The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume IV Part 18

They all have some sort of communication, just as much or as little as they please, with the centre. By this confinement of all communication to the ruling faction, any combination, grounded on the abuses and discontents in one, scarcely can reach the other. There is not one man, in any one place, to head them. The old government had so much abstracted the n.o.bility from the cultivation of provincial interest, that no man in France exists, whose power, credit, or consequence extends to two districts, or who is capable of uniting them in any design, even if any man could a.s.semble ten men together without being sure of a speedy lodging in a prison. One must not judge of the state of France by what has been observed elsewhere. It does not in the least resemble any other country. a.n.a.logical reasoning from history or from recent experience in other places is wholly delusive.

In my opinion, there never was seen so strong a government internally as that of the French munic.i.p.alities. If ever any rebellion can arise against the present system, it must begin, where the Revolution which gave birth to it did, at the capital. Paris is the only place in which there is the least freedom of intercourse. But even there, so many servants as any man has, so many spies and irreconcilable domestic enemies.

[Sidenote: Gentlemen are fugitives.]

But that place being the chief seat of the power and intelligence of the ruling faction, and the place of occasional resort for their fiercest spirits, even there a revolution is not likely to have anything to feed it. The leaders of the aristocratic party have been drawn out of the kingdom by order of the princes, on the hopes held out by the Emperor and the king of Prussia at Pilnitz; and as to the democratic factions in Paris, amongst them there are no leaders possessed of an influence for any other purpose but that of maintaining the present state of things.

The moment they are seen to warp, they are reduced to nothing. They have no attached army,--no party that is at all personal.

It is not to be imagined, because a political system is, under certain aspects, very unwise in its contrivance, and very mischievous in its effects, that it therefore can have no long duration. Its very defects may tend to its stability, because they are agreeable to its nature. The very faults in the Const.i.tution of Poland made it last; the _veto_ which destroyed all its energy preserved its life. What can be conceived so monstrous as the republic of Algiers, and that no less strange republic of the Mamelukes in Egypt? They are of the worst form imaginable, and exercised in the worst manner, yet they have existed as a nuisance on the earth for several hundred years.

[Sidenote: Conclusions.]

From all these considerations, and many more that crowd upon me, three conclusions have long since arisen in my mind.

First, that no counter revolution is to be expected in France from internal causes solely.

Secondly, that, the longer the present system exists, the greater will be its strength, the greater its power to destroy discontents at home, and to resist all foreign attempts in favor of these discontents.

Thirdly, that, as long as it exists in France, it will be the interest of the managers there, and it is in the very essence of their plan, to disturb and distract all other governments, and their endless succession of restless politicians will continually stimulate them to new attempts.

[Sidenote: Proceedings of princes; defensive plans.]

Princes are generally sensible that this is their common cause; and two of them have made a public declaration of their opinion to this effect.

Against this common danger, some of them, such as the king of Spain, the king of Sardinia, and the republic of Bern, are very diligent in using defensive measures.

If they were to guard against an invasion from France, the merits of this plan of a merely defensive resistance might be supported by plausible topics; but as the attack does not operate against these countries externally, but by an internal corruption, (a sort of dry rot,) they who pursue this merely defensive plan against a danger which the plan itself supposes to be serious cannot possibly escape it. For it is in the nature of all defensive measures to be sharp and vigorous under the impressions of the first alarm, and to relax by degrees, until at length the danger, by not operating instantly, comes to appear as a false alarm,--so much so, that the next menacing appearance will look less formidable, and will be less provided against. But to those who are on the offensive it is not necessary to be always alert. Possibly it is more their interest not to be so. For their unforeseen attacks contribute to their success.

[Sidenote: The French party how composed.]

In the mean time a system of French conspiracy is gaining ground in every country. This system, happening to be founded on principles the most delusive indeed, but the most flattering to the natural propensities of the unthinking mult.i.tude, and to the speculations of all those who think, without thinking very profoundly, must daily extend its influence. A predominant inclination towards it appears in all those who have no religion, when otherwise their disposition leads them to be advocates even for despotism. Hence Hume, though I cannot say that he does not throw out some expressions of disapprobation on the proceedings of the levellers in the reign of Richard the Second, yet affirms that the doctrines of John Ball were "conformable to the ideas of primitive equality _which are engraven in the hearts of all men_."

