REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. Letters on the Events which have passed in France, since the Restoration in 1815. By HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS. London: Baldwin & Co., 1819. pp. 200. THE subject of liberty, or the deliverance of mankind from political and religious oppression, had charms which could captivate the mind of Cowper in its soundest moments; and if even he, who was remarkable for his piety, could exelaim, “Oh, could I worship aught beneath the skies That earth has seen or fancy can devise, Thine altar, sacred liberty, should stand Built by no mercenary vulgar hand ;' what might not be expected from minds at least equally sanguine with that of the poet, but whose ardour was unchecked by religion, and whose passions were unrestrained by a sense of their accountableness to the supreme Lord of the universe? When, therefore, the French revolution not only presented to the undisciplined minds of men in France the prospect, long anxiously looked for, of expatiating at large in the field of intellectual and civil freedom, but removed every restraint on the most unbounded licence of political and moral speculation, no wonder that they were hurried into the greatest extravagancies and excesses; until the very persons who had laboured but too success. fully to undermine every principle of religious reverence among the people, and to sweep away even the forms of Christianity, were seen prostrating themselves, along with their deluded followers, beforę a wretched woman whom they chose to deify as the goddess of reason and liberty. The sensation, which was first felt in France, and which, with a force like that of an earthquake, CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 224. destroyed her government and convulsed the very frame of society, was soon communicated to other countries, and to our own in particular, which, from the proximity of its situation and the nature of its institutions, was the least likely to escape the shock. Few among us, excepting some of the more violent opposers of all change, could discover only unmixed evil in the first attempts of the French to cast off the yoke of despotic power. The impassioned votary of freedom anticipated the establishment, in a purer and more perfect form, of that free constitution under which he had reposed sufficiently long to be able coldly to criticise its defects, and to undervalue its benefits. Even the constitutional admirer of our own monarchy indulged the hope of better days for France, notwithstanding the alarming eccentricities which marked the first movements of her liberated population. Nay, some of our ablest statesmen, forgetful, or rather ignorant, of what is in man, were so dazzled by the splendid prospect which the early progress of the revolution opened to their view, as scarcely to be sensible of its evils, and lent themselves, without reserve, to the support of a cause which promised liberty, and with it, as they conceived, all imaginable blessings, to thirty millions of men. A few individuals were so fascinated by this promise of unalloyed good, as to renounce their own country for France, in the hope of witnessing and sharing there a new golden age. Among these, was Helen Maria Williams. Under the influence of this fascination, she went into voluntary exile during the first fervours of the revolution; and surrendered the antiquated and contemned rights of Britons, in order to enjoy with the French 3 X their new-born rights of man, and, we presume, of woman too. On her expatriation she took up her abode at Paris; and though there she beheld the murderous conflict of parties, and was herself once a prisoner, and in imminent peril of her life, she seems to have continued constant in her attachment to her adopted country, throughout all the changes which its government has undergone. She has also, we believe, in turn eulogized them all. And we now find the devoted admirer of the republic of 1792, the less impassioned indeed, but no less decided, eulogist of the constitutional monarchy of 1818. She is now no longer the partizan of unbridled and impracticable freedom, but the sober advocate of a liberty sanctioned by law, and the permanence of which is to be secured by imposing restraints alike on the power of the sovereign and the licence of the people. Thus happily revolutionized herself, she comes forward, with the advantages of matured experience, to narrate the events which took place subsequently to the extraordinary return of Napoleon to France in 1815. It is but fair, however, that the author herself should be heard with respect to her former and Here we present sentiments. must recollect, that it was not royalty alone, or its supporters, which suffered in the overthrow of the ancient monarchy. In the conflicts of parties, many of the first leaders and their friends fell a sacrifice to the ambition of rival chiefs; and those who survived, whether they had suffered only by sympathy with others, or had been exposed to peril themselves, may be supposed to be in a fitter state than before, dispassionately to judge of that revolution which had been instrumental in producing such evils. The calamities of political, as well as the trials of religious life, have a wonderful effect in calming enthusiasm, and making men see things as they are." To this source may be traced, as we conceive, the following observations of our author, in the opening of her little work. "I disavow your ill-founded conjectures respecting my prolonged silence: the interest I once took in the French revolution is not chilled, and the enthusiasm I once felt for the cause of liberty still warms my bosom. Were it otherwise, I might perhaps make a tolerable defence, at least for a woman, by reverting to the past, and recapitulating a small part only of all I have seen, and all I have suffered. But where the feelings and affections of the mind have been powerfully called forth by the attraction of some great object, we are not easily cured of long cherished predilection. Those who believed as firmly as myself in the first promises of the revolution, have perhaps sometimes felt, like me, a pang of disappointment; but no doubt continue, like me, to love liberty, quand même, to use the famous unfinished phrase of an ultra, applied to the king-it may have given some cause of