That the nobles and middle classes, shut out as they had been for so long from public life, should exhibit this singular inexperience, was not surprising; but it was singular that the members of the government, min- isters, magistrates, and intendants, should be equally blind. Of these, many were able men at their trade; AND THE REVOLUTION. 177 they were thoronghly versed in the administrative sci- ence of the period; but of the great science of govern- ment in the abstract, of the art of watching social move- ments and foreseeing their results, they were as igno- rant as the people themselves; for this branch of the business of public men can only be taught by the prac- tical working of free institutions.
This is finely illustrated in the memorial which Tur- got presented to the king in 1775, in which he advised the creation of a representative assembly. It was to be freely elected by the people, to meet for six weeks ev- ery year, but to exercise no effective authority. It might devote attention to administrative details, but without meddling with the government; express opin- ions rather than wishes; discuss laws without making them. "Such an assembly," said he, "would enlight- en the king without fettering him, and afford a safe outlet for public opinion. It would not be authorized to impede necessary measures of government, and could be easily restrained within these limits by his majesty in case it tried to overstep them." It would have been difficult to misapprehend more grossly the tendency of a measure or the spirit of the age. Toward the close of revolutions, it has certainly often happened that Tur- got's idea has been successfully realized, and the forms of liberty established without its substance. Augus- tus performed the experiment with success. When a nation has been wearied by long strife, it will submit to be duped for peace sake; and in these cases history apprises us that it will suffice to collect from various parts of the country obscure dependents of government, and make them play the part of a political assembly H2 178 THE OLD REGIME at a fixed rate of wages. This performance has been repeatedly witnessed. But at the outset of revolutions such enterprises have always failed, for they excite, without satisfying, men's minds. Every citizen of a free state is aware of this truth; Turgot, with all his administrative science, knew nothing of it.
Now when it is borne in mind that this French na- tion, which had so little experience of business, and so little to do with its own government, was, at the same time, the most literary of all the nations of the world, it may be easily understood how writers became a pow- er in the state, and ended by ruling it.
In England, political writers and political actors were mixed, one set working to adapt newddeas to practice, the other circumscribing theory by existing facts; whereas in France, the political world was di- vided into two separate provinces without intercourse with each other. One administered the government, the other enunciated the principles on which govern- ment ought to rest. The former adopted measures ac- cording to precedent and routine, the latter evolved general laws, without ever thinking how they could be applied. The one conducted business, the other directed minds.
There were thus two social bodies: society proper, resting on a framework of tradition, confused and ir- regular in its organization, with a host of contradic- tory laws, well-defined distinctions of rank and sta- tion, and unequal rights; and above this, an imagin- ary society, in which every thing was simple, harmo- nious, equitable, uniform, and reasonable.
The minds of the people gradually withdrew from AND THE REVOLUTION. 179 the former to take refiige in the latter. Men became indiiferent to the real by dint of dwelling on the ideal, and established a mental domicile in the imaginary- city which the authors had built.
Our revolution has often been traced to American example. The American Eevolution, no doubt, exer- cised considerable influence over ours, but that influ- ence was less a consequence of the deeds done in America than an inference from the prevailing ideas in France. In other European countries the Ameri- can Eevolution was nothing more than a strange and new fact; in France it seemed a striking confirmation of principles known before. It surprised them, it con- vinced us. The Americans seemed merely to have carried out what our writers had conceived; they had realized what we were musing. It was as if Fenelon had been suddenly transported into the midst of the Sallentines.
It was something entirely new for men of letters to direct the political education of a great nation: this, more perhaps than any thing else, contributed to form the peculiar character and results of our revolution.
The people imbibed the temper and disposition of the authors with their principles. They were so long sole tutors of the nation, and their lessons were so wholly unchecked and untried by practical experience, that the whole nation acquired, by dint of reading them, their instincts, their mental complexion, their tastes, and even their natural defects. When the time for action came, men dealt with political questions on literary principles.
The student of our revolution soon discovers that 180 THE OLD REGIME it was led and managed by the same spirit which gave birth to so many abstract treatises on government. In both he finds the s^me love for general theories, sweeping legislative systems, and symmetrical laws; the same confidence in theory; the same desire for new and original institutions; the same wish to re- construct the whole Constitution according to the rules of logic, and in conformity with a set plan, instead of attempting partial amendments. A terrible sight! For what is a merit in an author is often a defect in a statesman, and characteristics which improve a book may be fatal to a revolution.