Boldness formerly was not the character of atheists as such. They were even of a character nearly the reverse; they were formerly like the old Epicureans, rather an unenterprising race. But of late they are grown active, designing, turbulent, and seditious. They are sworn enemies to kings, n.o.bility, and priesthood. We have seen all the Academicians at Paris, with Condorcet, the friend and correspondent of Priestley, at their head, the most furious of the extravagant republicans.

[Sidenote: Condorcet.]

The late a.s.sembly, after the last captivity of the king, had actually chosen this Condorcet, by a majority on the ballot, for preceptor to the Dauphin, who was to be taken out of the hands and direction of his parents, and to be delivered over to this fanatic atheist and furious democratic republican. His untractability to these leaders, and his figure in the club of Jacobins, which at that time they wished to bring under, alone prevented that part of the arrangement, and others in the same style, from being carried into execution. Whilst he was candidate for this office, he produced his t.i.tle to it by promulgating the following ideas of the t.i.tle of his royal pupil to the crown. In a paper written by him, and published with his name, against the reestablishment even of the appearance of monarchy under any qualifications, he says:--

[Sidenote: Doctrine of the French.]

"Jusqu'a ce moment, ils [l'a.s.semblee Nationale] n'ont rien prejuge encore. En se reservant de nommer un gouverneur au Dauphin, ils n'ont pas p.r.o.nonce _que cet enfant dut regner_, mais seulement qu'il _etait possible_ que la Const.i.tution l'y destinat; ils ont voulu que l'education effacat tout ce que _les prestiges du trone_ ont pu lui inspirer de prejuges sur les droits pretendus de sa naissance; qu'elle lui fit connaitre de bonne heure et _l'egalite naturelle des hommes et la souverainete du peuple_; qu'elle lui apprit a ne pas...o...b..ier que c'est _du peuple_ qu'il tiendra le t.i.tre de Roi, et que _le peuple n'a pas meme le droit de renoncer a celui de l'en depouiller_.

"Ils ont voulu que cette education le rendit egalement digne, par ses lumieres et ses vertus, de recevoir _avec resignation_ le fardeau dangereux d'une couronne, ou de la _deposer avec joie_ entre les mains de ses freres; qu'il sent.i.t que le devoir et la gloire du roi d'un peuple libre sont de hater le moment de n'etre plus qu'un citoyen ordinaire.

"Ils ont voulu que _l'inutilite d'un roi_, la necessite de chercher les moyens de remplacer _un pouvoir fonde sur des illusions_, fut une des premieres verites offertes a sa raison; _l'obligation d'y concourir lui-meme, un des premiers devoirs de sa morale; et le desir de n'etre plus affranchi du joug de la loi par une injurieuse inviolabilite, le premier sentiment de son cur_. Ils n'ignorent pas que dans ce moment il s'agit bien moins de former un roi que de lui apprendre _a savoir a vouloir ne plus l'etre_."[32]

Such are the sentiments of the man who has occasionally filled the chair of the National a.s.sembly, who is their perpetual secretary, their only standing officer, and the most important by far. He leads them to peace or war. He is the great theme of the republican faction in England.

These ideas of M. Condorcet are the principles of those to whom kings are to intrust their successors and the interests of their succession.

This man would be ready to plunge the poniard in the heart of his pupil, or to whet the axe for his neck. Of all men, the most dangerous is a warm, hot-headed, zealous atheist. This sort of man aims at dominion, and his means are the words he always has in his mouth,--"_L'egalite naturelle des hommes, et la souverainete du peuple_."

All former attempts, grounded on these rights of men, had proved unfortunate. The success of this last makes a mighty difference in the effect of the doctrine. Here is a principle of a nature to the mult.i.tude the most seductive, always existing before their eyes _as a thing feasible in practice_. After so many failures, such an enterprise, previous to the French experiment, carried ruin to the contrivers, on the face of it; and if any enthusiast was so wild as to wish to engage in a scheme of that nature, it was not easy for him to find followers: now there is a party almost in all countries, ready-made, animated with success, with a sure ally in the very centre of Europe. There is no cabal so obscure in any place, that they do not protect, cherish, foster, and endeavor to raise it into importance at home and abroad.

From the lowest, this intrigue will creep up to the highest. Ambition, as well as enthusiasm, may find its account in the party and in the principle.

[Sidenote: Character of ministers.]

