XV. 1794. CHAP. which the system of innovation had occasioned, as the consequence of the resistance which the holders of property had opposed to its progress; and to dazzle the populace by the prospect of boundless felicity, when the revolutionary equality and spoliation for which they contended was fully established. By this means, they effectually secured, over the greater part of France, the cooperation of the multitude; and it was by their physical strength, guided and called forth by the revolutionary clubs and committees universally established, and every where composed of the most ardent of the Jacobin faction, that the extraordinary power of the Terrorists was upheld. 89. What long supported, terminated, ful power. In the later stages of the Revolution, this universally aroused cupidity of the working-classes was powerfully and at length supported, and the strength of Jacobin vigour increased, by the terrors of punishment among the leaders of the populace for the innumerable crimes they had committed. This terror went to such a length as to be often ridiculous : for a few words, from a handful of children or old women, were often sufficient to make the leaders tremble who had defeated the armies of all Europe. This would be inexplicable did we not know that "conscience makes cowards of us all." These terrors and this system succeeded perfectly, as long as the victims of spoliation were the higher orders and considerable holders of property; it was when they were exhausted, and the edge of the guillotine began to descend upon the shopkeepers and the more opulent of the labouring-classes, that the general reaction took place which overturned the Reign of Terror. When society is in so corrupt and profligate a form, that a faction, qualified by their talents and energy to take the lead in public affairs, can be found who will carry on the government on these principles, and they are not crushed in the outset by a united effort of all the holders of property, it can hardly fail of obtaining temporary success. It is well that the friends of order of every political persuasion XV. 1794. and they are to be found as much among the supporters CHAP. of rational freedom as the advocates of monarchical power-should be aware of the deadly weapon which is in the possession of their adversaries, and the necessity of uniting to wrest it from their hands the moment that it is unsheathed. And it would be fortunate if the agents of revolution would contemplate, in the Reign of Terror and the fate of Robespierre, the inevitable effects of using it to their country and themselves. 90. destruction lution of all In contemplating the progress of the Revolution, nothing appears more extraordinary than the universal Universal and rapid destruction which it brought upon all ranks by the Revowho aided it, from the throne to the cottage. The king its supporsupported it and perished; the nobles supported it ters. and perished; the clergy supported it and perished; the merchants supported it and perished; the public creditors supported it and perished; the shopkeepers supported it and perished; the artisans supported it and perished; the peasants supported it and perished. The nobles, whose passion for innovation, and misguided declamations in favour of equality, had first led to the convocation of the States-General, who early set the example of submission to the popular will, and voluntarily abdicated their titles, their privileges, and their rights, to place themselves at the head of the movement, were the first to be destroyed. Decimated by the guillotine, exiles from their country, destitute wanderers in foreign lands, they beheld their estates confiscated, their palaces sold, their children proscribed, themselves undone. While by the waters of Babylon they sat down and wept, they learned to lament the fatal precipitance with which they had excited the ambition of their inferiors, by yielding so precipitately to the public frenzy in favour of democracy. 91. and com The clergy, who had proved themselves the earliest and steadiest friends of freedom, whose junction with the of the clergy Tiers Etat in the hour of peril had first given the latter a mercial superiority over the privileged classes, and compelled the classes. CHAP. ruinous union of all the orders in one chamber, were 1794. XV. utterly destroyed by the party whom they had cherished. Their religion was abolished, their churches were closed, their property was confiscated, themselves were subjected to cruel and tyrannical enactments, compelled to wander in utter destitution in foreign lands, or purchase a miserable pittance by violating their oaths, and earning the contempt of all the faithful among their flocks. The commercial classes, whose jealousy of the unjust privileges of the noblesse had first fostered the flame of liberty, were consumed in the conflagration which it had raised; the once flourishing colonies of the monarchy were in flames, its manufacturing cities in ruins, its private wealth destroyed, its sails banished from the ocean, its naval establishments in decay. Blasted by a ruinous system of paper currency, and crushed in the grasp of a relentless despotism, manufacturing industry was withered, and commercial capital annihilated. The public creditors, once so loud in their praises of the