L. 1807. CHAP. the future generations of mankind. It need hardly be said that the effect of this entire subjection of the human mind to thraldom was the destruction of literary genius. Liberty is its vital air remove it, and it dies. The pulpit was silent oratory at the bar, or in the senate, was alike unknown: the graceful flattery of M. Fontanes was alone heard in the legislature: composition became lifeless in every department. Poetry degenerated into conceit, romance into insipidity: the freedom of licentiousness ceased in expression-it remained only in actions. The arts shared in the general degradation. Statuary was little cultivated; and even the genius of David and Gros, fettered by the chains of the empire, 392. Thiers, ventured only on the expression on canvass of the slavish adulation of its chief, which had penetrated every 1 Thib. vi. 1. 48, 55. Génie de la Rév. i. viii. 149, 152. 81. heart.1 On one occasion, when the learned and intrepid M. Rapid tran- Suard had concluded, in Napoleon's presence, a warm republican eulogium on the talent with which Tacitus had portrayed the lives and vices of the Roman emperors, he observed, sition from to despotic ideas. Rév. Fran. ii. 387. "You say well; but he would have done still better if he had told us how it happened that the Roman people tolerated and even loved those bad Emperors. It is that 2 De Stael, which it would have been of the most importance for posterity to know." If this observation is just, as it undoubtedly is with reference to the Roman emperors, how much more is it applicable to Napoleon himself; for nothing is more certain than that, in the midst of all this despotic rule, when the Emperor was overturning all the principles of the Revolution, draining France of its heart's blood, and training the generation, educated amidst the fumes of equality, to the degradation of slavery, he was not only tolerated, but almost worshipped by his subjects. This extraordinary change, too, took place, not, as in the Roman empire, after the lapse of centuries, but in one generation. The age of Gracchus was in France instantly succeeded by that of Caligula; the democratic fervour of the contemporaries of Marius plunged at once into the Eastern adulation of the successors of Constantine. CHAP. L. 1807. difference English and this respect. In this respect, there is a most remarkable difference 82. between the English and French Revolutions. In both, Remarkable indeed, a brief period of democratic fervour was suc- between the ceeded, as it ever must be in an old state, by a military French Redespotism; but the temper with which this change of volutions in government was received in the two countries was totally at variance, and the frame of government which has been left in each is essentially different. "The English aristocracy," says Madame de Stael, "had more dignity in their misfortunes than the French; for they did not commit the two immense faults from which the French will never be able to exculpate themselves-the first, that of having united themselves to strangers against their native country; the second, that of having condescended to accept employments in the antechambers of a sovereign who, according to their principles, had no right to the Rev. throne."1 But this remarkable difference was not con- 336. fined to the aristocracy; all classes in England evinced an early and decided aversion to the violent measures of the army and its chiefs. The nobles and landed proprietors kept aloof from the court of the Protector, neither assisting at his councils nor accepting his repeated offers of lucrative situations; and such was the temper of the Commons, that Cromwell soon found they were totally unmanageable, and therefore disused them as jurymen. In fact they returned such refractory representatives to parliament, that none of the Houses which he summoned were allowed to sit more than a few days. Franç. ii. 83. alacrity England, therefore, was overwhelmed by a military usurpation, but the spirit of the nation was not subdued ; Universal and even in its gloomiest periods might be seen traces of with which a free spirit, and growing marks of that independent despotism disposition which waited only for the death of the fortu- in France. nate usurper to re-establish the national liberties. In was hailed L. 1807. CHAP. France, on the other hand, all classes seemed to vie with each other in fawning upon the triumphant conqueror who had subverted the Revolution. The nobles rushed in crowds into his antechambers, and laid the honours of the monarchy at his feet; the burghers vied with each other in obsequious submission to his will, or graceful flattery of his actions; the tiers-état joyfully clothed themselves with his titles, or accepted his employment; the peasantry gave him their best blood, and cheerfully yielded up their children to his ambition. The senate was the echo of his sentiments, the council of state the organ of his wishes, the legislative body the register of his mandates. The legislature was submissive, the electors pliant, the jurymen obedient; and in the whole monarchy, so recently convulsed with the fervour of democracy, was to be heard only the mandates of power, the incense of flattery, or the voice of adulation. 