Having lived between three and four months in Paris, and between three and four years in the south of France with my family, I have made observations, which I hope may be useful to those who have the same plan of foreign residence or travel, and not less interesting, both to them, and to those who are content with their English home, than the remarks of a more hasty tourist. The care of a household and of the education of children brings the head of a family to the knowledge of many circumstances and combinations which escape the notice of the single traveller; and intercourse with the society of a place during a sojourn gives some insight into the character, some perception of the manners and opinions of a people.
I have also lived three years and a half in Italy, of which country I seem to myself to have much to say; but for reasons that may be conjectured by the reader of this book, I defer my Italian narrative till the present work shall have undergone the judgment of the public. Meantime, this is a separate composition, and independent of any thing I may hereafter write on Italy.
I have lived so long in the world, that, although, from motives of charity, I wish to have the good report of all, few remain for whose commendation I am anxious, even as an author. I think it right however, to request the reader's indulgence for a style of writing by no means current or easy,—a fault owing to the habitual, daily use of two, or even three languages: often does the foreign phrase present itself, and then the English one is to be sought for. I have besides, for these last eight years, had but a very sparing intercourse with English literature.
For the sake of obviating misconstruction of my occasional remarks on political subjects, I think it right, in this introductory chapter, to make a few general observations on the French revolution. I detest, or obtest, against all revolutions, for two reasons: change of forms and names, and, generally speaking, of persons even, does not always produce a change of principles or of conduct; tyrannical democracies and benevolent despotisms are no new things in the history of the world: secondly, revolutions cannot change the condition of the great bulk of mankind, of persons without property, of the poor: poor they must be; for property is necessary to the existence of society; work they must, because they are poor. A man of this class at Paris, whom I wanted to engage to talk on the late revolution, cut short the matter by saying, "pour nous autres, on ne demande à nous qu'à travailler."[6] That some of them may benefit by a political change, proves nothing against the uselessness of such a change to them, considered as, what they are in effect, the mass of mankind, and in reference to the continued duration of the social state.
On the 23d of June, 1789, Louis XVI offered to the states-general a constitution very much resembling the charter since given by Louis XVIII. What has the French nation gained by the refusal of the Etats Généraux, to accede to the project of this séance royale? Their church is impoverished; they are endeavouring to form an aristocracy, of which destruction has hardly left them the elements; and the number of electors,—of persons represented,—is now much smaller than it would have been in the Etats Généraux. Since that day, little permanent advantage has been obtained, except the abolition of feudal rights; but of these, exemption from taxation had been abandoned; all that was unjust or grievous besides, would soon have followed. A deficit of fifty millions of francs caused the revolution; and in its consequence it has trebled the taxes: it rejected titles and ribands as unworthy of the dignity of man, and it has produced a second set of nobles, and a new order of knighthood.
True liberal principles cannot be disgraced; like religion, they may be the pretext, but are not the cause of excesses and of crimes; but the conduct of the revolution has retarded their spread and influence, by making every wise and prudent man afraid to trust to the professors of them. After the perpetration of horrors, on which the human mind cannot bear to look fixedly, a military despotism is quietly submitted to, as if nothing but, "res novæ," new wealth, new power, had been sought for.
———"Ubi nunc facundus Ulysses?"
The leaders of the revolution and of the republic did not recognise the true limit of civil authority: it has nothing to do but to defend the state against foreign enemies, and the citizens against each other: whatever government attempts to do more, only supplies means of vexation to subordinate agents. They tyrannised over the religious and political conscience of the people by the civil constitution of the clergy, who, when their property was taken away, ought to have been let alone; by persecutions which belied the tolerance of philosophy; by oaths of hatred of royalty, which kept up the memory of the cowardly murder of the king,—that aping of the English under circumstances totally different. War, after the promulgation of perpetual peace, seemed interminable; and the offer to assist all nations in the recovery of liberty, was seen to be a scheme for domineering in all nations by means of civil dissension.
These things prepared the way for Napoleon Bonaparte, whose elevation was, at first, by no means unpopular in Europe. He must be admired by the present age, and by posterity, as a great man: he offered himself as pacificator, and in a few years subjected a hundred millions of Europeans: such a force as this,—the arts, the knowledge, and by consequence, the power of those whom he commanded taken into the account,—no man ever yet had wielded. "He gave not God the glory:" in this he was not alone; such was, such is, the spirit of the age: his fall was caused by the coming on of the snow and frost in Russia a week or fortnight sooner than usual. History records nothing equal to his elevation and his fall. That fall must be dated at the retreat from Moscow; the rest was but the struggle of the dying lion. The French revolution seems like a bloody tragedy, after the representation of which, the actors put on their every-day clothes, and resume their ordinary occupations: it has disappointed the hopes of the philanthropist, and delayed the effect of the moral revolution, prepared long before, and working in the minds of enlightened men. This sort of revolution is the only one that can be permanent or beneficial to mankind. Christianity itself is, in its influence on civil society, a revolution of this sort, and, in respect to this life only, has done incalculable good.
The great results of the French revolution are to be looked for beyond the Atlantic. Owing to the distracted state of Europe, a continent, more abounding than the old world in the means of prosperity and power, is become independent: the slaves of Hayti have broken their chains, and may carry civilization and freedom to the country of their origin. Yet another century, and Europe itself may sink into comparative insignificance. But let the wise and virtuous unite in opinion; and Europe, though no longer the proprietor, may still be the teacher of the new world, and in the old may aid suffering humanity.