They accordingly are at the head of the first revolutionary movement. But the passions which have been awakened, the hopes that have been excited, the disorder which has been produced in their struggle, lay the foundation of a new and more terrible convulsion against the rule which they have established. Every species of authority appears odious to men who have tasted of the license and excitation of a revolution. The new government speedily becomes as unpopular as the one which has been overthrown; the ambition of the lower orders aims at establishing themselves in the situation in which a successful effort has placed the middling. A more terrible struggle awaits them than that which they have just concluded with arbitrary power,-a struggle with superior numbers, stronger passions, more unbridled ambition; with those whom moneyed fear has deprived of employment, revolutionary innovation filled with hope, inexorable necessity impelled to exertion. The natural result is the flinging of the middle classes into the graves of the higher; the perpetual contest of villainy with villainy; the general bankruptcy of honour, integrity, and public confidence; the extinction of religion in fanaticism or atheism; and the fall of freedom under the general dissolution of society, the conquest of an invader, or the despotic power of usurpation."

In marking the progress of crime, the first and chief source of all the guilt and errors of the Revolution is stated, and truly stated, to be that first and favourite object of popular rapine, the Church.

tues. By exciting the fury of public resentment against the Church, it created a fatal schism between public activity and private virtue, sapped the foundations of domestic happiness, by introducing infidelity and doubt into private life, and overwhelmed the land with a flood of licentiousness, by removing the counterpoise created by religion to the force of the passions. Ages must elapse, and possibly a new Revolution be undergone, before the license given to the passions can be checked, or the general dissolution of manners be prevented.* These consequences were as unnecessary as they are deplorable. There was no necessity for the spoliation, because, if the exigencies of the Exchequer required an immediate supply, it should have been raised by a general contribution of all classes of the State, not made good by the destruction of one. There was no moderation in the mode in which it was effected; because, even sup. posing the measure unavoidable, it should have been carried into effect without injuring the rights of the present incumbents. It ill became à people insurgent against the oppression of their government, to commence their reign by an act of injustice greater than any of which they complained."

"The capital error of the people consisted in the confiscation of the property of the Church. This first flagrant act of injustice produced consequences the most disastrous upon both the progress of the Revolution and the direction of the public mind. By arraying the cause of freedom against that of religion, it separated the two mighty powers which move mankind, and whose combined strength, in former ages, had established the fabric of civil liberty on the basis of private vir

The great moral of the Revolution is the tendency of public crime to deepen perpetually. Contrary to the physical law, the gravitation perpetually increases as we approach the centre; every plunge is of more sullen darkness, and more inextri cable return.

"From the commencement of the contest, each successive class that had gained the ascendency in France, had been more violent and more tyrannical than that which preceded it. The convocation of the StatesGeneral, and the oath in the Tennis Court, were the struggles of the nation against the privileged classes; the 14th of July, and the capture of the Bastile, the insurrection of the middling class against the Government; the 10th of August, the revolt of the populace against the middling class and the constitutional

throne. The leaders of the National Assembly were, in great part, actuated by the purest motives, and their measures chiefly blameable for the precipitance which sprang from inexperienced philanthropy;" (In this we think otherwise. The National Assemby were a set of Atheists and profligates, whose measures would have been beyond the pale of forgiveness, but for the crimson atrocities of their successors; and whose memory deserves no farther mention than such as belongs to a miscellany of coxcombs and scoundrels;) "the measures of the Convention, tinged by the ferocity of popular ambition, and the increasing turbulence of excited talent; the rule of the Jacobins, signalized by the energy of unshackled guilt, and stained by the cruelty of emancipated slaves."

Nothing can be more true or of higher political import than the following vigorous reflections :-"It is a total mistake to suppose that the great body of mankind are capable of judging correctly on public af fairs. No man, in any rank, ever found a tenth part of his acquaintance fitted for such a task. If the opinions of most men on the great questions which divide society are examined, they will be found to rest on the most flimsy foundations; early prejudices, personal animosity, private interest, constitute the secret springs from which the opinions flow which ultimately regulate their conduct. Truth, indeed, is in the end triumphant; but it becomes predominant only on the decay of interest, the experience of suffering, or the extinction of passion. These considerations furnish the eternal and unanswerable objection to democratical institutions. Wherever Governments are directly exposed to their control, they are governed, during periods of tranquillity, by the cabals of interest; during moments of turbulence, by the storms of passion. America, at present, exhibits an example of the former; France, during the reign of terror, an instance of the latter.

