Holy Sepulchre, and found themselves neither better nor happier in consequence.

But these special results bear no proportion to the general start which was taken, about this time, by the human mind, and which, though it cannot be ascribed to the Crusade, was without doubt greatly favoured by it. That remarkable expedition was the first great event of modern times, which had an European and a Christian interest—an interest not of nation, or place, or rank, but which the lowest serfs had in common, and more than in common, with the loftiest barons. When the soil is moved, all sorts of seeds fructify. The serfs now began to think themselves human beings. The beginning of the great popular political movement of the middle ages—the formation of the Communes—is almost coincident with the First Crusade. Some fragments of the eminently dramatic history of this movement are related in the concluding portion of M. Thierry’s Letters on the History of France.^[*] Contemporaneously with this temporal enfranchisement, began the emanicipation of the human mind. Formidable heresies broke out: it was the era of Berengarius, who ^vdenied^v Transubstantiation—of Roscelinus, the founder of Nominalism, and questioner of the received doctrine respecting the Trinity.^[*] The very answers of the orthodox to these heretical writings, as may be seen in M. Michelet,^* were lessons of free-thinking. The principle of free speculation found a still more remarkable representative, though clear of actual heresy, in the most celebrated of the schoolmen, Abailard. The popularity and European influence of his rationalizing metaphysics, as described by ^wcontemporary^w authorities, must surprise those who conceive the age as one of rare and difficult communications, and without interest in letters. To silence this one man, required the eminent religious ascendancy of the most illustrious churchman of the age, Bernard of Clairvaux. The acquirements and talents of the noble-minded woman, whose name is linked for all time with that of Abailard—a man, so far as we have the means of judging, not her superior even in intellect, and in every other respect unworthy of her—are illustrative of M. Michelet’s views on the change which was taking place in the social condition and estimation of women:

Half a century further on, the scene is changed. A new act of the great drama is now transacting. The seeds scattered fifty years before, have grown up and overshadow the world. We are no longer in the childhood, but in the stormy youth of free speculation.

He then vigorously sketches the religious enthusiasts of Flanders and the Rhine, the Vaudois of the Alps, and the Albigeois of Southern France, and proceeds:

And, after describing the popular detestation which pursued these heretics:

The temporal means by which the Church obtained a brief respite from the dangers which beset it, consisted in letting loose against the rich and heretical South, the fanaticism and rapacity of the North. The spiritual expedient, far the more potent of the two, was the foundation of the Mendicant Orders.

We are too much accustomed to figure to ourselves what are called religious revivals, as a feature peculiar to Protestantism and to recent times. The phenomenon is universal. In no Christian church has the religious spirit flowed like a perennial fountain; it had ever its flux and reflux, like the tide. Its history is a series of alternations between religious laxity and religious earnestness. Monkery itself, in the organized form impressed upon it by St. Benedict, was one of the incidents of a religious revival. We have already spoken of the great revival under Hildebrand. Ranke has made us understand the religious revival within the pale of Romanism itself, which turned back the advancing torrent of the Reformation. As this was characterized by the foundation of the order of Jesuits, so were the Franciscans and Dominicans the result of a similar revival, and became its powerful instrument.

The mendicant orders—especially the most popular of them, the Franciscans—were the offspring of the freethinking which had already taken strong root in the European mind; but the freedom which they represented was freedom in alliance with the Church, rising up against the freedom which was at enmity with the Church, and anathematizing it. What is called, in France, mysticism—in England, religious enthusiasm—consists essentially in looking within instead of without; in relying on an internal revelation from God to the individual believer, and receiving its principal inspirations from that, rather than from the authority of priests and teachers. St. Francis of Assisi was such a man. Disowned by the Church, he might have been a heresiarch instead of a saint; but the Church needed men like him, and had the skill to make its instrument of the spirit which was preparing its destruction. “In proportion to the decline of authority,” says M. Michelet, “and the diminution of the priestly influence on the popular mind, religious feeling, being no longer under the restraint of forms, expanded itself into mysticism.”^* Making room for these mystics in the ecclesiastical system itself, directing their enthusiasm into the path for which it peculiarly qualified them, that of popular preaching, and never parting with the power of repressing any dangerous excess in those whom it retained in its allegiance, the Papacy could afford to give them the rein, and indulge, within certain limits, their most unsacerdotal preference of grace to the law.

The career and character of St. Francis and his early followers are graphically delineated by M. Michelet.^† As usual with devotees of his class, his great practical precept was the love of God; love which sought all means of demonstrating itself—now by ecstasies, now by austerities like those of an Indian fakeer—but also by love and charity to all creatures. In all things which had life, and in many which had not, he recognised children of God: he invoked the birds to join in gratitude and praise; he parted with his cloak to redeem a lamb from the slaughter. His followers “wandered barefooted over Europe, always run after by the crowd: in their sermons, they brought the sacred mysteries, as it were, on the stage; laughing ^zin^z Christmas, weeping on Good Friday, developing, without reserve, all that Christianity possesses of dramatic elements.”^[*] The effect of such a band of missionaries must have been great in rousing and feeding dormant devotional feelings^a. They^a were not less influential in regulating those feelings, and turning into the established Catholic channels those vagaries of private enthusiasm, which might well endanger the Church, since they already threatened society itself. The spirit of religious independence had descended to the miserable, and was teaching them that God had not commanded them to endure their misery. It was a lesson for which they were not yet ripe. “Mysticism,” says our author, “had already produced its most terrible fruit, hatred of the law; the wild enthusiasm of religious and political liberty. This demagogic character of mysticism, which so clearly manifested itself in the Jacqueries of the subsequent ages, especially in the revolt of the Swabian peasants in 1525, and of the Anabaptists in 1538, appeared already in the insurrection of the Pastoureaux,” during the reign of St. Louis.^‡ These unhappy people, who were peasantry of the lowest class, and, like all other insurgents of that class, perished miserably—dispersi sunt, et quasi canes rabidi passim detruncati, are the words of Matthew Paris^[†] —were avowed enemies of the priests, whom they are said to have massacred, and administered the sacraments themselves. They recognised as their chief, a man whom they called the grand master of Hungary, and who pretended to hold in his hand, which he kept constantly closed, a written commission from the Virgin Mary. So contradictory to history is that superficial notion of the middle ages, which looks upon the popular mind as strictly orthodox, and implicitly obedient to the Pope.

Though the Papacy survived, in apparently undiminished splendour, the crisis of which we have now spoken, the mental ascendancy of the priesthood was never again what it had been before. The most orthodox of the laity, even men whom the Church has canonized, were now comparatively emancipated, they thought with the Church, but they no longer let the Church think for them. This change in the times is exemplified in the character of St. Louis—himself a lay brother of the Franciscan order; perhaps of all kings the one whose religious conscience was the most scrupulous, yet who learned his religious duty from his own strong and upright judgment, not from his confessor, nor from the Pope. He never shrank from resisting the Church when he had right on his side; and was himself a better sample than any Pope ^bcontemporary^b with him, of the religious character of his age. The influences of the mystical spirit are easily discernible in his remarkable freedom, so rare in that age, from the slavery of the letter; which, as many anecdotes prove, he was always capable of sacrificing to the spirit, when any conflict arose between them.^*

We are obliged to pass rapidly over some other topics, which justice to M. Michelet forbids us entirely to omit. We could extract many passages more illustrative than those we have quoted of his powers as a writer and an artist; such as the highly-finished sketch of the greatness and run of the unfortunate house of Hohenstaufen.^† We prefer to quote the remarks of greater philosophical interest, with which he winds up one great period of history, and introduces another

And further on, after quoting the bitter denunciation of Dante^[*] against the ^dreigning^d family of France—

Yet this revolting exterior is but the mask of a great and necessary transformation; the substitution of legal authority, in the room of feudal violence and the arbitrium of the seigneur; the formation, in short, for the first time, of a government. This government could not be carried on without money. The feudal jurisdictions, the feudal armies, cost nothing to the treasury; the wages of all feudal services were the land: but the king’s judges and administrators, of whom he has now a host, must^f be paid.

This need of money was, for several centuries, the primum mobile of European history. In England, it is the hinge on which our constitutional history has wholly turned; in France and elsewhere, it was the source, from this time forward, of all quarrels between the Kings and the Church. The clergy alone were rich, and money must be had.

To get money was the purpose of Philip’s quarrel with Boniface; to get money, he destroyed the Templars.

The proceedings against this celebrated Society occupy two most interesting chapters of M. Michelet’s work. His view of the subject seems just and reasonable.

The suppression of the Order, if this had been all, was both inevitable and justifiable. Since the Crusades had ceased, and the crusading spirit died out, their existence and their vast wealth were grounded on false pretences. Among the mass of calumnies which, in order to make out a case for their destruction, their oppressor accumulated against them, there were probably some truths. It is not in the members of rich and powerful bodies which have outlived the ostensible purposes of their existence, that high examples of virtue need be sought. But it was not their private misconduct, real or imputed, that gave most aid to royal rapacity in effecting their ruin. What roused opinion against them—what gave something like a popular sanction to that atrocious trial in its early stages, before the sufferings and constancy of the victims had excited a general sympathy, was, according to our author, a mere mistake—a mal-entendu, arising from a change in the spirit of the times.

This is not a mere fanciful hypothesis. M. Michelet has elsewhere shown that the initiation into the Guilds of Artificers, in the middle ages, was of this very character. The acolyte affected to be the most worthless character upon earth, and was usually made to perform some act symbolical of worthlessness: after which, his admission into the fraternity was to have the merit and honour of his reformation. Such forms were in complete harmony with the genius of an age, in which a transfer of land was not binding without the delivery of a clod—in which all things tended to express themselves in mute symbols, rather than by the conventional expedient of verbal language. It is the nature of all forms used on important occasions, to outlast, for an indefinite period, the state of manners and society in which they originated. The childlike character of the religious sentiment in a rude people, who know terror but not awe, and are often on the most intimate terms of familiarity with the objects of their adoration, makes it easily conceivable that the ceremonies used on admission into the Order were established without any irreverent feeling, in the purely symbolical acceptation which some of the witnesses affirmed. The time, however, had past, when such an explanation would be understood or listened to.

From this time the history of France is not, except in a ⁱmuchⁱ more indirect manner, the history of Europe and of civilization. The subordination of the Church to the State once fully established, the next period was mainly characterized by the struggles between the king and the barons, and ^jthe^j final victory of the crown. On this subject France cannot represent English history, where the crown was ultimately the defeated instead of the victorious party; and the incidents of the contest are necessarily national, not European incidents. Here, therefore, having regard also to our necessary limits, our extracts from M. Michelet’s work may suitably close; although the succeeding volumes, which come down nearly to Louis XI, are not inferior in merit to those from which we have quoted; and are even, as we before remarked, superior in the value of their materials—being grounded, in a great measure, on the public documents of the period, and not, like previous histories, almost exclusively on the chronicles.

In what we have said, we have been far more desirous to make the work known, and recommend it to notice, than to criticise it. The latter could only become a needful service after the former had been accomplished. The faults, whether of matter or manner, of which M. Michelet can be accused, are not such as require being pointed out to English readers. There is much more danger lest they should judge too strictly the speculations of such a man; and turn impatiently from the germs of truth which often lurk even in the errors of a man of genius. This is, indeed, the more to be apprehended, as M. Michelet, apparently, has by no means the fear of an unsympathizing audience before his eyes. Where we require thoughts, he often gives us only allusions to thoughts. We continually come upon sentences, and even single expressions, which take for granted a whole train of previous speculation—often perfectly just, and perhaps familiar to French readers; but which in England would certainly have required to be set forth in terms, and cleared up by explanations.

His style cannot be fairly judged from the specimens we have exhibited. Our extracts were selected as specimens of his ideas, not of his literary merits; and none have been taken from the narrative part, which is, of course, the principal part of the work, and the most decisive test of powers of composition in a writer of history. We should say, however, of the style generally, that it is sparkling rather than flowing; full of expressiveness, but too continuously epigrammatic to carry the reader easily along with it; and pushing that ordinary artifice of modern French composition, the personification of abstractions, to an almost startling extent. It is not, however, though it is very likely to be taken for, an affected style; for affectation cannot be justly imputed, where the words are chosen, as is evidently the case here, for no purpose but to express ideas, and where, consequently, the mode of expression, however peculiar, grows from, and corresponds to, the peculiarities of the mode of thought.