The political style of the day was somewhat indebt- ed to the prevailing literature; it bristled with vague expressions, abstract terms, ambitious words, and lit- erary phrases. The political passions of the day gave it currency among all classes, even the lowest. Long before the Eevolution, the edicts of Louis XYI. often spoke of natural laws and the rights of man. Peas- ants, in petitions, styled their neighbors " fellow-citi- zens;" the intendant, "a respectable magistrate;" the parish curate, the "minister of the altar;" and God, the " Supreme Being." They might have become sorry authors had they but known orthography.
These peculiarities have taken such root in the French mind that they have been mistaken for its nat- ural characteristics, whereas they are, in fact, only the result of a strange system of education. I have heard it stated that the taste, or, rather, the rage we have shown during the last sixty years for general princi- ples, systems, and grand verbiage in political matters, proceeded from an idiosyncracy of our race — a pecul- AND THE REVOLUTION. 181 iarity of the Frencli mind; as though a feature of this kind would be likely to remain hidden for ages, and only to see the light at the close of last century.
It is singular that we should have retained the hab- its which literature created, though we have almost en- tirely lost our old love for letters. I was often sur- prised, during the course of my public life, to see men who hardly ever read the works of the eighteenth cen- tury, or, indeed, any others, and who despised literary men, exhibit a singular fidelity to leading defects to which the old literary spirit gave birth.
182 THE OLD REGIME CHAPTEE XIV.
HOW IKRELIGION BECAME A GENERAL RULING PASSION AMONG FRENCHMEN IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, AND OP THE INFLU- ENCE IT EXERCISED OVER THE CHARACTER OF THE REVOLUTION.
EVEE, since the great revolution of the sixteenth century, when the spirit of free inquiry was evoked to decide which of the various Christian traditions were true and which false, there had constantly appeared, from time to time, inquisitive or daring minds which disputed or denied them all. The train of thought which in the time of Luther had expelled from the Catholic fold several millions of Catholics drove a few Christians every year out of the pale of Christianity. Heresy had been followed by unbelief.
It may be said generally that in the eighteenth cen- tury Christianity had lost a large portion of its power all over Europe; but in most countries it had been re- luctantly abandoned rather than violently rejected. Ir- religion had spread among sovereigns and wits, but it had made no progress among the middle classes and the people; it was a fashionable caprice, not a popular opinion. "A vulgar error prevails in Germany," says Mirabeau in 1787, "to the effect that the Prussian provinces are full of atheists. The truth is, that, if there are a few freethinkers here and there, the people are as religious as any nation in the world, and among them fanatics are quite common." He adds that it is a pity Frederick II. does not authorize the marriage of AND THE EEVOLUTION. 183.
Catholic priests, and allow married ecclesiastics to re- tain their rank and functions: " This measure, I ven- ture to say, would be worthy of so great a man." In France irreligion had become a passion, general, ar- dent, intolerant, oppressive; but nowhere else.
The scenes that took place in France were without precedent. Established religions had often been vio- lently attacked, but the fury which assailed them was always inspired by zeal for some new religion. Even the false and detestable religions of antiquity met with no violent or general opposition until Christianity arose to supplant them. Previous to that event they had died of old age, quietly, in the midst of doubt and in- difference. In France the Christian faith was furiously assailed, but no attempt was made to raise up another religion on its ruins. Ardent efforts were made to erad- icate from men's souls the faith that was in them, and leave them empty. A multitude of men engaged warm- ly in this ungrateful work. Absolute infidelity, than which nothing is more repugnant to man's natural in- stincts, or produces more discomfort of soul, appeared attractive to the masses. It had formerly given rise to a sickly languor: it now engendered fanaticism and propagandism.
