ed a preconceived Jealousy of the King. Plan of the Affembly for leffening the Power of the King, and establishing their own on its Ruins. The various Steps taken in the Profecution of this Plan. Thofe taken by the Court for their Counteraction. Change of Miniftry. Internal Contests and Diffentions. Declaration of War against the Emperor. The King refufes to fanétion Decrees for a Camp near Paris, and against the Refractory Priefts. A furious Multitude breaks into the Palace of the Thuilleries. Remonftrance against this Outrage by the General La Fayette. Decree announcing the Country to be in Danger. ALTHOUGH in all well eftablished governments, and particularly thofe of the monarchical kind, many important events may be traced to the intrigues of courts, and characters, and views of particular perfons, yet there is a tide in the affairs of nations, as well as in thofe of individuals, operating with an uniformity which excludes the poffibility of chance, and flowing from permanent principles. The conftant change in the opinions, paffions, and characters of nations, is not readily perceived in the monotony of peaceable times: but fooner or later it tends to fome im'portant crifis, and is found to be the grand engine that governs the world. It is this that exercises a fovereign influence on the great movements of the human drama: the rife, the convulfions, and the fall of empires. The characters of nations are not formed entirely by moral, but partly by the phyfical caufes of extraction, climate, foil, and other circumftances. The character given of the French nation by Roman hiftorians, men of intelligence and penetration, and who had the beft opportunities of knowing it, belongs to them at this day. They are reftlefs, impatient, and defirous of change: they are the moft univerfally, and the moft fenfibly and fuddenly alive to the spirit and paffion of the times, whatever that may be religion, war, gallantry, colonization, and commerce; or refinement and the advancement of knowledge. Whatever they defire, they purfue with ardour, and in a body. Diftinction and pre-eminence is always their aim, whether in gaiety and frivolity, or arts and arms. If the genius of the times be an ambition of conqueft, and an attachment to warlike chiefs and hereditary fovereign princes, they convert their king almoft literally into an idol: if that of piety and devotion, they are the foremost in the crufade, and the most liberal in their donations to the church: and, as we fee now, if that of liberty and equality, they violate all treaties, invade all property, level all ranks, and give the kits of fraternization to negroes. In fhort, in every thing, good or bad, they must be foremost; with this adjunctive and unfortu nate circumftance, that any thing Cæfar tells us that the Gauls were fickle, given to innovation, and fo turbu ient and feditious, that factions exifted not only in every principality and state, but almoft in every houfe. Polybius, Tacitus, and other writers, give then the fame character. The ftatue of Louis XIV was fet up in the place de Victoire in Paris; and the French officers and others took off their hats and bowed to it as they passed. good good in which they engage, is frequently by excefs converted into evil. It has been remarked by their best hiftorians, that in almoft every stage of their hiftory, they have been fubject to moral and political phrenzies *. This lively nation, deprived of all fhare in the public councils for a fpace of near two hundred years, and bending under the yoke of an arbitrary government, abandoned themselves to frivolity and diffipaAdmirable exertions indeed, were still made in the arts of peace as well as war; but literary genius was for the most part proftituted to adulation, and the military spirit tainted by an unlimited devotion to kings. The greatest heroes blushed not to profefs that the great object of their valour, was the glory of the grand monarch: and their greateft reward, his countenance and fmiles. A new train of thinking introduced a new and correfponding paffion: the defcendants of the Franks and Gauls, the most devoted to the church, the ladies, and the king, running according to their manner from extreme to extreme, but ftill retaining their pretenfions to be the first of all nations, exchanged their religion, their gallantry, and their loyalty, for the coldness of fcepticifm, the rudeness of democracy, and the boldnefs of liberty, perverted into extravagance of conception and defign, and the utmost licentiousness of conduct. It had become fashionable, in the early and long reign of Louis XIV. to patronize the ftudies of both literature and science. It occurred to his great minifter Cardinal Richelieu, as a measure of good policy, to divert the bufy and ardent genius of his countrymen into that channel, from the affairs of