effect of the scarcity on the march of Revolutionary events, by saying that it caused the populace, the plebs, to intermingle in a struggle, which would otherwise have been fought out (with a widely different result, in all probability,) between the aristocracy and the middle classes-the tiers état. In a word, it introduced into the drama a new influence-of all the most powerful, the most incalculable, and the most difficult of regulation.*

It would be difficult to select a more memorable instance of the operation of this new influence, than is afforded by the celebrated "insurrection of women," or march of Paris upon Versailles, (so admirably described by Mr. C.,) which terminated in the compulsory removal of the King and the National Assembly to the metropolis, and their consequent entire subjection to the caprices and violence of a turbulent populace. A splendid banquet, where the richest wines and the most luxurious viands were lavished in profusion, was given in the Palace of Versailles, to a newly-arrived regiment. The famished people of Paris wanted little to stimulate discontent into revolt. The women were among the most clamorous on the occasion. "Here with us is famine, but yonder at Versailles is food enough and to spare." They rose in a body, mad with fury at the sufferings of themselves and their children, and, to the number of many thousands, marched to Versailles, followed (though after the lapse of several hours,) by La Fayette, at the head of the National Guard, who declared, however, that "they could not turn their bayonets against women crying to them for bread." They surrounded the Palace and the National Assembly, and even forced themselves among the members, with frantic cries of "Bread, bread,"-" Du pain, et parler au Roi,"-"Du pain, pas tant de longs discours ;" and even interrupted their favourite Mirabeau, in a speech on criminal law, with cries of "What is the use of the Penal Code? The thing we want is bread." They demanded a free circulation of grain, and the establishment of a maximum price both for bread and butcher's meat. A temporary pacification was at length procured, by distributing among the rioters a large supply of food; but in the course of the night the Parisian army arrived: a slight provocation renewed the disturbance; the Palace was forced; the Royal Family was with difficulty saved, and on the following day was conducted in triumph to virtual imprisonment in Paris: events which coloured, with

*The effect of Famine, in throwing the control of events into the hands of the lowest class, was well understood by their leaders, one of whom wrote, epigrammatically, "Tout va bien içi; le pain manque."-C., ii. 335.

+ Burke says, "The most important part of the Revolution may be dated from that day-the revolution in sentiments, manners, and moral opinions.”—Reft. p. 155.

fatal colouring, the whole subsequent course of the Revolution.

When the great mass of the people are comfortable and contented, Despotism may exist with little difficulty: or the Government and the middle ranks may fight out their differences in a safe and regulated manner; but when the middle classes are clamorous for political rights, at the same time that the lowest classes are clamorous for food, the most firmly-constituted authorities will rarely be able to resist the united pressure. If Kings and privileged orders were wise in their generation, and in their craft, they would feed the people at any price.

II. The speeches and sayings of the French leaders and legislators during the Revolutionary period, depict a nation in a state of hysterical excitement, and bombastic enthusiasm. Their harangues are the declamations of ardent and inconsiderate schoolboys, just risen from Plutarch and Livy, and full of extravagant admiration for Marcus Curtius, Mutius Scævola, and Horatius Coccles. They are fond of the most puerile allusions to Greek and Roman History; of which, however, they seem to be acquainted only with those idle fables which are now universally exploded, and those acts of ferocious patriotism, which are now universally condemned. The nation was in a fit of heroic frenzy, and found counterparts and models in the mad heroes of Plutarch. In vain might they look back upon the earlier times of France, for an age of freedom which they could admire and imitate. Their own history was barren of bright examples :their minds, therefore, naturally reverted to their schoolboy recollections of Greece and Rome; and Greeks and Romans were accordingly installed as the tutelary deities of the French. Far different was the character of the Revolutionists of our own country. To stimulate their zeal and guide their steps in the new and doubtful paths of freedom, they could refer to glorious periods of the Past, of England, when their ancestors had struggled for liberty, and had achieved it; and could place before them the conduct of those "Iron barons, to whose courage in the day of battle, to whose tenderness in the hour of triumph, they owed the great charter of their rights."* But the French had no national Past on which to dwell, or from which to draw lessons of wisdom and of moderation. They had recourse, therefore, to the inapplicable history of a dissimilar nation and a dissimilar age. Their heated fancy was struck with the wild virtues and the epigrammatic sayings of the heroes of antiquity. Their talk was of Leonidas, fighting in the shade; of Themistocles'

*Expressions of Lord Chatham.

"Strike, but hear me," of Brutus assassinating his friend; of Timoleon murdering his brother; of Decius beheading his son; of Cato tearing out his entrails. The more extravagant the language, the more doubtful and startling the deed, the stronger was its hold upon their fancy, the more ardent their desire to imitate it. Collot d'Herbois commences a schoolboy harangue to Dumourier, just returned from a series of splendid victories, with "Te souviens tu de Themistocles?" The debates on the trial of the King are assisted by frequent reference to the precedent of Sparta. "The French Patriot in red Phrygian nightcap, christens his poor little infant Cato of Utica. Gracchus has become Babæuf, and edits newspapers; Mutius Scævola, cordwainer of that ilk, presides in the section of Mutius Scævola, &c."* Lucien Buonaparte, a scholar and a man of parts, names himself Brutus, and his villa, Marathon! Strange jumble in a classic fancy! These ranting extravagances not only disgraced the Senate and the Ministerial bureau, but produced infinite mischief, by confounding in the minds of the nation all true notions of right and wrong, and led, directly in some instances, indirectly in many, to the commission of atrocious crimes. “The foundation of the French Republic (says Mr. Burke), is laid in moral paradoxes. All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples."

