provided for its nurture and advancement. The minds of men became attached to those principles which the cause they had espoused required them to maintain; and as the necessity of referring to the rights of government during the American contest, may, in some degree, have enfeebled the spirit of liberty in England, the French nation having more frequent occasion to appeal to provisions and principles by which the abuses of power are corrected, than to those by which its energy is maintained, imbibed a love of freedom, scarcely compatible with loyalty. But it was owing to a still more important cause, that the American war became instrumental to the revolution. It involved the crown in such difficulties and distresses, as compelled it to cast itself on the indulgence and support of the people; affording them an opportunity of thinking, acting, and speaking, which they had not enjoyed since the conclusion of the civil wars. The public debts of the kingdom had been insupportably oppressive; and its finances involved in the utmost embarassment. The intolerable burdens to which war and ambition had subjected the nation, were continually encreased by the enormous expenses of the crown, and the profusion that prevailed during the unequalled length of the two last reigns. But the weight and amount of the public debts were only part of the national misfortune. The whole system of finances was to the last degree faulty and ruinous: the taxes were injudiciously imposed, and arbitrarily levied. The farmers of the revenues who made immense fortunes, were almost the only untitled members of the community who lived in splendor; while the greater and more valuable part of the nation was groaning beneath the pressure of hopeless poverty. The American war commenced in this situation of affairs, and the people in their zeal to support their sovereign, forgot their debts and their taxes. The ostensible causes, and the private motives of the war, as far as they were understood, were highly alluring and capB2 3 tivating to the imaginations of a generous, brave, and commercial nation. It appeared great and heroic to rescue an oppressed people who were gallantly contending for their rights, from inevitable ruin : it bore the impressions of skilful policy to reduce the power and humble the pride of a great and haughty rival; the disasters sustained in the preceding war with England, could not be forgotten; and, notwithstanding, the wounds inflicted were partially healed by a favourable peace, they still rankled in the breast of every Frenchman. Nothing, therefore, could be more flattering to the national pride, than to seize the opportunity now opportunity now arrived, of erasing the disgrace attached to that unfortunate period. As it was universally supposed that the loss of America would prove an incurable, if not a mortal wound to England; it was equally expected, that the power of the Gallic throne would be established by that event, on foundations so permanent, as never to be shaken by the vicissitudes of fortune. To complete the prospect of glory and advantage, commercial benefits before unknown, and an accession of naval strength that should command the seas, were to be derived from the new alliance and connection with America. These speculations ended only in surprize and disappointment; but the nation entered into the war with unexampled eagerness, and a common hand, directed by a common heart, appeared in its execution. Though the American war failed in producing the desired and expected results in favour of France, it left behind it consequences of a less pleasing nature. Through various causes, particularly from the novel manner in which it was conducted ; its operations being chiefly naval, and extended to the remotest quarters of the world; from the extreme poverty and urgent necessity of the Americans, and the prevailing spirit of the time, which led to the most unbounded supplies, under the persuasion that the money so laid out would be amply repaid: the American war became the most expensive in proportion to the time of its continuance, of any in which France had been engaged. This expense was the more ruinous in its effect, from the circumstance that a great part of the money expended, was sunk at a distance from home, or laid out in commodities so perishable, that there was little hope of its recovery. From this war therefore, a new debt, of immense amount, was superadded to the old; and the accumulation became so vast, as to swell beyond the common bounds of examination and inquiry. It is the misfortune of every hereditary sovereign, in a despotic government, that he cannot indulge the natural benevolence of his disposition, nor endeavour to ameliorate, even at the expense of his own convenience, the political situation of his people, without endangering the existence of his crown, and hazarding the occurrence of a long and lamentable series of turbulence and bloodshed. In proportion to the rigour by which the energies of the public mind are repressed, will be the elasticity of their revulsion, when the hand of power relaxes its pressure. The eagerness of the people to take advantage of every concession from the sovereign, will be in