84. injustice of convulsion. Much of this extraordinary difference between the Its causes. immediate effects of the Revolutions in the two countries Greater violence and is, without doubt, to be ascribed to the greater devastathe French tion, more sweeping changes, and deeper guilt of the French convulsion. The bloody proscriptions and unbounded confiscations of the popular party, were the cause which at once occasioned and justified the emigration of the noblesse. Though political wisdom, equally as true patriotism, should have forbidden their uniting their arms, under any circumstances, with the stranger against their native land; yet some allowance must be made for the lacerated feelings of men first driven into exile by a bloodthirsty faction, and then deprived of their estates and reduced to beggary, because they declined to return and place their necks under the guillotine. We can sympathise with the implacable vengeance of those who had seen their parents, brothers, sisters, or children, massacred by an inhuman party, who, by rousing the cupidity of the working classes, had succeeded in establishing the most infernal despotism in their country that L. 1807. had ever disgraced mankind. The excessive misery, too, CHAP. which democratic ascendancy had produced upon all ranks, and especially the lowest, induced, as its natural result, universal and ardent desire for the establishment of a powerful and energetic government, which woeful experience had proved to be the only practicable mode of terminating the general calamities. The reaction of order and tranquillity against republican violence and misery, was more powerful and widespread in France than in England, because the suffering which had preceded it had been more acute and universal. The despotism of Napoleon was more oppressive and more willingly acquiesced in than that of Cromwell, from the same causes which had rendered the atrocities of the revolutionists in France more excessive than those of the republicans in England. 85. alone will the differ ence. But, after making every allowance for the weight and importance of these circumstances, it is evident that some- But this thing more is required to explain the extraordinary change not explain in the national disposition which took place from the days of the Revolution to those of the Empire. That suffering should produce an alteration of opinion in regard to the merits of the changes which had occasioned itthat the now universally felt evils of democratic government should incline all classes to range themselves under the banner of a single chief, is indeed intelligible, and in truth nothing more than the operation of experience upon the great body of mankind. But that this experience should produce individual baseness-that the madness of republicanism should be succeeded, not by the caution of wisdom, but the adulation of selfishnessand that the riot of European liberty should plunge at once into the servility of Eastern despotism, is the extraordinary thing. It is in vain to seek the explanation of this phenomenon in the influence of an extraordinary man, or the mingled sway of the ambitious passions which an unprecedented career of success had brought to bear 1807. CHAP. upon the nation. These circumstances will never at once L. alter the character of a people: they cannot convert public spirit into selfishness; they cannot do the work of centuries of decline, or change the age of Fabricius into that of Nero. 86. the love of An attentive consideration of these particulars must, It was not with every impartial mind, lead to the conclusion that it freedom, but was not the genuine spirit of freedom which convulsed the desire of France and desolated Europe, but the bastard passion for which con- individual elevation. Both these passions are, indeed, elevation, vulsed France. 87. generally prevailing was the essential to a successful struggle in the later stages of society in favour of liberty, because such a struggle requires the general concurrence of mankind; and such concurrence, except in cases of extraordinary fervour or rural simplicity, is only to be gained by the combined influence of the selfish and the generous passions of our nature. But everything in the final result depends on the proportion in which these noble and base ingredients are mingled in the public mind. In either case, if democracy becomes triumphant, suffering will be induced, and a reaction must ensue. But if the generous flame of liberty is the ruling passion, the period of despotic sway and military force will be one of indignant silence, convinced reason, or compulsory submission. If the selfish passion for distinction, or the ardent thirst for authority, is the moving power, it will be distinguished by the baseness of servility, the lust of corruption, the rhetoric of adulation. The reason is obvious. In the excesses of power, Selfishness whether regal, aristocratic, or republican, the disinterested friends of freedom, either in the conservative or liberal ranks, can discover nothing but a matter of unqualified hatred and aversion; but the aspirants after distinction, the candidates for power, the covetous of gold, find in those very excesses the precise objects of their desire, provided only that their benefits accrue to themselves. If, therefore, from the temper of the public |