Something akin to this, and depicting, perhaps, still more strongly the state of exstatic delirium in which the whole nation was plunged, is the wild and hasty manner in which the Representative assemblies were wont to enact the business of legislation. Their most important decrees were passed by acclamation, and often without the shadow of a debate. The National Assembly passed, during the twenty-nine months of its existence, 2,500 decrees; being an average of three a-day, including Sundays. The subsequent Assemblies emulated this incredible rapidity. To use a simile of Sydney Smith's, their vigour was the vigour of a grave-digger; the tomb of the French Monarchy became deeper and surer with every blow they struck.- Of what Burke calls their quadrumanous activity, no more apt instance can be adduced than the record of the memorable sitting of the 4th of August, 1789. We have now five histories of that

*Carlyle, iii. 289.

† Carlyle, ii. 276. Carlyle, i. 305. Dumont, 119. Scott, c. iv. Talleyrand, i. 132. Mignet, i. 128. Thiers,

period lying before us, and the picture is identical in all. The Assembly had been occupied for two or three previous weeks in discussing the most trivial and unimportant phrases in their abortive declaration of the Rights of Man, to the excessive weariness of every man of sense among them. On the fourth of August, after dinner, during the absence of many of the leading members, they set vigorously to work to atone for past delay. The Duke de Chatelet, a noble, proposed the abolition of tithes. It was voted by acclamation. In emulation, or in revenge, the Bishop of Chartres, a clergyman, proposed the abolition of the game laws. The proposal was instantly enacted. The Assembly seemed to be seized with a sort of sentimental delirium. On the motion of the Duke de Noailles, all feudal rights were swept away; then all seignorial and provincial jurisdictions; then all peculiar privileges and immunities, till, like the Earl of Pembroke, in the time of the English Commonwealth, they might exclaim, "Is there nothing else we can renounce? I love renouncing." Scott's Nap. c. iv. "Every one," says Dumont, an eye witness of this singular scene, came forward to propose a sacrifice, to bring some new offering to the altar of his country, to give up something that belonged to himself, or to others. It was impossible to object, to discuss, or to postpone. I saw, that night, good and honest deputies weeping in transport to see matters progress with such unhoped rapidity. Every one, it is true, did not participate in these feelings. He whose ruin was effected by the resolution which had just been unanimously decreed, vindictively proposed another, in order that his colleagues might suffer as well as himself." At length they paused for a moment to look back upon their work: pronounced it to be very good, and appointed a Te Deum in commemoration of it; and finally, says Carlyle, "dispersed about three in the morning, striking the stars with their sublime heads." "Les malheureux," exclaimed Sieyes, "Ils veulent être libres, ils ne savent pas être justes."-" Voila bien nos Français !" said Mirabeau, ils sont un mois entier à disputer des syllabes, et dans une nuit ils renversent tout l'ancien ordre de la Monarchie."*

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Let us now turn to the counterpart of this scene in a subsequent assembly. The National Convention met for the first time on the 20th September 1792, about noon. They elected their President and Secretaries, passed five important decrees, rejected others of at least equal moment which had been proposed, when Collot d'Herbois, (an actor whom public taste had

*Hist. Pittoresque, i. 10. Carlyle, iii. 79.

damned upon the stage, but whom public taste applauded in the rostrum) rose and spoke these few significant words:

"Representatives, you have just passed some wise decrees, but there is one which cannot be postponed till to-morrow, which cannot even wait till evening, which you cannot defer for a single instant, without disregarding the wishes of the Nation. I demand that Royalty be abolished!"

Three other speeches of equal brevity were delivered; and in five minutes Royalty was abolished by acclamation. The Convention met at twelve o'clock, and separated at four!

The whole records of this assembly abound in examples of the most monstrous and frightful propositions, mingled with the most boyish and bombastic extravaganzas of language. Marat openly and repeatedly asserted the necessity of putting to death 260,000 more aristocrats. Robespierre advised that the King should not be tried, but should be executed. Jean Debry and others struggled hard to procure from the Convention a decree organizing a band of assassins, who should be sent out to assasinate all the Kings and Generals of Europe. Manuel commenced his opening address to the Convention as follows:

"When Cineas entered the Senate of Rome, he thought he was in the midst of an assembly of Kings. To you, such a comparison would be an insult. I see in you an assembly of Philosophers met together to concoct blessings for the world!"

Well might Figaro exclaim, "On n'a jamais vu des hommes aussi bêtes que ces Philosophes." "Citizen Representatives," said another (Chabot), "you can have no higher honour than to resemble the Sans-culottes, who form the majority of the nation!" When it was proposed that the President should have a body-guard, and lodge in the Tuilleries, Tallien cried out, "Your President, when he leaves this Hall, is no more than a simple citizen. If any one wishes to speak to him, let him seek him in a garret (au cinquiême) that is the residence of virtue."*

The same peculiar character is observable in the theatrical exaggeration which marked all their National Festivals and Celebrations-always verging on the ridiculous-sometimes approaching the sublime. There were embracings, and weepings, and vows of eternal amity; all the extravagances of maudlin intoxication; all the heroic sentiments unconsciously burlesqued and parodied. Mr. Carlyle very properly considers these festivals as throwing great light on the state of the national mind,

Hist. Pitt. i. p. "Si quelq'un veut parler au President, qu'on aille le chercher au troisiême, ou au cinquiême, c'est là ou loge la vertu.”