the first period and the skepticism of the second it remains for reason to show us the right way.

Of all the countries of Europe, the one in which the principles. of the French Revolution first attracted attention and provoked examination, was England, caused both by the free discussion of politics, to which she was accustomed, and by her having given us the example of a revolution like our own. In the front rank of those who from the first took our part, and never abandoned our cause, we must place the great orator of the Whig party, the celebrated adversary of Pitt, and one of his successors in the ministry-Fox, whose name should never be forgotten by the French people, so rare among our neighbors are statesmen who have loved France. Among the adversaries of the Revolution who, with an equal strength of conviction, an equal love for their country, and also, as they believed, for liberty and humanity, have, in their speeches as well as by their writings, combated and solemnly reproved this new revolution, so different, in their eyes, from their own, we must place Burke, likewise one of the leaders of the Whig party, bound to Fox, up to that time, by the ties of closest friendship, but who broke with him in a memorable session of Parliament for no other reason than the difference of opinion caused by the events in France.

Fox wrote nothing on the French Revolution; he only developed his opinions in his speeches. But Burke was not content to hurl at it, in speaking, the most exagerated and provoking accusations, but published a very bitter and diffuse pamphlet, which was, however, full of sharp and prophetic views, under the title : Reflections on the Revolution in France, in the form of a letter to a friend.* In this work we see Edmund Burke in the excess of fear lest the new principles might result in England, in a natural confusion of the revolutions which have taken place in the two countries. There were not then wanting, even in England, bold spirits who declared that the English Constitution rested, or seemed to rest, on the principle that men were trying to introduce into France, i. e., the sovereignty of the people, which

*This work produced a great effect in Europe. The American, Tom Paine, refuted it in his book on The Rights of Men. Priestly combated it as well in his Reflections on the Revolution. See in reference to Burke the remarkable study in the Revue of the 1st of Jan. and 1st of Feb., 1853.

might open the way to wonder why they did not draw the same consequences from them.

To this philosophical and radical procedure, which characterized the French Revolution, Burke opposes the historic procedure which characterized the English Revolution. He is far from upholding, as the Jacobins did, the divine right of kings; but he argues that the change of dynasty which took place in the 17th century was only an exceptional lapse from the law of hereditary succession, a lapse which they have tried to make as small as possible. It is easy, as he says, to conciliate the sacred principle of the hereditary nature of the crown with the right to change its application, which should not be done except at the wish of the party at fault, as it was not right to decompose the political body altogether, under the pretext of creating an absolutely new rank. With the common sense which in politics characterizes the English mind, Burke advanced the idea that coördinate with the principles of "conservatism" should be that of "reform," as otherwise a society whose chief is mad or criminal would of necessity perish; but this reform should be limited to what was strictly necessary, and should depart as little as possible from the regular and traditional order. Thus, during the Revolution of 1688, James II. was declared to have abdicated, and in consequence the throne was vacant, which permitted the accession of the next heir, although no one could infer from this particular case an absolute right to "dethrone kings and set them up." By virtue of these principles, Burke denied that the people had a right to change the form of government when they pleased. The mere idea of "a new government" sufficed, in his eyes, to inspire "disgust and horror." English liberty is not an a priori right, it is an "inheritance." It has "its armories, its picture galleries, its inscriptions, its archives, its proofs and its titles."

eloquently, "Our liberty is nobility.

In one word, says Burke

It was this traditional and historic liberty, founded on monuments, and not on abstractions, that Burke would have liked to have seen established in France. He conceded that the old French Constitution had been much damaged, but portions of the walls still remained, and the foundations still stood. He tried then to show how the rights of the nobility, the organization of clergy, the assemblies, the provincial privileges, how all these in

stitutions, more or less altered for the worse by time, could, with some improvements, serve to build up the new edifice. It will always be, without doubt, a cause for regret that the French Revolution did not terminate, as Burke desired, in a lasting compromise between the past and the future, aristocracy and democracy, the king and the people, between traditions and progress, between right and privilege. No doubt a continuous and regular advance in reform is a thousand times better than these rough outbursts which overthrow everything, and have, besides, the misfortune to be followed by contests which sap the vitality of the nation. Happy the nation whose conservatism is reforming and whose reform is conservative.

Yes;

Burke and his modern disciples continually hold up to France the example of England-they talk of nothing but 1688, and seem to forget entirely that there was a year 1641, in which the English were far from showing the same spirit of wise reform without violence, which they exhibited fifty years later. undoubtedly, in 1688 the English made a prudent reform, but it was forty-eight years after the first. Does it not seem to have been a sufficiently radical revolution which decapitated Charles I., established the republic* in England and made Cromwell protector? Supposing that France, as Burke wished, ought to have imitated England, she should have fifty years in which to do it.

