Volume IV Part 22 (2/2)

I am well apprised that the little intriguers, and whisperers, and self-conceited, thoughtless babblers, worse than either, run about to depreciate the fallen virtue of a great nation. But whilst they talk, we must make our choice,--they or the Jacobins. We have no other option. As to those who in the pride of a prosperity not obtained by their wisdom, valor, or industry, think so well of themselves, and of their own abilities and virtues, and so ill of other men, truth obliges me to say that they are not founded in their presumption concerning themselves, nor in their contempt of the French princes, magistrates, n.o.bility, and clergy. Instead of inspiring me with dislike and distrust of the unfortunate, engaged with us in a common cause against our Jacobin enemy, they take away all my esteem for their own characters, and all my deference to their judgment.

There are some few French gentlemen, indeed, who talk a language not wholly different from this jargon. Those whom I have in my eye I respect as gallant soldiers, as much as any one can do; but on their political judgment and prudence I have not the slightest reliance, nor on their knowledge of their own country, or of its laws and Const.i.tution. They are, if not enemies, at least not friends, to the orders of their own state,--not to the princes, the clergy, or the n.o.bility; they possess only an attachment to the monarchy, or rather to the persons of the late king and queen. In all other respects their conversation is Jacobin. I am afraid they, or some of them, go into the closets of ministers, and tell them that the affairs of France will be better arranged by the allied powers than by the landed proprietors of the kingdom, or by the princes who have a right to govern; and that, if any French are at all to be employed in the settlement of their country, it ought to be only those who have never declared any decided opinion, or taken any active part in the Revolution.[35]

I suspect that the authors of this opinion are mere soldiers of fortune, who, though men of integrity and honor, would as gladly receive military rank from Russia, or Austria, or Prussia, as from the regent of France.

Perhaps their not having as much importance at his court as they could wish may incline them to this strange imagination. Perhaps, having no property in old France, they are more indifferent about its restoration.

Their language is certainly flattering to all ministers in all courts.

We all are men; we all love to be told of the extent of our own power and our own faculties. If we love glory, we are jealous of partners, and afraid even of our own instruments. It is of all modes of flattery the most effectual, to be told that you can regulate the affairs of another kingdom better than its hereditary proprietors. It is formed to flatter the principle of conquest so natural to all men. It is this principle which is now making the part.i.tion of Poland. The powers concerned have been told by some perfidious Poles, and perhaps they believe, that their usurpation is a great benefit to the people, especially to the common people. However this may turn out with regard to Poland, I am quite sure that France could not be so well under a foreign direction as under that of the representatives of its own king and its own ancient estates.

I think I have myself studied France as much as most of those whom the allied courts are likely to employ in such a work. I have likewise of myself as partial and as vain an opinion as men commonly have of themselves. But if I could command the whole military arm of Europe, I am sure that a bribe of the best province in that kingdom would not tempt me to intermeddle in their affairs, except in perfect concurrence and concert with the natural, legal interests of the country, composed of the ecclesiastical, the military, the several corporate bodies of justice and of burghers.h.i.+p, making under a monarch (I repeat it again and again) _the French nation according to its fundamental Const.i.tution_. No considerate statesman would undertake to meddle with it upon any other condition.

The government of that kingdom is fundamentally monarchical. The public law of Europe has never recognized in it any other form of government.

The potentates of Europe have, by that law, a right, an interest, and a duty to know with what government they are to treat, and what they are to admit into the federative society,--or, in other words, into the diplomatic republic of Europe. This right is clear and indisputable.

What other and further interference they have a right to in the interior of the concerns of another people is a matter on which, as on every political subject, no very definite or positive rule can well be laid down. Our neighbors are men; and who will attempt to dictate the laws under which it is allowable or forbidden to take a part in the concerns of men, whether they are considered individually or in a collective capacity, whenever charity to them, or a care of my own safety, calls forth my activity? Circ.u.mstances perpetually variable, directing a moral prudence and discretion, the _general_ principles of which never vary, must alone prescribe a conduct fitting on such occasions. The latest casuists of public law are rather of a republican cast, and, in my mind, by no means so averse as they ought to be to a right in the people (a word which, ill defined, is of the most dangerous use) to make changes at their pleasure in the fundamental laws of their country. These writers, however, when a country is divided, leave abundant liberty for a neighbor to support any of the parties according to his choice.[36]

