man is born not for himself, but for hu- | taken to heart the "Sketch of Human manity in the sum." He who would un- Progress"! The blood is dried up, but derstand what men mean by "the ideas of the book lives, and human progress con"89" should mark, learn, and inwardly tinues on the lines there so prophetically digest those two small books of Condor- traced. "I have studied history long, cet, the "Life of Turgot," 1787, and the says De Tocqueville, "yet I have never "Historical Sketch of the Progress of the read of any revolution wherein there may Human Mind,” 1795. be found men of patriotism so sincere, of such true devotion of self, of more entire grandeur of spirit."

There had been angry mobs before; some | head of the army, paled and disappeared dispersed with grape-shot or destroyed by | when exposed to the glare of the newly charging cavalry. But this was no mere developed sun of liberty. The discipline hungry crowd, bent upon some specific of the army died out, and with it all the and local vengeance. This was no mere steadying influence which organized troops combination of citizens to rectify some can exercise in any crisis of a nation's pressing evil, to remove some obnoxious life. It was, in fact, the disaffection of tyrant. This cry was the cry of impris- the army that led to the capture of the oned thought. And the enfranchisement Bastile, which a very small amount of milof thought led, as it were by a chemical itary force would have saved; and it was process, to the aggregation of thought. the defection of the Royal Guards that The mind, the will of man in the multi-lost Louis XVI. his head, events which tude, combined into one force which spread abroad far and wide those revoluworked in one direction, no one seemed to tionary ideas and aspirations which have know why, but as unerringly as if it had so materially altered the condition of man been matter worked upon and influenced in Europe. by a law of material nature. It was then the people became irresistible. They ceased to be a mob, with all its uncertain aims and easily influenced whims. They developed into an irresistible force, working, not steadily for now it was with frenzied bounds, and then, again, with the slow progress of a fine-thread screw but still always forwards. This combination of mind and sentiment into one common faith, faith in mankind, led men to realize their strength in a manner and to a degree never before known. I have seen a heavy, frowning rock perched on the edge of a lofty precipice or of some great cataract, where it had evidently been from immemorial time, and where it might have continued for ages had it not been for a push which threw it off its balance forever. And so it was with despotism in July, 1789. It fell before the people the moment it was touched, and its fall taught oppressed man in all civilized States his real power. The bogey became the scorn of all the moment the sheet, which gave it size and seeming importance, had been pulled from it, to allow its naked weakness to be seen by those who had previously shaken in fear and dread before it. The great wave of freedom burst through all the flimsy barriers with which cunning priests and despots had hemmed men in; and on its swirling waters were to be seen the tinsel crowns, and stars, and trappings which had formerly bedecked tyranny.

The standing army, so commonly the cold, obedient, and relentless instrument of despotism, melted away before the sum mer heat of that enthusiasm which seized upon man's thoughts as soon as he was free to think and act. The democratic fire that had taken possession of the public mind was stronger than the formality of military obedience. The hitherto bright flame of personal loyalty to the sovereign as the son of St. Louis, to the king as the VOL. LXVII, 3434

LIVING AGE.

It is a commonplace of to-day that those whom we regard as the titular leaders of the French Revolution exercised but little, if any, actual control over the genius, the spirit of the time, that they were merely men who expressed the general desire by shouting "A la Bastile!" "Aux Invalides!" "A Versailles!" etc. But this clever attempt to deny the permanent effect which the individuality of some of those leaders has had upon the world, crumbles away when the military organization they created is closely studied, not only as to what it was and did then, but as to the new military system which has sprung from it, and what that new system has lately achieved in war and is now bringing about in peace. When the revolutionary leaders preached "liberty, equality, and fraternity" to all the world, urging all peoples to adopt this shibboleth, whatever it meant or still means, and promised to fraternize with all nations struggling to be free, the necessity for a strong army became at once apparent. They might possibly have gone on for years without any regular army, fighting amongst themselves in armed mobs. They might probably have been unmolested from without, as long as they confined themselves to the purification of France by killing only French citizens or murdering and plundering only French nobles; but when the leaders preached this revolutionary jehad throughout all neighboring countries, they invited invasion and rendered war inevitable. For this war mobs would be of no use; they must have armies. But where find them, or how organize them? Up to that time the only conception of an army was an army on the old royal model, with the princes as its leaders and the nobles and gentlemen as its officers. But the guillotine had disposed of all those who could be caught, and those who had escaped swelled the ranks of the hostile