proportion to the severity of the humiliations and privations to which they have been formerly subjected; and who shall limit the excesses of a nation intoxicated by the possession of unexpected freedom, and the prospect of blessings in which it had not hoped to participate? Whoever compares the bloodless and tranquil revolutions of England, when those revolutions were rational in their object, and patriotic in their formation, with the miseries attendant upon resistance to the French monarchy a resistance creditable to the people at large, and to its principal agents, will regard it as one of the strongest arguments against the establishment of a despotic government, that it not only entails upon the people the misfortunes and privations of its own existence and exercise, but exposes them in its future downfall to all the horrors of sanguinary turbulence. They become the prey of those atrocious individuals, who, in every state, endeavour to convert the errors and in fatuation of the people, to the exaltation of their desperate fortunes, or the gratifica tion of their ferocious and unprincipled ambition. The depravation of the public mind, immediately previous to the assembling of the states-general, on the 5th of May, 1789, had been completed by the tendency of a variety of causes, of which the ultimate effect was as decisive as the progress was conspicuous. The advancement of Marie Antoinette in impolicy and indiscretion had been open and regular. Continuing, with equal folly and weakness, to brood over an affront received from the duchesses at the court ball upon the occasion of her marriage, she removed those ladies from her household who were distinguished by their rank, the reputation of their families, and their attachment to the antient usages of the house of Bourbon. The French ceremonial, one of the sources of the majesty of the throne, became the object of her constant raillery. She entrusted the education of her children to a woman of no character or consideration at court, and consequently excited the discontent of those respectable families who usually aspired at such employments. The more state and authority she assumed, the more the aunts of the king and her two sistersin-law contrived to oppose her, and to procure her the hatred of the courtly circle. The sisters of the late Dauphin, warmly attached to the memory of that prince, considered her as the protector of the party of the duke de Choiseul, who had deprived them by poison, of a brother so lately beloved. From the castle of Belle vue and of Mendon, the retreat of the malcontent princes since the period of the gloomy and discontented demeanours of the only son of Lewis the XV. the sarcasm was propagated, that an Austrian occupied the place of the queen of France. The royal family accused her of a desire to assume a superiority over the house of Bourbon, and place the princes of Lorraine on a level with the princes of the blood. They charged her with an inten tion to degrade the great persons of the state, and to raise from the dust, at the expense of the public treasure, her favourites of both sexes, and particularly the house of Polignæ. The clamours and complaints from Versailles and Bellevue, were imported into the capital, and disseminated among all classes of the people. The haughty tone which the queen observed in the decline of her credit, gradually diminished the respectful affection with which she had hitherto been regarded. Marie Antoinette was no longer the dauphiness, young, charming, and adored, indulging only in the amusements suited to her age. In the eyes of the daughters of Lewis XV. who considered themselves as having happily escaped from the poison of Choiseul, she was regarded in no other light than as an archduchess of Austria, an enemy of the French, arrived from Vienna to rule over their country. The virulence of the public resentment increased from this time; and was carried to such a degree, that doubts of the legitimacy of the dauphin were intimated, both in conversation and in writings: doubts which she never condescended to refute by adopting a reserved or discreet behaviour. Lewis XIV. from a motive of policy, had fixed his ordinary residence at a distance from the capital, lest his authority might be diminished by rendering his person familiar to the eyes of the people: the queen, on the contrary, purchased St. Cloud, and moved nearer to Paris, when the concourse of nobility had declined at Versailles. Her private life was the object of public and malicious satire; yet she still affected periodical retreats to Trianon, which her enemies regarded as a suspicious residence. The people proceeding in their injustice began to attribute to her influence, the selection of obnoxious ministers, and the design of unsuccessful measures. They spoke freely of the acquisition of St. Cloud, the orgies of Trianon, the terrace of Versailles, and the nocturnal revels of the park. The count D'Artois, the duke de Coigny, the count de Fersen, the handsome Dillon, and the officers of the life guards, were sarcastically mentioned, and pleasures were recited of a nature which history has only recorded of periods of the most extreme depravity. The people