(April, 1805.)

Mémoires d'un Temoin de la Révolution; ou Journal des faits qui se sont passé sous ses yeux, et qui ont preparé et fixé la Constitution Française. Ouvrage Posthume de JEAN SYLVAIN BAILLY, Premier Président de l'Assemblée Nationale Constituant, Premier Maire de Paris, et Membre des Trois Académies. 8vo. 3 tomes. Paris: 1804.*

AMONG the many evils which the French Revolution has inflicted on mankind, the most deplorable, perhaps, both in point of extent and of probable duration, consists in the injury which it has done to the cause of rational freedom, and the discredit in which it has involved the principles of political philosophy. The warnings which may be derived from the misfortunes of that country, and the lessons which may still be read in the tragical consequences of her temerity, are memorable, no doubt, and important: But they are such as are presented to us by the history of every period of the world; and the emotions by which they have been impressed, are in this case too violent to let their import and application be properly distinguished. From the miscarriage of a scheme of frantic innovation, we have conceived an unreasonable and undiscriminating dread of all alteration or reform. The bad success of an attempt to make government perfect, has reconciled us to imperfections that might easily be removed; and the miserable consequences of treating every thing as prejudice and injustice, which could not be reconciled to a system of fantastic equality, has given strength to prejudices, and sanction to abuses, which were gradually wearing away before the progress of reason and philosophy. The French Revolution, in short, has thrown us back half a century in the course of political improvement; and driven many among us to cling once more, with superstitious terror, to those idols from which we had been nearly reclaimed by the lessons of a milder philosophy. When we look round on the wreck and ruin which the whirlwind has scattered over the prospect before us, we tremble at the rising gale, and shrink even from the wholesome air that stirs the fig-leaf on our porch. Terrified and disgusted with the brawls and midnight murders which proceed from intoxication, we are almost inclined to deny ourselves the pleasures of a generous hospitality; and scarcely venture to diffuse the comforts of light or of warmth in our dwellings, when we turn our eyes on the devastation which the flames have committed around us.

The same circumstances which have thus led us to confound what is salutary with what is pernicious in our establishments, have also perverted our judgments as to the

*I have been tempted to let this be reprinted (though sensible enough of vices in the style) to show at how early a period those views of the character of the French Revolution, and its first effects on other countries, were adopted-which have not since received much modification.

characters of those who were connected with those memorable occurrences. The tide of popular favour, which ran at one time with a dangerous and headlong violence to the side of innovation and political experiment, has now set, perhaps too strongly, in an opposite direction; and the same misguiding passions that placed factious and selfish men on a level with patriots and heroes, has now ranked the blameless and the enlightened in the herd of murderers and madmen.

There are two classes of men, in particular, to whom it appears to us that the Revolution has thus done injustice; and who have been made to share in some measure the infamy of its most detestable agents, in consequence of venial errors, and in spite of extraordinary merits. There are none indeed who made a figure in its more advanced stages, that may not be left, without any great breach of charity, to the vengeance of public opinion: and both the descriptions of persons to whom we have alluded only existed, accordingly, at the period of its commencement. These were the phi-· losophers or speculative men who inculcated a love of liberty and a desire of reform by their writings and conversation; and the virtuous and moderate, who attempted to act upon these principles at the outset of the Revolution, and countenanced or suggested those measures by which the ancient frame of the government was eventually dissolved. To confound either of these classes of men with the monsters by whom they were succeeded, it would be necessary to forget that they were in reality their most strenuous op ponents-and their earliest victims! If they were instrumental in conjuring up the tem pest, we may at least presume that their cooperation was granted in ignorance, since they were the first to fall before it; and can scarcely be supposed to have either foreseen or intended those consequences in which their own ruin was so inevitably involved. That they are chargeable with imprudence and with presumption, may be affirmed, per haps, without fear of contradiction; though, with regard to many of them, it would be no easy task, perhaps, to point out by what con duct they could have avoided such an impu tation; and this charge, it is manifest, ought at any rate to be kept carefully separate from that of guilt or atrocity. Benevolent inten tions, though alloyed by vanity, and misguided by ignorance, can never become the objects of the highest moral reprobation; and enthusiasm itself, though it does the work of the demons, ought still to be distinguished from treachery or malice. The knightly adven

turer, who broke the chains of the galleyslaves, purely that they might enjoy their deliverance from bondage, will always be regarded with other feelings than the robber who freed them to recruit the ranks of his banditti.