first movements of the Revolution, whose enthusiasm had raised the public funds thirty per cent in one day, when Necker was restored to power, in 1788, on the shoulders of the democracy, were now crushed beneath its wheels; the once opulent capitalists, ruined by the fall of the public securities, deprived of their property by a fictitious paper, paid by their debtors in a nominal currency, had long since sunk to the dust; while the miserable rentiers, cheated out of almost all their income by the payment of their annuities in assignats, were wandering about in utter despair, supporting a miserable existence by charity, or terminating it by suicide. Of the 92. middle and workingclasses. The shopkeepers, whose unanimous shouts had so long supported the Constituent Assembly, whose bayonets had first upheld the fortunes of the Revolution, at last tasted its bitter fruits. As its movement advanced, and they became the objects of jealousy to still lower ambition, the fury of plebeian revenge was directed against their ranks; XV. 1794. insensibly they melted away under the axe of the guillo- CHAP. tine, or were destroyed by the law of the maximum, and lamented with unavailing tears the convulsions which had deprived them at once of the purchasers of their commodities, the security for their property, and the disposal of their industry. The artisans, who had expected a flood of prosperity from the regeneration of society, whose pikes had so often, at Jacobin command, issued from the Faubourgs to overawe the legislature, were speedily steeped in misery from the consequences of their actions. Impatient of restraint, unable to endure a superior, they were at last subjected to the most galling bondage. Destitute of employment, fed only by the bounty of government, they were fettered in every action of their lives. Debarred the power of purchasing even the necessaries of life for themselves, they were forced first to wait half the day as needy suppliants at the offices of the committees who issued their tickets, and then to watch half the night round the bakers' shops, to procure the wretched pittance of a pound of black bread a-day for each member of their families. The peasants expected an immediate deliverance from tithes, taxes, and burdens of every description, as the consequence of their emancipation; and they found themselves ground down by the law of the maximum, forced to sell at nominal prices to the purveyors for the armies, and fettered in every action of their lives by oppressive regulations. They saw their sons perish in the field, or rot in the hospitals, their horses and cattle seized for the forced requisitions, and the produce of their labour torn from them by battalions of armed men, to maintain an indigent and worthless rabble in the great cities of the Republic. Consequences so extraordinary, so unlooked for, to 'every class of society from the throne to the cottage, are singularly instructive as to the effects of revolutions; but yet, if the matter be considered dispassionately, it is evident that they must in every age attend any considerable convulsion in society. When a tree is felled, it is XV. CHAP. the leaves and the extremities which first begin to wither, because they are soonest affected by a stoppage in the 1794. supplies by which the whole is nourished. It is the same 93. All this necessarily with society. Upon the occurrence of a revolution, the results from Working-classes are the earliest to suffer, because they have the develop- no stock to maintain themselves during a period of adverrevolution- sity, and being wholly dependent on the daily wages of ary passion. labour, are the first victims of the catastrophe which has ment of the interrupted it. It is this immediate effect of a revolution, in spreading misery through the labouring poor, which in the general case renders its march irresistible, when not arrested in the outset by a firm combination of all the holders of property. It is it which precipitates society into a series of convulsions, from which it can hardly emerge without the destruction of the existing generation. The shock given to credit, the stoppage to speculation, the contraction to expenditure, is so excessive, that the lower orders are immediately involved in distress; and the same causes which increase their discontent, and augment their disposition to revolt, disable government, by the rapid fall of the revenue, either from administering relief or exerting force. The consequence is, that fresh insurrections take place; more extravagant and levelling doctrines become popular; a lower but more energetic class rises to the head of affairs; desperate measures of finance are adopted, the public expenditure is increased, while the national income is diminished; and, after a succession of vain attempts to avoid the catastrophe, national bankruptcy takes place, and the accumulations of ages are swept off in a general public and private insolvency. "Nemo unquam imperium flagitio quæsitum bonis artibus exercuit."* The different steps of this disastrous but unavoidable progress are clearly marked in the successive stages of the French Revolution. Within six months after the Revolution broke out, it was discovered that the revenue had * "No one ever applied power acquired by wickedness to good purposes." -TACITUS. |