depreciated the royal dignity with a warmth which nothing could restrain. It was at this moment that the reputation of the queen sustained a wound from which it was never able to recover; the circumstances of the singular event which excited the indignation of the people of Paris, have never been consistently related, or minutely developed. It may be collected, however, from the multitude of partial and contradictory accounts, that the cardinal de Rohan, anxious to retrieve his fortune, which he had exhausted by extravagance, became the dupe of the countess de la Motte, a titled prostitute, who shared the favour of the queen. A diamond necklace of very considerable value, having been exhibited by the jewellers in the courtly circles, the countess intimated to the cardinal de Rohan, that the queen had taken a fancy to the jewels, and produced a paper, to which was the signature, Marie Antoinette of France, as a security to the jewellers for the payment by instalments, of the stipulated price. The cardinal, determined to purloin some of the most valuable stones of the necklace as it passed through his hand, believing the representations of the countess, and well acquainted with the motives of the queen for the most inviolable secrecy, readily pledged himself to the merchants for the amount of their demand. mand. When the first instalment became due, the queen disclaimed all knowledge of the transaction, and both the culprits were sentenced to deserved, but arbitrary punishment. That the queen was innocent there can be no reason to doubt; but the effects of this transaction on the public mind were extensively pernicious. people beheld with indignation, the names of the most notorious adventurers, swindlers, and women of dubious character, associated with that of the queen of France: while in consequence of de Rochan's trial and conviction, the whole ecclesiastical body partook of the infamy of the bishop of Strasburg. The The active interference of the French cabinet in the affairs of Russia, America, and England, had excited the most violent animosities against France in several European cabinets. Catharine of Russia was alarmed and irritated; and Frederic remembered with the determination of revenge, the coalitions embodied under the influence of the court of Versailles against his monarchy. Catharine, unwilling or unable to attack the power of France in the field, encouraged by secret bribes, or avowed indications of her favour, every individual who inculcated with ability such principles as might contribute to the disaffection of the French people, and the destruction of the established form of government. When the authors of the Encyclopædia had undermined the foundations of the public faith, and diffused the new systems which destroyed the mechanism of the French monarchy, Catharine and Frederic placed themselves at the head of the revolutionary and destructive party; and the two first Sovereigns of Europe were seen to forget the dignity of the throne, and place them selves on a level with the French philosophers. How little did the sovereign of Prussia, the philosopher of Sans Souci, suspect the severe and exemplary retribution with which his conduct would be visited on his descendants! his descendants! The two monarchs invited the most profligate literati to their courts, and attached them to their persons by presents and pensions, and by the intercourse of periodical and friendly letters. The rancour of Voltaire, D'Argens, Diderot, Condorcet, and D'Alembert, against the popes, the dignified clergy, the college of the Sorbonne, the parliaments, and the political organization of the French monarchy, was encouraged and protected by Frederic and Catharine II. Did the court and the parliament prosecute the writings of Voltaire? Did the king order Diderot into confinement at the castle of Vincennes? A letter from Catharine, the applause of Frederic, the chamberlain's key, and the title of preceptor to a prince, consoled the philosopher for his misfortunes, and urged him to a renewal of his attacks. The alliance between the sorereigns of the north and French philosophy, so intoxicated the Encyclopædists, that they no longer considered themselves as the natives of a particular clime, or the subjects of a particular sovereign. Mankind became their family, and the terrestrial globe their country. The king of Prussia was so fortunate as to escape, in the silence of the grave, the mortification of witnessing the results of his own miscon duct. Catharine was doomed to regret, with bitterness, the patronage she had afforded to the most worthless and most dangerous of mankind. The morality indeed of the patrons was on a level with that of the individuals patronized: the profligacy of Catharine is too notorious and too infamous to require, or to admit of illustration; and Frederic delighted in ridiculing the religion of the Gallican church, and indirectly all other religions, as the religions of infamy. This struggle of the northern sovereigns against the religion of the south, could not but weaken the attachment of all orders to the national religion; at the close of the reign of Lewis XV. opinions favourable to the church were nearly confined to