"Those who refer to the original equality and common rights of mankind, would do well to shew that men are equal in abilities as well as in birth; that society could exist

with the multitude really judging for themselves on public affairs; that the most complicated subject of human study, that in which the greatest range of information is involved, and the coolest judgment required, can be adequately mastered by those who are disqualified by nature from the power of thought, disabled by labour from acquiring knowledge, and exposed by situation to the seductions of interest; that the multitude, when exercising their rights, are not following despotic leaders of their own creation; and that a democracy is not, in Aristotle's words, an aristocracy of orators, sometimes interrupted by the despotism of a single orator.'

""

All this is unquestionable; or, let the man who doubts it, listen to the harangues that take place daily in London at Common-halls, aggregate meetings, and Crown and Anchor dinners. "There divine nonsense reigns." The most vulgar absurdities on the most important subjects would be the definition of the whole labour of popular council. Corn laws, Imposts, Treaties, the principles of Government, the compositions of laws, are the topics handled by the shoemakers and men-milliners of Cheapside; the orator, some Alderman, wise as his own counter, or some attorney's clerk, deliberative as his own desk. The problem that might bewilder the brains of a school of philosophers, has no conceivable difficulty for the sages of the stall; the most knotty of political problems is solved by a shout; the state of the nation is settled by a shew of hands; and Cabinets are growing wrinkled over questions already decided in the sensorium of every apprentice from Whitechapel to Westminster. Heaven defend us from such legislation! the legislation of incorrigible ignorance, guided by blind presumption, and inflamed by furious passions.

But it is still to be remembered by those who are above ignorance, presumption, and passion, that it will be their lot to be trampled on by the whole three, if they either succumb to them, pretend to despise them, or attempt to compromise with them. This is one of the living lessons of the French Revolution. This is one of the true fruits that may be plucked even

among the apples of Sodom. This is one of the fortunate discoveries of the great conflagration; if it have scorched many a noble tree of the political forest, it has burnt up the brushwood, it has laid open to us the nests where the vipers engender, and if we suffer them to sting our generation, the fault is our own. In meeting the Revolution, we must adopt the secret of its strengh. The motto of honest and wise men must be "De l'audace, de l'audace, encore de l'audace." In the hour of impending change, and we may read the coming of that hour without looking for our omens to the sky, those who sleep on and take their rest, are only preparing themselves for the shame that attends the fugitive, or the useless sorrow of fidelity too late, and energy awakened in vain.

But those efforts are only for the masculine minds that have been reared in masculine virtue; to pay homage to whom it is due, and lay the foundation of honouring the King in fearing God. It would be a fine subject for a man of Mr Alison's ability and principle to contrast the course of the French Revolution with that of the reign of Charles the First, the reckless fury of the loose minds of France with the grave determination of the English revolters, the hot thirst of civil blood, with the reluctant expenditure of life even after the successes of the field, the burning vice, the bitter mockings, the remorseless massacres, with the moderated violence and the calm victory. He would find the true cause of this extraordinary distinction, in the different rank held by religion in the mind of the two nations. Superstition and fanaticism are both culpable guides. But while fanaticism only perverts the nobler powers of the heart, superstition dissolves them away altogether. Fanaticism destroys selfishness, the antagonist of all the virtues. Superstition stifles every manly pulse and generous feeling in selfishness. France drank from the alembic of the passions a draught of fire; England, from a stream troubled by many feet, but whose fount was in heights inaccessible to the impurities of man.

