From the period of his return into his country, being actuated by the desire of being useful, which seems to have been ever predominant in his mind, though it did not always manifest itself in a rational way, Volney conceived the idea of introducing improvements in agriculture in the island of Corsica. For this purpose he began to concert measures for purchasing an estate in that island, on which he meant to make several experiments in the culture of the sugar-cane, cotton, indigo, coffee, &c. The utility of these schemes induced the French government to nominate him Director of Agriculture and Commerce in Corsica; but other duties retained him in his country. Upon the convocation of the States General in 1789, he was elected deputy for the seneschalship of Anjou. Shortly after this he resigned the place he held under government, being persuaded that the duties of a representative of the people, and those of a dependant on the government, are incompatible. In the tribune of the Constituent Assembly Volney advocated the same opinions which are found in his writings. He was the declared enemy of despotism, whether exercised by one individual or by many; and constantly distinguished himself by his bold and liberal advocacy of popular rights. His intimate connexion with Cabanis, celebrated for the extravagance of his metaphysical opinions, frequently brought him into contact with Mirabeau, the Catiline of the revolution. This able improvisator, equally indifferent respecting the meum and tuum in ideas as in money, in a discussion concerning the clergy, borrowed from Volney his well-known rhetorical flourish on the window of Charles IX., from whence that gracious monarch amused himself with shooting at his subjects. Twenty deputies were besieging the tribune, and among these was Volney, who held a written discourse in his hand. “Show me what you are going to say,” said Mirabeau. “This is beautiful, sublime,” he exclaimed, after having glanced over the manuscript; “but it is not with a feeble voice and a clear countenance that such things should be uttered. Give the manuscript to me!” Such consummate arrogance was not to be resisted. Volney yielded up his speech to the audacious sophist, who, melting up our traveller’s original ideas with his own, poured out the whole with that artificial theatrical enthusiasm which produces upon inexperienced minds nearly the same effects as eloquence. It is said that Volney ere long began to perceive that the storm which had been raised with so much labour and artifice was likely to sweep away in its fury much more than was intended; and that he then began to think of moderating its rage. But if he was in earnest in his opposition, he very quickly had the mortification to discover that his efforts were futile; that revolution had, in fact, become a general movement, which bore down with irresistible violence every obstacle which might be opposed to it, whether by friends or foes.
In the midst of these political labours Volney found time to produce two works of very different character and pretensions: “The Chronology of the Twelve Centuries preceding the Invasion of Greece by Xerxes,” and his well-known rhapsody called the “Ruins.” Shortly after this, the Empress Catherine, who found that she had been made the dupe of the French sophists, declared herself the enemy of France; upon which Volney, eager to display his contempt for his fickle admirer, returned the medal which she had formerly presented to him. Upon this, Grimm, the literary gladiator of the empress, and up to that moment the friend of Volney, addressed him a letter filled with the most biting sarcasms and unjust personalities, but written in so keen a style that it has been attributed to Rivarol, another clever advocate of ancient abuses.
In 1792 Volney accompanied Pozzo di Borgo to Corsica, with his old design of making agricultural experiments. He accordingly purchased the estate of La Confina, near Ajaccio, and was proceeding to realize some of his useful plans, when he was driven from the island by the troubles excited by Pascal Paoli, who sold his estate by auction, notwithstanding that he had recently given him various assurances of friendship. During his residence in Corsica our traveller became acquainted with Napoleon, who was at that time only an officer of artillery. He is said to have divined the character of this ambitious man from the first; and some years later, upon learning in America that Napoleon had been appointed commander of the army of Italy, he remarked to several French refugees, “Provided that circumstances second him, he will be found to possess the head of Cæsar on the shoulders of Alexander.” This oracular saying, which is by no means the best thing of the kind attributed to our traveller, is remarkable merely for the pomposity of the expression, and signifies little or nothing, except that Napoleon was as able as he was ambitious. On his return to France, in 1793, he published a “Sketch of the State of Corsica,” and the “Law of Nature,” the latter of which M. Durozoir, with characteristic exaggeration, pronounces to be “one of the best treatises on morals which have ever been published in any language.” The “Law of Nature” is well known in England, and proves its writer to have been a man of an acute and vigorous mind, as well as an accomplished master of style; but it would be paying Volney an absurd compliment to place his little catechism, in which there are no ideas absolutely new, on a level with the “Ethics to Nichomachus,” or the great work of Panætius, of which we may form a tolerably clear conception from the “De Officiis” of Cicero, which is little more than a copy of it. Moreover, in the “Law of Nature,” man is considered too much in a material, and too little in a spiritual light; which, though it may be a merit in the eyes of such a writer as M. Durozoir, must to a person of a different creed appear to be a very remarkable defect. Considering the question merely in a philosophical point of view, it can, I think, admit of no dispute that the incentives to good actions can never be too numerous; but Volney, from his peculiar notions, could only speak of morals as of physical science, which, taken as a whole, it certainly is not. Whatever merit this little tract may possess, therefore, it seems to be essentially defective in attributing to one set of principles effects which they never produce unless in combination with others.
