by Edmund Burke
As to the rest, they have shot out three branches of revenue to supply all those which they have destroyed, that is, the Universal Register of all Transactions, the heavy and universal Stamp Duty, and the new Territorial Impost, levied chiefly on the reduced estates of the gentlemen. These branches of the revenue, especially as they take assignats in payment, answer their purpose in a considerable degree, and keep up the credit of their paper; for as they receive it in their treasury, it is in reality funded upon all their taxes and future resources of all kinds, as well as upon the church estates. As this paper is become in a manner the only visible maintenance of the whole people, the dread of a bankruptcy is more apparently connected with the delay of a counter-revolution, than with the duration of this Republick; because the interest of the new Republick manifestly leans upon it; and in my opinion, the counter-revolution cannot exist along with it. The above three projects ruined some Ministers under the old Government, merely for having conceived them. They are the salvation of the present Rulers.
As the Assembly has laid a most unsparing and cruel hand on all men who have lived by the bounty, the justice, or the abuses of the old Government, they have lessened many expences. The royal establishment, though excessively and ridiculously great for their scheme of things, is reduced at least one half; — the estates of the King’s Brothers, which under the ancient Government had been in truth royal revenues, go to the general stock of the confiscation; and as to the crown lands, though under the Monarchy they never yielded two hundred and fifty thousand a year, by many they are thought at least worth three times as much.
As to the ecclesiastical charge, whether as a compensation for losses, or a provision for religion, of which they made at first a great parade, and entered into a solemn engagement in favour of it, it was estimated at a much larger sum than they could expect from the church property, moveable or immoveable: they are completely bankrupt as to that article. It is just what they wish; and it is not productive of any serious inconvenience. The non-payment produces discontent and occasional sedition; but is only by fits and spasms, and amongst the country people who are of no consequence. These seditions furnish new pretexts for non-payment to the church establishment, and help the Assembly wholly to get rid of the Clergy, and indeed of any form of religion, which is not only their real, but avowed object.
They are embarrassed indeed in the highest degree, but not wholly resourceless. They are without the species of money. Circulation of money is a great convenience, but a substitute for it may be found. Whilst the great objects of production and consumption, corn, cattle, wine, and the like, exist in a country, the means of giving them circulation with more or less convenience, cannot be wholly wanting. The great confiscation of the church and of the crown lands, and of the appenages of the princes, for the purchase of all which their paper is always received at par, gives means of continually destroying and continually creating, and this perpetual destruction and renovation feeds the speculative market, and prevents, and will prevent, till that fund of confiscation begins to fail, a total depreciation.
But all consideration of public credit in France is of little avail at present. The action indeed of the monied interest was of absolute necessity at the beginning of this Revolution; but the French Republicks can stand without any assistance from that description of men, which, as things are now circumstanced, rather stands in need of assistance itself from the power which alone substantially exists in France; I mean the several districts and municipal republicks, and the several clubs which direct all their affairs and appoint all their magistrates. This is the power now paramount to every thing, even to the Assembly itself called National, and that to which tribunals, priesthood, laws, finances, and both descriptions of military power, are wholly subservient, so far as the military power of either description yields obedience to any name of authority.
The world of contingency and political combination is much larger than we are apt to imagine. We never can say what may, or may not happen, without a view to all the actual circumstances. Experience upon other data than those, is of all things the most delusive. Prudence in new cases can do nothing on grounds of retrospect. A constant vigilance and attention to the train of things as they successively emerge, and to act on what they direct, are the only sure courses. The physician that let blood, and by blood-letting cured one kind of plague, in the next added to it’s ravages. That power goes with property is not universally true, and the idea that the operation of it is certain and invariable, may mislead us very satally.
Whoever will take an accurate view of the state of those Republicks, and of the composition of the present Assembly deputed by them (in which Assembly there are not quite fifty persons possessed of an income amounting to 100l. sterling yearly) must discern clearly, that the political and civil power of France is wholly separated from it’s property of every description; and of course that neither the landed nor the monied interest possesses the smallest weight or consideration in the direction of any publick concern. The whole kingdom is directed by the refuse of it’s chicane, with the aid of the bustling, presumptuous young clerks of counting-houses and shops, and some intermixture of young gentlemen of the same character in the several towns. The rich peasants are bribed with church lands: and the poorer of that description are, and can be, counted for nothing. They may rise in ferocious, ill-directed tumults — but they can only disgrace themselves and signalize the triumph of their adversaries.
The truly active citizens. that is, the above descriptions. are all concerned in intrigue respecting the various objects in their local or their general government. The rota which the French have established for their National Assembly, holds out the highest objects of ambition to such vast multitudes as, in an unexampled measure, to widen the bottom of a new species of interest merely political, and wholly unconnected with birth or property. This scheme of a rota, though it enfeebles the state, considered as one solid body, and indeed wholly disables it from acting as such, gives a great, an equal, and a diffusive strength to the democratick scheme. Seven hundred and fifty people, every two years raised to the supreme power, has already produced at least fifteen hundred bold, acting politicians; a great number for even so great a country as France. These men never will quietly settle in ordinary occupations, nor submit to any scheme which must reduce them to an entirely private condition, or to the exercise of a steady, peaceful, but obscure and unimportant industry. Whilst they sit in the Assembly they are denied offices of trust and profit — but their short duration makes this no restraint — during their probation and apprenticeship they are all salaried with an income to the greatest part of them immense; and after they have passed the novitiate, those who take any sort of lead are placed in very lucrative offices, according to their influence and credit, or appoint those who divide their profits with them.
