The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume III Part 24

_Extract of M. de Lally Tollendal's Second Letter to a Friend_.

"Parlons du parti que j'ai pris; il est bien justife dans ma conscience.--Ni cette ville coupable, ni cette a.s.semblee plus coupable encore, ne meritoient que je me justifie; mais j'ai a cur que vous, et les personnes qui pensent comme vous, ne me cond.a.m.nent pas.--Ma sante, je vous jure, me rendoit mes fonctions impossibles; mais meme en les mettant de cote il a ete au-dessus de mes forces de supporter plus longtems l'horreur que me causoit ce sang,--ces tetes,--cette reine _presque egorgee_,--ce roi, amene _esclave_, entrant a Paris au milieu de ses a.s.sa.s.sins, et precede des tetes de ses malheureux gardes,--ces perfides janissaires, ces a.s.sa.s.sins, ces femmes cannibales,--ce cri de TOUS LES eVeQUES a LA LANTERNE, dans le moment ou le roi entre sa capitale avec deux eveques de son conseil dans sa voiture,--un _coup de fusil_, que j'ai vu tirer dans un _des carrosses de la reine_,--M.

Bailly appellant cela _un beau jour_,--l'a.s.semblee ayant declare froidement le matin, qu'il n'etoit pas de sa dignite d'aller toute entiere environner le roi,--M. Mirabeau disant impunement dans cette a.s.semblee, que le vaisseau de l'etat, loin d'etre arrete dans sa course, s'elanceroit avec plus de rapidite que jamais vers sa regeneration,--M.

Barnave, riant avec lui, quand des flots de sang couloient autour de nous,--le vertueux Mounier[A] echappant par miracle a vingt a.s.sa.s.sins, qui avoient voulu faire de sa tete un trophee de plus: Voila ce qui me fit jurer de ne plus mettre le pied _dans cette caverne d'Antropophages_ [The National a.s.sembly], ou je n'avois plus de force d'elever la voix, ou depuis six semaines je l'avois elevee en vain.

"Moi, Mounier, et tous les honnetes gens, ont pense que le dernier effort a faire pour le bien etoit d'en sortir. Aucune idee de crainte ne s'est approchee de moi. Je rougirois de m'en defendre. J'avois encore recu sur la route de la part de ce peuple, moins coupable que ceux qui l'ont enivre de fureur, des acclamations, et des applaudiss.e.m.e.nts, dont d'autres auroient ete flattes, et qui m'ont fait fremir. C'est a l'indignation, c'est a l'horreur, c'est aux convulsions physiques, que le seul aspect du sang me fait eprouver que j'ai cede. On brave une seule mort; on la brave plusieurs fois, quand elle peut etre utile. Mais aucune puissance sous le ciel, mais aucune opinion publique ou privee n'ont le droit de me cond.a.m.ner a souffrir inutilement mille supplices par minute, et a perir de desespoir, de rage, au milieu des _triomphes_, du crime que je n'ai pu arreter. Ils me proscriront, ils confisqueront mes biens. Je labourerai la terre, et je ne les verrai plus. Voila ma justification. Vous pourrez la lire, la montrer, la laisser copier; tant pis pour ceux qui ne la comprendront pas; ce ne sera alors moi qui auroit eu tort de la leur donner."

This military man had not so good nerves as the peaceable gentlemen of the Old Jewry.--See Mons. Mounier's narrative of these transactions: a man also of honor and virtue and talents, and therefore a fugitive.

[A] N.B.M. Mounier was then speaker of the National a.s.sembly. He has since been obliged to live in exile, though one of the firmest a.s.sertors of liberty.

[93] See the fate of Bailly and Condorcet, supposed to be here particularly alluded to. Compare the circ.u.mstances of the trial and execution of the former with this prediction.

[94] The English are, I conceive, misrepresented in a letter published in one of the papers, by a gentleman thought to be a Dissenting minister. When writing to Dr. Price of the spirit which prevails at Paris, he says,--"The spirit of the people in this place has abolished all the proud _distinctions_ which the _king_ and _n.o.bles_ had usurped in their minds: whether they talk of _the king, the n.o.ble, or the priest_, their whole language is that of the most _enlightened and liberal amongst the English_." If this gentleman means to confine the terms _enlightened and liberal_ to one set of men in England, it may be true. It is not generally so.