tion to the schemes of the sourt, the clergy and the nobility, appears to us to have been as impolitic with a view to their ultimate success, as it was suspicious perhaps as to their immediate motives. The parade which they made of their popularity; the support We have examined in a former article the which they submitted to receive from the extent of the participation which can be fairly menaces and acclamations of the mob; the imputed to the philosophers, in the crimes and joy which they testified at the desertion of miseries of the Revolution, and endeavoured the royal armies; and the anomalous milito ascertain in how far they may be said to tary force, of which they patronized the forhave made themselves responsible for its mation in the city of Paris, were so many consequences, or to have deserved censure for preparations for actual hostility, and led altheir exertions: And, acquitting the greater most inevitably to that appeal to force, by part of any mischievous intention, we found which all prospect of establishing an equitareason, upon that occasion, to conclude, that ble government was finally cut off. Santhere was nothing in the conduct of the ma-guine as the patriots of that assembly unjority which should expose them to blame, or doubtedly were, they might still have redeprive them of the credit which they would membered the most obvious and important have certainly enjoyed, but for consequences lesson in the whole volume of history, That which they could not foresee. For those who, the nation which has recourse to arms for with intentions equally blameless, attempted the settlement of its internal affairs, neces to carry into execution the projects which had sarily falls under the iron yoke of a military been suggested by the others, and actually government in the end; and that nothing engaged in measures which could not fail to but the most evident necessity can justify terminate in important changes, it will not be the lovers of freedom in forcing it from the easy, we are afraid, to make so satisfactory hands of their governors. In France, there an apology. What is written may be cor- certainly was no such necessity. The whole rected; but what is done cannot be recalled; weight and strength of the nation was bent a rash and injudicious publication naturally upon political improvement and reform.calls forth an host of answers; and where the There was no possibility of their being ultisubject of discussion is such as excites a very mately resisted; and the only danger that powerful interest, the cause of truth is not was to be apprehended was, that their proalways least effectually served by her oppo- gress would be too rapid. After the Statesnents. But the errors of cabinets and of legis- General were once fairly granted, indeed, it latures have other consequences and other appears to us that the victory of the friends confutations. They are answered by insur-to liberty was certain. They could not have rections, and confuted by conspiracies. A gone too slow afterwards; they could not paradox which might have been maintained by an author, without any other loss than that of a little leisure, and inknd paper, can only be supported by a minister at the expense of the lives and the liberties of a nation. It is evident, therefore, that the precipitation of a legislator can never admit of the same excuse with that of a speculative inquirer; that the same confidence in his opinions, which justifies the former in maintaining them to the world, will never justify the other in suspending the happiness of his country on the issue of their truth; and that he, in particular, subjects himself to a tremendous responsibility, who voluntarily takes upon himself the new-modelling of an ancient

The

have been satisfied with too little. great object, then, should have been to exclude the agency of force, and to leave no pretext for an appeal to violence. Nothing could have stood against the force of reason, which ought to have given way; and from a monarch of the character of Louis XIV. there was no reason to apprehend any attempt to regain, by violence, what he had yielded from principles of philanthropy and conviction. The Third Estate would have grown into power, instead of usurping it; and would have gradually compressed the other orders into their proper dimensions, instead of displacing them by a violence that could never be forgiven. Even if the Orders had deliberated separately, (as it ap We are very much inclined to do justice pears to us they ought clearly to have done,) to the virtuous and enlightened men who the commons were sure of an ultimate preabounded in the Constituent Assembly of ponderance, and the government of a perFrance. We believe that the motives of manent and incalculable amelioration. Conmany of them were pure, and their patriot-vened in a legislative assembly, and engrossism unaffected: their talents are still more indisputable: But we cannot acquit them of blameable presumption and inexcusable imprudence. There are three points, it appears to us, in particular, in which they were bound to have foreseen the consequences of their proceedings.

constitution.