GUIZOT’S ESSAYS AND LECTURES ON HISTORY

1845

EDITOR’S NOTE

Dissertations and Discussions, 2nd ed. (1867), II, 218-82. Headed by title; title footnoted, “Edinburgh Review, October 1845.” Running titles as title. Reprinted from Edinburgh Review, LXXXII (Oct., 1845), 381-421, where it is headed: “Art. IV.—Essais sur l’Histoire de France. Par M. [François Pierre Guillaume] Guizot. Professeur d’Histoire Moderne à l’Académie de Paris. Pour servir de complément aux Observations sur Histoire de France de Abbé de Mably. 8vo. Paris [: Brière, 1823]. [Used for reference in this essay is the 2nd ed. (Paris: Brière; Leipzig. Bossange, 1824), which is in Mill’s library, Somerville College.] Cours d’Histoire Moderne. Containing, 1. Histoire Générale de la Civilisation en Europe, depuis la chute de l’Empire Romain jusqu’à la Révolution Française. [Paris: Pichon and Dider, 1828.] 2. Histoire de la Civilisation en France, depuis la chute de l’Empire Romain jusqu’en 1789. [5 vols. Paris: Pichon and Didier, 1829-32.] Par M. Guizot. 6 vols. 8vo.” Running titles. “M. Guizot’s Essays and Lectures in History.” Unsigned Offprinted without title page but repaginated. Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “An article on Guizot’s Essays and Lectures on History, in the Edinburgh Review for October 1845” (MacMinn, 58). The copy of the offprint in Mill’s library, Somerville College, is headed by Mill, “(Edinburgh Review, October 1845)”, and contains the following emendations: “Justificatifs” is changed to “Justificatives” (275.4), “damist” to “amidst” (291.4), and “principal of all government” to “principle of all government” (292.38); also, at 290.25 “events” is underlined in pencil, and “qu?” written in the margin (perhaps in Harriet Taylor’s hand), the three changes were made in D&D, and “events” was changed to “its wants” (see 290^n-n).

The following text, taken from D&D, 2nd ed. (the last in Mill’s lifetime), is collated with that in D&D, 1st ed., that of the offprint, and that in ER. In the footnoted variants, “45¹” indicates ER, “45²” indicates the offprint, “59” indicates D&D, 1st ed. (1859), and “67” indicates D&D, 2nd ed. (1867).

For comment on the essay, see lxxii-lxxix and civ-cvi above.

Guizot’s Essays and Lectures on History

these two works are the contributions which the present Minister for Foreign Affairs in France has hitherto made to the philosophy of general history. They are but fragments: the earlier of the two is a collection of detached Essays, and^a therefore of necessity fragmentary; while the later is all that the public possesses, or perhaps is destined to possess, of a systematic work cut short in an early stage of its progress. It would be unreasonable to lament that the exigencies or the temptations of politics have called from authorship and the Professor’s chair to the Chamber of Deputies and the Cabinet, the man to whom perhaps more than to any other it is owing that Europe is now at peace. Yet we cannot forbear wishing that this great service to the civilized world had been the achievement of some other, and that M. Guizot had been allowed to complete his Cours d’Histoire Moderne. For this a very moderate amount of leisure would probably suffice. For though M. Guizot has written only on a portion of his subject, he has done it in the manner of one to whom the whole is familiar. There is a consistency, a coherence, a comprehensiveness, and what the Germans would term many-sidedness,^[*] in his view of European history; together with a full possession of the facts which have any important bearing upon his conclusions, and a deliberateness, a matureness, an entire absence of haste or crudity, in his explanations of historical phenomena; which we never see in writers who form their theories as they go on—which give evidence of a general scheme, so well wrought out and digested beforehand, that the labours both of research and of thought necessary for the whole work, seem to have been performed before any part was committed to paper. Little beyond the mere operation of composition seems to be requisite, to place before us, as a connected body of thought, speculations which, even in their unfinished state, may be ranked with the most valuable contributions yet made to universal history.

Of these speculations no account, having any pretensions to completeness, has ever, so far as we are aware, appeared in the English language. We shall attempt to do something towards supplying the deficiency. To suppose that this is no longer needful would be to presume too much on the supposed universality of the French language among our reading public; and on the acquaintance even of those to whom the language opposes no difficulty, with the names and reputation of the standard works of contemporaneous French thought. We believe that a knowledge of M. Guizot’s writings is even now not a common possession in this country, and that it is by no means a superfluous service to inform English readers of what they may expect to find there.

For it is not with speculations of this kind as it is with those for which there exists in this country a confirmed and long-established taste. What is done in France or elsewhere for the advancement of Chemistry or of Mathematics, is immediately known and justly appreciated by the mathematicians and chemists of Great Britain. For these are recognised sciences, the chosen occupation of many instructed minds, ever on the watch for any accession of facts or ideas in the department which they cultivate. But the interest which historical studies in this country inspire, is not as yet of a scientific character. History with us has not passed that stage in which its cultivation is an affair of mere literature or of erudition, not of science. It is studied for the facts, not for the explanation of facts. It excites an imaginative, or a biographical, or an antiquarian, but not a philosophical interest. Historical facts are hardly yet felt to be, like other natural phenomena, amenable to scientific laws. The characteristic distrust of our countrymen for all ambitious efforts of intellect, of which the success does not admit of being instantly tested by a decisive application to practice, causes all widely extended views on the explanation of history to be looked upon with a suspicion surpassing the bounds of reasonable caution, and of which the natural result is indifference^b. And^b hence we remain in contented ignorance of the best writings which the nations of the Continent have in our time produced; because we have no faith in, and no curiosity about, the kind of speculations to which the most philosophic minds of those nations have lately devoted themselves; even when distinguished, as in the case before us, by a sobriety and a judicious reserve, borrowed from the safest and most cautious school of inductive inquirers.

In this particular, the difference between the English and the Continental mind forces itself upon us in every province of their respective literatures. Certain conceptions of history considered as a whole, some notions of a progressive unfolding of the capabilities of humanity—of a tendency of man and society towards some distant result—of a destination, as it were, of humanity—pervade, in its whole extent, the popular literature of France. Every newspaper, every literary review or magazine, bears witness of such notions. They are always turning up accidentally, when the writer is ostensibly engaged with something else; or showing themselves as a background behind the opinions which he is immediately maintaining. When the writer’s mind is not of a high order, these notions are crude and vague; but they are evidentiary of a tone of thought which has prevailed so long among the superior intellects, as to have spread from them to others, and become the general property of the nation. Nor is this true only of France, and of the nations of Southern Europe which take their tone from France, but almost equally, though under somewhat different forms, of the Germanic nations. It was Lessing by whom ^cthe course of^c history was styled “the education of the human race.”^[*] Among the earliest of those by whom the succession of historical events was conceived as a subject of science, were Herder and Kant.^[†] The latest school of German metaphysicians, the Hegelians, are well known to treat of it as a science which might even be constructed à priori. And as on other subjects, so on this, the general literature of Germany borrows both its ideas and its tone from the schools of the highest philosophy. We need hardly say that in our own country nothing of all this is true. The speculations of our thinkers, and the commonplaces of our mere writers and talkers, are of quite another description.

Even insular England belongs, however, to the commonwealth of Europe, and yields, though slowly and in a way of her own, to the general impulse of the European mind. There are signs of a nascent tendency in English thought to turn itself towards speculations on history. The tendency first showed itself in some of the minds which had received their earliest impulse from Mr. Coleridge; and an example has been given in a quarter where many, perhaps, would have least expected it—by the Oxford school of theologians. However little ambitious these writers may be of the title of philosophers; however anxious to sink the character of science in that of religion—they yet have, after their own fashion, a philosophy of history. They have^d a theory of the world^[‡] —in our opinion an erroneous one, but of which they recognise as an essential condition that it shall explain history; and they do attempt to explain history by it, and have constituted, on the basis of it, a kind of historical system. By this we cannot but think that they have done much good, if only in contributing to impose a similar necessity upon all^e theorizers of like pretensions. We believe the time must come when all systems which aspire to direct either the consciences of mankind, or their political and social arrangements, will be required to show not only that they are consistent with universal history, but that they afford a more reasonable ^fexplanation^f of it than any other system. In the philosophy of society, more especially, we look upon history as an indispensable test and verifier of all doctrines and creeds; and we regard with proportionate interest all explanations, however partial, of any important part of the series of historical phenomena—all attempts, which are in any measure successful, to disentangle the complications of those phenomena, to detect the order of their causation, and exhibit any portion of them in an unbroken series, each link cemented by natural laws with those which precede and follow it.

M. Guizot’s is one of the most successful of these partial efforts. His subject is not history at large, but modern European history; the formation and progress of the existing nations of Europe. Embracing, therefore, only a part of the succession of historical events, he is precluded from attempting to determine the law or laws which preside over the entire evolution. If there be such laws; if the series of states through which human nature and society are ^gdestined^g to pass, have been determined more or less precisely by the original constitution of mankind, and by the circumstances of the planet on which we live; the order of their succession cannot be ^hdiscovered^h by modern or by European experience alone: it must be ascertained by a conjunct analysis, so far as possible, of the whole of history, and the whole of human nature. M. Guizot stops short of this ambitious enterprise; but, considered as preparatory studies for promoting and facilitating it, his writings are most valuable. He seeks, not the ultimate, but the proximate causes of the facts of modern history: he inquires in what manner each successive condition of modern Europe grew out of that which next preceded it; and how modern society altogether, and the modern mind, shaped themselves from the elements which had been transmitted to them from the ancient world. To have done this with any degree of success, is no trifling achievement.

The Lectures, which are the principal foundation of M. Guizot’s literary fame, were delivered by him in the years 1828, 1829, and 1830, at the old Sorbonne, now the seat of the Faculté des Lettres of Paris, on alternate days with MM. Cousin and Villemain; a triad of lecturers, whose brilliant exhibitions, the crowds which thronged their lecture-rooms, and the stir they excited in the active and aspiring minds so numerous among the French youth, the future historian will commemorate as among the remarkable appearances of that important era. The Essays on the History of France are the substance of Lectures delivered by M. Guizot many years earlier; before the Bourbons, in their jealousy of all free speculation, had shut up his class-room and abolished his professorship; which was re-established after seven years’ interval by the Martignac Ministry. In this earlier production some topics are discussed at length, which, in the subsequent Lectures, are either not touched upon, or much more summarily disposed of. Among these is the highly interesting subject of the first Essay. The wide difference between M. Guizot and preceding historians is marked in the first words of his first book. A real thinker is shown in nothing more certainly, than in the questions which he asks. The fact which stands at the commencement of M. Guizot’s subject—which is the origin and foundation of all subsequent history—the fall of the Roman Empire—he found an unexplained phenomenon; unless a few generalities about despotism and immorality and luxury can be called explanation. His Essay opens as follows:

Such a problem M. Guizot proposes to himself; and is it not remarkable that this question not only was not ⁱansweredⁱ , but was not so much as raised, by the celebrated writers who had treated this period of history before him—one of those writers being Gibbon?^[†] The difference between what we learn from Gibbon on this subject, and what we learn from Guizot, is a measure of the progress of historical inquiry in the intervening period. Even the true sources of history, of all that is most important in it, have never until the present generation been really understood and freely resorted to. It is not in the chronicles, but in the laws, that M. Guizot finds the clue to the immediate agency in the “decline and fall” of the Roman empire. In the legislation of the period M. Guizot discovers, under the name of curiales, the middle class of the Empire, and the recorded evidences of its progressive annihilation.^[‡]

It is known that the free inhabitants of Roman Europe were almost exclusively a town population: it is^j, then,^j in the institutions and condition of the municipalities that the real state of the inhabitants of the Roman empire must be studied.

^k In semblance, the constitution of the town communities was of a highly popular character. The curiales, or the class liable to serve municipal offices, consisted of all the inhabitants (not specially exempted) who possessed landed property amounting to twenty-five jugera.^l This class formed a corporation for the management of local affairs. They discharged their functions, partly as a collective body, partly by electing, and filling in rotation, the various municipal magistracies. Notwithstanding the apparent dignity and authority with which this body was invested, the list of exemptions consisted of all the classes who possessed any influence in the State, any real participation in the governing power. It comprised, first, all senatorial families, and all persons whom the Emperor had honoured with the title of clarissimi, then, all the clergy, all the military, from the praefectus praetorii down to the common legionary, and all the civil functionaries of the State. When we look further, indications still more significant make their appearance. We find that there was an unceasing struggle between the government and the curiales—on their part to escape from their condition, on the part of the government to retain them in it. It was found necessary to circumscribe them by every species of artificial restriction. They were interdicted from living ^mout of the town^m , from serving in the army, or holding any civil employment which conferred exemption from municipal offices, until they had first served all those offices, from the lowest to what was called the highest. Even then, their emancipation was only personal, not extending to their children. If they entered the Church, they must abandon their possessions, either to the curia (the municipality), or to some individual who would become a curialis in their room. Laws after laws were enacted for detecting, and bringing back to the curia, those who had secretly quitted it and entered surreptitiously into the army, the clergy, or some public office. They could not absent themselves, even for a time, without the permission of superior authority; and if they succeeded in escaping, their property was forfeit to the curia. No curialis, without leave from the governor of the province, could sell the property which constituted him such. If his heirs were not members of the curia, or if his widow or daughter married any one not a curialis, one-fourth of their property must be relinquished. If he had no children, only one-fourth could be bequeathed by will, the remainder passing to the curia. The law looked forward to the case of properties abandoned by the possessor, and made provision that they should devolve upon the curia; and that the taxes to which they were liable should be rateably charged upon the property of the other curiales.