ftate. Academies were inftituted in France for the cultivation of the arts and fciences, nobly endowed with pecuniary funds, and farther encouraged by literary honours. Nothing, at firft, could exceed the obfequious adulation of the academicians, who once had it in contemplation to hold out the reward of a golden medal to the best difcourfe or oration on the question, " By which of all his virtues his Majefty was diftinguifhed the moft" But this obfequioufnefs, it feems, was not inconfiftent with vanity f. conceit of this body, as well as of most of those who affumed the character of philofophers, was nourished and heightened, and the number of philofophers daily encreased. Few could be statefmen, or hold the principal places under government; nor yet could very many rife to eminence by the purfuits of commerce but all could be philo. fophers. Philofophy gratified vanity, confoled difappointment, and, as a vehicle of centure, gratified revenge. Philofophy became the tone, the paffion of the nation: and a junto of philofophers, by managing this paffion, which was directed with greater energy against all efta * See Wraxall's Hiftory of France, from the Acceffion of Henry III. to the Death of Louis XIV. preceded by a view of the state of Europe between the middle and the close of the fixteenth century. Sec, particularly, the preface to that valuable work. + The difcuffion of this question was quafhed by the King himfelf. See "The Eulogies, or Lives, of the French Acadeinicians by D'Alembert." blished authority, human and divinc, than to the inveftigation of truth and knowledge, fupplanted the influence of the court, and took violent poffeffion of the French monarchy. Thus did Louis XIV. blindly labour for the overthrow of his throne and thus the French academy, both in its origin and confequences, fhews how much the great affairs of the world are go verned by public opinion. It was the taste and turn of the public for letters, and the example of eftablishments for their promotion, both imported into France from Italy, that fuggefted the idea of the French academy: and it was the general fpirit to which that inftitution gave birth, that produced the change of government in 1789: the fruitful parent of other revolutions. On a furvey of the political hif tory of modern times, certain diftinguifhed names on the theatre, whether in the cabinet or field, are apt to engrofs almost the whole of our attention; while in reality, even those illuftrious characters are only borne along the popular stream, which to vulgar apprehenfion they appear to agitate and direct. The habit of looking up to a Frederic, or a Catherine, was natural in their refpective dominions, where the power of the fovereign had not yet been imperceptibly limited by the influence of civilization, or the diffufion of wealth; and where the extraordinary talents of the rulers connected obedience with admira tion. prudence and penetration, was yet But Catherine and Frederic were both of them warm and powerful patrons of all the arts and feiences; and the latter, with all his Whether the designs of the first movers of the revolution were founded in the fpirit of patriotism, humanity, and univerfal philanthropy, as they pretended; or, on the contrary, in felfifh views, and the ufual pride and arrogance of the French nation, has been made a question. There are not a few See on this fubject, Stewart's Elements of the Philofophy of the Human Mind, ch. iv. writers, writers, and among thefe fome of great celebrity, who will not allow that there ever was any thing good or great in the real intentions of the French philofophers; but trace the revolution to an ambition entertained by those men, of felf-aggrandifement, of extending the boundaries of France, and raifing her to what they conceived to be her juft confideration and pre-eminence in Europe. Which of these was the original and predominant paffion, or how far they may have been mixed and blended in that great mafs of people of various conditions and characters, who forwarded the revolution, it would be ufelefs to enquire, and impoffible to determine. Certain it is, that if a general paffion for political changes had not prevailed in France, it would have been impoffible for the moft profound philofophers, or dexterous politicians, to have raised and turned it to their purpose: and it is equally certain, that profeffions of peace, and the most extenfive philanthropy, were conâdered by thofe who had feized the government, as popular throughout the kingdom. On the 29th of December 1791, a manifeito, in the name of the French nation, drawn up by Condorcet, decreed by the National Affembly, and approved of by the King, was addreffed by all ftates and nations, and ordered to be delivered by the French ministers to all the courts of Europe, In this paper it was declared, , among