The accidental coincidence of several leading writ- ers, impressed with a sense of unbelief in Christianity, is not sufficient to account for this extraordinary event; for why should all these writers, without exception, turn their attention to this quarter in preference to others? How did it happen that not one out of all of them took the opposite side? Why was it that, unlike their predecessors, they found a ready ear and 184 THE OLD REGIME a predisposition in their favor among the people? The answers to these queries must be sought in pe- culiarities of time and place; in the same direction, too, we must look for the secret of the success of these writers. Yoltaire's spirit had long existed in the world, but Yoltaire's reign never could have been realized except in France during the eighteenth cen- tury.
Let us first acknowledge that the church in France was not more open to attack than elsewhere. Fewer vices and abuses had in fact crept into the French Church than were seen in many foreign churches; the French clergy were more tolerant than their predeces- sors or their neighbors. The real causes of the phe- nomenon are to be found rather in the state of society than in that of the Church.
In searching for them, we must carefully keep in view the proposition established in the last chapter, namely, that the opposition aroused by the faults of government, being excluded from the political world, took refuge in literature, whereby men of letters be- came the real chiefs of the party that was to over- throw all the social and political institutions of the country.
That point established, the question presents itself in another form. It is not, What were the faults of the Church of that day as a religious institution? but, Wherein was it an obstacle to the progress of the Eev- olution, and an inconvenience to the writers who were its chief leaders?
The fundamental principles of the Church were at war with those which they desired to see prevail in the AND THE REVOLUTION. 185 civil government of the country. The Church waa founded on traditions; they professed the greatest con-. tempt for all institutions claiming respect in virtue of their antiquity. It recognized a higher authority than individual reason; they allowed of no appeal from reason. It clung to the notion of a hierarchy; they insisted on leveling all ranks. The two could never come to an understanding, unless both admitted that political and religious societies, being essentially dif- ferent, can not be governed by like principles; and as they were far from any admission of this kind, it seemed to the reformers absolutely necessary to de- stroy the religious institutions of the time in order to reach the civil institutions, which were constructed on their basis and model.
The Church was, moreover, the first of aU political bodies, and the most odious, though not the most op- pressive. It had become a political body in defiance of its vocation and its nature; it shielded vice in high places, while it censured it among the people; it threw its sacred mantle over existing institutions, and seemed to demand for them the immortality it expected for it- self. Attacks upon such a body were sure of public sympathy.
Besides these general reasons, the writers of the day had particular, and, so to speak, personal motives for directing their first attack against the Church. The clergy represented that portion of the government which was nearest and most diametrically opposed to them. Other authorities made themselves felt from time to time; but the Church, specially intrusted with the superintendence of ideas and the censorship of let- 186 THE OLD REGIME ters, was a daily thorn in their side. It opposed them when they stood forth on behalf of the general liberties of mankind, and consequently they were driven, in self-defense, to attack it as the outwork of the place they were assaulting.
The Church, moreover, appeared the weakest and most defenseless of all the outworks which lay before them. Its power had declined as that of the sovereign had gained strength. Once his superior, then his equal, it was now merely his subordinate. The pair had exchanged gifts; the Church had been glad to give its moral influence in return for the use of the phys- ical power of the sovereign. He enforced submission to the Church, it taught respect for the crown. It was a dangerous bargain, so near revolutionary,times, and sure to be disadvantageous to the power which relied on faith, not force.
Though the kings still styled themselves eldest sons of the Church, they were not particularly dutiful. They took far better care of their own authority than of that of the Church. They did not allow it to be openly molested, but neither did they prevent insidious and covert attacks upon it.
The species of constraint laid upon the enemies of the Church increased instead of diminishing their pow- er. Oppression sometimes checks intellectual move- ment, but as often it accelerates it; it invariably hap- pens that such a censorship of the press as then exist- ed multiplies its power a hundred fold.
Authors were persecuted sufficiently to warrant com- plaint, but not to justify terror. They labored under inconveniences, which goaded them on to the struggle AND THE REVOLUTION. 187 without overwhelming them. Prosecutions against them were almost always noisy, slow, and fruitless; they were better calculated to encourage than to repress free speech. A thoroughly free press would have been safer for the Church.
"You think our intolerance," Diderot wrote to Hume in 1768, "more favorable to intellectual progress than your unrestricted liberty: D'Holback, Helvetius, More- let, and Suard, are not of your opinion." The Scotch- man was, however, in the right; he had the experience of a freeman. Diderot judged like a man of letters, Hume like a statesman.