In the first place, the spirit of exasperation, defiance, and intimidation, with which from the beginning they carried on their opposi

ing almost entirely the respect and affections of the nation, they would have enjoyed the unlimited liberty of political discussion, and gradually impressed on the government the character of their peculiar principles. By the restoration of the legislative function to the commons of the kingdom, the system was rendered complete, and required only to be put into action in order to assume all those improvements which necessarily resulted from

the increased wealth and intelligence of its | and to expose even those which were salı tary representatives.

to misapprehension and miscarriage. From Of this fair chance of amelioration, the a scheme of reformation so impetuous, and nation was disappointed, chiefly, we are in- an impatience so puerile, nothing permanent clined to think, by the needless asperity and or judicious could be reasonably expected. injudicious menaces of the popular party. In legislating for their country, they seem to They relied openly upon the strength of their have forgotten that they were operating on a adherents among the populace. If they did living and sentient substance, and not on an not actually encourage them to threats and to inert and passive mass, which they might acts of violence, they availed themselves at model and compound according to their pleasleast of those which were committed, to in-ure or their fancy. Human society, however, timidate and depress their opponents; for it is not like a piece of mechanism which may is indisputably certain, that the unconditional be safely taken to pieces, and put together by compliance of the court with all the demands the hands of an ordinary artist. It is the of the Constituent Assembly, was the result work of Nature, and not of man; and has either of actual force, or the dread of its im- received, from the hands of its Author, an mediate application. This was the inaus- organization that cannot be destroyed with picious commencement of the sins and the out danger to its existence, and certain propsufferings of the Revolution. Their progress erties and powers that cannot be altered or and termination were natural and necessary. suspended by those who may have been enThe multitude, once allowed to overawe the trusted with its management. By studying old government with threats, soon subjected those properties, and directing those powers, the new government to the same degradation; it may be modified and altered to a very conand, once permitted to act in arms, came siderable extent. But they must be allowed speedily to dictate to those who were assem- to develope themselves by their internal enbled to deliberate. As soon as an appeal was ergy, and to familiarize themselves with their made to force, the decision came to be with new channel of exertion. A child cannot be those by whom force could at all times be stretched out by engines to the stature of a commanded. Reason and philosophy were man; or a man compelled, in a morning, to discarded; and mere terror and brute vio- excel in all the exercises of an athlete. Those lence, in the various forms of proscriptions, into whose hands the destinies of a great insurrections, massacres, and military execu nation are committed, should bestow on its tions, harassed and distracted the misguided reformation at least as much patient observnation, till, by a natural consummation, they ance and as much tender precaution as are fell under the despotic sceptre of a military displayed by a skilful gardener in his treatusurper. These consequences, we conceive, ment of a sickly plant. He props up the were obvious, and might have been easily for- branches that are weak or overloaded, and seen. Nearly half a century had elapsed gradually prunes and reduces those that are since they were pointed out in those memo- too luxuriant: he cuts away what is absolutely table words of the most profound and philo- rotten and distempered: he stirs the earth sophical of historians. By recent, as well about the root, and sprinkles it with water, as by ancient example, it was become evi- and waits for the coming spring! He trains dent, that illegal violence, with whatever the young branches to the right hand or to the pretences it may be covered, and whatever left; and leads it, by a gradual and spontaobject it may pursue, must inevitably end at neous progress, to expand or exalt itself, sealast in the arbitrary and despotic government son after season, in the direction which he of a single person." had previously determined: and thus, in the The second inexcusable blunder, of which course of a few summers, he brings it, with the Constituent Assembly was guilty, was out injury or compulsion, into that form and one equally obvious, and has been more fre- proportion which could not with safety have quently noticed. It was the extreme rest-been imposed upon it in a shorter time. The lessness and precipitation with which they proceeded to accomplish, in a few weeks, the legislative labours of a century. Their constitution was struck out at a heat; and their measures of reform proposed and adopted like toasts at an election dinner. Within less than six months from the period of their first convocation, they declared the illegality of all the subsisting taxes; they abolished the old constitution of the States-General; they settled the limits of the Royal prerogative, their own inviolability, and the responsibility of ministers. Before they put any one of their projects to the test of experiment, they had adopted such an enormous multitude, as entirely to innovate the condition of the country,

reformers of France applied no such gentle solicitations, and would not wait for the effects of any such preparatory measures, or voluntary developments. They forcibly broke its lofty boughs asunder, and endeavoured to straighten its crooked joints by violence: they tortured it into symmetry in vain, and shed its life-blood on the earth, in the middle of its scattered branches.