This interference must, indeed, always be a right, whilst the privilege of doing good to others, and of averting from them every sort of evil, is a right: circ.u.mstances may render that right a duty. It depends wholly on this, whether it be a _bona fide_ charity to a party, and a prudent precaution with regard to yourself, or whether, under the pretence of aiding one of the parties in a nation, you act in such a manner as to aggravate its calamities and accomplish its final destruction. In truth, it is not the interfering or keeping aloof, but iniquitous intermeddling, or treacherous inaction, which is praised or blamed by the decision of an equitable judge.

It will be a just and irresistible presumption against the fairness of the interposing power, that he takes with him no party or description of men in the divided state. It is not probable that these parties should all, and all alike, be more adverse to the true interests of their country, and less capable of forming a judgment upon them, than those who are absolute strangers to their affairs, and to the character of the actors in them, and have but a remote, feeble, and secondary sympathy with their interest. Sometimes a calm and healing arbiter may be necessary; but he is to compose differences, not to give laws. It is impossible that any one should not feel the full force of that presumption. Even people, whose politics for the supposed good of their own country lead them to take advantage of the dissensions of a neighboring nation in order to ruin it, will not directly propose to exclude the natives, but they will take that mode of consulting and employing them which most nearly approaches to an exclusion. In some particulars they propose what amounts to that exclusion, in others they do much worse. They recommend to ministry, ”that no Frenchman who has given a decided opinion or acted a decided part in this great Revolution, for or against it, should be countenanced, brought forward, trusted, or employed, even in the strictest subordination to the ministers of the allied powers.” Although one would think that this advice would stand condemned on the first proposition, yet, as it has been made popular, and has been proceeded upon practically, I think it right to give it a full consideration.

And first, I have asked myself who these Frenchmen are, that, in the state their own country has been in for these last five years, of all the people of Europe, have alone not been able to form a decided opinion, or have been unwilling to act a decided part?

Looking over all the names I have heard of in this great revolution in all human affairs, I find no man of any distinction who has remained in that more than Stoical apathy, but the Prince de Conti. This mean, stupid, selfish, swinish, and cowardly animal, universally known and despised as such, has indeed, except in one abortive attempt to elope, been perfectly neutral. However, his neutrality, which it seems would qualify him for trust, and on a compet.i.tion must set aside the Prince de Conde, can be of no sort of service. His moderation has not been able to keep him from a jail. The allied powers must draw him from that jail, before they can have the full advantage of the exertions of this great neutralist.

Except him, I do not recollect a man of rank or talents, who by his speeches or his votes, by his pen or by his sword, has not been active on this scene. The time, indeed, could admit no neutrality in any person worthy of the name of man. There were originally two great divisions in France: the one is that which overturned the whole of the government in Church and State, and erected a republic on the basis of atheism. Their grand engine was the Jacobin Club, a sort of secession from which, but exactly on the same principles, begat another short-lived one, called the Club of Eighty-Nine,[37] which was chiefly guided by the court rebels, who, in addition to the crimes of which they were guilty in common with the others, had the merit of betraying a gracious master and a kind benefactor. Subdivisions of this faction, which since we have seen, do not in the least differ from each other in their principles, their dispositions, or the means they have employed. Their only quarrel has been about power: in that quarrel, like wave succeeding wave, one faction has got the better and expelled the other. Thus, La Fayette for a while got the better of Orleans; and Orleans afterwards prevailed over La Fayette. Brissot overpowered Orleans; Barere and Robespierre, and their faction, mastered them both, and cut off their heads. All who were not Royalists have been listed in some or other of these divisions. If it were of any use to settle a precedence, the elder ought to have his rank. The first authors, plotters, and contrivers of this monstrous scheme seem to me ent.i.tled to the first place in our distrust and abhorrence. I have seen some of those who are thought the best amongst the original rebels, and I have not neglected the means of being informed concerning the others. I can very truly say, that I have not found, by observation, or inquiry, that any sense of the evils produced by their projects has produced in them, or any _one_ of them, the smallest degree of repentance. Disappointment and mortification undoubtedly they feel; but to them repentance is a thing impossible.

