so much contribute to produce the Revolution, as by his selection of his ministers. His choice of the frivolous, selfish, and incompetent Maurepas, was his own act. That intriguing courtier commenced the work of disorganization, which Necker, when recalled too late, vainly attempted to remedy, and which Calonne, by his desperate charlatanism, consummated.*

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In the judgement of an acute witness of the initial movements of the Revolution, who was personally acquainted with the leading members of the National Assembly, the character of the king had less to do in causing the overthrow of the monarchy, than the character of the queen. The king', says Jefferson, in his autobiographical memoir, 'now become a passive machine in the hands of the National Assembly, had he been left to himself, would have willingly acquiesced in whatever they should devise as best for the nation. A wise constitution would have been formed, hereditary in his line, himself placed at its head, with powers so large as to enable him to do all the good of his station, ' and so limited as to restrain him from its abuse. This he would have faithfully administered; and more than this, I do not be'lieve he ever wished. But he had a queen of absolute sway 6 over his weak mind and timid virtue, and of a character the reverse of his in all points. This angel, as gaudily painted in 'the rhapsodies of Burke, with some smartness of fancy, but no 'sound sense, was proud, disdainful of restraint, indignant at all 'obstacles to her will, cager in the pursuit of pleasure, and firm enough to hold to her desires, or to perish in the wreck. inordinate gambling and her dissipations, with those of the Count d'Artois, and others of her clique, had been a sensible "item in the exhaustion of the treasury, which called into action the reforming hand of the nation; and her opposition to it, her 'inflexible perverseness, and dauntless spirit, led herself to the guillotine, drew the king on with her, and plunged the world into crimes and calamities which will for ever stain the pages of 'modern history. I have ever believed, that had there been no 6 queen, there would have been no revolution. No force would 'have been provoked nor exercised. The king would have gone 'hand in hand with the wisdom of his sounder counsellors, who, guided by the increased lights of the age, wished only, with the same pace, to advance the principles of their social constitution.' +

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Her

'I repeat,' remarks Madame de Stael, that no individual can be accused as the author of the Revolution; but, if an individual is to be named, it is upon the misconduct of M. de Calonne that the charge must be fixed.'

+ Jefferson's Memoirs, Vol. I., p. 86.

Another of the real causes' of the French Revolution, the Quarterly Reviewer thinks, was the previous exertions of the philosophers. Upon this point, we shall transcribe the following sensible remarks from the volume before us.

It is not necessary to dwell longer among the so-styled philosophers. Lay aside their pretensions, and we shall see them to be merely a club of authors, living in a vicious age, and joining the sins of a corrupt society to the errors, and weaknesses, and vanities of the literary profession. Yet all the time, because they professed deism or atheism, they fancied themselves superior to the just, and the wise, and the good. They were swine running down a precipice, and thought themselves eagles mounting above the clouds.

Much has been said and written of the conspiracy formed by the philosophers to overturn religion and monarchy. If by conspiracy is meant a plan which was to end in action, it is clear, from the private correspondence of the leaders, that no conspiracy of that kind existed. But it is equally clear, that the design of changing the religious faith of France was digested into a system, and carried on by regular steps. Voltaire considered himself, and was duly acknowledged, as the patriarch of the philosophers; and although his authority was scoffed at by a large number, on account of his superstitious belief in the existence of a God, the two parties combined joined their forces against the national religion; and whatever their form of doubt might be, all agreed in rejecting Christianity. Voltaire was earnest in promoting the union. "Let us march under the same standard,” he wrote to the Abbé Morellet, "without drum or trumpet: encourage your allies, and let our treaties be secret." Writing to D'Alembert concerning his Examen de Lord Bolingbroke, he says, " Women and children will read this work, which is sold cheap. There are now more than thirty tracts which have been circulated in Europe during the two last years: it is impossible that in the end this should not produce some change in the administration of public affairs."

It appears that these tracts were printed at the expense of a club or committee in Paris; that they were furnished at a low price, or gratis, to the hawkers, who sold them in the country for ten sous a volume. The secretary of the club, Le Roi, declared, in 1789, that these works were all composed either by members or under the orders of the society; that when brought to the committee they were abridged, enlarged, made more discreet or more bold as they thought fit. The work then appeared under a title chosen by the society, and was often attributed to an author lately dead. "When we had approved of these books," continues the secretary, we printed on fine or ordinary paper a sufficient number to pay the expense of printing, and afterwards an immense number of copies on the cheapest paper: we sent these last to booksellers or hawkers, who had them for nothing or almost nothing; but they were enjoined to sell them to the people at the lowest price."

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It was impossible, as Voltaire said, that this practice should not in the end produce some change in the administration of public affairs; but what that change was to be, he seems to have been utterly unable

to foresee. For while he looked only to the downfall of Christianity, Rousseau on his side predicted the speedy destruction of monarchy: the nation took their lessons from both, and overthrew monarchy as well as religion.

The doctrines of Diderot and Holbach, although they were never adopted either by the nation or by any governing party, even in the maddest moments of the mad Revolution, contributed to shake the ancient fabric, increasing the tumult, distracting the attention, and promoting the general confusion.' pp. 266-269.