The flaunting noblesse of France,

and her ignorant and indolent priesthood, were totally insufficient for a struggle which demanded the energy and resolution of religious principle. They had built on the sand, and their house might have decayed by the common action of nature; still less could it resist the blackened surges that came rolling round it from every quarter of the horizon. Both classes were destroyed with a suddenness and facility that must excite the wonder of all but those who know the infinite feebleness of wealth and station when stript of personal virtue. The philosophers, the liberals, the reformers, the whole race of Utopia, followed them with still more contemptible rapidity. They were crushed like flies, in the first grasp of the populace. "It was early seen in the Revolution," says Louvet, "that the men with the poniards would sooner or later carry the day against the men with the principles; and that the latter, upon the first reverse, must prepare for exile or death." The men of principles here spoken of, were the theoretical robbers, who wanted only courage to be the practical robbers. The men of the poniard were their pupils, who possessed the courage, and who, to the rejoicing of all human justice, practised the first lessons of the knife upon their masters.

The three leaders of Jacobinism, Danton, Marat, and Robespierre, are sketched with a masterly hand— three frowning effigies of gigantic iniquity. We have nothing yet in our revolutionary gallery, that can stand beside their strong relief and towering villainy. The three were of different divisions of the tribe. Danton was the street ruffian, par excellence, strong-built, bold, and brawling; he loved blood, but loved it for the sake of its riot. Robespierre was the conspirator of the drawing-room, affecting dress, and the manners of society; he loved blood for the sake of its power. Marat was the cut-throat of the night cellar, ragged, squalid, and hideous; he loved blood for the sake of seeing it flow. Each had his appropriate speech, but the burden of them all was massacre. "The 10th of August," exclaimed Danton, "has divided the country into two parties, and the ruling force is too inconsi

derable to give us any chance of success. My advice is, that to disconcert their measures, and arrest the ene my, we must strike terror into the royalists;-yes, I repeat it, we must strike terror." This terror was, throwing all the rich or respectable men in Paris into prison, and there murdering them.

Robespierre's speech was:-"Blood has not yet flowed. The people remain without vengeance. No sacrifice has yet been offered to the manes of those who died on the 10th of August. And what have been the results of that immortal day? A tyrant has been suspended. Why has he not been dethroned and punished?”

Marat, too, had his speech; still more explicit." There is no safety," exclaimed the demoniac, "but in destroying all the enemies of the Revo lution. There will be no security to the State, until 280,000 heads have fallen."

echoing with the trampling of armed men, singing songs of blasphemy and revolution. At three, while it was, of course, still totally dark, the massacre at the prison of the Abbaye began by torchlight! The victims were successively turned out loose into the front of the prison and hack. ed to pieces, while the survivors, crowded in the casements, were looking at the fate reserved for themselves. But the model should be given in all its details, for the honour of man, woman, and France. After the massacre had continued for a considerable time, popular impartiality claimed its rights.

We must have one example more from the history of popular supremacy, in the hands of the most exquisitely polished people of Europe. By order of the Parisian Municipality, or Common Council, all the bankers, opulent merchants, leading barristers, private gentlemen, &c., the entire professional class of Paris, had been suddenly seized and flung into the prisons. This was the ty ranny of perfect freedom, but it was not unmixed with justice, however unknown to the tyranny. All this class in Paris had distinguished themselves by Republicanism. They were all orators, essayists, tabletalkers, and many of them private suborners of the rabble excesses. While they were priming the mine against the King and the Nobles, the charge blew up, and they were astonished to find that it could scorch the engineers. They were astonished to find that the proclamation of plunder could be translated against themselves; and that the men whom they had sent to dismantle the Tuileries, could make no distinction between the gold of a King and of a Banker. The prisons groaned with the multitude which was now poured into them. But the pressure was not to continue long. At two in the morning of the 2d of September, 1792, the prisoners heard the cannon fire, the tocsin sound, and the streets

"The populace in the Court of the Abbaye complained that the foremost only got a stroke at the prisoners, and that they were deprived of the pleasure of murdering the aristocrats. It was, in consequence, agreed, that those in advance should only strike with the backs of their sabres, and that the wretched victims should be made to run the gauntlet, through a long avenue of murderers, each of whom should have the satisfaction of striking them before they expired. The women in the adjoining quarter of the city made a formal demand to the commune for lights to see the massacres ! And a lamp was, in consequence, placed near the spot where the victims issued; amid the shouts of the spectators, benches, under the charge of sentinels, were next arranged, pour les messieurs,' and 'pour les dames,' to witness the spectacle! And as each successive prisoner was turned out of the gate, yells of joy rose from the multitude; and when he fell, they danced like cannibals round his remains! Billaud Varennes soon after arrived, wearing his magisterial scarf; mounted on a pile of dead, he harangued the people in the midst of this infernal scene!