If I ask the first American I meet, either at home or abroad, whether he considers religion to be of service to law and social order, he will answer unhesitatingly that civilized society, especially if it be free, can not exist without religion. Respect for religion is in his eyes the best safeguard for political stability and pri- vate security. Those who know least about govern- ment know this much. There is no country in the world where the boldest political doctrines of the eight- eenth century philosophers have received so general a practical application as in America. But, notwithstand- ing the unlimited freedom of the press, their infidel doc- trines have never made any progress there.
As much may be said of the English. Our irrelig- ious philosophy was preached to them before our phi- losophers were born; it was -Bolingbroke who com- pleted Voltaire's education. Throughout the eighteenth century infidelity had famous champions in England. p Able writers, profound thinkers, embraced its cause. But they won no victories with it, because all who had 188 THE OLD EEGIME 188 THE OLD EEGIME any thing to lose "by revolutions hastened to the sup- port of the established faith. Even men who. mixed in French society, and did not reject the doctrines of our philosophers, considered them dangerous. Great political parties, such as exist in every free country, found it to be their interest to espouse the cause of the Church; Bolingbroke was seen to join hands with the bishops. Animated by this example, and encouraged by a consciousness of support, the clergy fought with energy in their own defense. Notwithstanding the vice of its constitution, and the abuses of all sorts which teemed within its organization, the Church of England stood the shock unmoved; writers and speakers sprang forth from its ranks, and defended Christianity with ardor. Infidel theories were discussed, refuted, and re- jected by society, without the least interference on the part of government.
But why need we seek illustrations abroad? Where is the Frenchman who would write such books as these of Diderot or Helvetius at the present day? Who would read them? I might almost say. Who knows their titles? We have had experience enough of pub- lic life, incomplete as it has been, during the last sixty years, to lose all taste for this dangerous style of liter- ature. See how each class in turn has learned, at the rough school of revolutions, the necessity of respecting religion. The old nobility were the most irreligious class of society before 1789, and the most pious after 1793; the first attacked, they were the first to recov- er. When the middle classes were struck down in the midst of their victory, they in their turn drew toward religion. Eespect for religion gradually made its way AND THE REVOLUTION. 189 into the "breast of every one who had any thing to lose by popular disorders, and infidelity disappeared or lay hidden in the general dread of revolution.
Very different was the state of society toward the close of the old regime. Politicians were out of prac- tice, and were so ignorant of the part which religion plays in the government of empires, that infidelity found proselytes among those who were the most vi- tally interested in the maintenance of order and the subordination of the people. Nor yet proselytes alone, but propagandists, who made an idle pastime of dis- seminating impiety.
The Church of France, which had up to that time been prolific in great orators, sank under the desertion of those whom a common interest should have rallied to its side, and made no sign. At one moment it seem- ed as though it would have compromised for the reten- tion of its wealth and rank by the sacrifice of its faith.
The assailants of Christianity being as noisy as its adherents were mute, the latter began to fear that they were singular in their opinions, and, dreading singular- ity more than error, they joined the crowd without sharing its creed. Thus the whole nation was credited with the sentiments of a faction, and the new opinions seemed irresistible even to those whose conduct was the main secret of their imposing appearance. The phenomenon has been often witnessed since in France, in connection not only with religion, but with very dif- ferent matters.
No doubt an extensive influence was exercised over our Eevolution by the general discredit into which re- ligious creeds had fallen at the close of the eighteenth 190 THE OLD REGIME centurj. Its character was moulded, and a terrible aspect imparted to its physiognomy by this peculiar circumstance.
I have endeavored to trace the effects produced by irreligion in France, and I am satisfied that it was by unsettling men's minds, rather than by degrading their hearts or corrupting their morals, that it led them into such strange excesses.
When religion fled from men's souls, they were not left void and debilitated, as is usually the case; its place was temporarily ^occupied by ideas and feelings which engrossed the mind and did not allow it to col- lapse.