3

The long story of the French revolu tionary wars which followed this first republican victory, shows clearly enough how all-important is enthusiasm to an army. It is indeed the first element of victory, but especially in contests against mere mechanically moving armies, composed of what are commonly called soldiers, dressed and stiffened and drilled in old-fashioned military movements. But the great lesson we learn from that story is, how impotent for any great aim was that mere enthusiasm until it had been trained and controlled by discipline, and until it had been ordered and directed by the genius of great soldiers. The Valmy campaign is one of those many illustrations in history which destroy the modern theory that the deeds and actions of individuals leave but few lasting marks upon human affairs, upon the progress of man. No one will, I think, deny that had the allied army which then invaded France been com

affected by wars; much less of how the conduct of those wars was certain to be influenced by the events of that day. Nevertheless, the germ of the great military change which the French Revolution was to bring about, even as it affects the armies of to-day, may be said to have lain hidden in the clouds of smoke which rolled that day from the heights of La Lune over the plateau of Valmy. Brunswick's army was a collection of highly trained regiments, that existed to do the bidding of princes, to carry out the plans and purposes of statesmen. The levies of Dumouriez had been brought together through the enthusiasm of the people. Republican France now felt the country to be in danger, and the principles contended for during the three previous years to be threatened with extinction. A victory won by Brunswick meant the return to Paris of Condé and his emigrant nobles now fighting in the enemy's ranks. That would mean the re-establishment of ab-manded by a really able general, that army solutism, of the privileged classes, and the death-knell of liberty. All felt this was a war by the people for the people. It was no mere king's war, or a war for the glory and advantage of a dynasty, it was a war for freedom. The spark of freedom struck in Paris had indeed run like wild fire over most of France and lit up a lamp of hope in the hovel of the meanest peasant. The first attempts of the National Convention to make war were, however, grotesque failures. Whole armies ran away from mere detachments of the enemy, screaming, as is the wont of mobs, "We are betrayed," for mobs and the demagogues who direct them are never to blame in their own estimation, no matter how great may be their failure. The remains of the old royal army, without discipline, cohesion, or officers, seem at first to have exercised a baneful influence amongst the newly raised levies, and to have set a bad example of violence and disobedience. It was no wonder that all ranks under Brunswick should have laughed at what they contemptuously termed the "army of lawyers" opposed to them. Forming their opinion upon the old cut-and-dry reasoning deduced from the Seven Years' War, it is no wonder they should have regarded the march upon Paris as a sort of autumn parade. They looked through the great Frederick's spectacles, but not with that power of vision that would have enabled him, had he been there, to estimate the new moral as well as the material forces to be contended with.

would have reached Paris with ease. The raw levies who held their ground on the slopes of Valmy would have streamed to the capital as so many others had done before, ignobly striving to excuse their misconduct by insolent denunciation of their officers. How different would history then have been! It might almost be said that the cautious pedantry of Bruns. wick laid the foundation-stone of the civilization of modern Europe. France, standing alone in Europe, actually poured into the field larger numbers of men than could be mustered by all the allied powers opposed to her. Yet, vast as were the hosts she gathered to her standard, their efforts were generally marred by the license and insubordination of all ranks. The roads to the frontier were filled with crowds of armed men who cheerfully and enthusiastically left their villages and their occupations to fight in the cause of the new faith. General after general was unjustly condemned by the ignoble demagogues who labored at Paris to conceal the great truth which they must have fully realized, that no amount of national enthu siasm will compensate for want of previously worked out and established military organization. Armies suddenly called together as those were in America twentyseven years ago, can do great things when opposed to one another, but when brought face to face with a well-led regular army, they quickly dissolve into the elements of which they were originally composed.