the king, and a weak party at court. The attendance on public worship was confined to tradesmen and the lower classes. The members of the fashionable world adopted three modes of testifying their attachment to religion. On Sundays they paid their visits, to avoid an attendance on the celebration of mass, while they were supposed to be present at the ceremony. They divided the time restricted to the Easter communion into two portions, the former of which they passed at Paris and the latter in the country; hy which means they rendered it impossible for their friends to determine whether they received the Easter communion or not; and in case of sickness, the husband or wife of the dying person kept the confessor at a distance: the other party having usually been guilty of a violation of the marriage vows, at a period when a strict adherence to moral duties was regarded only as the subject of ridicule. The chil dren, the relatives, the husband, or the. wife, concealed the danger of the sick person from the priest, and sent for the confessor when it was too late. The spirit of disaffection which existed in France previously to the accession of Lewis arose from political causes; but the total disregard of religion, which was equally prevalent, arose from the combination of those political causes with the extensive circulation of the speculations of Voltaire, Rousseau, and the other Encyclopædists. Exulting amidst the ruins by which he was surrounded, Condorcet proudly boasts, many years after his preceptors had disappeared from the scene of life, that erudition and philosophy, the brilliancy of wit, and the fascination of style, had been successively employed for the purpose of undermining the throne and altar. Under the opposite forms of humour and of pathos, the poison was skilfully administered; at one time dignified with the pomp of metaphysical acuteness, and occasionally clothed in the lighter garb of a pamphlet, or the voluptuous dress of a romance. While they aimed at the subversion of the catholic religion, they persuaded the clergy that they were only anxious for toleration; and when attempting to sap the foundations of the throne, they only demanded the suppression of some notorious abuse. Fanaticism and tyranny became alternately the watch words of the philosophers; but under the former appellation, every sect was comprehended which acknowledged the divinity of Christ, and the latter was applied to all legitimate governments. During the splendid period of Grecian literature, the appellation of philosopher was reserved exclusively for those who devoted their time to the investigation of truth and the improvement of science. No dangers were too formidable, no labours too arduous, to repress their enthusiasm. They visited countries the most re:note, traversed seas and mountains, and encountered heat and cold for the pleasure of conversing with their wise and illustrious contemporaries, and of investigating the secrets of nature. Their manners were austere, and their meditations uninterrupted by those trifling occupations which employ the votaries of pleasure. But the philosophers of whom I am speaking were of a different character. Instead of consecrating their lives to serious studies, they passed them at the table of some wealthy financier, or in the boudoir of some capricious beauty. To doubt was regarded as the criterion of wisdom, and they in consequence affected to despise all antient institutions as the offspring of ignorance and superstition. The Christian religion was the object of their hatred, but all their attacks were irregular and desultory. No union of opinion connected them, because every one was ambitious of surpassing his colleagues in boldness and impiety. Neither were they less at variance with themselves. The progress of irreligious philosophy was still more powerfully accelerated by the imbecility of the clergy than by the vices of the monarch. Instead of expounding to the people the sublime truths of evangelical morality, with the embellishments of eloquence, or force of argument, they devoted their time to mystical and insignificant disputes. Their manners were less guarded (than formerly. Decorum had found an exclusive refuge among the parochial vicars. The bishops resided in the capital, where they lived in a style of great licentiousness; and were regarded by the court as the objects of studied derision and open contempt. Unfortunately, the sophistries of the philosophers were opposed, on the part of the clergy, by unmeaning declamation, by the persecution of the protestants, or the extension of the law to the Encyclopædists themselves. But their remokstrances against the philosophers; the decrees against their works; the stigma of the magistrates, who condemned them to be burned and torn to pieces, were impotent and nugatory. The periodical assemblies held by d'Alembert, baron Holdbach, madame Helvetius, madame Geoffrin, and similar characters, obtained and secured a more powerful influence on the minds of men than all the remonstrances of the clergy, and the decrees of the parliament. The paradoxes and speculations of the philosophers rather followed than directed the progress of public opinion The |