The third great danger, against which we think it was the duty of the intelligent and virtuous part of the Deputies to have provided, was that which arose from the sudden transference of power to the hands of men who had previously no natural or individual influence in the community. This was an evil indeed, which arose necessarily, in some deand from the novelty of the situation in which from the defects of the old government, gree,

well, held the place, and enjoyed all the form of power that had belonged to their predecessors: But as they no longer contained those individuals who were able to sway and influ ence the opinion of the body of the people,' they were without respect or authority, and speedily came to be the objects of public derision and contempt.

the country was placed by the convocation | Parliament, after it was purged by the Indeof the States-General; but it was materially pendents, and the assemblies that met under aggravated by the presumption and improvi- that name, during the Protectorate of Cromdence of those enthusiastic legislators, and tended powerfully to produce those disasters by which they were ultimately overwhelmed. No representative legislature, it appears to us, can ever be respectable or secure, unless it contain within itself a great proportion of those who form the natural aristocracy of the country, and are able, as individuals, to influence the conduct and opinions of the greater part of its inhabitants. Unless the power and weight and authority of the assembly, in short, be really made up of the power and weight and authority of the individuals who compose it, the factitious dignity they may derive from their situation can never be of long endurance; and the dangerous power with which they may be invested, will become the subject of scrambling and conten-mandates of the body shall never pass beyond tion among the factions of the metropolis, and be employed for any purpose but the general good of the community.

As the power and authority of a legislature thus constituted, is perfectly secure and inalienable, on the one hand, so, on the other, the moderation of its proceedings is guaranteed by a consciousness of the basis upon which this authority is founded. Every individual being aware of the extent to which his own influence is likely to reach among his constituents and dependants, is anxious that the

warned, by their own feelings, of any injury which they may be tempted to inflict on it, but would become incapable of performing their functions, if they were to proceed far in debilitating the general system.

that limit, within which obedience may be easily secured. He will not hazard the loss of his own power, therefore, by any attempt In England, the House of Commons is made to enlarge that of the legislature; and feelup of the individuals who, by birth, by for- ing, at every step, the weight and resistance tune, or by talents, possess singly the greatest of the people, the whole assembly proceeds influence over the rest of the people. The with a due regard to their opinions and premost certain and the most permanent influ- judices, and can never do any thing very inence, is that of rank and of riches; and these jurious or very distasteful to the majority.— are the qualifications, accordingly, which re- From the very nature of the authority with turn the greatest number of members. Men which they are invested, they are in fact consubmit to be governed by the united will of substantiated with the people for whom they those, to whose will, as individuals, the greater are to legislate. They do not sit loose upon part of them have been previously accustomed them, like riders on inferior animals; nor to submit themselves; and an act of parlia- speculate nor project experiments upon their ment is reverenced and obeyed, not because welfare, like operators upon a foreign subthe people are impressed with a constitutional stance. They are the natural organs, in fact, veneration for an institution called a parlia-of a great living body; and are not only ment, but because it has been passed by the authority of those who are recognised as their natural superiors, and by whose influence, as individuals, the same measures might have been enforced over the greater part of the kingdom. Scarcely any new power is ac- Such, it appears to us, though delivered quired, therefore, by the combination of those perhaps in too abstract and elementary a form, persons into a legislature: They carry each is the just conception of a free representative their share of influence and authority into the legislature. Neither the English House of senate along with them; and it is by adding Commons, indeed, nor any assembly of any the items of it together, that the influence other nation, ever realized it in all its perfecand authority of the senate itself is made up. tion: But it is in their approximation to such From such a senate, therefore, it is obvious a standard, we conceive, that their excellence that their power can never be wrested, and and utility will be found to consist; and where that it would not even attach to those who the conditions upon which we have insisted might succeed in supplanting them in the are absolutely wanting, the sudden institution legislature, by violence or intrigue; or by any of a representative legislature will only be a other means than those by which they them-step to the most frightful disorders. Where selves had originally secured their nomination. it has grown up in a country in which perIn such a state of representation, in short, the sonal liberty and property are tolerably secure, influence of the representatives is not borrow-it naturally assumes that form which is most ed from their office, but the influence of the favourable to its beneficial influence, and has office is supported by that which is personal a tendency to perpetual improvement, and to to its members; and parliament is chiefly the constant amelioration of the condition of regarded as the great depository of all the the whole society. The difference between authority which formerly existed, in a scat- a free government and a tyrannical one, contered state, among its members. This author-sists entirely in the different proportions of ity, therefore, belonging to the men, and not to their places, can neither be lost by them, if they are forced from their places, nor found by those who may supplant them. The Long

the people that are influenced by their opin ions, or subjugated by intimidation or force. In a large society, opinions can only be reunited by means of representations; and the

that has existed in modern times, it is not to be wondered at if they forgot the slender ties by which they were bound to their constitu

natural representative is the individual whose example and authority can influence the opinions of the greater part of those in whose behalf he is delegated. This is the natural ents. The powers to which they had sucaristocracy of a civilized nation; and its legislature is then upon the best possible footing, when it is in the hands of those who answer to that description. The whole people are then governed by the laws, exactly as each elan or district of them would have been by the patriarchal authority of an elective and unarmed chieftain; and the lawgivers are not only secure of their places while they can maintain their individual influence over the people, but are withheld from any rash or injurious measure by the consciousness and feeling of their dependence on this voluntary deference and submission.

