and wide. It is capable of three senses. The King's recognition of the rights of the States-General to a share in the legislation, was a change in the actual government of France, where the whole legislative and executive power had, without the shadow of an interruption, for nearly two centuries been enjoyed by the crown; in that sense the meeting of the StatesGeneral was the Revolution, and the 5th of May was its æra. The union of the three Orders in one assembly was a most important change in the forms and spirit of the legislature; this too may be called the Revolution, and the 23rd of June will be its æra. This body, thus united, are forming a new Constitution; this may be also called a Revolution, because it is of all the political changes the most important, and its epoch will be determined by the conclusion of the labours of the National Assembly. Thus equivocal is the import of Mr. Burke's expressions. To extricate them from this ambiguity, a rapid survey of these events will be necessary. It will prove, too, the fairest and most forcible confutation of his arguments. It will best demonstrate the necessity and justice of all the successive changes in the state of France, which formed what is called the Revolution.' It will discriminate legislative acts from popular excesses, and distinguish transient confusion from permanent establishment. It will evince the futility and fallacy of attributing to the conspiracy of individuals, or bodies, a Revolution which, whether it be beneficial or injurious, was produced only by general causes, and in which the most conspicuous individual produced little real effect.

The Constitution of France resembled in the earlier stages of its progress the other Gothic governments of Europe. The history of its decline and the causes of its extinction are abundantly known. Its infancy and youth were like those of the English

The Vindicia Gallica was published in April, 1791.-ED.

government. The Champ de Mars, and the Wittenagemot, the tumultuous assemblies of rude conquerors,

were in both countries melted down into representative bodies. But the downfal of the feudal aristocracy happening in France before commerce had elevated any other class of citizens into importance, its power devolved on the crown. From the conclusion of the fifteenth century the powers of the States-General had almost dwindled into formalities. Their momentary re-appearance under Henry III. and Louis XIII. served only to illustrate their insignificance: their total disuse speedily succeeded.

6

The intrusion of any popular voice was not likely to be tolerated in the reign of Louis XIV.-a reign which has been so often celebrated as the zenith of warlike and literary splendour, but which has always appeared to me to be the consummation of whatever is afflicting and degrading in the history of the human race. Talent seemed, in that reign, robbed of the conscious elevation, of the erect and manly port, which is its noblest associate and its surest indication. The mild purity of Fenelon, the lofty spirit of Bossuet,—the masculine mind of Boileau, the sublime fervour of Corneille,-were confounded by the contagion of ignominious and indiscriminate servility. It seemed as if the representative majesty' of the genius and intellect of man were prostrated before the shrine of a sanguinary and dissolute tyrant, who practised the corruption of courts without their mildness, and incurred the guilt of wars without their glory. His highest praise is to have supported the stage trick of Royalty with effect: and it is surely difficult to conceive any character more odious and despicable, than that of a puny libertine, who, under the frown of a strumpet, or a monk, issues the mandate that is to murder virtuous citizens, to desolate happy and peaceful hamlets,— to wring agonising tears from widows and orphans. Heroism has a splendour that almost atones for its excesses: but what shall we think of him, who, from

the luxurious and dastardly security in which he wallows at Versailles, issues with calm and cruel apathy his orders to butcher the Protestants of Languedoc, or to lay in ashes the villages of the Palatinate? On the recollection of such scenes, as a scholar, I blush for the prostitution of letters, as a man, I blush for the patience of humanity.

But the despotism of this reign was pregnant with the great events which have signalised our age: it fostered that literature which was one day destined to destroy it. The profligate conquests of Louis have eventually proved the acquisitions of humanity; and his usurpations have served only to add a larger portion to the great body of freemen. The spirit of his policy was inherited by his successor the rage of conquest, repressed for a while by the torpid despotism of Fleury, burst forth with renovated violence in the latter part of the reign of Louis XV. France, exhausted alike by the misfortunes of one war and the victories of another, groaned under a weight of impost and debt, which it was equally difficult to remedy or to endure. But the profligate expedients were exhausted by which successive ministers had attempted to avert the great crisis, in which the credit and power of the government must perish.

