MR. MALLET'S "FRENCH REVOLUTION." * THIS is a very useful
little book, and it gives evidence like- wise of considerable literary capacity in its author. It is free from the evident bias which disfigured the pages of Mr. Symes's work which we reviewed not long ago, the scope and object of which were somewhat similar. The writer has con. suited impartially Mr. John Morley and M. Taine, M. Louis Blanc and M. de Tocqueville ; and he gives us a work con- taining an amount of well-arranged information which is noteworthy, considering the limited space at his disposal in one of "The University Extension" manuals. His judgments, likewise, whether or no they will universally commend them- selves to students of the period, are evidently carefully considered and are clearly delivered.
The part of the book which is perhaps most valuable is the summary of the causes of the Revolution. It has been said with truth that while accuracy in relating detailed scenes may become more difficult as the events narrated recede further into the past, the causes of any great political crisis are seen in truer perspective at a distance. And Mr. Mallet's study of the Ancien Regime in its decay is a very complete and artistic picture, made up of facts and figures which have been accumulating in various quarters for the last * The French RevoNtion. By Charlee dward Mallet. London: Joan Murray. seventy years and more. And his picture of the drama of the Revolution—or rather his series of dissolving views —brings vividly before the reader a fatal sequence of cause and effect, which we have only too much reason to fear may yet be in some degree repeated. The successive momenta in the story are clearly given. We have in full detail the crystallisation of gradually increasing abuses which ultimately transformed the French artisan—robbed by degrees of his liberties, his aspirations, and almost of the necessaries of life —into the embodiment of deep-set resentment and disaffection ; then comes the sentimental reaction of society in his favour, often represented then as now by men in high position, who had no real intention of sacrificing any of their own pre-eminence or prestige,—by "Sovereigns like Frederick, Catherine, and Joseph," who "affected the secure radicalism of despots ; " next, as a tributary stream to the revolutionary tide, comes the movement of the philosophes,—of Montesquieu, of Voltaire, of the Encyclopedists, of Rousseau, weakening the restraining forces of authority, tradition, and prescription. Then we have two noteworthy conjunctions of facts which Mr. Mallet places in specially clear relief. In the first place, it was the initial step in the direction of reform which weakened the power of the Executive, and unmuzzled that wild animal, the French mob. In the very year before the States-General were summoned, the oppressive system of Intendants with absolute powers over the various provinces—who had replaced the elective parliaments of feudal days, and who were respon- sible only to King and Council—was done away with. The Government, which had cause to tremble at its position as the representative of an oppressive system, imperilled far more both its own stability and the security of the country by an ill-considered concession. The Intendants kept order, even if their rule was oppressive ; their abolition left the country at the mercy of the Revolution. The second significant fact which stands forth at the most critical period of the Revolution, is that the Terror was the outcome of a frenzy of disappointment on the part of the lowest class. Demagogues had raised false hopes and mil- lenarian dreams. They had their way for a time, hut the dreams remained unfulfilled. The working classes found that the Revolution, which its original promoters had held up to them as the means to all that was good and desirable for them, brought them nothing. Let those who are now responsible for wholesale promises to an ignorant populace take the lesson to heart, Speaking of the year 1791, Mr. Mallet writes :— "All over France, and especially in Paris and in the great pro- vincial cities, there were many to whom the policy of the leaders of the Revolution and the action of the great party which ranged itself behind Lafayette and the Lameths had caused increasing discontent. To them, the Revolution, so satisfactory to many, had brought only disappointment. Their vague but ardent anticipa- tions of a new social state seemed as far as ever from realisation. The leaders of the Assembly were beginning to speak of the Revolution as accomplished, and yet all over France there were unmistakable evidences of disorder and distress there was a growing sense that the Revolution had so far been a failure ; that it had not corresponded to its own promises or to their passionate hopes ; that it had not in any material way benefited them ; and that a new Revolution was needed to do for the poor what the earlier movement had only done for the comparatively rich. . . . . . It was on these grounds and supported by this senti- ment that the Jacobin party arose."