"

Citizens, you have exterminated some wretches. You have saved your country. The Municipality is at a loss how to discharge its debt of gratitude to you. I am authorized to offer each of you twenty-four francs, which shall be instantly paid. (Loud applause.) Respectable citizens, continue your good work, and acquire new titles to the homage of your country. "In those slaughters, above five thousand persons perished

lace is a wild beast, but that a French populace is a much worse thing. We look in vain in history for parallels to the horrid delight with which the French populace have in all ages revelled in civil blood. The massacres of other lands have been directed against invaders, strangers, or declared oppressors. In France, the torrent of blood has been poured from the breasts of men living in the common bonds of society, sons of the same soil with their murderers. The St Bartholomew, the Armagnac slaughters, the September massacres, were all perpetrated by the hands of the populace of France; and we firmly believe that they would have been perpetrated by no other populace within or without the bounds of the civilized world. The Parisians excuse themselves by saying that the September days were the work of a band of hired assassins. Of the hiring there can be no doubt. But by whom were they hired? and by whom were they permitted to earn their horrid hire? The tide of blood continued to flow unchecked for four days, in a city of 600,000 inhabitants, and with a National Guard of 50,000 men!

in the prisons. The massacre continued with daily regularity from the 2d to the 6th of September, when, what were called the State prisoners, the "suspected of being suspicious" had fallen, the patriots recollected that there was another prison, the Bicetre, where a great number of the ordinary felons of Paris, Mr Alison says, "several thousands," were immured. In other times the mob would have had a fellow-feeling, and let out their kindred knaves. But this was the day of patriotism. The truth was, they had enjoyed themselves so much in the previous slaughter, that they could no more abstain from it than a tiger from the blood of man. The brute is libelled by the comparison. The assassins rushed to the Bicetre; its walls were strong; it had once been a fortress. Its tenants were of a different kind from the helpless nobles and gentlemen of the city prisons. They struggled fiercely, the mob were long repelled, and the minor felons would have carried the day, but for cannon which the assailants now brought up to batter the walls. Thegates were finally forced, and all within them slaughtered. Mr Alison does not mention, what we believe to have been the case, that the Bicetre was the receptacle of many of the unfortunate women who molest the streets of Paris, and of the still more pitiable lunatics and idiots who so remarkably abound in France. Those wretched beings were all involved in the promiscuous massacre. Mr Alison, justly reprobating the authors of those dreadful crimes, seems disposed to throw the stigma less on France than upon human nature; and quotes the burning of the unfortunate Albigenses, and the Athenian decree for the extirpation of the Mytilenians. But the justification is scarcely valid, which can find no ground but in Heathenism, or in France itself. In his conception, "cruelty is not the growth of any particular country; it is not found in France in a greater degree than it would be in any other state similarly situated. It is the unchaining the passions of the multitude, which in all ages produces this effect." Against this we must protest, for the honour of human nature. We are perfectly satisfied that a popu

The Liberals were still the ruin of the Monarchy. The Jacobins were the open enemies, they might have been crushed. The Girondists were the men of sentiment, who talked heroics and acted treason. On the trial of the King, they boasted of their zeal for his protection, and voted him guilty. Forty-six of these polished murderers were on the list for his death. Louis died, on the 21st of January, with a dignity that largely retrieved his physical character, and a calmness that was the noblest answer to his accusers. The Girondists, the smiling and haranguing hypocrites who had consigned him to his grave, within six months were dragged to the scaffold, amid the roar of the multitude.

Then came the Reign of Terror to decimate the populace, then the punishment of the decimators. The scene is brief, but triumphant. " The conspirators, finding themselves abandoned, gave themselves up to despair. The National Guard rushed up the stair, and entered the room where Robespierre and the leaders of the revolt were assembled. Robes