The wise and benevolent administration of M. Turgot*, though long enough for his own glory, was

"Louis XVI. called to his councils the two most virtuous men in his dominions, M. Turgot and M. de Lamoignon Malesherbes. Few things could have been more unexpected than that such a promotion should have been made; and still fewer have more discredited the sagacity and humbled the wisdom of man than that so little good should ultimately have sprung from so glorious an occurrence. M. Turgot appears beyond most other men to have been guided in the exertion of his original genius and comprehensive intellect by impartial and indefatigable benevolence. He preferred nothing to the discovery of truth but the interest of mankind; and he was ignorant of nothing of which he did not forego the attainment, that he might gain time for the practice of his duty. Cooperating with the illustrious men who laid the foundation of the science of political economy, his writings were distinguished

too short, and perhaps too early, for those salutary and grand reforms which his genius had conceived, and his virtue would have effected. The aspect of purity and talent spread a natural alarm among the minions of a court; and they easily succeeded in the expulsion of such rare and obnoxious intruders. The magnificent ambition of M. de Vergennes, the brilliant, profuse, and rapacious career of M. de Calonne, the feeble and irresolute violence of M. de Brienne, all contributed their share to swell this financial embarrassment. The deficit, or inferiority of the revenue to the expenditure, at length

from theirs by the simplicity, the geometrical order, and precision of a mind without passion, intent only on the progress of reason towards truth. The character of M. Turgot considered as a private philosopher, or as an inferior magistrate, seems to have approached more near the ideal model of a perfect sage, than that of any other man of the modern world. But he was destined rather to instruct than reform mankind. Like Bacon (whom he so much resembled in the vast range of his intellect) he came into a court, and, like Bacon,-though from far nobler causes, he fell. The noble error of supposing men to be more disinterested and enlightened than they are, betrayed him. Though he had deeply studied human nature, he disdained that discretion and dexterity without which wisdom must return to her cell, and leave the dominion of the world to cunning. The instruments of his benevolence depended on others: but the sources of his own happiness were independent, and he left behind him in the minds of his friends that enthusiastic attachment and profound reverence with which, when superior attainments were more rare, the sages of antiquity inspired their disciples. The virtue of M. de Lamoignon was of a less perfect but of a softer and more natural kind. Descended from one of the most illustrious families of the French magistracy, he was early called to high offices. He employed his influence chiefly in lightening the fetters which impeded the free exercise of reason; and he exerted his courage and his eloquence in defending the people against oppressive taxation. While he was a minister, he had prepared the means of abolishing arbitrary imprisonment. No part of science or art was foreign to his elegant leisure. His virtue was without effort or system, and his benevolence was prone to diffuse itself in a sort of pleasantry and even drollery. In this respect he resembled Sir Thomas More; and it is remarkable that this playfulness the natural companion of a simple and innocent mind-attended both these illustrious men to the scaffold on which they were judicially murdered.”—MS. ED.

rose to the enormous sum of 115 millions of livres, or about 4,750,000l. annually.* This was a disproportion between income and expence with which no government, and no individual, could long continue to exist.

In this exigency there was no expedient left, but to guarantee the ruined credit of bankrupt despotism by the sanction of the national voice. The StatesGeneral were a dangerous mode of collecting it: recourse was, therefore, had to the Assembly of the Notables; a mode well known in the history of France, in which the King summoned a number of individuals, selected, at his discretion, from the mass, to advise him in great emergencies. They were little better than a popular Privy Council. They were neither recognised nor protected by law: their precarious and subordinate existence hung on the nod of despotism.

The Notables were accordingly called together by M. de Calonne, who has now the inconsistent arrogance to boast of the schemes which he laid before them, as the model of the Assembly whom he traduces. He proposed, it is true, the equalisation of imposts and the abolition of the pecuniary exemptions of the Nobility and Clergy; and the difference between his system and that of the Assembly, is only in what makes the sole distinction in human actions-its

end. He would have destroyed the privileged Orders, as obstacles to despotism: they have destroyed them, as derogations from freedom. The object of his plans was to facilitate fiscal oppression: the motive of theirs is to fortify general liberty. They have levelled all Frenchmen as men: he would have levelled them all as slaves. The Assembly of the Notables, however, soon gave a memorable proof, how dangerous are all public meetings of men, even

*For this we have the authority of M. de Calonne himself, p. 56. This was the account presented to the Notables in April, 1787. He, indeed, makes some deductions on account of part of this deficit being expirable but this is of no consequence to our purpose, which is to view the influence of the present urgency,-the political, not the financial, state of the question.