CHAPTER XX.
SHOWING THAT THE REVOLUTION PROCEEDED NATURALLY FROM THE EXISTING STATE OF FRANCE.
I propose ere I conclude to gather up some of the characteristics which I have already separately described, and to trace the Revolution, proceeding as it were of itself from the state of society in France which I have already pourtrayed.
If it be remembered that in France the Feudal system, though it still kept unchanged all that could irritate or could injure, had most effectually lost all that could protect or could be of use, it will appear less surprising that the Revolution, which was about virtually to abolish this ancient constitution of Europe, broke forth in France rather than elsewhere.
If it be observed that the French nobility, after having lost its ancient political rights, and ceased more than in any other country of feudal Europe to govern and guide the nation, had, nevertheless, not only preserved, but considerably enlarged its pecuniary immunities, and the advantages which the members of this body personally possessed; that whilst it had become a subordinate class it still remained a privileged and close body, less and less an aristocracy, as I have said elsewhere, but more and more a caste; it will be no cause of surprise that the privileges of such a nobility had become so inexplicable and so abhorrent to the French people, as to inflame the envy of the democracy to so fierce a pitch that it is still burning in their hearts.
If, lastly, it be borne in mind that the French nobility, severed from the middle classes whom they had repelled, and from the people whose affections they had lost, was thus alone in the midst of the nation—apparently the head of an army, but in reality a body of officers without soldiers—it will be understood how that which had stood erect for a thousand years came to perish in a night.
I have shown how the King’s Government, having abolished the franchises of the provinces, and having usurped all local powers in three-quarters of the territory of France, had thus drawn all public affairs into its own hands, the least as well as the greatest. I have shown, on the other hand, how, by a necessary consequence, Paris had made itself the master of the kingdom of which till then it had been the capital, or rather had itself become the entire country. These two facts, which were peculiar to France, would alone suffice, if necessary, to explain why a riot could fundamentally destroy a monarchy which had for ages endured so many violent convulsions, and which, on the eve of its dissolution, still seemed unassailable even to those who were about to overthrow it.
France being one of the states of Europe in which all political life had been for the longest time and most effectually extinguished, in which private persons had most lost the usage of business, the habit of reading the course of events, the experience of popular movements and almost the notion of the people, it may readily be imagined how all Frenchmen came at once to fall into a frightful Revolution without foreseeing it; those who were most threatened by that catastrophe leading the way, and undertaking to open and widen the path which led to it.
As there were no longer any free institutions, or consequently any political classes, no living political bodies, no organised or disciplined parties, and as, in the absence of all these regular forces, the direction of public opinion, when public opinion came again into being, devolved exclusively on the French philosophers, it might be expected that the Revolution would be directed less with a view to a particular state of facts, than with reference to abstract principles and very general theories: it might be anticipated that instead of endeavouring separately to amend the laws which were bad, all laws would be attacked, and that an attempt would be made to substitute for the ancient constitution of France an entirely novel system of government, conceived by these writers.