In 1793 our traveller, whose political opinions were purely republican, was imprisoned ten months as a royalist, and only recovered his liberty after the events of the 9th of Thermidor. To console him in some degree for this injustice, he was shortly afterward appointed historical professor in the Normal School, which had just then been established by the friends of order and of their country. Volney was eminently well qualified to shine in this capacity. His reading, which was immense, had lain much, if not chiefly, among historical writers; and his calm, penetrating genius enabled him to discover with extraordinary precision the natural chain of events. Nevertheless, from a passion for vain paradox, which has of late been but too common both in France and Germany among persons who would be thought to be philosophers, he unfortunately exhibited in his historical researches a degree of skepticism highly absurd. He had perhaps read and admired the startling proposition of Aristotle, that doubt is the foundation of all science; but if doubt eternally generate doubt, upon what basis are the sciences to be erected? The Greek philosopher, I conceive, merely intends to say, that without doubt there can be no inquiry, and without inquiry no science. However, notwithstanding this radical defect, Volney’s lectures at the Normal School were received with applause, principally perhaps from the striking originality of the author’s style, and the novelty of his views. Truths long and familiarly known, appear to lose their beauty, and are eagerly exchanged for errors, tricked out in all the dazzling gloss of novelty.
His oratorical career was not of long duration. The Normal School was quickly suppressed; and Volney, disgusted and fatigued with fruitless endeavours to benefit his country, determined on deserting it for ever, and seeking in the New World that tranquillity which he had failed to find in the Old. On his arrival in the United States of America, in 1795, he was well received by Washington, who gave him many public marks of his confidence and friendship. It is said, however, though I know not upon what grounds, that John Adams, elected president in 1797, entertained feelings highly inimical to Volney, who, a short time before, had criticised severely, perhaps unjustly, his “Defence of the Constitutions of the United States.” It is even insinuated by Durozoir, whose unsupported testimony I should, however, refuse to accept in a matter of this kind, that our traveller was driven from America by the unmanly revenge of John Adams in the spring of 1798. Be this as it may, he was suspected by the Americans of being engaged in a conspiracy for delivering up Louisiana to the Directory; while in France, on the other hand, he was accused of having asserted that Louisiana could never become an advantageous possession of the French republic. While his mind was thus harassed by contradictory and absurd suspicions, Dr. Priestley published his “Observations on the Progress of Infidelity,” &c., in which Volney, says Durozoir, who probably had no more read Priestley’s pamphlet than I have, was denounced as an “atheist, an ignoramus, a Chinese, and a Hottentot.” Priestley was no doubt a rough polemic, too much addicted, perhaps, to hard names; but the work which he denounced had, in many respects, a highly mischievous tendency, and in refuting it some degree of warmth was pardonable.
On our traveller’s return to France, where he had been elected a member of the Institute during his absence, he became once more intimately connected with Napoleon, whom, in 1794, he had dissuaded from seeking military employment in Turkey or Russia, and by his influence caused to be restored to his rank in the army. Napoleon was not ungrateful, and when elected to the consulate was desirous of naming Volney his colleague. This dignity, however, the traveller refused, as well as that of minister of the interior, which was soon afterward offered him. He was content with the mere rank of senator. When at a future period Napoleon was about to assume the title of emperor, Volney ventured to oppose him, observing that it were better to restore the Bourbons. From this time forward he was invariably found among that small minority in the senate who condemned and opposed the despotic measures of the emperor; yet he allowed himself to be decorated with the rank of count, and the title of commandant of the Legion of Honour. Still he took little share in political matters, preferring before all distinctions retirement and study.
In 1803 appeared his “Description of the Climate and Soil of the United States,” a work possessing, no doubt, considerable merit, but which has been far from obtaining equal success with his “Eastern Travels.” He now resumed his chronological studies, which had been for some time interrupted. In these he gave vent to all his heterodox opinions, which it could answer no good purpose either to retail or refute in this place. Others, more deeply versed than I in the chronology of the world, have performed this task; which was not, however, extremely necessary, as Volney’s labours on this subject seem designed never to acquire popularity. In 1810 he married Mademoiselle Chassebœuf, his cousin, for whose amusement he purchased a large mansion, with extensive gardens, &c., in the Rue Vaugirard. Here he lived in a kind of morose and misanthropic retirement, heightened, if not caused, by his gloomy and unhappy opinions; and here he died, on the 25th of April, 1820, in the sixty-third year of his age.
EDWARD DANIEL CLARKE.
Born 1769.—Died 1822.
Edward Daniel Clarke was born on the 5th of June, 1769, at Willingdon, in the county of Sussex. Even when a child he is said to have displayed great narrative powers, which he exercised as frequently as possible for the amusement of his father’s domestics and parishioners. In his boyish studies, however, he was wanting in application; a fault arising from the quickness and vivacity of his mind, actuated by insatiable curiosity, and characterized from the beginning by a decided partiality for natural history. Still, the loss sustained by this species of negligence he afterward severely felt, when, notwithstanding the habits of industry which he acquired at a later period of youth, it was found impossible by any degree of exertion to retrieve the moments misspent or wasted in boyhood. At the same time there was one advantage derived from his unstudious inclinations; they urged him to be much abroad in the open air, where he amused himself with running, leaping, and swimming, in which last accomplishment he was particularly skilled, and on one occasion had the satisfaction of saving by this means the life of his younger brother, who was seized by the cramp while bathing in the moat which surrounded his father’s house.