The French revolution in general, taking it from its very commencement to its close, produced some good amidst a mass of evil; but there were particular periods, when all thought of right seemed abandoned, which did as much as the destruction of all order, the abolition of all law, the contempt of all religion; and the annihilation of every principle and every feeling, can effect towards a nation's overthrow. It often happens that man in doing wrong in one way, unintentionally do good in another; but those who governed France at the periods of which I speak, with a comprehensiveness of mind which, happily for the world, is not always attendant upon crime, contrived to be uniform at least in evil; and left no one good act for which history could accuse them of inconsistency. At the same time, they took care to prove to the world, by a rare combination of qualities, that it was in ill alone that they were uniform, by mixing the maddest display of folly with the affectations of philosophy, and uniting levity with slaughter. Humanity shudders at the remembrance of such deeds; not alone because they were bloody, but at the horrid frivolities with which they were accompanied. It appears as if the love of destruction had seized like a mania upon all the nation with a power ungovernable, had taken the place of every better feeling, and left every weakness and every defect in more than original force.
Never was the national levity of the French more conspicuous than during great part of the reign of terror. While every day shed fresh blood, and the deputy who superintended the work of murder at Nantes, found the guillotine but a means of slaughter in detail, not at all suited to his comprehensive mind; while he fell upon the happy expedient of embarking his victims in a covered boat, and sinking them wholesale in the river: at that very time the opera was as fully attended and the card-tables as gay as ever; jokes were cut upon the guillotine by those who were next to undergo its stroke, and the murderer handed his snuff-box to the victim whom to-morrow he condemned to death. In future ages the minute points of this vast tragedy will scarcely be believed. Many of its horrors are but faintly remembered even now, and the benefits which accrued from it are far overrated. The dîme, the corvée, and almost all the droits seigneuriaux were falling or had fallen even before the actual revolution began, and every other abuse would have gradually yielded to the power of time and the increase of knowledge. But the French were not contented to wait; they slew a good king, deluged their fields in blood, and stained their annals with crime, to obtain what a few years would have peaceably brought about.
France has never yet perfectly recovered the revolution; the character of the people has been injured by it, and all the foundations of society have been shaken. No definite ideas regarding any of the great questions which affect the happiness of a community have been left; and though it is not improbable that from this chaotic condition a new and brighter system may arise, yet the state of transition has already lasted long enough to be an intolerable evil. Though I am inclined to believe that in France, as in other countries, an improvement in morals has taken place in regard to religion, the bad results produced by the revolution have been very extensive. Yet it is curious to observe, that among all the blasphemies and follies with which the French amused themselves at that period, a feeling of the absolute necessity of some religion manifested itself continually. Even in their greatest absurdities, it is evident. At the moment that a statue to eternal sleep was erected, pointing to the tomb, it was proposed to grant a patent to the Almighty for the invention of the world, upon condition that he ceased to meddle with human affairs. At another time, fruits and all things necessary to the support of man were proposed as the object of human adoration; but the conviction of our dependence upon some superior being, and the necessity of worship, was always breaking forth.
The revolution has, in a manner, divided the kingdom into various sects, of which the three principal are bigots, sceptics, and hypocrites. The bigots consist in general of that portion of the higher ranks who actually suffered in the revolution, and that portion of the lower whom it neither enlightened nor led astray. The sceptics consist of those who either never had any religion, or who lost it in the theories and sophistry of the day, and these form the great bulk, I am sorry to say, of the thinking and scientific in one class, and the vicious and thoughtless of another. The hypocrites are those in all stations to whom long practice in political dissembling has given a facility in dissembling altogether. There are two other sects. The French protestant and the unbigotted and enlightened French catholic, but these are few in comparison. They comprise, however, many of the most talented and most virtuous of the nation.
The sceptics are, of course, divided between many opinions. Many are materialists; one or two fancy themselves atheists, but a great majority follow what they call a purism. They allow the existence of a supreme Being, are doubtful in regard to the immortality of the soul, and profess to hold the moral doctrine of the Evangelists, although they deny it a divine origin. They labour, according to the reasoning of various pseudo-philosophers, to prove that the moral code of Christianity was merely a compilation by the eclectists of Alexandria from the most celebrated doctrines of the ancient philosophers, joined with the principle of universal charity which they own to be found in no other composition than the gospel. But they attempt by no means to dispose of the sect of Christians mentioned in the celebrated letter from Trajan to Pliny; nor to account for the extraordinary circumstance of the philosophers of Alexandria having borrowed the name of Christ, (as they suppose,) and having raised upon it such an apocrypha of history, circumstances, and details, all of which could have been contradicted at the time, had they been false. According to their own theory they are obliged to imagine much more and believe much more without proof, than if they were to receive the history which the divine volume gives of itself.
From all that I have seen in France of the consequences of their great national calamity, I am convinced, that however revolutions may call forth latent talent, and acuminate the mind of man, however necessary they may sometimes be as a defence to liberty and a check to tyrants, general virtue owes them little, and the very principles of social happiness are by them destroyed.
LA BREDE.
Tutta fra se di se siessa invaghita.--Bernardo L'Unico.
What the world are accustomed to consider as great and brilliant actions, have very often their origin in pride or ostentation, while home virtues, and less obtrusive qualities, though their motive does not admit of doubt, and their nature is mixed with no evil, are scarcely ranked in the catalogue of good deeds, and even if known are rarely appreciated. The rich man who spends a part of his fortune and bestows a portion of his time on public charities, claims unanimous applause as his just reward, and mankind are willing to grant it without any investigation, either of his actions or their incitements; but the man who without possessing any wealth to give, delights to see every one cheerful and happy around him, and finds his pleasure in his fellow-creature's peace, receives but small gratitude, and meets with little admiration.
For my own part, I am thankful to every one who gives me happy moments. There was a little circle at Bordeaux, in which I have spent some of the most pleasant hours of my existence. The follies and vices, the turmoil and discontent, of a large city never set foot there. It was composed of a few, that could feel and enjoy all that was beautiful in art or nature, whose native resources were equal to their own contentment, and who without shunning, required nothing from the world. Time passed not slowly with them; music, and reading, and conversation succeeded; each borrowing a charm from the other, and linking themselves together; so that the evenings flew insensibly; and the hour of our separation always arrived before we were aware of its approach.