s;

ceeded were so infinitely beyond any thing that they had enjoyed in their individual capacity, that it is not surprising if they never thought of exerting them with the same consideration and caution. Instead of the great bases of rank and property, which cannot be transferred by the clamours of the factions, or the caprice of the inconstant, and which serve to ballast and steady the vessel of the state in all its wanderings and perils, the assembly possessed only the basis of talent or reputation; qualities which depend upon opinion and opportunity, and which may be attributed in the same proportion to an inconIf this be at all a just representation of the venient multitude at once. The whole legisconditions upon which the respectability and lature may be considered, therefore, as comsecurity of a representative legislature must posed of adventurers, who had already attained always depend, it will not be difficult to ex- a situation incalculably above their original plain how the experiment miscarried so com- pretensions, and were now tempted to push pletely, in the case of the French Constituent their fortune by every means that held out Assembly. That assembly, which the enthu- the promise of immediate success. They siasm of the public, and the misconduct of had nothing, comparatively speaking, to lose, the privileged orders, soon enabled to engross but their places in that assembly, or the influthe whole power of the country, cousisted ence which they possessed within its walls almost entirely of persons without name or and as the authority of the assembly itself individual influence; who owed the whole of depended altogether upon the popularity of their consequence to the situation to which its measures, and not upon the intrinsic authey had been elevated, and were not able, thority of its members, so it was only to be as individuals, to have influenced the opinions maintained by a succession of brilliant and of one-fiftieth part of their countrymen.-imposing resolutions, and by satisfying or outThere was in France, indeed, at this time, no doing the extravagant wishes and expectations legitimate, wholesome, or real aristocracy.- of the most extravagant and sanguine populace The noblesse, who were persecuted for bear- that ever existed. For a man to get a lead in ing that name, were quite disconnected from such an assembly, it was by no means necesthe people. Their habits of perpetual resi- sary that he should have previously possessed dence in the capital, and their total independ- any influence or authority in the community; ence of the good opinion of their vassals, that he should be connected with powerful had deprived them of any real influence over families, or supported by great and extensive the minds of the lower orders; and the or-associations. If he could dazzle and overawe ganization of society had not yet enabled the rich manufacturers or proprietors to assume such an influence. The persons sent as deputies to the States-General, therefore, were those chiefly who, by intrigue and boldness, and by professions of uncommon zeal for what were then the great objects of popular pursuit, had been enabled to carry the votes of the electors. A notion of talent, and an opinion that they would be loud and vehement in supporting those requests upon which the people had already come to a decision, were their passports into that assembly. They were sent there to express the particular demands of the people, and not to give a general pledge of their acquiescence in what might there ce enacted. They were not the hereditary patrons of the people, but their hired advocates for a particular pleading. They had no general trust or authority over them, but were chosen as their special messengers, out of a multitude whose influence a. pretensions were equally powerful.

When these men found themselves, as it were by accident, in possession of the whole power of the state, and invested with the absolute government of the greatest nation

in debate; if he could obtain the acclamations of the mob of Versailles, and make himself familiar to the eyes and the ears of the assembly and its galleries, he was in a fair train for having a great share in the direction of an assembly exercising absolute sovereignty over thirty millions of men. The prize was too tempting not to attract a multitude of competitors; and the assembly for many months was governed by those who outvied their associates in the impracticable extravagance of their patriotism, and sacrificed most profusely the real interests of the people at the shrine of a precarious popularity.

In this way, the assembly, from the inherent vices of its constitution, ceased to he respectable or useful. The same causes speedily put an end to its security, and converted it into an instrument of destruction.

Mere popularity was at first the instrument by which this unsteady legislature was gov erned: But when it became apparent, that whoever could obtain the direction or command of it, must possess the whole authority of the state, parties became less scrupulous about the means they employed for that pur pose, and soon found out that violence and