complaint." pp. 1, 2. The interest excited by the singular return of Napoleon from Elba, was soon swallowed up in the great events which followed that occurrence, and which terminated in his abdication of the imperial throne. Our readers, however, can scarcely wish to go over ground so often trodden. We will only remark, in passing, that when our author ascribes the rapid and unresisted overthrow of the Bourbon power, which then took place, exclusively to the adoption of ultra-royalist projects, we suspect that there is about as much truth in the statement, as there is in the opinion, even now current among the liberaux of France, that had Napoleon given the nation, bona fide, a free constitution, at the meeting "Champ de convened on the Mars," the combined efforts of the whole people would have been secured, and would have retained him on the imperial throne against the efforts of Europe in arms. Disgust was doubtless excited by the injudicious measures, and still ing, and full of the ardour of independ ence. They know that liberty is the prize, for which many of their parents have bled in the field, or perished on the modern history, of which their country scaffold. But they are too well read in has been the great theatre, to seek for liberty where it is not to be found. They do not resemble that misled and insensate multitude who, in the first years of the revolution, had just thrown off their chains, and profaned in their ignorance the cause they revered. The present race are better taught, and will not bow the knee to false idols. They rally around the charter as their tutelar divinity, whom it is their duty to obey, and their privilege to defend." pp. 7-9. more by the extravagant doctrines and overweening pretensions, of the royalists; but in the present case, not a little is also to be ascribed to the humiliation attending the capture of Paris, and the compulsory establishment of Louis XVIII. on the throne; and much also to the discontent with the new order of things, both of those restless spirits who had followed Bonaparte's standard, but who were now reduced to a state of inaction and to the necessity of living on their half-pay; and of those able intriguers who had held distinguished places under the ex-emperor, and were sufficiently attached to his person, or sufficiently alive to their own interests, to long ardently for his restoration to power. But, in addition to every motive which the desire of revenge or of future glory might present to one part of the nation, and the effect which a dread of the designs of the ultra-royalist party might have on others, there is one cause assigned by our author why the mass of the population should not have been at that time attached to the Bour-only take a deep interest in politibons, which we believe to be justly conceived. one "Above all," she observes, class of the nation was found in vigorous resistance to all ultra-royalist measures; that class is composed of the whole youth of France. Among them there is no dissenting voice, no hostile opinion. You may still inquire in French society what are the political sentiments of a man in advanced life; but if the person with whom you converse be young, inquiry is useless: that person is a lover of liberty. The French youth have lived only under the new order of things, and have not been taught to respect the old. They have imbibed the principles of the revolution, without having felt its evils. Its pitiless tempest rocked their cradle, and passed harmless over their heads. They are not like those who, having passed through the revolution, are weary of the conflict, and disposed to leave the reformation of the world to whomsoever it may concern. The minds of the French youth are unsubdued by suffer It certainly is singular, but it is not the less true, that such a spirit as the author here describes should have grown up under the iron rule of Bonaparte. Whether she does not give the youth of France more credit than they deserve, for the extent of their information and the sobriety of their judgment, is, to say the least, questionable. Still, however, the general fact cannot be contested, that they not cal questions, but that their leanings are all on the side of liberty, which they have learnt also to distinguish for which it was mistaken in the from the unbridled licentiousness early years of the revolution. Our author devotes several chapters of her work to the disturbances which took place at Nismes subsequently to the return of the Bourbons. Partial as she may be presumed to be to the cause of the Protest ants, her statements fall far short of proving that they are to be ascribed to religious, rather than to political, differences. But, in whatever cause, or complication of causes, they originated, they were entirely confined, even according to our author, to Nismes and its immediate vicinity, no symptom of any similar dissension between the Catholic and Protestant population having been exhibited in other parts of France. She shews also, in the most satisfactory manner, that the government of Louis XVIII. not only did not indulge any feeling of hostility towards the Protestants generally, but that they made the most strenuous ef forts to protect those of Nismes from injury and insult; and that the failure of these efforts was to be attributed solely to the criminal neglect of the local authorities. Mrs. Williams traces the feud which produced at Nismes tlie sanguinary events of 1815, to the commencement of the revolution. In 1790, a counter-revolution was meditated in the south, by the ultraroyalists of that day, of which Nismes became the focus. Those who engaged in this plan were, as might be supposed, exclusively Catholics, and many, if not all of them, probably of the most bigoted class. They found themselves opposed, in the first instance, chiefly, if not exclusively, by the Protestants. It was no wonder, then, that the ran. cour which was necessarily produced by their political differences, should have been aggravated by this circumstance; and that their hostility to each other should even have acquired, in consequence of it, a character of peculiar ferocity. The two parties were ranged against each other on questions which involved not only an entire change in the civil constitution of France, but the degradation of the hierarchy, the entire confiscation of the property