What was it, in the situation of a curialis, which made his condition so irksome, that nothing could keep men in it unless caged up as in a dungeon—unless every hole or cranny by which they could creep out of it, was tightly closed by the provident ingenuity of the legislator?

The explanation is this. Not only were the curiales burdened with all the expenses of the local administration, beyond what could be defrayed from the property of the curia itself—property continually encroached upon, and often confiscated, by the general government; but they had also to collect the revenue of the State; and their own property was responsible for making up its amount. This it was which rendered the condition of a curialis an object of dread, which progressively impoverished and finally extinguished the class. In their fate, we see what disease the Roman empire really died of; and how its destruction had been consummated even before the occupation by the Barbarians. The invasions were no new fact, unheard-of until the fifth century; such attempts had been repeatedly made, and never succeeded until the powers of resistance were destroyed by inward decay. The Empire perished of misgovernment, in the form of overtaxation. The burden, ever increasing through the necessities occasioned by the impoverishment it had already produced, at last reached this point, that none but those whom a legal exemption had removed out of the class on which the weight principally fell, had anything remaining to lose. The senatorial houses possessed that privilege, and accordingly we still find, at the period of the successful invasions, a certain number of families which had escaped the general wreck of private fortunes;—opulent families, with large landed possessions and numerous slaves. Between these and the mass of the population there existed no tie of affection, no community of interest. With this exception, and that of the Church, all was poverty. The middle class had sunk under its burdens. “Hence,” says M. Guizot, “in the fifth century, so much land lying waste, so many towns almost depopulated, or filled only with a hungry and unoccupied rabble. The system of government which I have described, contributed much more to this result than the ravages of the Barbarians.”^[*]

In this situation the northern invaders found the Roman empire. What they made of it, is the next subject of M. Guizot’s investigations. The Essays which follow are, “On the origin and establishment of the Franks in Gaul”—“Causes of the fall of the Merovingians and Carlovingians”—“Social state and political institutions of France, under the Merovingians and Carlovingians”—“Political character of the feudal régime.”^[†] But on these subjects our author’s later and more mature thoughts are found in his Lectures; and we shall therefore pass at once to the more recent work, returning afterwards to the concluding Essay in the earlier volume, which bears this interesting title: “Causes of the establishment of a representative system in England.”^[‡]

The subject of the Lectures being the history of European Civilization, M. Guizot begins with a dissertation on the different meanings of that indefinite term, and announces that he intends to use it as ⁿanⁿ equivalent to a state of improvement and progression, in the physical condition and social relations of mankind, on the one hand, and in their inward spiritual development on the other. We have not space to follow him into this discussion, with which, were we disposed to criticize, we might find some fault; but which ought, assuredly, to have exempted him from the imputation of looking upon the improvement of mankind as consisting in the progress of social institutions alone. We shall quote a passage near the conclusion of the same Lecture, as a specimen of the moral and philosophical spirit which pervades the work, and because it contains a truth for which we are glad to cite M. Guizot as an authority:

The second Lecture is devoted to a general speculation, which is very characteristic of M. Guizot’s mode of thought, and, in our opinion, worthy to be attentively weighed both by the philosophers and the practical politicians of the age.

He observes, that one of the points of difference by which modern civilization is most distinguished from ancient, is the complication, the multiplicity, which characterizes it. In all previous forms of society, Oriental, Greek, or Roman, there is a remarkable character of unity and simplicity. Some one idea seems to have presided over the construction of the social framework, and to have been carried out into all its consequences, without encountering on the way any counterbalancing or limiting principle. Some one element, some one power in society, seems to have early attained predominance, and extinguished all other agencies which could exercise an influence over society capable of conflicting with its own. In Egypt, for example, the theocratic principle absorbed everything. The temporal government was grounded on the uncontrolled rule of a caste of priests, and the moral life of the people was built upon the idea, that it belonged to the interpreters of religion to direct the whole detail of human actions. The dominion of an exclusive class, at once the ministers of religion and the sole possessors of letters and secular learning, has impressed its character on all which survives of Egyptian monuments—on all we know of Egyptian life. Elsewhere, the dominant fact was the supremacy of a military caste, or race of conquerors, the institutions and habits of society were principally modelled by the necessity of maintaining this supremacy. In other places, again, society was mainly the expression of the democratic principle. The sovereignty of the majority, and the equal participation of all male citizens in the administration of the State, were the leading facts by which the aspect of those societies was determined. This singleness in the governing principle had not, indeed, always prevailed in those states. Their early history often presented a conflict of forces.

It was otherwise, says M. Guizot, with modern Europe.

Hence, he continues, the modern world, while inferior to many of the ancient forms of human life in the characteristic excellence of each, yet in all things taken together, is richer and more developed than any of them. From the multitude of elements to be reconciled, each of which during long ages spent the greater part of its strength in combating the rest, the progress of modern civilization has necessarily been slower; but it has lasted, and remained steadily progressive, through fifteen centuries; which no other civilization has ever done.

There are some to whom this will appear a fanciful theory, a cobweb spun from the brain of a doctrinaire. We are of a different opinion. There is doubtless, in the historical statement, some of that pardonable exaggeration, which in the exposition of large and commanding views, the necessities of language render it so difficult entirely to avoid. The assertion that the civilizations of the ancient world were each under the complete ascendancy of some one exclusive principle, is not admissible in the unqualified sense in which M. Guizot enunciates it; the limitations which that assertion would require, on a nearer view, are neither few nor inconsiderable. Still less is it maintainable, that different societies, under different dominant principles, did not at each epoch co-exist in the closest contact; as Athens, Sparta, and Persia or Macedonia; Rome, Carthage, and the East. But after allowance for over-statement, the substantial truth of the doctrine appears unimpeachable. No one of the ancient forms of society contained in itself that systematic antagonism, which we believe to be the only condition under which stability and progressiveness can be permanently reconciled to one another.

There are in society a number of distinct forces—of separate and independent sources of power. There is the general power of knowledge and cultivated intelligence. There is the power of religion; by which, speaking politically, is to be understood that of religious teachers. There is the power of military skill and discipline. There is the power of wealth; the power of numbers and physical force; and several others might be added. Each of these, by the influence it exercises over society, is fruitful of certain kinds of beneficial results; none of them is favourable to all kinds. There is no one of these powers which, if it could make itself absolute, and deprive the others of all influence except in aid of, and in subordination to, its own, would not show itself the enemy of some of the essential constituents of human well-being. Certain good results would be doubtless obtained, at least for a time; some of the interests of society would be adequately cared for; because, with certain of them, the natural tendency of each of these powers spontaneously coincides. But there would be other interests, in greater number, which the complete ascendancy of any one of these social elements would leave unprovided for; and which must depend for their protection on the influence which can be exercised by other elements.

We believe with M. Guizot, that modern Europe presents the only example in history, of the maintenance, through many ages, of this co-ordinate action among rival powers naturally tending in different directions. And, with him, we ascribe chiefly to this cause the spirit of improvement, which has never ceased to exist, and still makes progress, in the European nations. At no time has Europe been free from a contest of rival powers for dominion over society. If the clergy had succeeded, as ^ois supposed to have been the case^o in Egypt, in making the kings subservient to them; if, as among the Mussulmans of old, or the Russians now, the supreme religious authority had merged in the attributes of the temporal ruler; if the military and feudal nobility had reduced the clergy to be their tools, and retained the burgesses as their serfs; if a commercial aristocracy, as at Tyre, Carthage, and Venice, had got rid of kings, and governed by a military force composed of foreign mercenaries; Europe would have arrived much more rapidly at such kinds and degrees of national greatness and well-being as those influences severally tended to promote; but from that time would either have stagnated, like the great stationary despotisms of the East, or have perished for lack of such other elements of civilization as could sufficiently unfold themselves only under some other patronage. Nor is this a danger existing only in the past; but one which may be yet impending over the future. If the perpetual antagonism which has kept the human mind alive, were to give place to the complete preponderance of any, even the most salutary, element, we might yet find that we have counted too confidently upon the progressiveness which we are so often told is an inherent property of our species. Education, for example—mental culture—would seem to have a better title than could be derived from anything else, to rule the world with exclusive authority; yet if the lettered and cultivated class, embodied and disciplined under a central organ, could become in Europe, what it is in China, the Government—unchecked by any power residing in the mass of citizens, and permitted to assume a parental tutelage over all the operations of life—the result would probably be a darker despotism, one more opposed to improvement, than even the military monarchies and aristocracies have in fact proved. And in like manner, if what ^pis thought^p to be the tendency of things in the United States should proceed for some generations unrestrained; if the power of numbers—of the opinions and instincts of the mass—should acquire and retain the absolute government of society, and impose silence upon all voices which dissent from its decisions or dispute its authority; we should expect that, in such countries, the condition of human nature would become as stationary as in China, and perhaps at ^qas low a^q point of elevation in the scale.

However these things may be, and imperfectly as many of the elements have yet unfolded themselves which are hereafter to compose the civilization of the modern world; there is no doubt that it ^rhas always possessed^r , in comparison with the older forms of life and society, that complex and manifold character which M. Guizot ascribes to it.

He proceeds to inquire whether any explanation of this peculiarity of the European nations can be traced in their origin; and he finds, in fact, that origin to be extremely multifarious. The European world shaped itself from a chaos, in which Roman, Christian, and Barbarian ingredients were commingled. M. Guizot attempts to determine what portion of the elements of modern life derived their beginning from each of these sources.

From the Roman Empire, he finds that Europe derived both the fact and the idea of municipal institutions; a thing unknown to the Germanic conquerors. The Roman Empire was originally an aggregation of towns; the life of the people, especially in ^sthe Western Empire^s , was a town life; their institutions and social arrangements, except the system of functionaries destined to maintain the authority of the sovereign, were all grounded upon the towns. When the central power retired from the Western Empire, town life and town institutions, though in an enfeebled condition, were what remained. In Italy, where they were less enfeebled than elsewhere, civilization revived not only earlier than in the rest of Europe, but in forms more similar to those of the ancient world. The South of France had, next to Italy, partaken most in the fruits of Roman civilization; its towns had been the richest and most flourishing on this side the Alps; and having, therefore, held out longer than those farther north against the fiscal tyranny of the Empire, were not so completely ruined when the conquest took place. Accordingly, their municipal institutions were transmitted unbroken from the Roman period to recent times. This, then, was one legacy which the Empire left to the nations which were shaped out of its ruins. But it left also, though not a central authority, the habit of requiring and looking for such an authority. It left “the idea of the empire, the name of the emperor, the conception of the imperial majesty, of a sacred power inherent in the imperial name.”^[*] This idea, at no time becoming extinct, resumed, as society became more settled, a portion of its pristine power: towards the close of the middle ages, we find it once more a really influential element. Finally, Rome left a body of written law, constructed by and for a wealthy and cultivated society; this served as a pattern of civilization to the rude invaders, and assumed an ever-increasing importance as they became more civilized.

In the field of intellect and purely mental development, Rome, and through Rome, her predecessor Greece, left a still richer inheritance, but one which did not come much into play until a later period.

Such, then, are the benefits which Europe has derived from the relics of the ancient Imperial civilization. But along with this perishing society, the barbarians found another and a rising society, in all the freshness and vigour of youth—the Christian Church. In the debt which modern society owes to this great institution, is ^tfirst to be^t included, in M. Guizot’s opinion, all which it owes to Christianity.

That, without its compact organization, the Christian hierarchy could have so rapidly taken possession of the uncultivated minds of the barbarians; that, before the conquest was completed, the conquerors would have universally adopted the religion of the vanquished, if that religion had been recommended to them by nothing but its intrinsic superiority—we agree with M. Guizot in thinking incredible. We do not find that other savages, at other eras, have yielded with similar readiness to the same influences; nor did the minds or lives of the invaders, for some centuries ^uafter^u their conversion, give evidence that the real merits of Christianity had made any deep impression upon them. The true explanation is to be found in the power of intellectual superiority. As the condition of secular society became more discouraging, the Church had more and more engrossed to itself whatever of real talents, as well as of sincere philanthropy existed in the Roman world.