They are atheists. This wretched opinion, by which they are possessed even to the height of fanaticism, leading them to exclude from their ideas of a commonwealth the vital principle of the physical, the moral, and the political world engages them in a thousand absurd contrivances to fill up this dreadful void. Incapable of innoxious repose or honorable action or wise speculation in the lurking-holes of a foreign land, into which (in a common ruin) they are driven to hide their heads amongst the innocent victims of their madness, they are at this very hour as busy in the confection of the dirt-pies of their imaginary const.i.tutions as if they had not been quite fresh from destroying, by their impious and desperate vagaries, the finest country upon earth.

It is, however, out of these, or of such as these, guilty and impenitent, despising the experience of others, and their own, that some people talk of choosing their negotiators with those Jacobins who they suppose may be recovered to a sounder mind. They flatter themselves, it seems, that the friendly habits formed during their original partners.h.i.+p of iniquity, a similarity of character, and a conformity in the groundwork of their principles, might facilitate their conversion, and gain them over to some recognition of royalty. But surely this is to read human nature very ill. The several sectaries in this schism of the Jacobins are the very last men in the world to trust each other.

Fellows.h.i.+p in treason is a bad ground of confidence. The last quarrels are the sorest; and the injuries received or offered by your own a.s.sociates are ever the most bitterly resented. The people of France, of every name and description, would a thousand times sooner listen to the Prince de Conde, or to the Archbishop of Aix, or the Bishop of St. Pol, or to Monsieur de Cazales, then to La Fayette, or Dumouriez, or the Vicomte de Noailles, or the Bishop of Autun, or Necker, or his disciple Lally Tollendal. Against the first description they have not the smallest animosity, beyond that of a merely political dissension. The others they regard as traitors.

The first description is that of the Christian Royalists, men who as earnestly wished for reformation, as they opposed innovation in the fundamental parts of their Church and State. _Their_ part has been _very decided_. Accordingly, they are to be set aside in the restoration of Church and State. It is an odd kind of disqualification, where the restoration of religion and monarchy is the question. If England should (G.o.d forbid it should!) fall into the same misfortune with France, and that the court of Vienna should undertake the restoration of our monarchy, I think it would be extraordinary to object to the admission of Mr. Pitt or Lord Grenville or Mr. Dundas into any share in the management of that business, because in a day of trial they have stood up firmly and manfully, as I trust they always will do, and with distinguished powers, for the monarchy and the legitimate Const.i.tution of their country. I am sure, if I were to suppose myself at Vienna at such a time, I should, as a man, as an Englishman, and as a Royalist, protest in that case, as I do in this, against a weak and ruinous principle of proceeding, which can have no other tendency than to make those who wish to support the crown meditate too profoundly on the consequences of the part they take, and consider whether for their open and forward zeal in the royal cause they may not be thrust out from any sort of confidence and employment, where the interest of crowned heads is concerned.

These are the _parties_. I have said, and said truly, that I know of no neutrals. But, as a general observation on this general principle of choosing neutrals on such occasions as the present, I have this to say, that it amounts to neither more nor less than this shocking proposition,--that we ought to exclude men of honor and ability from serving theirs and our cause, and to put the dearest interests of ourselves and our posterity into the hands of men of no decided character, without judgment to choose and without courage to profess any principle whatsoever.

Such men can serve no cause, for this plain reason,--they have no cause at heart. They can, at best, work only as mere mercenaries. They have not been guilty of great crimes; but it is only because they have not energy of mind to rise to any height of wickedness. They are not hawks or kites: they are only miserable fowls whose flight is not above their dunghill or hen-roost. But they tremble before the authors of these horrors. They admire them at a safe and respectful distance. There never was a mean and abject mind that did not admire an intrepid and dexterous villain. In the bottom of their hearts they believe such hardy miscreants to be the only men qualified for great affairs. If you set them to transact with such persons, they are instantly subdued. They dare not so much as look their antagonist in the face. They are made to be their subjects, not to be their arbiters or controllers.