If the men of the Ke volution were more irreligious than we are, they were imbued with one adniirable faith which we lack: they believed in themselves. They had a robust faith in man's perfectibility and power; they were eager for his glory, trustful in his virtue. They had a proud reliance in their own strength; and though this often leads to errors, a peo- ple without it is not fit for freedom. They had no doubt but that they were appointed to transform socie- ty and regenerate the human race. These sentiments and passions had become a sort of new religion, which, like many religions which we have seen, stifled self- ishness, stimulated heroism and disinterestedness, and rendered men insensible to many petty considerations which have weight with us.
I have studied history extensively, and I venture to affirm that I know of no other revolution at whose outset so many men were imbued with a patriotism as sincere, as disinterested, as truly great. The na- AND THE EEVOLUTION. 191 tion exhibited the characteristic fault, but likewise the characteristic virtue of youth, or, rather, the virtue which used to be characteristic of youth; it was in- experienced, but it was generous.
For all this, infidelity produced immense evil.
Throughout most of the political revolutions that the world had experienced, the assailants of civil laws had respected religious creeds. In like manner, the leaders of religious revolutions had rarely undertaken to alter the form and character of civil institutions, and to abolish the whole framework of government. In the greatest social convulsions there had thus al- ways remained one solid spot.
When the French Revolution overthrew civil and religious laws together, the human mind lost its bal- ance. Men knew not where to stop or what measure to observe. There arose a new order of revolutionists, whose boldness was madness, who shrank from no novelty, knew no scruples, listened to no argument or objection. And it must not be imagined that this new species of beings was the spontaneous and ephemeral offspring of circumstances, destined to perish when they passed away; it has given birth to a race which has spread and propagated throughout the civilized world, preserving a uniform physiognomy, uniform pas- sions, a uniform character. We found it in existence at our birth; it is still before us.
192 THE OLD EEGIME CHAPTER XV.
HOW THE FEENCH SOUGHT REFORMS BEFORE LIBERTIES.
IT is noteworthy that of all the ideas and feelings which prepared the Eevolution, the idea of polit- ical liberty, properly so called, was the last to make its appearance, as the desire for it was the first to vanish.
The old edifice of government had long been inse- cure; it shook, though no man struck it. Voltaire was hardly thinking of it. Three years' residence in England had enabled him to understand that country without falling in love with it. He was delighted with the skeptical philosophy that was freely taught among the English, but he was not struck with their political laws, which he rather criticised than praised. His let- ters on England, which are one of his master-pieces, hardly contain any allusion to Parliament: he envies the English their literary liberty, but cares little for their political liberty, as though the one could exist for any length of time without the other.
About the middle of the century, a class of writers devoted their attention to administrative questions; they had many points in common, and were hence dis- tinguished by the general name of economists or phys- iocrats. They are less conspicuous in history than the philosophers; they exercised a less direct influ- ence in causing the Revolution, but still I think its true nature can best be studied in their writings. The AND THE EEVOLUTION. 193 philosophers confined themselves, for the most part, to abstract and general theories on the subject of govern- ment; the economists dealt in theories, but also deign- ed to notice facts. The former furnished ideal, the lat- ter practical schemes of reform. They assailed alter- nately all the institutions which the Eevolution abol- ished; not one of them found favor in their eyes. All those, on the other hand, which are credited espe- cially to the Eevolution, were announced beforehand and warmly lauded by them: it is not easy to men- tion one whose substantial features are not to be found in some of their writings.
Their books, moreover, breathe that democratic and revolutionary spirit with which we are so familiar. They hate, not certain specific privileges, but all dis- tinctions of classes; they would insist upon equality of rights in the midst of slavery. Obstacles they re- gard as only fit to be trampled on. They respect neither contracts nor private rights; indeed, they hard- ly recognize individual rights at all in their absorbing devotion to the public good. Yet they were quiet, peaceable men, of respectable character, honest magis- trates, able administrators; they were carried away by the peculiar spirit of their task.
Their contempt for the past was unbounded. " The nation," said Letronne, " is governed on wrong princi- ples; every thing seems to have been left to chance." Starting from this idea, they set to work to demand the demolition of every institution, however old and time-honored, which seemed to mar the symmetry of their plans. Forty years before the Constituent As- sembly divided France into departments, one of the I 194 THE OLD EEGIME economists suggested the alteration of all existing ter- ritorial divisions and of the names of all the provinces.