The ministers of other kings, like those of the king of France, (not one of whom was perfectly free from this guilt, and some of whom were very deep in it,) may themselves be the persons to foment such a disposition and such a faction. Hertzberg, the king of Prussia's late minister, is so much of what is called a philosopher, that he was of a faction with that sort of politicians in everything, and in every place. Even when he defends himself from the imputation of giving extravagantly into these principles, he still considers the Revolution of France as a great public good, by giving credit to their fraudulent declaration of their universal benevolence and love of peace. Nor are his Prussian Majesty's present ministers at all disinclined to the same system. Their ostentatious preamble to certain late edicts demonstrates (if their actions had not been sufficiently explanatory of their cast of mind) that they are deeply infected with the same distemper of dangerous, because plausible, though trivial and shallow, speculation.

Ministers, turning their backs on the reputation which properly belongs to them, aspire at the glory of being speculative writers. The duties of these two situations are in general directly opposite to each other.

Speculators ought to be neutral. A minister cannot be so. He is to support the interest of the public as connected with that of his master.

He is his master's trustee, advocate, attorney, and steward,--and he is not to indulge in any speculation which contradicts that character, or even detracts from its efficacy. Necker had an extreme thirst for this sort of glory; so had others; and this pursuit of a misplaced and misunderstood reputation was one of the causes of the ruin of these ministers, and of their unhappy, master. The Prussian ministers in foreign courts have (at least not long since) talked the most democratic language with regard to Prance, and in the most unmanaged terms.

[Sidenote: Corps diplomatique.]

The whole _corps diplomatique_, with very few exceptions, leans that way. What cause produces in them a turn of mind which at first one would think unnatural to their situation it is not impossible to explain. The discussion would, however, be somewhat long and somewhat invidious. The fact itself is indisputable, however they may disguise it to their several courts. This disposition is gone to so very great a length in that corps, in itself so important, and so important as _furnis.h.i.+ng_ the intelligence which sways all cabinets, that, if princes and states do not very speedily attend with a vigorous control to that source of direction and information, very serious evils are likely to befall them.

[Sidenote: Sovereigns--their dispositions.]

But, indeed, kings are to guard against the same sort of dispositions in themselves. They are very easily alienated from all the higher orders of their subjects, whether civil or military, laic or ecclesiastical. It is with persons of condition that sovereigns chiefly come into contact. It is from them that they generally experience opposition to their will. It is with _their_ pride and impracticability that princes are most hurt.

It is with _their_ servility and baseness that they are most commonly disgusted. It is from their humors and cabals that they find their affairs most frequently troubled and distracted. But of the common people, in pure monarchical governments, kings know little or nothing; and therefore being unacquainted with their faults, (which are as many as those of the great, and much more decisive in their effects, when accompanied with power,) kings generally regard them with tenderness and favor, and turn their eyes towards that description of their subjects, particularly when hurt by opposition from the higher orders. It was thus that the king of France (a perpetual example to all sovereigns) was ruined. I have it from very sure information, (and it was, indeed, obvious enough, from the measures which were taken previous to the a.s.sembly of the States and afterwards,) that the king's counsellors had filled him with a strong dislike to his n.o.bility, his clergy, and the corps of his magistracy. They represented to him, that he had tried them all severally, in several ways, and found them all untractable: that he had twice called an a.s.sembly (the Notables) composed of the first men of the clergy, the n.o.bility, and the magistrates; that he had himself named every one member in those a.s.semblies, and that, though so picked out, he had not, in this their collective state, found them more disposed to a compliance with his will than they had been separately; that there remained for him, with the least prospect of advantage to his authority in the States-General, which were to be composed of the same sorts of men, but not chosen by him, only the _Tiers etat_: in this alone he could repose any hope of extricating himself from his difficulties, and of settling him in a clear and permanent authority. They represented, (these are the words of one of my informants,) "that the royal authority, compressed with the weight of these aristocratic bodies, full of ambition and of faction, when once unloaded, would rise of itself, and occupy its natural place without disturbance or control"; that the common people would protect, cherish, and support, instead of crus.h.i.+ng it. "The people" (it was said) "could entertain no objects of ambition"; they were out of the road of intrigue and cabal, and could possibly have no other view than the support of the mild and parental authority by which they were invested, for the first time collectively, with real importance in the state, and protected in their peaceable and useful employments.

[Sidenote: King of France.]

