France had long been the most literary of all the nations of Europe; although her literary men had never exhibited such intellectual powers as they displayed about the middle of the eighteenth century, or occupied such a position as that which they then assumed. Nothing of the kind had ever been seen in France, or perhaps in any other country. They were not constantly mixed up with public affairs as in England: at no period, on the contrary, had they lived more apart from them. They were invested with no authority whatever, and filled no public offices in a society crowded with public officers; yet they did not, like the greater part of their brethren in Germany, keep entirely aloof from the arena of politics and retire into the regions of pure philosophy and polite literature. They busied themselves incessantly with matters appertaining to government, and this was, in truth, their special occupation. Thus they were continually holding forth on the origin and primitive forms of society, the primary rights of the citizen and of government, the natural and artificial relations of men, the wrong or right of customary laws, and the principles of legislation. While they thus penetrated to the fundamental basis of the constitution of their time, they examined its structure with minute care and criticised its general plan. All, it is true, did not make a profound and special study of these great problems: the greater part only touched upon them cursorily, and as it were in sport: but they all dealt with them more or less. This species of abstract and literary politics was scattered in unequal proportions through all the works of the period; from the ponderous treatise to the popular song, not one of them but contained some grains of it.
As for the political systems of these writers, they varied so greatly one from the other that any attempt to reconcile them, or to form any one theory of government out of them, would be an impracticable task. Nevertheless, by discarding matters of detail, so as to get at the first leading ideas, it may be easily discovered that the authors of these different systems agreed at least in one very general notion, which all of them seem to have alike conceived, and which appears to have pre-existed in their minds before all the notions peculiar to themselves and to have been their common fountain-head. However widely they may have diverged in the rest of their course, they all started from this point. They all agreed that it was expedient to substitute simple and elementary rules, deduced from reason and natural law, for the complicated traditional customs which governed the society of their time. Upon a strict scrutiny it may be seen that what might be called the political philosophy of the eighteenth century consisted, properly speaking, in this one notion.
These opinions were by no means novel; for three thousand years they had unceasingly traversed the imaginations of mankind, though without being able to stamp themselves there. How came they at last to take possession of the minds of all the writers of this period? Why, instead of progressing no farther than the heads of a few philosophers, as had frequently been the case, had they at last reached the masses, and assumed the strength and the fervour of a political passion to such a degree, that general and abstract theories upon the nature of society became daily topics of conversation, and even inflamed the imaginations of women, and of the peasantry? How was it that literary men, possessing neither rank, nor honours, nor fortune, nor responsibility, nor power, became, in fact, the principal political men of the day, and even the only political men, inasmuch as whilst others held the reins of government, they alone grasped its authority?
A few words may suffice to show what an extraordinary and terrible influence these circumstances, which apparently belong only to the history of French literature, exercised upon the Revolution, and even upon the present condition of France.
It was not by chance that the philosophers of the eighteenth century thus coincided in entertaining notions so opposed to those which still served as bases to the society of their time: these ideas had been naturally suggested to them by the aspect of the society which they had all before their eyes. The sight of so many unjust or absurd privileges, the burden of which was more and more felt whilst their cause was less and less understood, urged, or rather precipitated, the minds of one and all towards the idea of the natural equality of man’s condition. Whilst they looked upon so many strange and irregular institutions, born of other times, which no one had attempted either to bring into harmony with each other or to adapt to modern wants, and which appeared likely to perpetuate their existence though they had lost their worth, they learned to abhor what was ancient and traditional, and naturally became desirous of re-constructing the social edifice of their day upon an entirely new plan—a plan which each one traced solely by the light of his reason.[70]
These writers were predisposed, by their own position, to relish general and abstract theories upon the subject of government, and to place in them the blindest confidence. The almost immeasurable distance in which they lived from practical duties afforded them no experience to moderate the ardour of their character; nothing warned them of the obstacles which the actual state of things might oppose to reforms, however desirable. They had no idea of the perils which always accompany the most needful revolutions; they had not even a presentiment of them, for the complete absence of all political liberty had the effect of rendering the transaction of public affairs not only unknown to them, but even invisible. They were neither employed in those affairs themselves, nor could they see what those employed in them were doing. They were consequently destitute of that superficial instruction which the sight of a free community, and the tumult of its discussions, bestow even upon those who are least mixed up with government. Thus they became far more bold in innovation, more fond of generalising and of systems, more disdainful of the wisdom of antiquity, and still more confident in their individual reason, than is commonly to be seen in authors who write speculative books on politics.
The same state of ignorance opened to them the ears and hearts of the people. It may be confidently affirmed that if the French had still taken part, as they formerly had done, in the States-General, or if even they had found a daily occupation in the administration of the affairs of the country in the assemblies of their several provinces, they would not have allowed themselves to be inflamed as they were by the ideas of the writers of the day, since they would have retained certain habits of public business which would have preserved them from the evils of pure theory.
Had they been able, like the English, gradually to modify the spirit of their ancient institutions by practical experience without destroying them, they would perhaps have been less inclined to invent new ones. But there was not a man who did not daily feel himself injured in his fortune, in his person, in his comfort, or his pride by some old law, some ancient political custom, or some other remnant of former authority, without perceiving at hand any remedy that he could himself apply to his own particular hardship. It appeared that the whole constitution of the country must either be endured or destroyed.
The French, however, had still preserved one liberty amidst the ruin of every other: they were still free to philosophise almost without restraint upon the origin of society, the essential nature of governments, and the primordial rights of mankind.
All those who felt themselves aggrieved by the daily application of existing laws were soon enamoured of these literary politics. The same taste soon reached even those who by nature or by their condition of life seemed the farthest removed from abstract speculations. Every tax-payer wronged by the unequal distribution of the taille was fired by the idea that all men ought to be equal; every little landowner devoured by the rabbits of his noble neighbour was delighted to be told that all privileges were, without distinction, contrary to reason. Every public passion thus assumed the disguise of philosophy; all political action was violently driven back into the domain of literature; and the writers of the day, undertaking the guidance of public opinion, found themselves at one time in that position which the heads of parties commonly hold in free countries. No one in fact was any longer in a condition to contend with them for the part they had assumed.