many other particulars, "That the French nation, proud of having regained the rights of nature, would never outrage them in other men. That fhe would prefent to the world the new fpectacle of a nation, truly free, fubmiffive to the laws of juftice amid the ftorms of war; and, refpecting everywhere, on every occafion towards all men, the rights which are the fame to all. Peace (which impofture, intrigue, and treafon have banished) will never cease to be the first of our wifhes: France will take up arms, compelled to do fo, for her fafety and her internal peace; and fhe will be feen to lay them down with joy, the moment he is affured that there is nothing to fear for that liberty, for that equality, which is now the only element in which Frenchmen can live. She dreads not war, but he loves peace; fhe feels that fhe has need of it; and fhe is too confcious of her strength to fear making the avowal. When, in requiring other nations to refpect her repofe, fhe took an eternal engagement not to trouble others, the might have thought that the deferved to be liftened to; and that this folemn declaration, the pledge of tranquillity, and the happinels of other nations, might have merited the affection of the princes who govern them: but fuch of those princes, as apprehend that France would endeavour to excite internal agitations in other countries, fhall learn that the cruel right of reprifal, juftified by ufage, condemned by nature, will not make her refort to the means em * Agreeably to an article, in the French Conftitution, under the head" of the connexion of the French nation with other nations," the French nation renounces the undertaking of any war with a view to make conquefts; and will never employ its forces against the liberties of any people. B3 ployed ployed against her own repofe; that he will be just to those who have not been fo to her; that fle will everywhere pay as much refpect to peace as to liberty; and that the men, who ftill prefume to call themfelves the mafters of other men, will have nothing to dread from her but the influence of her example. Refigned to the evils which the enemies of the human race united against her, may make her fuffer, the will triumph over them by her patience and her courage: Victorious, fhe will feek neither indemnification nor vengeance. Such are the fentiments of a generous people, which their repretentatives do themfelves honour in expreffing. Such are the projects of the new political fyftem which they have adopted; to repel force, to refift oppretion, to forget all when they have nothing more to fear; and to treat adverfaries, if vanquished, as brothers; if reconciled, as, friends, Thefe are the wifhes of all the French; and this is the war which they declare against their enemies." human race from many phyfical evils, and advance the improvement, not only of their intellectual powers, but their moral fentiments; and, on the whole, promote the felicity and the perfection of human nature. It was not only in France that the most fanguine hopes were entertained from the revolution of 1789, thus fyftematized and improved by the constituent, and adopted by the legislative affembly, and from the political efforts of human reafon in general. A fpirit of political enthufiafm appeared in most countries of Europe; in Germany, Sweden, Britain, and Ireland, and even Spain and Italy. In Germany, and particularly in the Pruffian dominions, a fect arofe, though under different denominations*, who, afcribing the greater part of human calamities to bigotry, fuperftition, arbitrary power, and error, endeavoured to awaken their cotemporaries to the most animated hopes from political improvement, a philofophical education, and in all things, a vigorous exercife of reafon. They profeffed, at the fame time, the warmeft fentiments of humanity, and a fpirit of univerfal philanthropy. They paffed from the glory of arms, and the pride of conqueft, even to the patient, meek, and long-fuffering difpofition recommended in the goipel: but, even. It was this fchool that formed the in this new career of moderation, famous Anacharfis Clootz, who bethey were full the first of nations. ing elected a member of the legif They had renounced conqueft, dif- lative aflembly, aflumed the charactinction of rank, and the grandeur ter of friend and orator of the huof courts and kings: but they glo- man race; and inculcated in his ried in the humility of equality, fpeeches univerfal fraternization they triumphed in the triumph of with all tribes and nations. philofophy, and in fetting an example, and taking the lead in a reformation of the world; a reformation that fhould redeem the In England, the leading doctrines. of the French revolution were maintained by feveral members of parliament, as well as by a confi The Illumines, the difciples of Kant, and others. parliament, |