[95] Sit igitur hoc ab initio persuasum civibus, dominos esse omnium rerum ac moderatores deos; eaque, quae gerantur, eorum geri vi, ditione, ac numine; eosdemque optime de genere hominum mereri; et qualis quisque sit, quid agat, quid in se admittat, qua mente, qua pietate colat religiones intueri: piorum et impiorum habere rationem. His enim rebus imbutae mentes haud sane abhorrebunt ab utili et a vera sententia.--Cic.

de Legibus, l. 2.

[96] Quicquid multis peccatur inultum.

[97] This (down to the end of the first sentence in the next paragraph) and some other parts, here and there, were inserted, on his reading the ma.n.u.script, by my lost son.

[98] I do not choose to shock the feeling of the moral reader with any quotation of their vulgar, base, and profane language.

[99] Their connection with Turgot and almost all the people of the finance.

[100] All have been confiscated in their turn.

[101] Not his brother, nor any near relation; but this mistake does not affect the argument.

[102] The rest of the pa.s.sage is this:--

"Who, having spent the treasures of his crown, Condemns their luxury to feed his own.

And yet this act, to varnish o'er the shame Of sacrilege, must bear Devotion's name.

No crime so bold, but would be understood A Real, or at least a seeming good.

Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name, And free from conscience, is a slave to fame.

Thus he the Church at once protects and spoils: But princes' swords are sharper than their styles.

And thus to th' ages past he makes amends, Their charity destroys, their faith defends.

Then did Religion in a lazy cell, In empty, airy contemplations, dwell; And like the block, unmoved lay: but ours, As much too active, like the stork devours.

Is there no temperate region can be known Betwixt their frigid and our torrid zone?

Could we not wake from that lethargic dream, But to be restless in a worse extreme?

And for that lethargy was there no care, But to be cast into a calenture?

Can knowledge have no bound, but must advance So far, to make us wish for ignorance, And rather in the dark to grope our way, Than, led by a false guide, to err by day?

Who sees these dismal heaps, but would demand What barbarous invader sack'd the land?

But when he hears no Goth, no Turk did bring This desolation, but a Christian king, When nothing but the name of zeal appears 'Twixt our best actions and the worst of theirs, What does he think our sacrilege would spare, When such th' effects of our devotions are?"

_Cooper's Hill_, by Sir JOHN DENHAM.

[103] Rapport de Mons. le Directeur-General des Finances, fait par Ordre du Roi a Versailles. Mai 5, 1789.

[104] In the Const.i.tution of Scotland, during the Stuart reigns, a committee sat for preparing bills; and none could pa.s.s, but those previously approved by them. This committee was called Lords of Articles.

[105] When I wrote this I quoted from memory, after many years had elapsed from my reading the pa.s.sage. A learned friend has found it and it is as follows:--

t?' ??^??? t?' a??t?', ?a?' a?'f? desp?t??a' t?^? e?t??'???, ?a?' ta'

??f?'sata ??'spe? e??e?^ ta' e?p?ta'?ata, ?a?' ?? d?a????'? ?a?' ??

??'?a? ??? a??t??' ?a?' a??a'?????. ?a?' a'??sta d' e??a'te??? pa?'

e??ate'???? ??s??'??s??, ??? e'? ??'?a?e? pa?a' t??^? t??a'?????, ???

de' d?a?????' pa?a' t??^? d?'??? t??^? t????'t???.

"The ethical character is the same: both exercise despotism over the better cla.s.s of citizens; and decrees are in the one what ordinances and arrets are in the other: the demagogue, too, and the court favorite, are not unfrequently the same identical men, and always bear a close a.n.a.logy; and these have the princ.i.p.al power, each in their respective forms of government, favorites with the absolute monarch, and demagogues with a people such as I have described."--Arist. Politic. lib. iv. cap.

4.

[106] De l'Administration des Finances de la France, par Mons. Necker, Vol. I. p. 288.

[107] De l'Administration des Finances de la France, par M. Necker.

[108] Vol. III. chap. 8 and chap. 9.

[109] The world is obliged to M. de Calonne for the pains he has taken to refute the scandalous exaggerations relative to some of the royal expenses, and to detect the fallacious account given of pensions, for the wicked purpose of provoking the populace to all sorts of crimes.

[110] See Gulliver's Travels for the idea of countries governed by philosophers.

