facilitating this vicarious blow to her ancient and hated rival, both in the New World and the Old; third, that this created a commanding precedent for the primary consultation of self-interest in international relations; fourth, that the consultation of our own self-interest indubitably recommended "neutrality" and a permanent severance of all European partnership. Meanwhile, it was equally necessary to remind enthusiastic Republicans upon this side of the sea that the France which bulwarked the American Revolution was not the France of the sans-culotte and the guillotine which was now embroiling Europe; also that this transformation, far from rightfully intensifying our inherited obligation, was in reality an exigency which left us comparatively free to deal with a new situation on its own merits or its lack of them. The validation of this thesis ultimately fell to Hamilton's invincible pen. That he proved his case and sustained the patriotic logic of his great chieftain will subsequently appear. But the very extent of the burden which the decision perilously involvedprecipitated, as it was, upon the very heels of

2

"I have been particularly interested in these pages in emphasising the idea that France's intervention in the American Revolution was motivated primarily by her desire to recover her lost pre-eminence on the Continent of Europe."-Dr. Edward S. Corwin in his introduction to his French Policy and the American Alliance.

2 Aaron Burr once declared: "He who puts himself on paper with Hamilton, is lost."

Yorktown-puts surpassing emphasis upon the policy thus initiated as a cardinal principle of the new United States. In other words, as we already have observed, if comparative isolation and independence of European concerns was America's logical and necessary posture in such a crisis and under the implications of such understandably intense emotionalism, the authority of the precedent-the power of the tradition thus invoked-is a thing not easily evaded in any later and less intimately challenging situations in which America could be involved. It, therefore, becomes important to inquire into the verities of this initial historic decision, to the end that we may be sure the main sources of this tradition which we undertake to trail are honorable and righteous; and it becomes equally important to understand conditions in France as bearing upon our own decisions, even as it previously was necessary to understand conditions in America as bearing upon French relations to our own Revolution.

The crimson predicament which had befallen France in the decade after Yorktown may be sketched, for the purposes of this study, in a single paragraph. Around the throne of Louis XVI rolled the thundering storms of a Republican revolt which was destined swiftly to leap beyond the control of its original high-purposed leaders; to consume its own ravenous evangelists, one after another; to sweep all decent conceptions of

ordered freedom into a hideous parody upon "liberty"; to make death the only instrument of government, and all but sink French civilization in cess-pools of weltering blood. Whereas, in the beginnings of this ultimate unspeakable terrorthis ultimate molten chaos-Lafayette and Rochambeau, fresh from the inspiration of American emancipation, were earnest servants of this broadened apostrophe to an expectation of broadened French Constitutionalism, they became-within a relatively few mad months-the disillusioned victims of waxing Revolution which burst its bounds of sanity. But what continence could be expected in a mob-lust which cheered a Danton in his pulpits of merciless violence; then glorified a Robespierre for out-screaming Danton and rolling his neck beneath the sleepless guillotine; then gorged itself in sheer blood-delight when Robespierre rode the tumbrils and added his sev

'Lafayette wrote to Washington from Paris as late as March 15, 1792, as follows: "The danger for us lies in our state of anarchy, owing to the ignorance of the people the number of non-proprietors, the jealousy of every governing measure, all which inconveniences are worked up by designing men, or aristocrats in disguise, but both extremely tend to defeat our ideas of public order. . . . That liberty and equality will be preserved in France, there is no doubt; in case there were, you well know that I would not, if they fail, survive them. . . . Licentiousness, under the mask of patriotism, is our greatest evil, as it threatens property, tranquillity and liberty itself."-Old South Leaflets, No. 98, p. 16.

ered head to the ghastly toll in the saw-dust basket! From 1789 to 1795 France submitted itself to manias that beggar description. Behind it all was the accumulation of crushing exploitation which deserved heroic challenge quite as properly as did anything in the experiences of the American Colonies; but when the challenge found fruition, it was a murderous shambles rather than a parliament of self-sufficient freemen. It was the volcanic eruption of a tortured ideal. It was the trading of Cut-Throats for Kings. It was, as Carlyle says: "The choking, sweltering, deadly and killing rule of no rule; the consecration of cupidity and braying of folly and dim stupidity and baseness, in most of the affairs of men; slopshirts attainable three halfpence cheaper by the ruin of living bodies and immortal souls." Yet it was the usual progression of disease; the nearer it approached a crisis, the nearer it approached a

cure.

The

Such a gory debacle-nauseating even to the most faithful of Republicans if he distinguished between liberty and license-served to solidify the monarchical enemies of France, surrounding her with horror and with bristling arms. Court, the nobility and the clergy-largely emigrating to escape the wanton menace which cheerfully took life and property and called it blessed so long as it wore the new cockade-found willing sympathies in these neighboring capitols. Not only was just such willing intrigue always part

of the European system, but here was the added stimulus of fears lest the conflagration lighted by the French Commune might spread into a continental holocaust. Hostile gatherings were the open rule beyond all French borders. Preparations for counter-revolution that should snuff these torches of anarchy were made at Brussels, Worms, and Coblentz under the protection and inspiration of foreign Courts. They invited the reprisals of new Republican excesses to combat counter-revolution with counter-counter-revolution. Then came the 17th of January, 1793. On this red day, 721 members of the French Convention recorded their votes upon the fate that should mark the end of the sixteenth Louis-guilty of little, if anything, more than being an eighteenth century king—and a majority of fifty three decided that he should die upon the still unsatiated scaffold. On January 21, 1793, his royal head was laid upon the chopping block, and when Dr. Guillotine's great knife sped to its target with the tell-tale thud of fury, it was the signal that loosed external hurricanes. Indignant Europe flew to arms as with one accord, in response to French challenge in this and other directions. Thenceforth, the sinister Revolution had for its declared enemies England, Holland, Spain, the whole German Confederation, Naples, the Holy See and Russia, while almost simultaneously the Vendee, in Western France, arose in formidable revolt. France now faced 350,000 of the flower