In this, the Church was aided by the important temporal position, which, in the general decay of other elements of society, it had assumed in the Roman empire. Alone strong in the midst of weakness, alone possessing natural sources of power within itself, it was the prop to which all things clung which felt themselves in need of support. The clergy, and especially the Prelacy, had become the most influential members of temporal society. All that remained of the former wealth of the Empire had for some time tended more and more in the direction of the Church. At the time of the invasions, we find the bishops very generally invested, under the title of defensor civitatis, with a high public character—as the patrons, and towards all strangers the representatives, of the town communities. It was they who treated with the invaders in the name of the natives; it was their adhesion which guaranteed the general obedience; and after the conversion of the conquerors, it was to their sacred character that the conquered were indebted for whatever mitigation they experienced of the fury of conquest.

Thus salutary, and even indispensable, was the influence of the Christian clergy during the confused period of the invasions. M. Guizot has not overlooked, but impartially analysed, the mixed character of good and evil which belonged even in that age, and still more in the succeeding ages, to the power of the Church. One beneficial consequence which he ascribes to it is worthy of especial notice, the separation (unknown to antiquity) between temporal and spiritual authority. He, in common with the best thinkers of our time, attributes to this fact the happiest influence on European civilization. It was the parent, he says, of liberty of conscience. “The separation of temporal and spiritual is founded on the idea, that material force has no right, no hold, over the mind, over conviction, over truth.”^[†] Enormous as have been the sins of the Catholic Church in the way of religious intolerance, her assertion of this principle has done more for human freedom, than all the fires she ever kindled have done to destroy it. Toleration cannot exist, or exists only as a consequence of contempt, where, Church and State being virtually the same body, disaffection to the national worship is treason to the State; as is sufficiently evidenced by Grecian and Roman history, notwithstanding the fallacious appearance of liberality inherent in Polytheism, which did not prevent, as long as the national religion continued in vigour, almost every really free thinker of any ability in the freest city of Greece, from being either banished or put to death for blasphemy.^* In more recent times, where the chief of the State has been also the supreme pontiff, not, as in England, only nominally, but substantially (as in the case of China, Russia, the Caliphs, and the Sultans of Constantinople,) the result has been a perfection of despotism, and a voluntary abasement under its yoke, which have no parallel elsewhere except among the most besotted barbarians.

It remains to assign, in the elemental chaos from which the modern nations arose, the Germanic or barbaric element. What has Europe derived from the barbarian invaders? M. Guizot answers—the spirit of liberty. That spirit, as it exists in the modern world, is something which had never before been found in company with civilization. The liberty of the ancient commonwealths did not mean individual freedom of action; it meant a certain form of political organization; and instead of asserting the private freedom of each citizen, it was compatible with a more ^vcomplete^v subjection of every individual to the State, and a more active interference of the ruling powers with private conduct, than is the practice of what are now deemed the most despotic governments. The modern spirit of liberty, on the contrary, is the love of individual independence; the claim for freedom of action, with as little interference as is compatible with the necessities of society, from any authority other than the conscience of the individual. It is in fact the self-will of the savage, moderated and limited by the demands of civilized life; and M. Guizot is not mistaken in believing that it came to us, not from ancient civilization, but from the savage element infused into that enervated civilization by its barbarous conquerors. He adds, that together with this spirit of liberty, the invaders brought also the spirit of voluntary association; the institution of military patronage, the bond between followers and a leader of their own choice, which afterwards ripened into feudality. This voluntary dependence of man upon man, this relation of protection and service, this spontaneous loyalty to a superior not deriving his authority from law or from the constitution of society, but from the voluntary election of the dependent himself, was unknown to the civilized nations of antiquity; though frequent among savages, and so customary in the Germanic race, as to have been deemed, though erroneously, characteristic of it.

To reconcile, in any moderate degree, these jarring elements; to produce even an endurable state of society, not to say a prosperous and improving one, by the amalgamation of savages and slaves, was a work of many centuries. M. Guizot’s Lectures are chiefly occupied in tracing the progress of this work, and showing by what agencies it was accomplished. The history of the European nations consists of three periods; the period of confusion, the feudal period, and the modern period. The Lectures of 1828 include, though on a very compressed scale, all the three; but only in relation to the history of society, omitting that of thought, and of the human mind. In the following year, the Professor took a wider range. The three volumes which contain the Lectures of 1829, are a complete historical analysis of the period of confusion; expounding, with sufficient fulness of detail, both the state of political society in each successive stage of that prolonged anarchy, and the state of intellect, as evidenced by literature and speculation. In these volumes, M. Guizot is the philosopher of the period of which M. Augustin Thierry is the painter. In the Lectures of 1830—which, having been prematurely broken off by the political events of that year, occupy (with the Pièces Justificatives) only two volumes—he commenced a similar analysis of the feudal period; but did not quite complete the political and social part of the subject: the examination of the intellectual products of the period was not even commenced. In this state this great unfinished monument still remains. Imperfect, however, as it is, it contains much more than we can attempt to bring under even the most cursory review within our narrow limits. We can only pause and dwell upon the important epochs, and upon speculations which involve some great and fertile idea, or throw a strong light upon some interesting portion of the history. Among these last we must include the passage in which M. Guizot describes the manner in which the civilization of the conquered impressed the imagination of the victors.

But their attempt was fruitless. It was not by merely seating themselves in the throne of the Emperors, that the chiefs of the barbarians could reinfuse life into a social order to which, when already perishing by its own infirmities, they had dealt the final blow. Nor was it in that old form that peaceful and regular government could be restored to Europe. The confusion was too chaotic to admit of so easy a disentanglement. Before fixed institutions could become possible, it was necessary to have a fixed population; and this primary condition was long unattained. Bands of barbarians, of various races, with no bond of national union, overran the Empire, without mutual concert, and occupied the country as much as a people so migratory and vagabond could be said to occupy it; but even the loose ties which held together each tribe or band, became relaxed by the consequences of spreading themselves over an extensive territory; fresh hordes, too, were ever pressing on ^xfrom^x behind; and the very first requisite of order, permanent territorial limits, could not establish itself, either between properties or sovereignties, for nearly three centuries. The annals of the conquered countries during the intermediate period, but chronicle the desultory warfare of the invaders with one another; the effect of which, to the conquered, was a perpetual renewal of suffering, and increase of impoverishment.

M. Guizot dates the termination of this downward period from the reign of Charlemagne; others (for example, M. de Sismondi)^[*] have placed it later. We are inclined to agree with M. Guizot; no part of whose work seems to us more admirable than that in which he fixes the place in history of that remarkable man.^*

The name of Charlemagne, says M. Guizot, has come down to us as one of the greatest in history. Though not the founder of his dynasty, he has given his name both to his race and to the age.

After briefly illustrating his remarks by the example of Napoleon—so often, by his flatterers, represented as another Charlemagne, a comparison which is the height of injustice to the earlier conqueror—M. Guizot observes, that the wars of Charlemagne were of a totally different character from those of the previous dynasty. “They were not dissensions between tribe and tribe, or chief and chief, nor expeditions engaged in for the purpose of settlement or of pillage; they were systematic wars, inspired by a political purpose, and commanded by a public necessity.”^[†] Their purpose was no other than that of putting an end to the invasions. He repelled the Saracens: the Saxons and Sclavonians, against whom merely defensive arrangements were not sufficient, he attacked and subjugated in their native forests.

In the character of an administrator and a legislator, the career of Charlemagne is still more remarkable than as a conqueror. His long reign was one struggle against the universal insecurity and disorder. He was one of the sort of men described by M. Guizot, “whom the spectacle of anarchy or of social immobility strikes and revolts; whom it shocks intellectually, as a fact which ought not to exist; and who are possessed with the desire to correct it, to introduce some rule, some principle of regularity and permanence, into the world which is before ^ythem^y .”^[†] Gifted with an unresting activity unequalled perhaps by any other sovereign, Charlemagne passed his life in attempting to convert a chaos into an orderly and regular government: to create a general system of administration, under an efficient central authority. In this attempt he was very imperfectly successful. The government of an extensive country from a central point was too complicated, too difficult; it required the co-operation of too many agents, and of intelligences too much developed, to be capable of being carried on by barbarians. “The disorder around him was immense, invincible; he repressed it for a moment on a single point, but the evil reigned wherever his terrible will had not penetrated; and even where he had passed, it recommenced as soon as he had departed.”^[‡]

Nevertheless, his efforts were not lost—not wholly unfruitful. His instrument of government was composed of two sets of functionaries, local and central. The local portion consisted of the resident governors, the dukes, counts, &c., together with the vassals or beneficiarii, afterwards called feudatories, to whom when lands had been granted, a more or less indefinite share had been delegated of the authority and jurisdiction of the sovereign. The central machinery consisted of missi dominici—temporary agents sent into the provinces, and from one province to another, as the sovereign’s own representatives; to inspect, control, report, and even reform what was amiss, either in act or negligence, on the part of the local functionaries. Over all these the prince held, with a firm hand, the reins of government; aided by a national assembly or convocation of chiefs, when he chose to summon it, either because he desired their counsel or needed their moral support.

Thus does a more accurate knowledge correct the two contrary errors, one or other of which is next to universal among superficial thinkers, respecting the influence of great men upon society. A great ruler cannot shape the world after his own pattern; he is condemned to work in the direction of existing and spontaneous tendencies, and has only the discretion of singling out the most beneficial of these. Yet the difference is great between a skilful pilot and none at all, though a pilot cannot steer ^zin opposition^z to wind and tide. Improvements of the very first order, and for which society is completely prepared, which lie in the natural course and tendency of human events, and are the next stage through which mankind will pass, may be retarded indefinitely for want of a great man, to throw the weight of his individual will and faculties into the trembling scale. Without Charlemagne, who can say for how many centuries longer the period of confusion might have been protracted? Yet in this same example it equally appears what a great ruler can not do. Like Ataulph, Theodoric, Clovis, all the ablest chiefs of the invaders, Charlemagne dreamed of restoring the Roman Empire.

M. Guizot, we think, is scarcely just to Charlemagne in this implied censure upon his attempt to reconstruct civilized society on the only model familiar to him. The most intelligent ^acotemporaries^a shared his error, and saw in the dismemberment of his Empire, and the fall of his despotic authority, a return to chaos. Though it is easy for us to see, it was difficult for them to foresee, that European society, such as the invasions had made it, admitted of no return to order but through something resembling the feudal system. By the writers who have come down to us from the age in which that system arose, it was looked upon as nothing less than universal anarchy and dissolution. “Consult the poets of the time, consult the chroniclers; they all thought that the world was coming to an end.”^[†] M. Guizot quotes one of the monuments of the time, a poem by Florus, a deacon of the church at Lyons, which displays with equal naïveté the chagrin of the instructed few at the breaking up of the great unsolid structure which Charlemagne had raised, and the satisfaction which the same fact caused to the people at large;^[‡] not the only instance in history in which the instinct of the people has been nearer the truth than the considerate judgment of ^bthose who clung to historical precedent^b . That renewal of the onward movement, which even a Charlemagne could not effect by means repugnant to the natural tendencies of the times, took place through the operation of ordinary causes, as soon as society had assumed the form which alone could give rise to fixed expectations and positions, and produce a sort of security.

We have now, therefore, arrived at the opening of the feudal period; and have to attempt to appreciate what the feudal society was, and what was the influence of that society and of its institutions, on the fortunes of the human race; what new elements it introduced; what new tendencies it impressed upon human nature; or to which of the existing tendencies it imparted additional strength.

M. Guizot’s estimate of feudalism is among the most interesting, and ^con the whole, the most^c satisfactory, of his speculations. He observes, that sufficient importance is seldom attached to the effects produced upon the mental nature of mankind by mere changes in their outward mode of living.

The first of its peculiarities, he continues, is the prodigious importance which the head of this little association must assume in his own eyes, and ^ein^e those of all around him. To the liberty of the man and the warrior, the sentiment of personality and individual independence, which predominated in savage life, is now added the importance of the master, the landed proprietor, the head of a family. No feeling of self-importance comparable to this, is habitually generated in any other known form of civilization. A Roman patrician, for example, “was the head of a family, was a master, a superior; he was, besides, a religious magistrate, a pontiff in the interior of his family.” But the importance of a religious magistrate is not personal; it is borrowed from the divinity whom he serves. In civil life the patrician

We pass to the influence of this new state of society upon the development of domestic feelings and family life.