This unfortunate king (not without a large share of blame to himself) was deluded to his ruin by a desire to humble and reduce his n.o.bility, clergy, and big corporate magistracy: not that I suppose he meant wholly to eradicate these bodies, in the manner since effected by the democratic power; I rather believe that even Necker's designs did not go to that extent. With his own hand, however, Louis the Sixteenth pulled down the pillars which upheld his throne; and this he did, because he could not bear the inconveniences which are attached to everything human,--because he found himself cooped up, and in durance, by those limits which Nature prescribes to desire and imagination, and was taught to consider as low and degrading that mutual dependence which Providence has ordained that all men should have on one another. He is not at this minute, perhaps, cured of the dread of the power and credit like to be acquired by those who would save and rescue him. He leaves those who suffer in his cause to their fate,--and hopes, by various mean, delusive intrigues, in which I am afraid he is encouraged from abroad, to regain, among traitors and regicides, the power he has joined to take from his own family, whom he quietly sees proscribed before his eyes, and called to answer to the lowest of his rebels, as the vilest of all criminals.

[Sidenote: Emperor.]

It is to be hoped that the Emperor may be taught better things by this fatal example. But it is sure that he has advisers who endeavor to fill him with the ideas which have brought his brother-in-law to his present situation. Joseph the Second was far gone in this philosophy, and some, if not most, who serve the Emperor, would kindly initiate him into all the mysteries of this freemasonry. They would persuade him to look on the National a.s.sembly, not with the hatred of an enemy, but the jealousy of a rival. They would make him desirous of doing, in his own dominions, by a royal despotism, what has been done in France by a democratic.

Rather than abandon such enterprises, they would persuade him to a strange alliance between those extremes. Their grand object being now, as in his brother's time, at any rate to destroy the higher orders, they think he cannot compa.s.s this end, as certainly he cannot, without elevating the lower. By depressing the one and by raising the other they hope in the first place to increase his treasures and his army; and with these common instruments of royal power they flatter him that the democracy, which they help in his name to create, will give him but little trouble. In defiance of the freshest experience, which might show him that old impossibilities are become modern probabilities, and that the extent to which evil principles may go, when left to their own operation, is beyond the power of calculation, they will endeavor to persuade him that such a democracy is a thing which cannot subsist by itself; that in whose ever hands the military command is placed, he must be, in the necessary course of affairs, sooner or later the master; and that, being the master of various unconnected countries, he may keep them all in order by employing a military force which to each of them is foreign. This maxim, too, however formerly plausible, will not now hold water. This scheme is full of intricacy, and may cause him everywhere to lose the hearts of his people. These counsellors forget that a corrupted army was the very cause of the ruin of his brother-in-law, and that he is himself far from secure from a similar corruption.

[Sidenote: Brabant.]

Instead of reconciling himself heartily and _bona fide_, according to the most obvious rules of policy, to the States of Brabant, _as they are const.i.tuted_, and who in _the present state of things_ stand on the same foundation with the monarchy itself, and who might have been gained with the greatest facility, they have advised him to the most unkingly proceeding which, either in a good or in a bad light, has ever been attempted. Under a pretext taken from the spirit of the lowest chicane, they have counselled him wholly to break the public faith, to annul the amnesty, as well as the other conditions through which he obtained an entrance into the Provinces of the Netherlands under the guaranty of Great Britain and Prussia. He is made to declare his adherence to the indemnity in a criminal sense, but he is to keep alive in his own name, and to encourage in others, a _civil_ process in the nature of an action of damages for what has been suffered during the troubles.

Whilst he keeps up this hopeful lawsuit in view of the damages he may recover against individuals, he loses the hearts of a whole people, and the vast subsidies which his ancestors had been used to receive from them.

[Sidenote: Emperor's conduct with regard to France.]

This design once admitted unriddles the mystery of the whole conduct of the Emperor's ministers with regard to France. As soon as they saw the life of the king and queen of France no longer, as they thought, in danger, they entirely changed their plan with regard to the French nation. I believe that the chiefs of the Revolution (those who led the const.i.tuting a.s.sembly) have contrived, as far as they can do it, to give the Emperor satisfaction on this head. He keeps a continual tone and posture of menace to secure this his only point. But it must be observed, that he all along grounds his departure from the engagement at Pilnitz to the princes on the will and actions of _the king_ and the majority of the people, without any regard to the natural and const.i.tutional orders of the state, or to the opinions of the whole House of Bourbon. Though it is manifestly under the constraint of imprisonment and the fear of death that this unhappy man has been guilty of all those humilities which have astonished mankind, the advisers of the Emperor will consider nothing but the _physical_ person of Louis, which, even in his present degraded and infamous state, they regard as of sufficient authority to give a complete sanction to the persecution and utter ruin of all his family, and of every person who has shown any degree of attachment or fidelity to him or to his cause, as well as competent to destroy the whole ancient const.i.tution and frame of the French monarchy.

