CHAPTER X.

Reaction in France after the death of Robespierre, and return'^ of the nation to sentiments of moderation-Closing reflections on the French revolution.

WITH the death of Robespierre terminates all the romance and nearly all the interest of the French revolution. The intelligence of the dictator's downfall was the signal, throughout France, for an almost instantaneous return to sentiments of moderation and clemency. The prisons were emptied of their victims-the revolutionary committee broken up-and the leaders of the Jacobin faction compelled to quit the country. The convention too, warned, by the past, of the dreadful effects of anarchy, remodelled the constitution on a basis which it was hoped would bridle popular licence for the future. "The heads of those who framed it," remarks a writer, "had been so long worn in a state of insecurity, that their love for political change was completely cooled.". por to

The future career of the new government belongs more properly to the history of France than to a narrative of the French revolution. It is sufficient here to add, that the constitution just referred to succumbed, in the course of a short period, to the military power of Napoleon Bonaparte. Thus, after having for years chased a phantom, which falsely bore the appearance of liberty, the French people at last discovered that they had made all their vast sacrifices only to groan beneath the yoke of an absolute and bloodthirsty despot.

The observations made in the course of the narrative preclude the necessity of any lengthened exposition of the lessons it supplies. By way of recapitulation, however, the reader's attention may be once more briefly drawn to some practical conclusions, which seem fairly deducible from the sketch we have given.

1. The history of the French revolution shows the necessity of a nation being prepared for the enjoyment of civil liberty, by habits of self-government, produced by religious training. Had the population of France been accustomed to view outrage and violence in the light in which those crimes are regarded by the word' of God, the history of the revolution would not

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have been written in characters of blood.

The facts we have narrated amply prove that no large measure of real liberty can be enjoyed by a community whose masses are enslaved by ignorance, prejudice, and passion.

2. The history of the French revolution shows the danger to which a state is exposed by opposition to all reformation on the one hand, and by rash and precipitate changes on the other. The court party of France might have averted, or greatly lessened, the force of the revolutionary torrent, had they not obstinately opposed the concessions to the spirit of the age suggested by Turgot. When the opportunity of effecting solid improvements in their social condition arrived, the people also threw away the advantages within their grasp by despising moderate measures, and rushing blindly on into new and untried organic change.

3. The history of the French revolution shows that true liberty is essentially different from popular licence, and that it is equally injured by despotism on the one hand, and by the tyranny of the mob on the other. The evils which led to the revolution may be traced back, in a great measure, to the vices of those absolute monarchs, who had swayed the sceptre

of France, uncontrolled by any effective check; put candour compels us to acknowledge, that the crimes which these monarchs committed in the course of centuries, were paralleled by the atrocities of the mob within the short period of five years. True liberty is one of the most valuable temporal blessings which the Almighty can bestow on any nation; deep, therefore, ought our gratitude to be for the large measure of it which Britain has so long enjoyed, and for the manner in which it has been preserved, alike from the encroachments of despotism and the invasions of popular anarchy.

4. From the French revolution, the lower classes may also learn the danger of yielding to demagogues, who pander to their passions, and prescribe for the real or fancied evils of their condition, the remedies of outrage and violence. The apostle Peter has described a class of men as speaking "great swelling words of vanity," and as being "themselves the slaves of corruption," while they. promise men liberty, 2 Peter ii. 18, 19. This description was exactly fulfilled in such characters as Marat, Danton, and Robespierre. With the language of liberty continually on their lips, their hearts beat with tyranny, and their hands were full of blood. The use of

physical orce was their panacea for all the evils of the state. In the wide-spread ruin which followed; in the destruction of the poor man's comforts; in the diminution of his wages; in the ruin of the capitalist; in the paralysing of commerce; and in the famine and starvation which ensued-the English labourer and mechanic may see the fruits which would follow if the doctrines disseminated by demagogues, even in our own day, were reduced to practice. Leaving, however, the discussion of the political conséquences of the French revolution, we turn to the examination of those moral and religious lessons which it is more especially fitted to teach; and

1. We are furnished by it with an illustration of the truth, that long delay in the punishment of sin affords no ground to the unrepenting sinner for expecting ultimate impunity. For many ages France, as a nation, had been stained with great and flagrant iniquities. It had massacred the saints of God on St. Bartholomew's day; it had wasted them with misery during the reign of Louis XIV.; its government had been stained with corruption; its kings had waged unjust wars; its court had revelled in impurity; profligacy and wickedness had run