In corroboration of these remarks, he observes in another place, that in the feudal form of society (unlike all those which preceded it) the representative of the chief’s person and the delegate of his authority, during his frequent absences, was the châtelaine. In his warlike expeditions and hunting excursions, his crusadings and his captivities, she directed his affairs, and governed his people with a power equal to his own.^[‡] No importance comparable to this, no position equally calculated to call forth the human faculties, had fallen to the lot of women, before, nor, it may be added, since. And the fruits are seen in the many examples of heroic women which the feudal annals present to us; women who fully equalled, in every masculine virtue, the bravest of the men with whom they were associated; often greatly surpassed them in prudence, and fell short of them only in ferocity.

M. Guizot now turns from the seigneurial abode to the dependent population surrounding it. Here all things present a far worse aspect.

Leaving the contemplation of the elementary molecule (as M. Guizot calls it) of feudal society—a single possessor of a fief with his family and dependents—and proceeding to consider the nature of the larger society, or state, which was formed by the aggregation of these small societies, we find the feudal régime to be absolutely incompatible with any real national existence. No doubt, the obligations of service on the one hand, and protection on the other, theoretically attached to the concession of a fief, kept alive some faint notions of a general government, some feelings of social duty. But, in the whole duration of the system, it was never found practicable to attach to these rights and obligations any efficient sanction. A central government, with power adequate to enforce even the recognised duties of the feudal relation, or to keep the peace between the different members of the confederacy, did not and could not exist consistently with feudalism. The very essence of feudality was (to borrow M. Guizot’s definition) the fusion of property and sovereignty. The lord of the soil was not only the master of all who dwelt upon it, but he was their only superior, their sovereign. Taxation, military protection, judicial administration, were his alone; for all offices of a ruler, the people looked to him, and could look to no other. The king was absolute, like all other feudal lords, within his own domain, and only there. He could neither compel obedience from his feudatories, nor impose his mediation as an arbitrator between them. Among such petty potentates, the only union compatible with the nature of the case was a federal union—the most difficult to maintain of all political organizations; one which, resting almost entirely on moral sanctions, and an enlightened sense of distant interests, requires, more than any other social system, an advanced state of civilization. The middle age was nowise ripe for it; the sword, therefore, remained the universal umpire; all questions were decided either by private war, or by that judicial combat which was the first attempt of society (as the modern duel is the last) to subject the prosecution of a quarrel by force of arms to the moderating influence of fixed customs and ordinances.

The following is M. Guizot’s summary of the influences of feudalism on the progress of the European nations.

There is yet another aspect, and far from an unimportant one, in which feudal life has bequeathed, to the times which followed, a lesson worthy to be studied. Imperfect as the world still remains in justice and humanity, the feudal world was far inferior to it in those attributes, but greatly superior in individual strength of will, and decision of character.

The third period of modern history, which is emphatically the modern period, is more complex and more difficult to interpret than the two preceding. Of this period, M. Guizot had only begun to treat; and we must not expect to find his explanations as satisfactory as in the earlier portions of his subject. The origin of feudalism, its character, its place in the history of civilization, he has discussed, as has been seen, in a manner which leaves little to be desired: but we cannot extend the same praise to his account of its decline, which (it is but fair to consider) is not completed, but which, so far as it has gone, appears to us to bear few marks of that piercing insight into the heart of a question, that determination not to be paid with a mere show of explanation, which are the characteristic ^jexcellencies^j of the speculations thus far brought to notice.

M. Guizot ascribes the fall of feudality mainly to its imperfections. It did not, he says, contain in itself the elements of durability. It was a first step out of barbarism, but too near the verge of the former anarchy to admit of becoming a permanent social organization. The independence of the possessors of fiefs was evidently excessive, and too little removed from the savage state. “Accordingly, independently of all foreign causes, feudal society, by its own nature and tendencies, was always in question, always on the brink of dissolution; incapable at least of subsisting regularly or of developing itself, without altering its nature.”^†

He then sets forth how, in the absence of any common superior, of any central authority capable of protecting the feudal chiefs against one another, they were content to seek protection where they could find it—namely, from the most powerful among themselves; how, from this natural tendency, those who were already strong, ever became stronger, the larger fiefs went on aggrandizing themselves at the expense of the weaker. “A prodigious inequality soon arose among the possessors of fiefs,”^[*] and inequality of strength led, as it usually does, to inequality of claims, and at last, of recognised rights.

This sketch of the progressive decomposition of the feudal organization, is, no doubt, historically correct; but we desiderate in it any approach to a scientific explanation of the phenomenon. That is an easy solution which accounts for the destruction of institutions from their own defects; but experience proves, that forms of government and social arrangements do not fall, merely because they deserve to fall. The more backward and the more degraded any form of society is, the stronger is the tendency to remain stagnating in that state, simply because it is an existing state. We are unable to recognise in this theory of the decay of feudality, the philosopher who so clearly demonstrated its origin; who pointed out that the feudal polity established itself not because it was a good form of society, but because society was incapable of a better; because the rarity of communications, the limited range of men’s ideas and of their social relations, and their want of skill to work political machinery of a delicate or complicated construction, disqualified them from being either chiefs or members of ^kan^k organized association extending beyond their immediate neighbourhood. If feudality was a product of this condition of the human mind, and the only form of polity which it admitted of, no evils inherent in feudality could have hindered it from continuing so long as that cause subsisted. The anarchy which existed as between one feudal chief and another—the inequality of their talents, and the accidents of their perpetual warfare—would have led to continual changes in the state of territorial possession, and large governments would have been often formed by the agglomeration of smaller ones, occasionally perhaps a great empire like that of Charlemagne: but both the one and the other would have crumbled again to fragments as that did, if the general situation of society had continued to be what it was when the feudal system originated. Is not this the very history of society in a great part of the East, from the earliest record of events? Between the time when masses could not help dissolving into particles, and the time when those particles spontaneously reassembled themselves into masses, a great change must have taken place in the molecular properties of the atoms. Inasmuch as the petty district sovereignties of the first age of feudality coalesced into larger provincial sovereignties, which, instead of obeying the original tendency to decomposition, tended in the very contrary direction, towards ultimate aggregation into one national government; it is clear that the state of society had become compatible with extensive governments^l. The^l unfavourable circumstances which M. Guizot commemorated in the former period, had in some manner ceased to exist; a great progress in civilization had been accomplished, under the dominion and auspices of the feudal system; and the fall of the system was not really owing to its vices, but to its good qualities—to the improvement which had been found possible under it, and by which mankind had become desirous of obtaining, and capable of realizing, a better form of society than it afforded.

What this change was, and how it came to pass, M. Guizot has left us to seek. Considerable light is, no doubt, incidentally thrown upon it by the course of his investigations, and the sequel of his work would probably have illustrated it still more. At present, the philosophic interpreter of historical phenomena is indebted to him, on this portion of the subject, for little besides materials.

It was under the combined assaults of two powers—royalty from above, the emancipated commons from below—that the independence of the great vassals finally succumbed. M. Guizot has delineated with great force and perspicuity the rise of both these powers. His review of the origin and emancipation of the communes, and the growth of the tiers-état, is one of the best executed portions of the book; and should be read with M. Thierry’s Letters on the History of France,^[*] as the moral of the tale. In his fifth volume, M. Guizot traces, with considerable minuteness, the progress of the royal authority, from its slumbering infancy in the time of the earlier Capetians, through its successive stages of growth—now by the energy and craft of Philippe Auguste, now by the justice and enlightened policy of Saint Louis—to its attainment, not indeed of recognised despotism, but of almost unlimited power of actual tyranny, in the reign of Philippe le Bel. But on all these imputed causes of the fall of feudalism, the question recurs, what caused the causes themselves? Why was that possible to the successors of Capet, which had been impossible to those of Charlemagne? How, under the detested feudal tyranny, had a set of fugitive serfs, who congregated for mutual protection at a few scattered points, and called them towns, become industrious, rich, and powerful? There can be but one answer; the feudal system, with all its deficiencies, was sufficiently a government, contained within itself a sufficient mixture of authority and liberty, afforded sufficient protection to industry, and encouragement and scope to the development of the human faculties, to enable the natural causes of social improvement to resume their course. What these causes were, and why they have been so much more active in Europe than in parts of the earth which were much earlier civilized, is far too difficult an inquiry to be entered upon in this place. We have already seen what M. Guizot has contributed to its elucidation in the way of general reflection. About the matter of fact, in respect to the feudal period, there can be no doubt. When the history of what are called the dark ages, because they had not yet a vernacular literature, and did not write a correct Latin style, shall be written as it deserves to be, that will be seen by all, which is already recognised by the great historical inquirers of the present time—that at no period of history was human intellect more active, or society more unmistakably in a state of rapid advance^m, than during a great part of the so much vilified feudal period.^m

M. Guizot’s detailed analysis of the history of European life, is, as we before remarked, only completed for the period preceding the feudal. For the five centuries which extended from Clovis to the last of the Carlovingians,^[*] he has given a finished delineation, not only of outward life and political society, but of the progress and vicissitudes of what was then the chief refuge and hope of oppressed humanity, the religious society—the Church. He makes his readers acquainted with the legislation of the period, with the little it possessed of literature or philosophy, and with that which formed, as ought to be remembered, the real and serious occupation of its speculative faculties—its religious labours, whether in the elaboration or in the propagation of the Christian doctrine. His analysis and historical exposition of the Pelagian controversy—his examination of the religious literature of the period, its sermons and legends—are models of their kind; and he does not, like the old school of historians, treat these things as matters insulated and abstract, of no interest save what belongs to them intrinsically, but invariably looks at them as component parts of the general life of the age.

Of the feudal period, M. Guizot had not time to complete a similar delineation. His analysis even of the political society of the period is not concluded; and we are entirely without that review of its ecclesiastical history, and its intellectual and moral life, whereby the deficiency of explanation would probably have been in some degree supplied, which we have complained of in regard to the remarkable progress of human nature and ⁿits wantsⁿ during ^othose^o ages. For the strictly modern period of history he has done still less. The rapid sketch which occupies the concluding lectures of the first volume, does little towards resolving any of the problems in which there is real difficulty.

We shall therefore pass over the many topics on which he has touched cursorily, and without doing justice to his own powers of thought; and shall only further advert to one question, which is the subject of a detailed examination in the Essay in his earlier volume, “the origin of representative institutions in England”—a question not only of special interest to an English reader, but of much moment in the estimation of M. Guizot’s general theory of modern history. For if the natural course of European events was such as that theory represents it, the history of England is an anomalous deviation from that course; and the exception must either prove, or go far to subvert, the rule. In England as in other European countries, the basis of the social arrangements was, for several centuries, the feudal system; in England as elsewhere, that system perished by the growth of the Crown, and of the emancipated commonalty. Whence came it, that amidst general circumstances so similar, the immediate and apparent consequences were so strikingly contrasted? How happened it, that in the Continental nations absolute monarchy was at least the proximate result, while in England representative institutions, and an aristocratic government with an admixture of democratic elements, were the consequence?

