And yet, strange as it may seem, and strange as it does now seem even to ourselves, there was a splendour, a magnificence about that revolution that riveted our admiration and sympathy with a force that could not be at once detached by all the horrors that accompanied it.
In the first burst of the revolution, nothing was seen by us but a brave and generous effort by the people for the recovery of their long lost rights and liberties. The spectacle of such a people, a people so endeared to us by recent services, rising, in such a cause, against the whole wealth and power of the court and the vast body
of the nobles, temporal and spiritual, who had so long lorded it over France, was well calculated to enlist our strongest sympathies.—The first movements of the national convention, too, were marked with an energy, a grandeur, a magnanimity, and a power of eloquence such as the world had never witnessed, and such as no human heart could withstand.—And, then, when the combined armies moved upon France, the heroism with which they were met by the armies of the republic—chaunting, as they marched up in order of battle, the sublime strains of their national hymn—and the stupendous power with which they were beaten off, and their armies crushed and annihilated one after another—threw such a blaze of glory around the revolution as made us blind to all its excesses. Those excesses, too, came to us, veiled and softened by the distance, and by the medium through which they passed: and, however much to be deplored, we were ready, with the French patriots, to consider them as the unavoidable consequences of such a struggle, and to charge all the blood that was spilt in France, to the tyrants, abroad and at home, who chose to resist, to death, the rightful demands of the people.
Those "wonderful people," too, (as they were characterised by Gen. Washington in '96,) in the midst of the terrific scenes which they were daily enacting, contrived to throw a grace and a beauty around their public acts, and to gild even their wildest projects with a moral sublimity that effectually concealed, at the time, all their folly and injustice, and gave them a rapturous reception throughout the United States. Thus, when, in the rage of reformation which seemed determined to leave nothing of the old order of things remaining, they resolved to abolish the calendar, and, in lieu of the barbarous names by which the months had been distinguished, to introduce a new nomenclature, founded on
the exhibitions of nature, in the different seasons: there was a poetic beauty in the conception and a felicity of taste in the execution of which no other nation on earth seemed capable. Their months of buds, flowers and meadows, of harvest, heat and fruit, of vintage, fog and sleet, of snow, rain and wind, were so beautiful and so expressive, that they extorted the admiration even of the reluctant world. Even the wild project of propagating liberty by the sword, and folding the whole human family in their fraternal embrace, was so bold and generous and grand, that, in the contemplation of its magnificence, we forgot its folly. And when, in execution of this project, the young hero of the republic crossed the Alps, and by a series of victories that eclipsed the brightest boasts of ancient history, brought Italy, Austria and Prussia to his feet, it seemed as if heaven itself had set its seal to the high resolve.
Those days come fresh upon our recollection in consequence of the recent movement in France. There are not many of us now alive who were old enough then to understand and recollect them. The first shock of the revolution, the storming of the bastile, struck this whole continent, from one end to the other, like an electric flash, and I believe that there was not a man in the United States whose first impulse it was not to rush to the side of the gallant people of France, and to triumph or die in their cause. Had it not been for the barrier of the ocean, there were hundreds and thousands of our countrymen who would have obeyed the impulse. Even with that impediment in our way, it was with extreme difficulty that the illustrious man then at the head of our affairs, the Father of his country, could restrain us from plunging into the conflict. No other man, and no other thousand men in the United States could have done it. And even when done by him, the idol of our love and the pride of our nation, and
of mankind, we complained, in no very measured terms, of a restraint which probably saved us from ruin. In truth, our hearts were too deeply engaged to give fair play to our heads. Many of us were very young, and all of us under a paroxysm of excitement which scarcely left us morally responsible for our conduct. So all-absorbing was the passion, that our own affairs had no longer any flavor for us. We gave to France all that we were permitted to give, our hearts, our prayers, and all the sympathies of our nature. Our eyes, our ears were turned, incessantly, towards her coast, to catch the earliest tidings of her progress, and every new sail from abroad that hove in sight, set our bosoms into the wildest commotion. We identified ourselves with her as far as possible. We assumed her badges, adopted her language of salutation and intercourse, and all her votive cries of joy and triumph. The names of her patriots, orators, and generals, "familiar in our mouths as household words, were, in our flowing cups, most devoutly remembered!" We recited with rapture those noble bursts of indignant or pathetic eloquence which were continually breaking from her tribune. Every shout of victory from her shores was echoed back from ours. Every house and every cottage, our mountains and valleys, rung with her national airs, and often did we see groups of the old and the young, the rich and the poor, fathers and sons, virgins and matrons, swelling the heroic chorus of the Marseilles hymn, with the tears and the fire of enthusiasm in their eyes. Those days are gone; but there is still a mournful pleasure in their remembrance. They recall to us many of those who were wont to join with us in those celebrations, but who can join with us no more. They recall those visions of glory which then surrounded France, but which were, afterwards, so mournfully overcast. They attest the universality, the sincerity, the depth of the interest which we
have ever taken in the cause of her liberty. Long, very long, was it before that enthusiasm subsided. Never did it subside, while there was a remaining hope that France might still be free. But the combined powers, though beaten in every field, were still able to protract the war, until all the bloom and beauty of the revolution were gone, and, what was worse, until its very object was lost sight of and exchanged for a deadly thirst of vengeance, and a proud passion for the glory of the arms of France. It was this moral transition in the sentiments of the people, which ultimately defeated the great purpose of the revolution. For it conducted Napoleon to an imperial throne; and his ambition, grown frantic with success, urged him to those rash measures which resulted in the restoration of the Bourbons, and thus brought back the revolution to the point from which it had started.
This sketch, imperfect as it necessarily is, will enable us to institute a comparison between the former revolution and the present. And we cannot but see that it was the slow, lingering, fluctuating course of the former revolution, and the repeated intervals in which there was, virtually, no government at all, that gave time for the demoralization of the people, and for the formation of those terrible factions within, and those powerful combinations without, which finally ended in its discomfiture. But here the blow has been struck, and the whole revolution rounded off and finished in three days. No time has been afforded for the demoralization of the people; none for the formation of factions within, or combinations without. The first intelligence that Europe, or even the remote provinces of France have of the affair is, that it is finished. It is this celerity, and the constant presence of an efficient government, which distinguish this revolution from the former and constitute its safety. The men who head this movement
are practical men, with strong common sense, (the best of all sense) and with honest intentions. With the former revolution full in their view, and a thorough knowledge of all the causes of its miscarriage, they have gone to work in this case with the decision and despatch of men of business. They change their monarch, limit his powers, and there they stop. And what power in Europe can complain?