Reflections on the Revolution in France

do not know that they ought. You are young; you cannot guide, but must follow, the fortune of your country. But hereafter they may be of some use to you, in some future form which your commonwealth may take. In the present it can hardly remain; but before its final settlement, it may be obliged to pass, as one of our poets says, “through great varieties of untried being,” and in all its transmigrations to be purified by fire and blood.

I have little to recommend my opinions but long observation and much impartiality. They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life. They come from one almost the whole of whose public exertion has been a struggle for the liberty of others⁠—from one in whose breast no anger durable or vehement has ever been kindled but by what he considered as tyranny, and who snatches from his share in the endeavors which are used by good men to discredit opulent oppression the hours he has employed on your affairs, and who in so doing persuades himself he has not departed from his usual office. They come from one who desires honors, distinctions, and emoluments but little, and who expects them not at all⁠—who has no contempt for fame, and no fear of obloquy⁠—who shuns contention, though he will hazard an opinion; from one who wishes to preserve consistency, but who would preserve consistency by varying his means to secure the unity of his end⁠—and, when the equipoise of the vessel in which he sails may be endangered by overloading it upon one side, is desirous of carrying the small weight of his reasons to that which may preserve its equipoise.

Endnotes

1. Psalm 149. ↩

2. Discourse on the Love of Our Country, Nov. 4, 1789, by Dr. Richard Price, 3rd edition, p. 17 and 18. ↩

3. “Those who dislike that mode of worship which is prescribed by public authority ought, if they can find no worship out of the Church which they approve, to set up a separate worship for themselves; and by doing this, and giving an example of a rational and manly worship, men of weight from their rank and literature may do the greatest service to society and the world.”⁠—P. 18, Dr. Price’s Discourse on the Love of Our Country. ↩

4. P. 34, Discourse on the Love of Our Country, by Dr. Price. ↩

5. 1st Mary, sess. 3, ch. 1. ↩

6. “That King James II, having endeavored to subvert the Constitution of the kingdom, by breaking the original contract between king and people, and, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons, having violated the fundamental laws, and having withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, hath abdicated the government, and the throne is thereby vacant.” ↩

7. P. 23, 23, 24. ↩

8. See Blackstone’s Magna Carta, printed at Oxford, 1759. ↩

9. 1 William and Mary. ↩

10. Ecclesiasticus 38:24⁠–⁠25. “The wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure: and he that hath little business shall become wise. How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and that glorieth in the goad; that driveth oxen, and is occupied in their labors, and whose talk is of bullocks?”

    38:27. “So every carpenter and workmaster, that laboreth night and day,” etc.

    38:33. “They shall not be sought for in public counsel, nor sit high in the congregation: they shall not sit on the judge’s seat, nor understand the sentence of judgment: they cannot declare justice and judgment, and they shall not be found where parables are spoken.”

    38:34. “But they will maintain the state of the world.”

    I do not determine whether this book be canonical, as the Gallican Church (till lately) has considered it, or apocryphal, as here it is taken. I am sure it contains a great deal of sense and truth. ↩

11. Discourse on the Love of Our Country, 3rd edit. p. 39. ↩

12. Another of these reverend gentlemen, who was witness to some of the spectacles which Paris has lately exhibited, expresses himself thus:⁠—“A king dragged in submissive triumph by his conquering subjects is one of those appearances of grandeur which seldom rise in the prospect of human affairs, and which, during the remainder of my life, I shall think of with wonder and gratification.” These gentlemen agree marvellously in their feelings. ↩

13. State Trials, Vol. II. p. 360, 363. ↩

14. 6th of October, 1789. ↩

15. “Tous les Évêques à la lanterne!” ↩

16. It is proper here to refer to a letter written upon this subject by an eyewitness. That eyewitness was one of the most honest, intelligent, and eloquent members of the National Assembly, one of the most active and zealous reformers of the state. He was obliged to secede from the Assembly; and he afterwards became a voluntary exile, on account of the horrors of this pious triumph, and the dispositions of men, who, profiting of crimes, if not causing them, have taken the lead in public affairs.

    Extract of M. de Lally Tollendal’s Second Letter to a Friend

    “Parlons du parti que j’ai pris; il est bien justifé dans ma conscience.⁠—Ni cette ville coupable, ni cette assemblée plus coupable encore, ne méritoient que je me justifie; mais j’ai à cœur que vous, et les personnes qui pensent comme vous, ne me condamnent pas.⁠—Ma santé, je vous jure, me rendoit mes fonctions impossibles; mais même en les mettant de côté il a été au-dessus de mes forces de supporter plus longtems l’horreur que me causoit ce sang⁠—ces têtes⁠—cette reine presque egorgée⁠—ce roi, amené esclave, entrant à Paris au milieu de ses assassins, et