M. Guizot’s explanation of the anomaly is just and conclusive. The feudal polity in England was from the first a less barbarous thing—had more in it of the elements from which a government might in time be constructed—than in the other countries of Europe. We have seen M. Guizot’s lively picture of the isolated position and solitary existence of the seigneur, ruling from his inaccessible height, with sovereign power, over a scanty population; having no superior above him, no equals around him, no communion or co-operation with any, save his family and dependents; absolute master within a small circle, and with hardly a social tie, or any action or influence, beyond; everything, in short, in one narrow spot, and nothing in any other place. Now, of this picture, we look in vain for the original in our own history. English feudalism knew nothing of this independence and isolation of the individual feudatory in his fief. It could show no single vassal exempt from the habitual control of government, no one so strong that the king’s arm could not reach him. Early English history is made up of the acts of the barons, not the acts of this and that and the other baron. The cause of this is to be found in the circumstances of the Conquest. The Normans did not, like the Goths and Franks, overrun and subdue an ^palmost^p unresisting population. They encamped in the midst of a people of spirit and energy, many times more numerous, and almost as warlike as themselves. That they prevailed over them at all was but the result of superior union. That union once broken, they would have been lost. They could not parcel out the country among them, spread themselves over it, and be each king in his own little domain, with nothing to fear save from the other petty kings who surrounded him. They were an army, and in an enemy’s country; and an army supposes a commander, and military discipline. Organization of any kind implies power in the chief who presides over it and holds it together. Add to this, what various writers have remarked—that the dispossession of the Saxon proprietors being effected not at once, but gradually, and the spoils not being seized upon by unconnected bands, but systematically portioned out by the head of the conquering expedition among his followers—the territorial possessions of even the most powerful Norman chief were not concentrated in one place, but dispersed in various parts of the kingdom; and, whatever might be their total extent, he was never powerful enough in any given locality to make head against the king. From these causes, royalty was from the beginning much more powerful among the Anglo-Normans than it ever became in France while feudality remained in vigour. But the same circumstances which rendered it impossible for the barons to hold their ground against regal encroachments except by combination, had kept up the power and the habit of combination among them. In French history we never, until a late period, hear of confederacies among the nobles; English history is full of them. Instead of numerous unconnected petty potentates, one of whom was called the King, there are two great figures in English history—a powerful King, and a powerful body of Nobles. To give the needful authority to any act of general government, the concurrence of both was essential: and hence Parliaments, elsewhere only occasional, were in England habitual. But the natural state of these rival powers was one of conflict; and the weaker side, which was usually that of the barons, soon found that it stood in need of assistance. Although the feudatory class, to use M. Guizot’s expression, “had converted itself into a real aristocratic corporation,”^* the barons were not strong enough “to impose at the same time on the king their liberty, and on the people their tyranny. As they had been obliged to combine for the sake of their own defence, so they found themselves under the necessity of calling in the people in aid of their coalition.”^†

The people, in England, were the Saxons—a vanquished race, but whose spirit had never, like that of the other conquered populations, been completely broken. Being a German, not a Latin people, they retained the traditions, and some portion of the habits, of popular institutions and personal liberty. When called, therefore, to aid the barons in moderating the power of the Crown, they claimed those ancient liberties as their part of the compact. French history abounds with charters of incorporation, which the kings granted, generally for a pecuniary consideration, to town communities which had cast off their seigneurs. The charters which English history is full of, are concessions of general liberties to the whole body of the nation; liberties which the nobility and the commons either wrung from the king by their united strength, or obtained from his voluntary policy as the purchase-money of their obedience. The series of these treaties, for such they in reality were, between the Crown and the nation, beginning with the first Henry, and ending with the last renewal by Edward I of the Great Charter of King John, are the principal incidents of English history during the feudal period. And thus, as M. Guizot observes in his concluding summary—

M. Guizot returns to this subject in a remarkable passage in the first volume of his Lectures, which presents the different character of the progress of civilization in England and in Continental Europe, in so new and peculiar a light, that we cannot better conclude this article than by quoting it.

The advantageous side of the effect of this more equable development is evident enough.

But to a nation, as to an individual, the consequences of doing everything by halves, of adopting compromise as the universal rule, of never following out a general idea or principle to its utmost results, are by no means exclusively favourable. Hear again M. Guizot.

DUVEYRIER’S POLITICAL VIEWS OF FRENCH AFFAIRS

1846

EDITOR’S NOTE

Edinburgh Review, LXXXIII (Apr., 1846), 453-74. Headed, “Art. VII.—1. La Pairie dans ses Rapports avec la Situation Politique, son Principe, ses Ressources, son Avenir. Par M. Charles Duveyrier 8vo. Paris: [Guyot,] 1842. / 2. Lettres Politiques. Par. M. Charles Duveyrier. [2 vols.] 8vo. Paris: [Beck and Amyot,] 1843.” Running titles as title. Unsigned. Not republished, but a substantial portion (305-8) quoted in the version of “Tocqueville on Democracy in America [II]” in Dissertations and Discussions, II. Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A review of Duveyrier’s political pamphlets in the Edinburgh Review for April 1846” (MacMinn, 59). The copy (tear-sheets) in Mill’s library, Somerville College, is headed by Mill, “(Edinburgh Review, April 1846)”; it contains no corrections or emendations.

The portion of the text quoted in the D&D version of “Tocqueville on Democracy in America [II]” is collated with D&D, 1st ed. (1859), and 2nd ed. (1867). In the footnoted variants, “59” indicates D&D, 1st ed., and “67” indicates D&D, 2nd ed.

For comment on the text, see lxxx-lxxxiii and cvi-cvii above.

Duveyrier’s Political Views of French Affairs

there are several causes which make the Political Writings produced at the present time in France, an instructive study to intelligent observers in all countries of Europe.

In the first place, there is much truth in the boast of French writers, that France marches in the van of the European movement. The fact is not necessarily of the highly complimentary character with which those writers generally choose to invest it. Movement is not always progress; and progress itself may be in a downward, as well as in an upward direction. To be foremost in the road which all are travelling, is not of necessity the most honourable position; but it is a position pre-eminently interesting to those who follow. And such, in the present period of the world’s history, is the situation of France. The two strongest tendencies of the world in these times are towards Democracy and Revolution; meaning by Democracy—social equality, under whatever form of government; and by Revolution—a general demolition of old institutions and opinions, without reference to its being effected peaceably or violently. In this twofold career, France is the furthest advanced of the European nations. The feelings of her people are nearly as democratic as in the United States; the passion for equality almost as strong. Her institutions indeed infringe upon that equality, by limiting to a narrow class the privilege of electing, or being elected to the Chamber of Deputies. But even these privileges are not hereditary, and carry with them no direct accession of personal rank. In the eye of the law, and in that of private society, there is less difference between man and man than in any other country in Europe. The other European nations are steadily following in the direction of that social equality which, as far as regards the male sex, France has in a great measure realized. That England is undergoing this change as rapidly as the rest, has long been clear to every Englishman who knows any thing more of the world he lives in than the forms of it. Those forms, indeed, subsist with less alteration than in some other countries; but where are the feelings which gave meaning to them? Not the intelligent mechanic only, but the stupidest clown, at heart thinks himself as good as a nobleman; or rather (what is not exactly equivalent) thinks that a nobleman is no better than he; and there are a good many things which indicate, that the nobleman himself secretly thinks much the same.

Not less is France ahead of the rest of Europe, in what may properly, and independently of the specific consequences flowing from it, be called Revolution. Other nations are gradually taking down their old institutions: France, by the sacrifice of a generation, made a clean sweep of hers; and left herself a fair stage, clear of rubbish, for beginning to build anew. France has had her Revolution; has cleansed her Augean stable. She has completed the business of mere destruction; and has come into direct contact with the positive, practical question of the Art of Politics—what is to be done for the governed? Other nations, and England more than any, are in the middle of their Revolution. The most energetic minds are still occupied in thinking, less of benefits to be attained, than of nuisances to be abated; and every question of things to be done, is entangled with questions of things which have first to be undone; or of things which must not be undone, lest worse should follow.

It would be absurd to deny, that a nation whose institutions have no historical basis, and are not surrounded by that reverential attachment which mankind so much more easily accord to what is made for them, than to what they themselves have made, lies under some serious practical disadvantages; on which this is not the occasion to expatiate, no more than on the advantages by which they are more or less completely compensated. But whatever may be the inconvenience, in point of practical working, of what has been called a “geometrical polity,”^[*] in political discussion its effects are wholly beneficial. It makes disputation turn on the real merits of the matter in dispute. Under it, measures are attacked and defended much less on the ground of precedent and practice, or of analogy to the institutions, and conformity to the traditions of the particular nation; and much more on adaptation to the exigencies of human nature and life, either generally, or at the particular time and place. The discussion, therefore, has an interest reaching beyond those who are immediately affected by its result; and French writers say, hitherto not unjustly, that while the voice of the English Journals and Legislative Assemblies has little echo beyond the bounds of the British Empire, the controversies of their Tribune, and of their Periodical Press, are watched for and studied all over Europe.

The writings, then, in which intelligent and instructed Frenchmen promulgate their opinions, on the principal topics of public discussion in France, have a twofold interest to foreigners; because the questions discussed are such as either already are, or will soon become, to them also, of great practical moment; and because the principles and premises appealed to are not peculiarly French, but universal.

In both these points of view, the Lettres Politiques, named at the head of this article, have a claim to attention. Originally published as a series of Weekly Pamphlets, and since reprinted in two octavo volumes, they form a collection of Dissertations on the topics, present or probable future, of French Politics, to which recent English discussion has produced nothing in its kind comparable. Not, certainly, that among our public writers there are not several with abilities fully equal to M. Duveyrier, but because their abilities are otherwise employed; because they have not yet turned to consider systematically how the institutions of the country may be worked for the benefit of the country; because in England there is still too much to be undone, for the question, “what is to be done,” to assume its due importance; and the ablest thinkers, when they descend from the height of purely abstract science, find sufficient scope for their practical energies, in the war still raging around the shattered bulwarks of the great practical abuses; and small chance of followers, or even of spectators, for any other enterprise.

Among many things in these volumes, significant of the character which French political discussion of the higher order has of late assumed, two are specially remarkable to an English reader. One is, the total absence, through the twenty-five Letters, of discussion on any constitutional subject. There are no disquisitions in favour of, or even in deprecation of, organic changes. All such questions are assumed to be settled, and treated as not requiring notice. The other is, that with the most passive acquiescence in the structure of the government, as circumstances have made it, is combined the strongest and most active spirit of political reform. This is a conjunction which of late has occasionally been heard of in England, but we cannot say we ever saw it realized. We are promised indeed a “new generation”^[*] of Church-and-King philanthropists, by whom every institution grounded upon contempt of the people, is to be worked for every purpose of kindness to them. But we see no very brilliant embodiment of this vision in half a dozen dreaming young men, whose ideal is Laud. For England the day of Conservative reformers is yet to come.

We know not whether M. Duveyrier is expressing his sincere opinion, or adapting his tone to the audience whom he desires to influence; but he professes himself satisfied with the existing constitution of France. He designates all discussions of its defects as old quarrels, “which divert the public mind from the real business of the country, and statesmen from the transaction of that business.”^* Short-sighted as this view of things would be, if applied to such questions considered generally, there must be something in it which adapts itself well to the existing state of feeling in France.^† It is certain that this avowed contentment with “things as they are,”^[†] in respect to the distribution of power, is connected with no optimism as to the mode in which power is employed. The question, who shall govern? may be for the present in abeyance; but there is the liveliest interest in the question, how?—not by what hands, but for what purposes, and according to what maxims and rules, the powers of government shall be wielded.

In England also, it has been easy to perceive, for some years past, especially since the advent of the Peel Ministry, that a similar change of feeling and tone is in progress, both in the public and in the more thinking minds; though it has not reached by any means so advanced a stage. The interest in constitutional questions has much abated,—in part, from the hopelessness, for the present, of any further organic changes; and, partly, from a growing scepticism, even among ardent supporters of popular institutions, as to their being, after all, the panacea which they were supposed to be for the evils that beset our social system. Sincere Democrats are beginning to doubt whether the desideratum is so much an increased influence of popular opinion, as a more enlightened use of the power which it already possesses. But in this new tendency of opinion, France is as much ahead of England as she was in the previous democratic movement. We do not hesitate to express our conviction, that in France at least this change has taken place prematurely. Not that opinion could be too soon, or too earnestly, directed to the ends of government; but it may be, and we think has been, too soon averted from the means. The theory of Representative Government and Constitutional rights, which guided the public mind during the fifteen years’ struggle against the Bourbons, has been discarded before it had finished its work. France is still a country where twenty persons cannot form an association, or hold a meeting, without permission from the Police;^[*] where the personal freedom of the citizen is hardly better secured than in the most despotic monarchies of the Continent; where no agent of government can be legally prosecuted for the most enormous offence, without permission from the government by whose directions that offence may have been committed; and where the election of the representative branch of the Legislature, for a population of thirty-four millions, resides in about two hundred thousand persons,—distributed mostly in bodies of from one to three hundred each; enabling the separate interests of particular localities and of influential electors to decide the fortunes of Cabinets and the course of Legislation. In these things, however, France has for the present acquiesced. In what manner her government should be constituted, and in what manner checked, are not the questions which just now interest her. But it is not because she is blind to the disgraceful manner in which her constitution works, and which throughout these volumes is incessantly adverted to, as the most undeniable and the most familiar of daily phenomena.

Constitutional Government—Government in which the support of a majority in a representative assembly is necessary to office—has only had a real existence in France since 1830; and in this short period it has rivalled the worst corruptions of the English rotten boroughs. Bribery, indeed, in its coarser forms is comparatively unknown; because the electors are in a rank of life which commands hypocrisy. But a majority of the electors in a majority of the electoral colleges, is not too numerous a body to be bought; and bought it is, by distributing all public employments among the electors and their protégés; and by succumbing to the pretensions of every locally influential class interest; or, rather, the nominal government is but their instrument—they are not so much bought, as they are themselves the governing body, and claim to themselves in this shape the profits of power. Their position is not that of the voters in our small boroughs; it more resembles that of the borough holders. The gratification of their cupidity is the condition they are able to impose on any set of men whom they permit to be a Ministry.