This supply of recruits to the corps of the highest civil ambition, goes on with a regular progression. In very few years it must amount to many thousands. These, however, will be as nothing in comparison to the multitude of municipal officers, and officers of district and department, of all sorts, who have tasted of power and profit, and who hunger for the periodical return of the meal. To these needy agitators, the glory of the state, the general wealth and prosperity of the nation, and the rise or fall of publick credit, are as dreams; nor have arguments deduced from these topicks any sort of weight with them. The indifference with which the Assembly regards the state of their Colonies, the only valuable part of the French commerce, is a full proof how little they are likely to be affected by any thing but the selfish game of their own ambition, now universally diffused.
It is true, amidst all these turbulent means of security to their system, very great discontents every where prevail. But they only produce misery to those who nurse them at home, or exile, beggary, and in the end, confiseation, to those who are so impatient as to remove from them. Each Municipal Republick has a Committee, or something in the nature of a Committee of Research. In these petty Repu
blicks the tyranny is so near it’s object, that it becomes instantly acquainted with every act of every man. It stifles conspiracy in it’s very first movements. Their power is absolute and uncontroulable. No stand can be made against it. These Republicks are besides so disconnected, that very little intelligence of what happens in them is to be obtained, beyond their own bounds, except by the means of their clubs, who keep up a constant correspondence, and who give what colour they please to such facts as they choose to communicate out of the track of their correspondence. They all have some sort of communication, just as much or as little as they please, with the center. By this consinement of all communication to the ruling faction, any combination grounded on the abuses and discontents in one. scarcely can reach the other. There is not one man, in any one place, to head them. The old Government had so much abstracted the Nobility from the cultivation of provincial interest, that no man in France exists, whose power, credit or consequence extends to two districts, or who is capable of uniting them in any design, even if any man could assemble ten men together, without being sure of a speedy lodging in a prison. One must not judge of the state of France by what has been observed elsewhere. It does not in the least resemble any other country. Analogical reasoning from history or from recent experience in other places is wholly delusive.
In my opinion there never was seen so strong a government internally as that of the French Municipalities. If ever any rebellion can arise against the present system, it must begin, where the Revolution which gave birth to it did, at the Capital. Paris is the only place in which there is the least freedom of intercourse. But even there, so many servants as any man has, so many spies, and irreconcileable domestick enemies.
But that place being the chief seat of the power and intelligence of the ruling faction, and the place of occasional resort for their fiercest spirits, even there a revolution is not likely to have any thing to feed it. The leaders of the aristocratick party have been drawn out of the kingdom by order of the Princes, on the hopes held out by the Emperor and the King of Prussia at Pilnitz; and as to the democratick factions in Paris, amongst them there are no leaders possessed of an influence for any other purpose but that of maintaining the present state of things. The moment they are seen to warp, they are reduced to nothing. They have no attached army — no party that is at all personal.
It is not to be imagined because a political system is, under certain aspects, very unwise in it’s contrivance, and very mischievous in it’s effects, that it therefore can have no long duration. It’s very defects may tend to it’s stability, because they are agreeable to it’s nature. The very faults in the constitution of Poland made it last; the veto which destroyed all it’s energy preserved it’s life. What can be conceived so monstrous as the Republick of Algiers? and that no less strange Republick of the Mammalukes in Egypt? They are of the worst form imaginable, and exercised in the worst manner, yet they have existed as a nuisance on the earth for several hundred years.
From all these considerations, and many more, that croud upon me, three conclusions have long since arisen in my mind —
First, that no counter-revolution is to be expected in France from internal causes solely.
Secondly, that the longer the present system exists, the greater will be it’s strength; the greater it’s power to destroy discontents at home, and to resist all foreign attempts in favour of these discontents.
Thirdly, that as long as it exists in France, it will be the interest of the managers there, and it is in the very essence of their plan, to disturb and distract all other governments, and their endless succession of restless politicians will continually stimulate them to new attempts.
Princes are generally sensible that this is their common cause; and two of them have made a publick declaration of their opinion to this effect. Against this common danger, some of them, such as the King of Spain, the King of Sardinia, and the Republick of Berne, are very diligent in using desensive measures.
If they were to guard against an invasion from France, the merits of this plan of a merely defensive resistance might be supported by plausible topicks; but as the attack does not operate against these countries externally, but by an internal corruption (a sort of dry rot); they who pursue this merely defensive plan, against a danger which the plan itself supposes to be serious, cannot possibly escape it. For it is in the nature of all defensive measures to be sharp and vigorous under the impressions of the first alarm, and to relax by degrees; until at length the danger, by not operating instantly, comes to appear as a false alarm; so much so that the next menacing appearance will look less formidable, and will be less provided against. But to those who are on the offensive it is not necessary to be always alert. Possibly it is more their interest not to be so. For their unforeseen attacks contribute to their success.