Pernicious, however, as was the influence of the infidel writers of France, we cannot regard it as, properly speaking, a direct cause of the Revolution, but only as a cause of its miscarriage and of the excesses which attended it. There is no reason to suppose that any degree of wisdom or virtue on the part of the French Encyclopedists, could have arrested the marchi of events, or have averted the social conflict. Had not the clergy lost their hold upon the public mind by their secularity and their intolerance, the influence of the infidel writers would have been inconsiderable. The Church had herself created the moral darkness which emboldened the birds of night and the ravening wolves to come forth from their obscene holes and dens; for the foul fiend Infidelity always lurks in the dark shadow of Superstition. We may date from the repeal of the edict of Nantes, which extinguished Protestantism in France, the birth of that monster which was to avenge the crime. The last light glimmered from the cells of Port Royal.' To use the beautiful language of Mr. Hall, the Gallican Church, amidst the silence ' and darkness she had created around her, drew the curtains and "retired to rest. The accession of numbers she gained by sup'pressing her opponents, was like the small extension of length a body acquires by death: the feeble remains of life were extinguished, and she lay a putrid corpse, a public nuisance, filling the air with pestilential exhalations." In those exhalations, the spawn of Atheism was gendered.

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The Quarterly Reviewer talks of irreligion having become the fashion among men of talent in France, suppressing all reference to the causes which had brought up the fashion, as not suitable to his purpose. The Encyclopedists, adds the Tory Writer, had 'discovered that important secret, so well known to our own ' revolutionary party at this time,' (here peeps out the sinister purpose of the article,) that one of the best quarters from whence to assail and overthrow a State, is through its Church 'establishment.' If so, it must be because a Church establishment is the weakest part of a State. And if it is the weakest part, it must either be so through original defect of constitution,

* Works, Vol. IV. p. 72.

or must have been rendered so by corruption.

When was ever an establishment overthrown, that had not first been moved from its only sure basis, the respect and homage of the people? The Church of the people is the bulwark and buttress of the State. Not so, the Feudal Church, when the reign of Feudalism is past. In France, the Establishment had crushed religion, before it became itself exposed to the dangers arising from an anti-Christian conspiracy. 'When Voltaire appeared,' says Lord John Russell, this religion (Christianity) was not, indeed, the creed of the Regent and his mistresses, or of the Cardinal 'Dubois and his followers; but it was the faith of all that was really worthy, high-minded, and respectable in France.' But that 'all' was fast contracting itself within narrower dimensions. The religion of Fenelon had never been that of the French Church; yet, a few such men might have been as the salt that should have stayed its corruption. No Fenelons, no Massillons, no Bourdaloues, however, were left to adorn and uphold that tottering fabric which the first storms of the Revolution overthrew. But then, says the Quarterly Reviewer, there was the 'kind-hearted and only too liberal Bishop of Chartres! We admit that liberality is the next best thing to piety; but it is a miserable substitute for it.

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The only remaining efficient cause' mentioned by the Reviewer, is the example of the United States of America. And this had certainly a more direct influence in producing the revolution in France, than either of the other two. The old 'French Government,' it is remarked, in assisting the North 'American insurgents, imagined that they should strike a heavy 'blow against England. They did so, but it recoiled still more heavily against themselves. A vague idea of republican 'equality spread among the French officers on that service. They were most of them young men, giddy, ignorant, and enthu'siastic. They did not consider the different situation of 'America. . . On returning to France, these new converts to the democratical doctrine did not, at first, indeed, carry these 'views beyond abstract speculation. But, by the long and persevering exertions of the Philosophers, the ground had been already prepared for the evil seed, and the progress of events soon turned these theorists into conspirators.'

*

* Quart. Rev. No. xcvii. p. 106. Lord John Russell, speaking of the state of literature and public opinion in the reigns of Louis XV. and George II., remarks, that the eighteenth century had no predominant interest to contend for. Whether Maria Theresa should have a province the less, or George II. a colony the more, was not a question to excite enthusiasm or absorb attention.' Although this

Still, although the American Revolution, misunderstood, had doubtless a powerful influence in kindling an enthusiasm for liberty, and in creating the strong bias towards republican institutions, it was neither one of the first causes in order of time, nor one of the main springs of the revolutionary change in society that was already in progress, and of which itself was but an indication. Montesquieu and Voltaire had preceded Jefferson and Paine, and the influence of America upon France was a re-action. The Causes of the French Revolution illustrated in the present volume, are such as were in operation before the accession of Louis XVI. in 1774; (the very year in which the American revolution may be said to have commenced;) the historical sketch being brought down no further than the death of his predecessor. On this account, the noble Author must stand excused for not having adverted to it among the causes of the republican movement in France; but his view of those causes, thus narrowed to an antecedent period, must of course be considered as imperfect and defective. Long before republicanism had been imported from America, however, it had found a champion and panegyrist in Montesquieu, whom Lord John characterizes as the writer who threw the first stone at the monarchy of France. Anti-monarchical principles had also found a royal patron in Frederick II., in whose reign Berlin became to the literary men of France, what Versailles had been in the age of Louis Quartorze; and to his example and encouragement, the Quarterly Reviewer thinks, we may certainly ascribe no small share of the fatal success of the soi-disant philosophers. How ridiculous, then, is it to speak of a mere link in the chain of events, as originating all that ensued! Europe had long exhibited at various points, indications of that moral commotion which was at work beneath the surface, and which modified, but not caused, by the different circumstances of the social system, was in America merely an earthquake, in France a volcano.

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Among the concurring causes' of the Revolution, the Quarterly Reviewer admits, was the disorder in the finances, to which ' almost every popular convulsion may in some degree be traced.' The keen remark is cited from Rousseau, that the people are never alive to any attempt upon their liberty, except when it is 'an attempt upon their pockets." 'But this,' adds the Writer, can only be looked upon as the spark which fired the train.

sentence so obviously limits the Author's remark to the first half of the century, the Quarterly Reviewer sneers at the philosophical historian,' for forgetting that the American war of independence and the Revolution of France, were the produce of that century.' A fine specimen this of critical fairness and acumen.

‹ Dans tout pays, le peuple ne s'apercoit qu'on attente à sa libertè, que lorsqu'on attente à sa bourse.'