Many were the unsuccessful leaders got rid of by those who ruled in Paris, some

being murdered in cold blood, others not | not retain and utilize the power which had less manifestly murdered by iniquitous been created by the revolutionary exciteadministration, or by semi-official decree. ment without constant appeals to the feelAt length one man perceived that under all this popular fury, this frothy enthusiasm and wild insubordination, there was everywhere present a sense of the impotence to which all this led. His vision pierced beneath the rank vegetation which floated on the surface, and he saw in the clear water beneath a general craving for a really skilful commander, who would not only lead them to victory, but prepare for that victory by enforcing his authority, and by the establishment of order and obedience. Napoleon said, "These men are not at heart sansculottes," when he found that the more he surrounded Josephine with dignity, and enforced respect for the wife of the general commanding, the more popular that general became.

No doubt when he said this, both time and experience had told on the side of military authority, and given substance and cohesion to what had been at first a mere volcanic quagmire. The quagmire had been drained, but the volcanic power was still there, giving life and ceaseless energy to the now consolidated army. The popgun and firework efforts of the old, formally constituted armies of Europe were hopelessly ineffective before such an army, under such a leader, when the magnetic currents of liberty and equality had been skilfully controlled; when they had changed their rôle from that of master and become the willing and obedient servants of genius.

It was the hand of a great leader of men who alone could effect this change, but it is doubtful if even Napoleon, great child of the Revolution as he was, could have created in the year of Valmy an army like that he formed around him during his first Italian campaign. Running all through Napoleon's writings there is the strongest condemnation of undisciplined armies. "You will not find me going to war with an army of recruits," he wrote. He was, however, fully aware of the power which the spirit infused by the Revolution gave to the well-disciplined army. The cry of liberty, the determination to hold on to the enjoyment and satisfaction of equality, and the love of military glory, which had been fostered by a constant reference to classic history, these and the wars that followed upon the proclamation of a republic, all gave a strength and an impulse to the well-disciplined army of Napoleon that had been long unknown in the armies of Europe. He saw he could

ings which had aroused it. Hence, I think, much of the bombast which he made use of in his military orders and proclamations. Men are apt now to forget that, despite all the robberies in Italy by which he fostered the mere love of conquest in France, the mere love of victory in his army, Napoleon actually inspired a passionate enthusiasm for himself in the hearts of thousands of Italians. Nor were the benefits he conferred upon Italy imag inary only. Everywhere he swept away those cruel mediæval abuses which bound the people to the chariot-wheels of the priests and of the privileged classes. The great bulk of the people felt this, whilst it was only the favored few who mourned the loss of the accumulated works of art which, stolen from their houses, went to decorate the French capital. Though eventually he placed the crown of Italy on his own head, he first created that idea of a united Italy, of Italy for the Italians, which has taken form and substance in recent times.

In a similar way and for very similar reasons, this "child of the Revolution succeeded in calling forth for his person a genuine and operative enthusiasm in Belgium and in Poland. Even when the moral stimulus changed its character and became the mere devotion of an army to the cherished leader who showed it the way to victory, the change was one which for many years suited the nature of the popular passions which the Revolution had evoked. Where but in an army fight ing for a common cause could Frenchmen, Italians, Belgians, Poles, Alsatians, and Lorrainers find a common point of union? During all his earlier wars it was as the representative, as the only useful, the only possible agent of the popular enthusiasm that he struck down the armies opposed to him. Gradually the personal element of his power began more and more to assert itself, until at last in the Waterloo campaign his army was no longer the representative of France at all, but a band of his personal adherents as hostile to the liberties for which the Revolution had struggled as it was to England.

In the reaction against his tyranny, Napoleon had evoked a national spirit which at last became as potent as the forces from which he himself sprang, and which he had subsequently taught to obey him. The forms of change which war took throughout all these quickly varying cir