"Thus the movement, arising from many different causes, extended more and more. The philosophers, by incessantly depreciating the nation in their writings, had succeeded in rendering the nation ashamed of itself. All parties in the nation seemed to unite in deeming it necessary to destroy the ancient social order. It was manifest that important changes would take place at no distant period, though the exact time of their approach could not be fixed with certainty. It was at the approach of that tempest which was destined to shake the state to its foundations, that the pride of philosophy sought to exalt itself by attacking heaven. By it the curb of conscience was broken, and the great name of God, which might have imposed a restraint on the violence of the passions which the Revolution called forth, was effaced. By this means, to the legitimate conquest of liberty will ere long succeed a mortal strife of vanities, in which those of the majority, having proved victorious, will stain themselves without mercy with the blood of the vanquished. Other people will, in future times, undergo changes similar to ours; but they will eschew the same violence, because the influence of religion will not be extinct among them. Posterity, that equitable judge of the past, imputes to philosophy that it perverted the minds of the people while it pretended to enlighten them, and turned aside from its proper end a revolution commenced with the design of ameliorating the lot of the human race.
"Louis XV. left royalty tarnished in France. At his death the people rejoiced,—the enlightened classes congratulated themselves. The vices of the sovereign had opened in every heart an incurable wound. Neither the virtues of Louis XVI., nor the glory acquired during the American war; nor the sight of France restored to its rank among the nations; nor the love of the King for his subjects; nor the liberal institutions which he bestowed on them, could heal that fatal wound. The stains of the crown could be washed out only by the blood of the just ascending to Heaven by the steps of the scaffold."[4]—(Vol. ii. pp. 531, 533.)
After these quotations, it is needless to say what the merits of M. De Tocqueville's work are. He possesses the abstract thought, the philosophic temperament, the reflecting mind, which enable him to follow, with a correct and discerning eye, the general course of events. He does not attach himself to individual men,—he is no hero-worshipper. His narrative has not the interest of biography, or of histories framed on its model. It has not the dramatic air of Thierry, the genius of Chateaubriand, or the pictorial powers of Michelet. It is, on that account, not likely to be so generally popular as the works of any of these eminent writers. It resembles more nearly the admirable "Sketches of the Progress of Society," to be found in the works of Guizot and Sismondi. As such, it possesses very high merit, and will doubtless take its place among the standard works of French history. Perhaps his work is more worthy of study, and more likely to be esteemed by thinking men in other countries than his own: for France has gone through the convulsions consequent on the social and moral evils which he has so well portrayed; but other nations are only in their commencement. What to the one is history, to the other, if not averted, may be prophecy.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Histoire Philosophique du Regne de Louis XV. Par M. Le Comte De Tocqueville. 2 Vols. Paris, 1847.
[2] Histoire Philosophique du Regne de Louis XV.
[3] The Duchess de Berri was an apt scholar in the lessons which her father taught her. One evening, after copious libations, a fancy seized them to represent the Judgment of Paris. The Princess played the part of Venus; two of the Regent's mistresses those of Minerva and Juno. "The three Goddesses appeared in the costume in which those in the tale displayed themselves to the son of Priam." De Tocqueville. Vol. i. p. 26—note.
[4] Alluding to the sublime words of the Father Edgeworth to Louis XVI., at the foot of the scaffold:—"Fils de St Louis, montez au ciel!"