What else could be expected? There are but 200,000 electors, and 130,000 places^* (without reckoning the army) in the gift of the government. Again:

With the keen sense which the author every where shows of this great evil, by which the sacrifices that France has made to obtain good government, are to so great a degree stultified and rendered abortive, it may appear strange that he should not contend for a change in the constitution of the legislature. Such, however, is not his expedient. We know not whether it is conviction or policy which prevents him from being a Parliamentary Reformer; whether an enlargement of the basis of the representative system appears to him, in the present condition of France, not desirable, or merely not attainable. For whatever reason, he affirms that agitation for this purpose does no good, and only interferes mischievously with what he upholds as the true corrective of the present vicious mode of government:—the formation of an enlightened public opinion. He maintains that petty and selfish interests predominate in the government only because there are no recognised principles on which it can be conducted in any other manner: That the public mind is uninformed, and has no fixed opinion on any subject, connected with government, except the constitution of it: That without clear and definite views, diffused and rooted among the public, on the chief practical questions of government, there is nothing to restrain petty intrigues and cabals, or to support an honest Minister in resistance to the unjustifiable pretensions of classes and coteries. That the men at the head of the government would be glad to have such a support; that they are better than the system they administer, and that it is not willingly that they succumb to it—he assumes as a thing of course. We cannot doubt that he has reason to do so. It is not credible, that men who are among the most instructed and enlightened in France, who have enlarged the domain of thought, as well as contributed largely to the diffusion of its results; that philosophers like Guizot, Villemain, Duchatel, would not gladly wash their hands of turpitudes as lowering to the personal dignity, as discreditable to the integrity of those involved in them. They are men with convictions, and who wish their convictions to prevail; and it cannot be agreeable to them to be dependent, not on the steady adherence of a powerful party pledged to their opinions, but on their success in bargaining for the local influence of notabilités de clocher,—the oracles of this and that distant and backward arrondissement. From this position M. Duveyrier seeks to relieve them. It is ideas, he says, that are wanted;—principles of government capable of inspiring attachment, and stirring the imagination, principles sufficiently practical, and at the same time sufficiently commanding and generous, to rally a large mass of opinion around them. “Vous n’avez,” he says to M. Guizot—

This doctrine, that the moral evils of the present political system of France arise from an intellectual cause—from the absence of convictions in the public mind—is dwelt upon by the author with a persistency and iteration for which the periodical form of the Letters afforded great advantages. In a letter to M. Chambolle, an opposition deputy, and editor of a leading opposition Journal,^[*] he combats the idea, that any peculiar baseness is imputable to the electoral class. The press and the public, he says, are not at all more immaculate. The very men who job their electoral influence for places for their sons, are men of honour in their private concerns.

Accordingly, so far as a determinate public opinion does exist, questions are decided, and the government conducted not by this shameful appeal to personal and local interests, but on grounds which, right or wrong, are at least of a public character.

In the former branch, in constitutional or organic politics, the government has proceeded on fixed and determinate principles; and has accordingly been able to carry the Chambers with it, by large and certain majorities.

M. Duveyrier’s first pamphlet (from which this extract is taken) was on the Chamber of Peers; being an attempt to persuade that body to consider as theirs the task which the Chamber of Deputies appeared to have abandoned. The circumstances which, in his opinion, mark out the less popular branch of the French legislature, for the office of introducing matured and systematic principles of government into the public affairs of France, are, first, its independence of the partial and local interests of constituencies, and secondly, the composition of its personnel.

The Chamber of Peers, even when hereditary, was a body of a very different character from the House of Lords. It consisted indeed, for the most part, like that assembly, of the wealthiest landed proprietors; but, in England, to represent these is to represent the principal power in the state; while, in France, “the monarchy of the middle class”—wealth, as such, has but little political power, and landed wealth rather less than even Commercial: the Chamber of Peers, therefore, was a body of exceedingly small importance. Once and once only, for a short period, the accidental coincidence between its tendencies and those of public opinion, invested it with a popularity not its own; when, with the caution inherent in a body of old and rich men, it withstood the counter-revolutionary madness of Charles X, which at last cost him his throne. He swamped it by a large creation, and it relapsed into insignificance. In 1831, its destruction, in its pristine character, was completed by the abolition of its hereditary privilege.^[*] But, in losing this, it received what in our author’s view was far more than an equivalent. In ceasing to represent the remains of what had once been powerful, the noblesse and la grande propriété, it became the representative of an existing power—of one of the leading influences in society as at present constituted.

The King names the Peers for life; but he is only empowered to name them from certain enumerated classes or “categories;” consisting chiefly (members of the Institute being almost the sole exception) of persons who have served the state for a certain number of years; either in the Chamber of Deputies, or as functionaries in the different departments of the government. The peerage, therefore, is naturally composed of the most eminent public servants—those who combine talents with experience; and it represents a class of great importance in existing society—the administrative body.

The Chamber of Deputies, (he proceeds to say,) represents the public and its tendencies. The Chamber of Peers represents, or from its constitution is fitted to represent, those who are or have been public functionaries: whose appointed duty and occupation it has been to look at questions from the point of view not of any mere local or sectional, but of the general interest; and who have the judgment and knowledge resulting from labour and experience. To a body like this, it naturally belongs to take the initiative in all legislation, not of a constitutional or organic character. If, in the natural course of things, well-considered views of policy are any where to be looked for, it must be among such a body. To no other acceptance can such views, when originating elsewhere, be so appropriately submitted—through no other organ so fitly introduced into the laws.

We shall not enter into the considerations by which the author attempts to impress upon the Peers this elevated view of their function in the commonwealth. On a new body, starting fresh as a senate, those considerations might have influence. But the senate of France is not a new body. It set out on the discredited foundation of the old hereditary chamber; and its change of character only takes place gradually, as the members die off. To redeem a lost position is more difficult than to create a new one. The new members, joining a body of no weight, become accustomed to political insignificance; they have mostly passed the age of enterprise; and the Peerage is considered little else than an honourable retirement for the invalids of the public service. M. Duveyrier’s suggestion has made some impression upon the public; it has gained him the public ear, and launched his doctrines into discussion; but we do not find that the conduct of the Peers has been at all affected by it. Energy is precisely that quality which, if men have it not of themselves, cannot be breathed into them by other people’s advice and exhortations. There are involved, however, in this speculation, some ideas of a more general character; not unworthy of the attention of those who concern themselves about the social changes which the future must produce.

There are, we believe, few real thinkers, of whatever party, who have not reflected with some anxiety upon the views which have become current of late, respecting the irresistible tendency of modern society towards democracy. The sure, and now no longer slow, advance, by which the classes hitherto in the ascendant are merging into the common mass, and all other forces^c giving way before the power of mere numbers, is well calculated to inspire uneasiness, even in those to whom democracy per se presents nothing alarming. It is not the uncontrolled ascendency of popular power, but of any power, which is formidable. There is no one power in society, or capable of being constituted in it, of which the influences do not become mischievous as soon as it reigns uncontrolled—as soon as it becomes exempted from any necessity of being in the right, by being able to make its mere will prevail, without the condition of a previous struggle. To render its ascendency safe, it must be fitted with correctives and counteractives, possessing the qualities opposite to its characteristic defects. Now, the defects to which the government of numbers, whether in the pure American, or in the mixed English form, is most liable, are precisely those of a public, as compared with an administration. Want of appreciation of distant objects and remote consequences; where an object is desired, want both of an adequate sense of practical difficulties, and of the sagacity necessary for eluding them; disregard of traditions, and of maxims sanctioned by experience; an undervaluing of the importance of fixed rules, when immediate purposes require a departure from them—these are among the acknowledged dangers of popular government; and there is the still greater, though less recognised, danger, of being ruled by a spirit of suspicious and intolerant mediocrity. Taking these things into consideration, and also the progressive decline of the existing checks and counterpoises, and the little probability there is that the influence of mere wealth, still less of birth, will be sufficient hereafter to restrain the tendencies of the growing power, by mere passive resistance; we do not think that a nation whose historical ^dantécédens^d give it any choice, could select a fitter basis upon which to ground the counterbalancing power in the State, than the principle of the French Upper House. The defects of Representative Assemblies are, in substance, those of unskilled politicians. The mode of raising a power most competent to their correction, would be an organization and combination of the skilled. History affords the example of a government carried on for centuries with the greatest consistency of purpose, and the highest skill and talent, ever realized in public affairs; and it was constituted on this very principle. The Roman Senate was a Senate for life, composed of all who had filled high offices in the State, and were not disqualified by a public note of disgrace. The faults of the Roman policy were in its ends; which, however, were those of all the States of the ancient world. Its choice of means was consummate. This government, and others distantly approaching to it, have given to aristocracy all the credit which it has obtained for constancy and wisdom. A Senate of some such description, composed of persons no longer young, and whose reputation is already gained, will necessarily lean to the Conservative side; but not with the blind, merely instinctive, spirit of conservatism, generated by mere wealth or social importance, unearned by previous labour. Such a body would secure a due hearing and a reasonable regard for precedent and established rule. It would disarm jealousy by its freedom from any class interest; and while it never could become the really predominant power in the State, still, since its position would be the consequence of recognised merit and actual services to the public, it would have as much personal influence, and excite as little hostility, as is compatible with resisting in any degree the tendencies of the really strongest power.

There is another class of considerations connected with Representative Governments, to which we shall also briefly advert. In proportion as it has been better understood what legislation is, and the unity of plan as well as maturity of deliberation which are essential to it, thinking persons have asked themselves the question—Whether a popular body of 658 or 459 members, not specially educated for the purpose, having served no apprenticeship, and undergone no examination, and who transact business in the forms and very much in the spirit of a debating society, can have as its peculiarly appropriate office to make laws? Whether that is not a work certain to be spoiled by putting such a superfluous number of hands upon it? Whether it is not essentially a business for one, or a very small number, of most carefully prepared and selected individuals? And whether the proper office of a Representative Body, (in addition to controlling the public expenditure, and deciding who shall hold office,) be not that of discussing all national interests; of giving expression to the wishes and feelings of the country; and granting or withholding its consent to the laws which others make, rather than ^eof^e themselves framing, or even altering them? The law of this and most other nations is already such a chaos, that the quality of what is yearly added, does not materially affect the general mass; but in a country possessed of a real Code or Digest, and desirous of retaining that advantage, who could think without dismay of its being tampered with at the will of a body like the House of Commons, or the Chamber of Deputies? Imperfect as is the French Code, the inconveniences arising from this cause are already strongly felt; and they afford an additional inducement for associating with the popular body a skilled Senate, or Council of Legislation, which, whatever might be its special constitution, must be grounded upon some form of the principle which we have now considered.^a

M. Duveyrier does not often return, except in the way of incidental allusion, to his idea respecting the Peers; but the conception of the administration, or corps of public functionaries, as the social element to which France must look for improvements in her political system, is carried through the whole series of Pamphlets; and he attempts to avail himself of every side-current of opinion to steer into this harbour. This is especially seen in his Letter to the Duke de Nemours, on The State and Prospects of Aristocracy in France.^[*] According to this Letter, there is now a distinct acknowledged tendency in the French mind towards aristocracy; a tendency hailed by some, dreaded and rejected by others, but denied by no one. “The best and sincerest thinkers cannot see without alarm the narrow interval which separates the two forces between which the government is divided.” [Translated from Lettres politiques, Vol. I, pp. 71-2.] Experience proves, that

Not only on these political, but also on moral grounds, M. Duveyrier contends for the necessity of intermediate ranks, and a third power interposed between the Royal and the Popular. We give these passages in his own words:

No degree of jealousy of natural superiorities, he continues, can prevent them from existing; talents, riches, even historical descent, are still instruments of power; but the social arrangements not being such as to make these powers available for public uses, they work only for the personal ends of the possessors.

These arguments for an Aristocracy have not so much novelty or originality, as the views which our author promulgates respecting the mode of supplying the desideratum. An aristocracy, he says, can never be constituted but on the basis of a public function. Even the feudal nobility

Nor was the title ever, during the vigour of the institution, dissevered in the minds of men from the duties which it imposed.

But although feudal dignities, as he justly says, were originally symbols of services, he treats with deserved contempt the idea, that any useful end could be answered by merely creating from the ranks of personal merit, after the foolish example of Napoleon, Dukes, Counts, and Barons.