In the mean time a system of French conspiracy is gaining ground in every country. This system happening to be founded on principles the most delusive indeed, but the most flattering to the natural propensities of the unthinking multitude, and to the speculations of all those who think, without thinking very profoundly, must daily extend it’s influence. A predominant inclination towards it appears in all those who have no religion, when otherwise their disposition leads them to be advocates even for despotism. Hence Hume, though I cannot say that he does not throw out some expressions of disapprobation on the proceedings of the levellers in the reign of Richard the Second, yet affirms that the doctrines of John Ball were
“conformable to the ideas of primitive equality, which are engraven in the hearts of all men.”
Boldness formerly was not the character of Atheists as such. They were even of a character nearly the reverse; they were formerly like the old Epicureans, rather an unenterprizing race. But of late they are grown active, designing, turbulent and seditious. They are sworn enemies to Kings, Nobility and Priesthood. We have seen all the Academicians at Paris, with Condorcet, the friend and correspondent of Priestley, at their head, the most furious of the extravagant Republicans.
The late Assembly, after the last captivity of the King, had actually chosen this Condorcet by a majority on the ballot, for Preceptor to the Dauphin, who was to be taken out of the hands and direction of his parents, and to be delivered over to this fanatick Atheist, and furious democratick Republican. His untractability to these leaders, and his figure in the Club of Jacobins, which at that time they wished to bring under, alone prevented that part of the arrangement, and others in the same style, from being carried into execution. Whilst he was candidate for this office, he produced his title to it by promulgating the following ideas of the title of his royal pupil to the crown. In a paper written by him, and published with his name, against the re-establishment, even of the appearance of monarchy under any qualifications, He says,
“Jusqu’à ce moment ils [l’Assemblée Nationale] n’out rien préjugé encore. En se reservant de nommer un Gouvernour an Dauphin, ils n’out pas prononcé que cet enfant dût regner; mais seulement quil étoit possible que la Constitution l’y destinât; ils out voulu que l’éducation, effaçant tout ce que les prestiges du Trône out pu lui inspirer de préjugés fur les droits prétendus de sa naissance, qu’elle luifit connoître de bonne heure, et l’Egalité naturelle des Hommes, et la Souveraineté du peuple; qu’elle lui apprit à ne pas oublier que c’est du peuple qu’il tiendra le tître de Roi, et que le peuple nia pas même le droit de renoncer à celui de l’en depouiller.”
“Ils ont voulu que cette éducation le rendit également digne, par ses lumières, et ses vertus, de recevoir avec resignation, le fardeau dangereux d’une couronne, ou de la déposer avec joie entre les mains de ces frères, qu’il sentit que le devoir, et la gloire du Roi d’un peuple libre, est de hâter le moment de n’être plus qu’un citoyen ordinaire.”
“Ils ont voulu que l’inutilité d’un Roi, la nécessité de chercher les moyens de remplacer un pouvoir fondé sur les illusions, fut une des premières vérités offertes à sa raison; l’oblig
ation d’y concourir lui même un des premières devoirs de sa morale; et le desir, de n’être plus affranchi du joug de la loi, par une injurieuse inviolabilité, le premier sentiment de son coeur. Ils n’ignorent pas que dans ce moment il s’agit bien moins de former un Roi que de lui apprendre à savoir, à vouloir ne plus l’être.”
Such are the sentiments of the man who has occasionally filled the chair of the National Assembly, who is their perpetual secretary, their only standing officer, and the most important by far. He leads them to peace or war. He is the great theme of the Republican faction in England. These ideas of M. Condorcet, are the principles of those to whom Kings are to entrust their successors, and the interests of their succession. This man would be ready to plunge the poignard in the heart of his pupil, or to whet the axe for his neck. Of all men, the most dangerous is a warm, hot-headed, zealous Atheist. This sort of man aims at dominion, and his means are, the words he always has in his mouth,
“L’égalité naturelle des Hommes, et la Souverainté du Peuple.”
All former attempts grounded on these Rights of Men, had proved unfortunate. The success of this last makes a mighty difference in the effect of the doctrine. Here is a principle of a nature, to the multitude, the most seductive, always existing be fore their eyes, as a thing feasible in practice. After so many failures, such an enterprize previous to the French experiment, carried ruin to the contrivers, on the face of it; and if any enthusiast was so wild as to wish to engage in a scheme of that nature, it was not easy for him to find followers: Now there is a party almost in all countries, ready made, animated with success, with a sure Ally in the very center of Europe. There is no cabal so obscure in any place, that they do not protect, cherish, foster, and endeavour to raise it into importance at home and abroad. From the lowest, this intrigue will creep up to the highest. Ambition, as well as enthusiasm, may find it’s account in the party and in the principle.