These men, to be sure, can look at atrocious acts without indignation, and can behold suffering virtue without sympathy. Therefore they are considered as sober, dispa.s.sionate men. But they have their pa.s.sions, though of another kind, and which are infinitely more likely to carry them out of the path of their duty. They are of a tame, timid, languid, inert temper, wherever the welfare of _others_ is concerned. In such causes, as they have no motives to action, they never possess any real ability, and are totally dest.i.tute of all resource.

Believe a man who has seen much and observed something. I have seen, in the course of my life, a great many of that family of men. They are generally chosen because they have no opinion of their own; and as far as they can be got in good earnest to embrace any opinion, it is that of whoever happens to employ them, (neither longer nor shorter, narrower nor broader,) with whom they have no discussion or consultation. The only thing which occurs to such a man, when he has got a business for others into his hands, is, how to make his own fortune out of it. The person he is to treat with is not, with him, an adversary over whom he is to prevail, but a new friend he is to gain; therefore he always systematically betrays some part of his trust. Instead of thinking how he shall defend his ground to the last, and, if forced to retreat, how little he shall give up, this kind of man considers how much of the interest of his employer he is to sacrifice to his adversary. Having nothing but himself in view, he knows, that, in serving his princ.i.p.al with zeal, he must probably incur some resentment from the opposite party. His object is, to obtain the good-will of the person with whom he contends, that, when an agreement is made, he may join in rewarding him.

I would not take one of these as my arbitrator in a dispute for so much as a fish-pond; for, if he reserved the mud to me, he would be sure to give the water that fed the pool to my adversary. In a great cause, I should certainly wish that my agent should possess conciliating qualities: that he should be of a frank, open, and candid disposition, soft in his nature, and of a temper to soften animosities and to win confidence. He ought not to be a man odious to the person he treats with, by personal injury, by violence, or by deceit, or, above all, by the dereliction of his cause in any former transactions. But I would be sure that my negotiator should be _mine_,--that he should be as earnest in the cause as myself, and known to be so,--that he should not be looked upon as a stipendiary advocate, but as a principled partisan. In all treaty it is a great point that all idea of gaining your agent is hopeless. I would not trust the cause of royalty with a man who, professing neutrality, is half a republican. The enemy has already a great part of his suit without a struggle,--and he contends with advantage for all the rest. The common principle allowed between your adversary and your agent gives your adversary the advantage in every discussion.

Before I shut up this discourse about neutral agency, (which I conceive is not to be found, or, if found, ought not to be used,) I have a few other remarks to make on the cause which I conceive gives rise to it.

In all that we do, whether in the struggle or after it, it is necessary that we should constantly have in our eye the nature and character of the enemy we have to contend with. The Jacobin Revolution is carried on by men of no rank, of no consideration, of wild, savage minds, full of levity, arrogance, and presumption, without morals, without probity, without prudence. What have they, then, to supply their innumerable defects, and to make them terrible even to the firmest minds? _One_ thing, and _one_ thing only,--but that one thing is worth a thousand;--they have _energy_. In France, all things being put into an universal ferment, in the decomposition of society, no man comes forward but by his spirit of enterprise and the vigor of his mind. If we meet this dreadful and portentous energy, restrained by no consideration of G.o.d or man, that is always vigilant, always on the attack, that allows itself no repose, and suffers none to rest an hour with impunity,--if we meet this energy with poor commonplace proceeding, with trivial maxims, paltry old saws, with doubts, fears, and suspicions, with a languid, uncertain hesitation, with a formal, official spirit, which is turned aside by every obstacle from its purpose, and which never sees a difficulty but to yield to it, or at best to evade it,--down we go to the bottom of the abyss, and nothing short of Omnipotence can save us.

We must meet a vicious and distempered energy with a manly and rational vigor. As virtue is limited in its resources, we are doubly bound to use all that in the circle drawn about us by our morals we are able to command.

I do not contend against the advantages of distrust. In the world we live in it is but too necessary. Some of old called it the very sinews of discretion. But what signify commonplaces that always run parallel and equal? Distrust is good, or it is bad, according to our position and our purpose. Distrust is a defensive principle. They who have much to lose have much to fear. But in France we hold nothing. We are to break in upon a power in possession; we are to carry everything by storm, or by surprise, or by intelligence, or by all. Adventure, therefore, and not caution, is our policy. Here to be too presuming is the better error.

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