[111] M. de Calonne states the falling off of the population of Paris as far more considerable; and it may be so, since the period of M. Necker's calculation.

[112]

Travaux de charite pour subvenir au manque de travail a Livres. s. d.

Paris et dans les provinces 3,866,920 161,121 13 4 Destruction de vagabondage et de la mendicite 1,671,417 69,642 7 6 Primes pour l'importation de grains 5,671,907 235,329 9 2 Depenses relatives aux subsistances, deduction fait des reconvrements qui out en lieu 39,871,790 1,661,324 11 8 ----------------------------- Total 51,082,034 2,128,418 1 8

When I sent this book to the press, I entertained some doubt concerning the nature and extent of the last article in the above accounts, which is only under a general head, without any detail. Since then I have seen M. de Calonne's work. I must think it a great loss to me that I had not that advantage earlier. M. de Calonne thinks this article to be on account of general subsistence; but as he is not able to comprehend how so great a loss as upwards of 1,661,000_l._ sterling could be sustained on the difference between the price and the sale of grain, he seems to attribute this enormous head of charge to secret expenses of the Revolution. I cannot say anything positively on that subject. The reader is capable of judging, by the aggregate of these immense charges, on the state and condition of France, and the system of public economy adopted in that nation. These articles of account produced no inquiry or discussion in the National a.s.sembly.

[113] This is on a supposition of the truth of this story; but he was not in France at the time. One name serves as well as another.

[114] Domat.

[115] Speech of M. Camus, published by order of the National a.s.sembly.

[116] Whether the following description is strictly true I know not; but it is what the publishers would have pa.s.s for true, in order to animate others. In a letter from Toul, given in one of their papers, is the following pa.s.sage concerning the people of that district:--"Dans la Revolution actuelle, ils ont resiste a toutes les _seductions du bigotisme, aux persecutions et aux traca.s.series_ des ennemis de la Revolution. _Oubliant leurs plus grands interets_ pour rendre hommage aux vues d'ordre general qui out determine l'a.s.semblee Nationale, ils voient, _sans se plaindre_, supprimer cette foule d'etabliss.e.m.e.ns ecclesiastiques par lesquels _ils subsistoient_; et meme, en perdant leur siege episcopal, la seule de toutes ces ressources qui pouvoit, on plutot _qui devoit, en toute equite_, leur etre conservee, cond.a.m.nes _a la plus effrayante misere_ sans avoir _ete ni pu etre entendus, ils ne murmurent point_, ils restent fideles aux principes du plus pur patriotisme; ils sont encore prets a _verser leur sang_ pour le maintien de la const.i.tution, qui va reduire leur ville _a la plus deplorable nullite_."--These people are not supposed to have endured those sufferings and injustices in a struggle for liberty, for the same account states truly that they have been always free; their patience in beggary and ruin, and their suffering, without remonstrance, the most flagrant and confessed injustice, if strictly true, can be nothing but the effect of this dire fanaticism. A great mult.i.tude all over France is in the same condition and the same temper.

[117] See the proceedings of the confederation at Nantes.

[118] "Si plures sunt ii quibus improbe datum est, quam illi quibus injuste ademptum est, idcirco plus etiam valent? Non enim numero haec judicantur, sed pondere. Quam autem habet aequitatem, ut agrum multis annis, aut etiam saeculis ante possessum, qui nullum habuit habeat, qui autem habuit amittat? Ac, propter hoc injuriae genus, Lacedaemonii Lysandrum Ephorum expulerunt; Agin regem (quod nunquam antea apud eos acciderat) necaverunt; exque eo tempore tantae discordiae secutae sunt, ut et tyranni exsisterent, et optimates exterminarentur, et preclarissime const.i.tuta respublica dilaberetur. Nec vero solum ipsa cecidit, sed etiam reliquam Graeciam evert.i.t contagionibus malorum, quae a Lacedaemoniis profectae manarunt latius."--After speaking of the conduct of the model of true patriots, Aratus of Sicyon, which was in a very different spirit, he says,--"Sic par est agere c.u.m civibus; non (ut bis jam vidimus) hastam in foro ponere et bona civium voci subjicere praeconis.

At ille Graecus (id quod fuit sapientis et praestantis viri) omnibus consulendum esse putavit: eaque est summa ratio et sapientia boni civis, commoda civium non divellere, sed omnes eadem aequitate continere."--Cic.

Off. 1. 2.