of the church, and even the desecration of the Catholic faith. The Protestants were the weaker party, and many of them were assassinated by the Catholics. The atrocities practised at this time appear to have been dreadful. "One incident, among numbers, will serve to show the fanaticism that prevailed at that period. A youth of fifteen years of age, passing by a military post, was asked, whether he was a catholic or a protestant: he answered, that he was a protestant;-upon which the soldier fired at him, and the boy fell dead at 34, 35. in all its fury;" and it was now, Civil war at length "broke forth adds Mrs. Williams, "the turn of the Protestants to triumph." They lics as favoured the revolution, and were joined by such of the Cathowere supported by regular troops sent against the insurgents. What followed, is thus described by our author: "The oligarchie party surprised the unarmed citizens, repulsed the first regular troops sent against them, and at length transformed the house of their chief into a fortress, communicating with the towers of the Dominican church, from whence they directed a murderous fire on the people. corps de reserve of the patriot troops was posted in a square, opposite the convent killed by a ball fired from the convent. of the Capuchins, and an officer was The The troops, thus irritated, broke open the convent doors, and five monks were massacred. A heavy discharge of musketry was at the same time fired from the towers of the Dominicans, where the counter-revolutionists were entrenched, waiting for fresh succours: but the patriots forced this position: headed by an officer of artillery, they dragged their cannon to the place, and in a short time silenced the fire from the towers. The convent still remained in hostility: propositions of capitulation were offered to the besieged, and answered by a heavy fire from the house. Ladders were then applied to the walls, and after a bloody siege the convent was stormed. The leaders had, for the most part, fled; but some who had not found means to escape were put to the sword. Thus a just triumph was sullied by a crime: it was indeed committed in the fury of re. venge-it was an act of vengeance for unparalleled enormities; but what provocation can palliate a deed of cruelty, or change the nature of guilt?" pp. 36, 37. To these transactions may unquestionably be traced, even in the estimate of our author herself, the deplorable events which took place in 1815. Many of the chief agents in the earlier scenes of blood now again appeared on the stage; and it is impossible not to perceive that this local feud, however it may have been embittered by religious distinctions, bore far more of the character of a ferocious spirit of revenge on the part of the Catholic assailants, than of religious persecution. The Protestants, it is true, were most barbarously treated; but it is impossible not to perceive, even in our author's account, that, however revolting the ferocity which was displayed by the lower classes of the Catholics, and however detestable the supineness and indifference which were manifested on the occasion by the local authorities, the Protestants were not free from blame, and that they even became in their turn the aggressors. We should have expected, from the very nature of the two religions, that the conduct of the Catholics should have been more cruel and relentless than that of their Protestant countrymen. One pleasing instance, however, of a contrary kind is narrated. "At Uzes, a town of Languedoc, composed chiefly of protestants, many per sons were massacred in broad day before the house of the sub-prefect. That frigid spectator of crimes was punished by no court of justice, because there is no penal statute against a hard heart. But public indignation has found out a mode of being avenged. The square where the sub-prefect lived has changed its name, and the passer-by now sees written against the wall, in large characters, that seem to wear a tint of blood, the name of the sub-prefect. "There was another spectator of the murder at Uzes, by whom they were witnessed with far different emotions. A catholic priest, the Abbé Payer, (let us remember that name in our orisons!), implored the assassins to show mercy he threw himself on his knees before them-he pleaded, with all the energy of virtue, but in vain." pp. 52, 53. On the whole, we remain convinced that the odium of these transactions ought to be thrown far more upon political than reli gious animosity. The dreadful persecutions which the Protestants of France had experienced in former times, are too well known to require to be specified; and up to a very late period of French history, they had existed only as by sufferance in that country. The revolution had raised them to the enjoyment of equal rights with their Catholic brethren; and the ex-emperor, in particular, had done much to conciliate their attachment. By the recollection, therefore, of former evils, and the sense of recent advantages; by religion, almost as well as by policy; they were decided friends to the revolutionary order of things; and they were likely, on that account, to be particularly obnoxious to the ultra-royalist party, which had unfortunately gained an ascendancy in La Gard, before the government was sufficiently fixed to repress their violence. This circumstance, together with the remembrance of former injuries, mutually inflicted as each was in power, will account for the late effusion of blood, without resorting to Catholic bigotry as a cause-except in as far as religion may have been artfully employed to excite the populace to deeds of violence. What, indeed, was said by Tacitus, with his usual sagacity, upon the conflict between the partizans of Nero and Galba, may be applied by accommodation to these feuds in the south of France, to whatever cause they are to be referred. "Veterem inter Lugdunenses Viennensesque discordiam proximum bellum accenderat; multæ invicem clades, crebrius infestiusque quam ut tantùm propter Neronem Galbamque pugnaretur." How curious is the coincidence of place in these ancient and modern massacres! and who knows, that, if the antiquary were to trace them to their source through the records of remote history, they might not be found to spring from the same political feud, transmitted through successive generations, and in a form adapted |