The present policy, therefore, of the Austrian politicians is, to recover despotism through democracy,--or, at least, at any expense, everywhere to ruin the description of men who are everywhere the objects of their settled and systematic aversion, but more especially in the Netherlands. Compare this with the Emperor's refusing at first all intercourse with the present powers in France, with his endeavoring to excite all Europe against them, and then, his not only withdrawing all a.s.sistance and all countenance from the fugitives who had been drawn by his declarations from their houses, situations, and military commissions, many even from the means of their very existence, but treating them with every species of insult and outrage.

Combining this unexampled conduct in the Emperor's advisers with the timidity (operating as perfidy) of the king of France, a fatal example is held out to all subjects, tending to show what little support, or even countenance, they are to expect from those for whom their principle of fidelity may induce them to risk life and fortune. The Emperor's advisers would not for the world rescind one of the acts of this or of the late French a.s.sembly; nor do they wish anything better at present for their master's brother of France than that he should really be, as he is nominally, at the head of the system of persecution of religion and good order, and of all descriptions of dignity, natural and inst.i.tuted: they only wish all this done with a little more respect to the king's person, and with more appearance of consideration for his new subordinate office,--in hopes, that, yielding himself for the present to the persons who have effected these changes, he may be able to game for the rest hereafter. On no other principles than these can the conduct of the court of Vienna be accounted for. The subordinate court of Brussels talks the language of a club of Feuillants and Jacobins.

[Sidenote: Moderate party.]

In this state of general rottenness among subjects, and of delusion and false politics in princes, comes a new experiment. The king of France is in the hands of the chiefs of the regicide faction,--the Barnaves, Lameths, Fayettes, Perigords, Duports, Robespierres, Camuses, &c., &c., &c. They who had imprisoned, suspended, and conditionally deposed him are his confidential counsellors. The next desperate of the desperate rebels call themselves the _moderate_ party. They are the chiefs of the first a.s.sembly, who are confederated to support their power during their suspension from the present, and to govern the existent body with as sovereign a sway as they had done the last. They have, for the greater part, succeeded; and they have many advantages towards procuring their success in future. Just before the close of their regular power, they bestowed some appearance of prerogatives on the king, which in their first plans they had refused to him,--particularly the mischievous, and, in his situation, dreadful prerogative of a _veto_. This prerogative, (which they hold as their bit in the mouth of the National a.s.sembly for the time being,) without the direct a.s.sistance of their club, it was impossible for the king to show even the desire of exerting with the smallest effect, or even with safety to his person. However, by playing, through this _veto_, the a.s.sembly against the king, and the king against the a.s.sembly, they have made themselves masters of both. In this situation, having destroyed the old government by their sedition, they would preserve as much of order as is necessary for the support of their own usurpation.

[Sidenote: French amba.s.sador.]

It is believed that this, by far the worst party of the miscreants of France, has received direct encouragement from the counsellors who betray the Emperor. Thus strengthened by the possession of the captive king, (now captive in his mind as well as in body,) and by a good hope of the Emperor, they intend to send their ministers to every court in Europe,--having sent before them such a denunciation of terror and superiority to every nation without exception as has no example in the diplomatic world. Hitherto the ministers to foreign courts had been of the appointment of the sovereign of France _previous to the Revolution_; and, either from inclination, duty, or decorum, most of them were contented with a merely pa.s.sive obedience to the new power. At present, the king, being entirely in the hands of his jailors, and his mind broken to his situation, can send none but the enthusiasts of the system,--men framed by the secret committee of the Feuillants, who meet in the house of Madame de Stael, M. Necker's daughter. Such is every man whom they have talked of sending hither. These ministers will be so many spies and incendiaries, so many active emissaries of democracy. Their houses will become places of rendezvous here, as everywhere else, and centres of cabal for whatever is mischievous and malignant in this country, particularly among those of rank and fas.h.i.+on. As the minister of the National a.s.sembly will be admitted at this court, at least with his usual rank, and as entertainments will be naturally given and received by the king's own ministers, any attempt to discountenance the resort of other people to that minister would be ineffectual, and indeed absurd, and full of contradiction. The women who come with these amba.s.sadors will a.s.sist in fomenting factions amongst ours, which cannot fail of extending the evil. Some of them I hear are already arrived.

There is no doubt they will do as much mischief as they can.