We are thus brought back, by a rather circuitous course, to our author’s idea respecting the class of public functionaries, as the only material from which a distinguished class,—a new Aristocracy,—can arise. Does he propose, then, to make them an aristocracy? An aristocracy, according to him, cannot be made. It must make itself. The Judicial Order, the noblesse de robe, made itself an aristocracy by its own conduct. The new aristocracy must do the same. He asks no privileges for it; least of all, any hereditary privilege. He aims at investing the class with the various conditions necessary to make them deserve, and, by deserving, obtain, the respect and consideration of the public.

As a third condition, he insists on the necessity of increasing the salaries of public offices; and doubtless not without reason. It is well known that French governments are as parsimonious in remunerating their employés, as prodigal in augmenting the number.

To this, and other considerations connected with the same subject, our author returns in the first letter of the second volume; one of those in which he expresses his opinion with greatest freedom on the system of government now prevailing in France. The principle established by the Revolution, the equal admissibility of all to public employment, has become, he says, merely nominal; for

For these several inconveniences he proposes remedies. In the first place, the Government must cease to require from its agents degrading services. All interference in elections by the official agents of Government, must be peremptorily abolished. This might or might not affect injuriously the interests of any existing Ministry. It might or might not render the opposition triumphant, and produce parliamentary reform. If these consequences happen, they must be submitted to. They are not for a moment to be considered in comparison with the object. But,

And the greater respectability thus given to office, would again, he says, attract to it the opulent classes;—a thing not in itself undesirable, and indispensably necessary so long as a mistaken economy keeps the salaries low.

But, while preventing placemen from jobbing in elections, it is also needful to prevent electors from jobbing in places. For this and other important purposes, the author’s expedient is, to make the conferring of public employments not a matter of favour, but, as far as possible, a Judicial Act. Admission into the public service should be granted only to the candidates who are pronounced on a public competition the best qualified. A certain proportion of all promotions should be given to seniority. The remainder must be, and (incompetence having been provided against by the initial arrangements) might safely be, dependent upon choice. To secure an abundance of highly qualified candidates, he proposes that there should be a public system of Education for each leading department of the public service. There is already the Polytechnic school, or College, as we should call it: English readers often forget that Ecole, in French, means a College, and Collège a School. There are the military and naval school, the school of engineers, and the school of mines. To these should be added schools of administration, of judicature, of diplomacy, and of finance. These various suggestions, supported at considerable length and in much detail, are the chief practical topic of the book. From a system of arrangements thus combined, he anticipates that the administrative body would be the élite of the practical talent and wisdom of the country; and that not only the business of Government in every department would be conducted with a skill and a purity beyond all present experience, but that the class thus formed, surmounted by its natural representatives, the Peerage for life, would become an Aristocracy in the best sense of the word—an aristocracy unprivileged, but real, and the only one with which the circumstances and social elements of a country similar to France are, in the author’s opinion, compatible.

In this speculation the reader has seen, we hope, not without interest, a sample of the manner in which the ever active French intellect is applying itself to the new questions, or old questions in new forms, which the changed aspect of modern society is constantly bringing before it; and of the abundant vein of far from worthless thought, portions of which it is at all times throwing up. The present is no doubt a favourable specimen of such speculations. But they almost all exemplify in their degree, that combination of the theoretical and the practical points of view, which is so happily characteristic of the better order of French thinkers. In England the two modes of thought are kept too much apart; the theories of political philosophers are too purely a priori, the suggestions of practical reformers too empirical. In France a foundation in general principles, the result of large views and a philosophic mode of thought, is never dispensed with, but the choice of principles for present application is guided by a systematic appreciation of the state and exigencies of existing society. The appreciation may be more or less successful, and is often, no doubt, a total failure; but some such attempt is invariably made.

As is natural to a French political writer, M. Duveyrier devotes a large part of his attention to external affairs. But he does so in a different spirit from that of the writers and orators whose tone has lately rekindled in foreign nations, against France, much of the jealousy and suspicion of former years. Those who best know France, have been most inclined to believe, that the spirit of these orators and writers was far less widely diffused than superficial appearances indicated; and that even in the assailants themselves it was of a less inveterate character than it seemed to be.

M. Duveyrier has no notion of suppressing the national amour-propre; nor would he deem himself at all complimented by being supposed exempt from it. But he endeavours to divert it into a rational and a pacific channel. It is not war, he says, it is not territorial extension, by which national greatness and glory are now acquired. By the arts of peace France must henceforth render herself famous. The sufferings and struggles of half a century, and the social and mental advantages which she has bought at so dear a price, have made it her part to assume the initiative in perfecting the machinery and the principles of civil government.

The author is faithful to his Programme. He advises France to renounce, once for all, the popular object of the Rhenish frontier. He calls it a “misérable intérêt de vanité,” and tells her besides, that she cannot have Algiers and the Rhine too. He exhorts her to set an example to Turkey how to govern its Christian subjects, by the manner in which she, in Algeria, can govern her Mussulmans. He recommends an alliance with Germany for peaceful, rather than with Russia, for warlike purposes. To acquire the respect of Europe, her Foreign policy, he says, must be not war and aggrandizement, nor propagandism, but Arbitration and mediation. He would have her combine with Prussia and Austria for the protection of the secondary Powers. He would have international differences decided, not by the coarse expedient of fighting, but by the impartial intervention of friendly powers; nor does he despair of seeing the war of Tariffs, which has succeeded to the war of Armies, terminated in a similar manner; and the adjustment of commercial relations made a matter of general arrangement by Congresses or Conferences among all the powers of Europe. In none of these things does he see insuperable difficulties, if a great nation, like France, would identify herself with them, and make them the leading aim of her external policy.

These are worthy objects; but it may be doubted whether a nation, to which it is necessary to recommend them as means of regaining that importance in the world, which can no longer be successfully sought by war and conquest, is the most likely to render them acceptable to other nations. Plato says, that a people ought to search out and impress as its Governors the persons who most dislike and avoid the office.^[*] It is certain, that those who eagerly thrust themselves into other people’s disputes, though it be only as arbitrators, are seldom very cordially welcomed; and that those are rarely the best managers of other people’s affairs, who have most taste for the bustle and self-importance of management. If, however, men have a taste for meddling, it is better that they should meddle to befriend others, than to oppress and domineer over them; and M. Duveyrier is doing a useful thing, in inculcating upon his countrymen the superiority of the more philanthropic mode of indulging the propensity.

In domestic policy he proclaims the same principle, of peaceful arbitration; the adjustment of conflicting interests, with the least possible hardship and disturbance to any one. His watchwords are, justice and compromise. To postpone all partial interests to the general interest, but to compensate liberally all from whom sacrifices of their private interest are demanded; and to make up, as far as circumstances permit, to the weaker and less fortunate members of society, for whatever disadvantages they lie under in their relations with the strong,—these are his maxims.

Under these different heads, he opens various subjects of discussion; some of which are by no means ripe for a final opinion, and to which we can only cursorily allude. That he is for a progressive reduction of protecting duties, is a matter of course. He has, at the same time, much to say in favour of alleviating the losses of those who suffer by reforms in legislation; or even by improvements in production. These, however, are minor topics compared with one from which no political thinker of any importance can now avert his thoughts;—the improvement of the existing relations between what is designated as the labouring portion of the community, and their employers: the question known to Continental thinkers under the technical appellation of the Organization of Labour.

This is not a subject upon which to enter at the conclusion of an article, nor is it in any sense a principal topic of M. Duveyrier’s book. He contents himself with pointing to it in the distance, as a problem waiting for a solution in the depths of futurity. It is possible that, like most French philanthropists, he has in view, as an ultimate possibility, a greater degree of authoritative intervention in contracts relating to labour, than would conduce to the desired end, or be consistent with the proper limits of the functions of government. But he proposes for present adoption, nothing but what is reasonable and useful. He bids the government encourage and favour what is voluntarily done by employers of labour, to raise their labourers from the situation of hired servants, to that of partners in the concern, having a pecuniary interest in the profits. He recommends to honour and imitation the example of M. Leclaire, (mentioned in a former number of this Review,)^[*] who has organized his business on the plan of allowing to himself, as well as to each of his employés, a fixed salary; and sharing the surplus among the whole body in rateable proportion to the salaries; and who, it appears, has found this system even lucrative to himself, as well as highly advantageous to his labourers.

We have exhibited, we think, enough of the contents of these volumes to justify our favourable opinion of them. On the unfavourable side there is little that we think it important to notice, except a degree of flattery to some of the Chiefs of the ruling party, and especially to the present King of the French;^[†] —probably, however, in the author’s eyes, not exceeding the courtesy due to persons in high authority, from one of their own supporters, when he volunteers important, and not always agreeable advice. The style is easy and spirited, occasionally rising into eloquence; and not more diffuse than belongs to the nature of modern periodical writing.

VINDICATION OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY 1848

1849

EDITOR’S NOTE

Dissertations and Discussions, 2nd ed. (1867), II, 335-410. Headed “Vindication of the French Revolution of February 1848, In Reply to Lord Brougham and others”, title footnoted “Letter to the Marquess of Lansdowne, K.G., Lord President of the Council, on the late Revolution in France. By [Henry Peter,] Lord Brougham, F.R.S., Member of the National Institute. London: Ridgway, 1848.—Westminster Review, April 1849.” Running titles “The French Revolution of 1848 / and Its Assailants.” Reprinted from Westminster Review, LI (Apr., 1849), 1-47, where it appears as the lead article, headed with the same information as in the footnote to the D&D title, and the same running titles. Unsigned. Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A review of Lord Brougham’s pamphlet on the French revolution, in the Westminster Review for April 1849” (MacMinn, 71). Also offprinted with a title page: “Defence of the French Revolution of February, 1848, in Reply to Lord Brougham and Others. From the ‘Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review’ for April, 1849. London: Waterlow and Sons, 1849.” The first page of the offprint has the same title as the D&D version (i.e., the first word is “Vindication” not “Defence”), and the heading from the Westminster is repeated: the running titles are again the same. The offprint includes (50-4) an Appendix giving the French versions of the passages from Tocqueville and Lamartine translated by Mill in his text, the Appendix is also given in D&D, II, 555-63, and is reprinted below as Appendix B. Unsigned. There is no copy of the original article in Mill’s library, Somerville College, the copy of the offprint contains two corrections in ink, both of which were made in D&D, at 330.29 “Dourlens” is altered to “Doullens”; and at 357.5 a comma is added after “presbyterianism”.

The following text, taken from D&D, 2nd ed. (the last in Mill’s lifetime), is collated with that in D&D, 1st ed., that of the offprint, and that in WR. In the footnoted variants, “49¹” indicates WR, “49²” indicates the offprint, “59” indicates D&D, 1st ed. (1859), and “67” indicates D&D, 2nd ed. (1867).

For comment on the essay, see lxxxiii-xci and cvii-cx above.

Vindication of the French Revolution of February 1848

that the transactions and the men of the late French Revolution should find small favour in the eyes of the vulgar and selfish part of the upper and middle classes, can surprise no one: and that the newspaper press, which is the echo, or, as far as it is able, the anticipation, of the opinions and prejudices of those classes, should endeavour to recommend itself by malicious disparagement of that great event, is but in the natural order of things. Justice to the men, and a due appreciation of the event, demand that these unmerited attacks should not remain unprotested against. But it is difficult to grapple with so slippery an antagonist as the writer in a newspaper, and impossible to follow the stream of calumny as it swells by a perpetual succession of infinitesimal infusions from incessant newspaper articles. Unless through some similar medium, in which the day’s falsehood can be immediately met by the day’s contradiction, such assailants are fought at too great a disadvantage. It is fortunate, therefore, when some one, embodying the whole mass of accusation in one general bill of indictment, puts the case upon the issue of a single battle, instead of a multitude of skirmishes. It is an immense advantage to the defenders of truth and justice, when all that falsehood and injustice have got to say is brought together in a moderate compass, and in a form convenient for exposure.

Such an advantage Lord Brougham has afforded by his outpouring of desultory invective against the Revolution and its authors. Among the multitude of performances, similar in intention and often superior in skill, which have issued from the English press since February 1848, ^ahis pamphlet^a is the only one which affects to embrace the whole subject, and the only one which bears a known name. ^bShould^b it seem to any one that more importance is attached to such a performance, than properly belongs to a thing so slight and trivial, let it be considered that the importance of a numerical amount does not so much depend upon the unit which heads it, as upon the number of the figures which follow.

Lord Brougham

It is very natural and commendable in any one (even though he may not have had the advantage which Lord Brougham so often reminds the reader that he once enjoyed, of being a fellow-minister with the Marquis of Lansdowne)^[‡] to endeavour to understand the