But there are many points of view in which this Revolution may be considered.
When despotism has established itself for ages in a country, as in France, it is not in the person of the king only that it resides.It has the appearance of being so in show, and in nominal authority; but it is not so in practice and in fact.It has its standard everywhere.Every office and department has its despotism, founded upon custom and usage.Every place has its Bastille, and every Bastille its despot.The original hereditary despotism resident in the person of the king, divides and sub-divides itself into a thousand shapes and forms, till at last the whole of it is acted by deputation.
This was the case in France; and against this species of despotism, proceeding on through an endless labyrinth of office till the source of it is scarcely perceptible, there is no mode of redress.It strengthens itself by assuming the appearance of duty, and tyrannies under the pretence of obeying.
When a man reflects on the condition which France was in from the nature of her government, he will see other causes for revolt than those which immediately connect themselves with the person or character of Louis XVI.
There were, if I may so express it, a thousand despotisms to be reformed in France, which had grown up under the hereditary despotism of the monarchy, and became so rooted as to be in a great measure independent of it.Between the Monarchy, the Parliament, and the Church there was a rivalship of despotism;besides the feudal despotism operating locally, and the ministerial despotism operating everywhere.But Mr.Burke, by considering the king as the only possible object of a revolt, speaks as if France was a village, in which everything that passed must be known to its commanding officer, and no oppression could be acted but what he could immediately control.Mr.Burke might have been in the Bastille his whole life, as well under Louis XVI.
as Louis XIV., and neither the one nor the other have known that such a man as Burke existed.The despotic principles of the government were the same in both reigns, though the dispositions of the men were as remote as tyranny and benevolence.
What Mr.Burke considers as a reproach to the French Revolution (that of bringing it forward under a reign more mild than the preceding ones)is one of its highest honors.The Revolutions that have taken place in other European countries, have been excited by personal hatred.The rage was against the man, and he became the victim.But, in the instance of France we see a Revolution generated in the rational contemplation of the Rights of Man, and distinguishing from the beginning between persons and principles.
But Mr.Burke appears to have no idea of principles when he is contemplating Governments."Ten years ago," says he, "I could have felicitated France on her having a Government, without inquiring what the nature of that Government was, or how it was administered." Is this the language of a rational man?
Is it the language of a heart feeling as it ought to feel for the rights and happiness of the human race? On this ground, Mr.Burke must compliment all the Governments in the world, while the victims who suffer under them, whether sold into slavery, or tortured out of existence, are wholly forgotten.
It is power, and not principles, that Mr.Burke venerates; and under this abominable depravity he is disqualified to judge between them.Thus much for his opinion as to the occasions of the French Revolution.I now proceed to other considerations.
I know a place in America called Point-no-Point, because as you proceed along the shore, gay and flowery as Mr.Burke's language, it continually recedes and presents itself at a distance before you; but when you have got as far as you can go, there is no point at all.Just thus it is with Mr.Burke's three hundred and sixty-six pages.It is therefore difficult to reply to him.But as the points he wishes to establish may be inferred from what he abuses, it is in his paradoxes that we must look for his arguments.
As to the tragic paintings by which Mr.Burke has outraged his own imagination, and seeks to work upon that of his readers, they are very well calculated for theatrical representation, where facts are manufactured for the sake of show, and accommodated to produce, through the weakness of sympathy, a weeping effect.But Mr.Burke should recollect that he is writing history, and not plays, and that his readers will expect truth, and not the spouting rant of high-toned exclamation.
When we see a man dramatically lamenting in a publication intended to be believed that "The age of chivalry is gone! that The glory of Europe is extinguished for ever! that The unbought grace of life (if anyone knows what it is), the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone!" and all this because the Quixot age of chivalry nonsense is gone, what opinion can we form of his judgment, or what regard can we pay to his facts? In the rhapsody of his imagination he has discovered a world of wind mills, and his sorrows are that there are no Quixots to attack them.But if the age of aristocracy, like that of chivalry, should fall (and they had originally some connection) Mr.