*M. Janet very gravely misapprehends the tendencies and the significance of the revolution of 1641. The real representatives at that time of those Jacobins, who gave character to the French Revolution, were the Levellers, whom Cromwell kept down with a strong hand. Carlyle (who has studied both revolutions) describes their secret conspiracy in the army as "a whole submarine world of Calvinistic sansculottism, Five Point Charter and the Rights of Man threatening to emerge two centuries before its time." Their Rousseau, Captain Everard, declared their "intent to restore creation to its former condition," and prophesied "that the time will suddenly be when all men shall willingly come in and give up their lands and estates and submit to community of good." To this end they wished to burn up the records in the Tower, abolish all existing offices and start afresh under a Democratic Republic of Saints. Cromwell's speeches place him on the same ground with Burke; he wished the future of the nation to be in historical continuity with its past; he was no republican, and the Commonwealth under him was no republic; he wished for a hereditary monarchy, but without the name of "kingship," which had become offensive to many who were as little bent on material innovation as himself. The execution of Charles I. could only be regarded as a Jacobinish break with the past by those who regarded the succession of a single house as essential to the historical continuity of the nation, and in that respect 1688 was as bad as 1640. There were even precedents for both in the earlier history of the nation.-ED. P. M.

Up to 1830 England had nothing to reproach us with, for we had done only what she herself did. She gave us the example of the regicide, that of the republic, that of the military government, that of a counter-revolution, and finally that of a new revolution in favor of a younger branch of the royal family. One can understand that France should be reproached to-day for not having yet known how to stop her course with a reasonable variety, but running continually into some new and unknown form; but Burke had not the right; he was in too much of a hurry in asking of France that she should stop short, at first, at that point which it took England fifty years to reach. Besides, did not Burke, preoccupied by the model which he had before his eyes, believe too easily in the possibility of France imitating that example? Montesquieu seems to have seen better when he said: "Abolish in a monarchy the prerogatives of the aristocracy, of the clergy and of the cities, and you will soon have a republic, or, more probably, a despotism." What then did the ancient monarchy do two o: three centuries ago? She destroyed all the hereditary liberties, communes, assemblies, aristocracy, states-general, clergy; all had been effaced, destroyed, leveled for the profit of the Prince. How can the ancient edifice of the French Constitution be rebuilt? Where can we find again those old charters and title papers of that traditional liberty which should be our heritage? Burke is right in saying "that no power, no institution could render them different from that which God, nature and their education and habits made them." Now, in France, just as tradition was a leveler, so royalty had begun the leveling process; democracy was in France just as natural a consequence as aristocracy in England.

It is impossible to misconceive the danger of a revolution which arises from sources too general and too abstract, for, these sources not being precisely defined, each one bounds them according to his own views, and as soon as he believes them to be violated, appeals to the right of force. So it may be right to say with Burke that the French Revolution prepared "a mine," whose explosion would overthrow all governments. This mine "is the rights of man," and he correctly remarks that all these rights are absolute and extreme in theory, whereas in practice they can never be anything "but a mean, a compromise between a good and an

evil, frequently, indeed, between two evils." The theoretic justice of these assertions cannot fail to be recognized. But while we regret that the Revolution was introduced by a metaphysical preface, it would be useless and, perhaps, dangerous to formulate these rights under an absolute rule. After all, it is probably nothing more than a question of rule and conduct, and, perhaps, in examining closely this celebrated decalogue of the rights of the man and the citizen, we would find that these rights were precisely that mean of legitimate and necessary wants to which the manners, civilization and growing interests of men have gradually led their minds, and that if there has been a sudden and frightful explosion it is because these wants have not been satisfied in time. Further, it is necessary in this celebrated declaration to distinguish the principles of political rule from those of civil order. And to the same extent as the first have been powerless, up to this time, to give us a durable order, just so far have the second been lively and energetic, notwithstanding partial and transient mutilations. In fact, the principles of the "Declaration of Rights" are exactly those which have been most firm and persistent in our own revolutions. All the political institutions which have tried to establish themselves have perished, one after another, and it is still an unsolved problem whether a revolution so radical in its nature can originate and support a government; but, while the constitutions fall, the social foundations, laid by the "Declaration of Rights," remain as firm as ever. The charter of 1814 and the constitution of 1852 recognize explicitly the same fundamental principles. Furthermore, these principles are tending toward becoming the rules of all civilized society, and aristocratic England herself bends toward them, little by little, as well as feudal Germany.

While Burke places himself, in his criticism, at the exclusive point of view of history and tradition, the German philosopher, Fichte, then in his youth, and full of that ideologic and speculative frenzy of which the Germans have been so well cured since, sustains the philosophic view with the most fearless freshness, and with an exuberance of abstract phraseology which, at least, was not, in the eighteenth century, the fault of our philosophers. Fichte teaches us that "to judge of the lawfulness of a revolution" we must "arise to the original form of our spirit;"