Mr. Mallet, as we have said, is at his best in his well-arranged and well-written description of the decay of the Ancien Regime and the political, social, and intellectual antecedents of the Revolution. The growing separation of classes, the growing exemptions of the privileged orders, the increasing "burdens of taxation" which fell on the poor, are carefully traced and enumerated. But the two deepest sources of that transformation of the French artisan, which brought into existence the ugly type which was so prominent under the Terror, were, perhaps, the gradual banishment of the lower classes from all share in the national life, and the echoes from the Encyclopa3dia, which began to throw doubt on the gospel of resignation and contentment, and the hope for better things in another world. The excessive centralisation of Government lessened, indeed, the power of the middle-class, as well as of the lowest. But the multiplication of caste privileges was a narcotic which kept off among the former the feeling of dis- affection. The artisan class, cut off from its old share in the election of officials, separated by the widest interval from those in power—for the intermediate grades of society were enjoying
their otium turn dignitate, and were no channel of influence or intercourse—remained oppressed and without resource or hope. Here is Mr. Mallet's account of the change :— " In early times most of the important towns in France had possessed two governing assemblies, one composed of magistrates and officials, who owed their offices originally to popular election, and afterwards to purchase from the Crown ; the other com- posed originally of all the townspeople, and afterwards of local "notables," representing the different companies and guilds. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, the popular spirit which had once given life to all these institutions had long died out. The municipal officers bought their places from the Govern- ment, and handed them down from father to son ; the representa- tive assembly had ceased to represent any but the substantial burghers of the town. What had once been public honours con- ferred by the voices of free citizens had everywhere crystallised into private rights, the prerogative of one class or of a few important families. Accordingly the possessors of these rights were bribed to uphold the existing order by a thousand little dignities and exemptions, in which relief from taxation played a large part, and they maintained the pride of their position by drawing a jealous line between themselves and the unrepresented artisans below All artisans who were not the sons of masters of guilds went by the name of " strangers," and found innumerable barriers placed in the way of their advancement. The passion for place, which to some observers seems inherent in the French middle class, was sedulously encouraged by Ministers, who, by multiplying small posts and dignities, filled the Exchequer, appeased complaints, and won supporters. Each of these little places carried its special perquisites and distinctions ; and thus in the minds of thousands the aspiration to possess some petty advantage over their neigh- bours tended to oust the larger aspirations which might have led to public freedom. In one small town the notables were divided into thirty-six different bodies, with different rights and degrees. Every tradesman delighted in a special mark of rank. The owner of a shop sat on a higher seat than his assistants. The tailor could wear only one buckle to his wig, while the proud apothecary could boast of three. And on one occasion the few poriwig-makers of La Plache ceased working in a body in order to show their 'well-founded grief occasioned by the precedence granted to the bakers' . . . . But while each of the educated classes thus possessed its distinguishing marks to arm revolution and to point hatred, one class, the lowest, had nothing but the privileges of its superiors to mark its position in the State. In the towns the great majority of the labouring community were excluded by the guild monopolies from any prospect except that of perpetual subjection."
Of the philosophical movements against tradition, authority, and prescription, Mr. Mallet's sketch is very eloquent. Be- ginning with the serious criticism of Montesquieu, soon pass- ing to the raillery of Voltaire, branching into the new and startling theories of Turgot and Diderot, the destructive movement advanced with the century. Its genius was em- bodied in the Encyclopedia, and the elimination by its writers of old enthusiasms and hopes paved the way for the new gospel of Rousseau. Of the Encyclopedists, Mr. Mallet writes as follows :— "Posterity is more familiar with the defects than with the virtues of this strange episode in human thought. Its ideals were disfigured by many faults,—by unreality, political ignorance, dangerous license, violent extremes. In its anxiety to escape from conventions it relaxed necessary codes. It made impiety obstreperous. It hastily adopted a belief in the perfectibility of man, to SIB the niche where once had rested the perfection of God. In place of the traditions and systems which it uprooted, it taught its followers to look for guidance to its own instincts and to vague aspirations after imaginary systems of natural law. It planted in the French people an inextinguishable desire to abolish everything which reminded it of the past, however much they might suffer in the attempt. Its teaching seemed to discourage the impulses of virtue and to offer no satisfaction for the spiritual needs of man Holbach's Systame de is Nature touched the climax of a century of philosophical commotion, in its passionate indictment of the vices of Kings and the slavery of men, in its direct demand for revolution, in its remorseless rejection of every form of faith, in its insistence on atheism and materialism as the only true philosophy of life. 'Religious and political errors,' cried Holbach, have changed the universe into a valley of tears' But far above the sound of other voices rose the lofty tones and the sonorous rhetoric of Rousseau. Rousseau disdained the study and analysis of the pan, in which ha ontesquieu had sought laborious wisdom. He cared nothing for the diffusion of knowledge and art, of which Voltaire was the brilliant representative. He hardly understood the wide, ambitious projects by which Diderot and Turgot hoped to benefit humanity. He resented the utilitarian theories of Helvetius. He hotly denied the material philosophy of the school of Halbach. To Rousseau's angry discontent with life, study, knowledge, cultivation seemed to be only steps in the degradation of man. To his inflamed vision all society was artificial, all accepted forms of political organisation were tyranny and abuse. Man, he protested, was naturally just and good and loving, created by a just and loving God, until art, the bane of life, invaded his simplicity, tainted his virtue, and brought him face to face with suffering and sin. Sweep away, therefore, he entreated his hearers, all the false fabric of society, the world of ugly want and insolent riches miscalled civilisation,' the oppression mis- called order,' the error miscalled knowledge I Level its inequalities, repudiate its learning, break its conventions, shatter its chains ! Let men return to the simplicity of ancient days, to the idyllic state when uncorrupted instinct only ruled them ; and then, once again, innocent and ignorant as Nature made them, and guided only by the immortal and celestial voice' of reason, seek the high paths of felicity of life. In a generation full of privilege and hardship, and weary of its own artificial ways, such teaching as this struck a resounding chord. It did not matter that the teacher reconciled a rather sordid faction with a gorgeous theory The disciples who drank in his doc- trines did not inquire critically into his motives They knew that his denunciations of oppression coincided with the bitter lessons which their experience taught. They found that his eloquent words renewed their self-respect, and raised their ideal of the dignity of man. They felt that he pleaded the cause of the unfortunate in tones and with a genius which made the fortu- nate attend ; and that he brought to that exalted service the widest compassion, the readiest sympathy, and the most majestic language which the eighteenth century had heard."
These samples must suffice of a work the ability of which will lead its readers to hope that Mr. Mallet may have more to say, and on a larger scale, of the subjects with which he deals.
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