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David Hume



Laur enc e L. Bon gie





This book is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a foundation established to

encourage study of the ideal o f a society of free a nd respon sible ind ividuals.

The cun eiform inscription th at serves as our logo an d as the d esign motif for

our en dpa pers is the ea rliest-known written appearan ce of th e word “ freedom”

(amagi ), or “ liberty.” It is taken from a clay document written a bout 2300 b.c.

in th e Sumerian city-state of Lagash.

© 2000 by Liberty Fund, Inc. Frontispiece © 1998 by Evangelos Ph otograph y

Ltd, M. Espinosa. All rights reserved

First published in 1965 by Oxford U niversity Press

Printed in the U nited States of America

04 03 02 01 00 C 5 4 3 2 1

04 03 02 01 00 P 5 4 3 2 1

Libr ar y of Congr ess Cat al oging-in-Publ icat ion Dat a

Bon gie, Laurence L.

David H ume: proph et of th e counter-revolution/Laurence L. Bon gie;

with a fo reword by Don ald W. Livingston .

p. cm.

Includes bibliograph ical references an d index.

ISBN 0-86597-208-7 (hard cover: alk. paper).—ISBN 0-86597-209-5

(pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Hume, David, 1711–1776. History of England . 2. G reat Britain—

H istory—Puritan Revolution, 1642–1660—Historiography. 3. Great Britain—

History—Early Stuarts, 1603–1649—Historiography. 4. France—History—

Revolution, 1789–1799. 5. Conservatism—History—18th century.

6. Counter-revolutionaries. I . Title.

DA30.H 93B66 2000

942—dc21 99-25723

Liberty Fund , In c.

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Ind ianapolis, Ind iana 46250-1684



Co n t en t s

Foreword

vii

Pr ef ace t o t he Liber t y Fund Edit ion

xi

Int r oduct ion

xiii

I. Before 1 7 8 9

1. Royal Pan egyr ics 1

2. Th e Scienc e and Ar t of Eng l ishHist or y 2

3. Jeh ovah Amon g t h e Hebr ews 10

4. Papist o r Pyr r h on ian ? 15

5. Th e Sco t t ish Bossuet 35

6. Debat e wit h Tur go t 54

7. Ear l y Ho st il it y: Mir abeau , Mabl y,an d Br issot 60

8. Defence and Defi ance 65

9. Ant ic ipat ing t he St or m 75

II. T he R ev olu tion an d

the R ôle of H istory

1. Hist or y as a Weapon of Cou nt er -r evol ut ion 79

2. Hist or y as t h e Super st it ion of Sl aves 93

v



III. From 1 7 8 9 to

the T rial of L ou is X VI

1. Pr oph et ic Par al l el s an d t h e Coun t er -r evol ut ion ar y Lessons of Hu me 103

2. The Lon g Par l iament : Br isso t Ver susCl er mont -Tonner r e 123

3. A Republ ic an Ant idot e: Cat h er ineMac aul ay-Gr ah am 132

IV. T he T rial of “ L e S tu art Fran çais”

1. Louis XVI an d Ch ar l es I: A Con demnedKing ’s Medit at ion s 141

2. David Hu me and St ua r t Hist o r y fo rt h e Defence 149

3. Cr omwel l in t h e Conven t ion : Th eJudgement of Post er it y 156

4. The Par a l l el Rejec t ed: Br ut us t o t h eRescue 165

5. Pr inc ipl es Ver sus Pr ecedent s 171

V. T he A fterm ath

1. Republ ica n Qua l ms 177

2. Wait ing fo r Gener al Monk 1863. Conc l usion 196

Index of Names and Tit l es

203

vi

Co n t e nt s



Fo r ewo r d

Ph ilosophers rarely write histor y, and D avid H ume (1711–76) is uniq ue

in being recognized a s one who made can onical contributions to both

philosophy and history. Many think of H ume as a philosopher but in h is

own time he was kno wn as an essayist and author of the six-volume His-

tory of England (1754–62). The

History was a classic in his lifetime and

went th rough at least 167 posthumous editions. It was the standard work

on the subject for nearly a century, un til Tho mas Bab ington Macaulay’s

History of England began to challenge it in 1849. Even so, Hume’s work

was published —if fi na lly on ly in an abridged form—cont inually into th e

twentieth century. Some editions issued in printings of 100,000 . The

young Winston Churchill learned English history from one of these

abridgements known as “ the studen t’s H ume.”

The most substantial part of the History is Hume’s account of the

reign of the Stuarts, which included the English Civil War, the tr ial andexecution o f Charles I, and the establishment of a Puritan republic und er

Oliver Cromwell. The claim that the people had the legal authority to

put to trial and to execute their sovereign shocked seventeenth-century

Europe and cast a shadow far into the eighteenth century. Hume ’s ac-

count o f these events quickly became the most forceful and memorable.

But the infl uence of the History was not confi ned to the English-

speaking world. Laurence Bongie demonstrates that during the events

leading up to the French Revolution an d for a con siderable time there-after, Hume’s account o f th e English Civil War was used by the French to

make sense of the terrible events through which th ey were living. H ume

had interpreted the revolution in England that led to the execution of

Charles I and a Puritan republic under the military government of

Cromwell as an intellectual and spiritual path ology mingled with ambi-

tion. Wha t the Puritans eventua lly sough t was no t reform but a tota l trans-

formation of the social and political order in accord with a religious

ideology. H ume ’s na rrative seemed isomo rphic to what was ha ppeningin Fran ce. The go al of th e French Revolution was no t reform but a root

and branch transformation of society. The Jacobins stood for the Puri-

tans, and the Jacobins’ self-evident truths of the rights of man stood for

vii





who read it during th e revolution ary period in Fran ce. Rather, his task is

to record th e extraordinary infl uence that H ume’s work exercised during

this period. D rawing from a vast d eposit of a rchival materials, Bo ngie h as

chipped away to reveal an unexpected glimpse through the wall of timethat separates us from the French Revolution. A scene unfolds, rich in

detail, in which the participants are allowed to speak for themselves

thro ugh their words, their mute gestures, an d abo ve all their con text. As

with Bongie’s other archival work—on Diderot, Prince Charles Edward

Stuart, Con dillac, and De Sade—one is left with a n image in the memory

more powerful than what a theoretical interpretation could provide. And ,

one comes away viewing H ume ’s History not simply as a narrative of events

but as a force in the creation o f mod ern po litical life.

Donal d W. Livingst on

A pri l 1 9 9 8

ix

F o r e w o r d





Pr ef a c e t o

t h e Lib er t y Fu n d Ed it io n

Much ha s changed in H ume stud ies since this book was fi rst published in

1965 . For example, the introduction to the first edition noted that

Hume’s History was “neith er widely read nor rea dily available.” The com-plete work had then been out of print since the end of the nineteenth

centur y. Tod ay, H ume’s History is handily available in the Liberty Fund

edition (1983–85, 6 vols.), and do zens of books alon g with scores of ar-

ticles have focussed a ttention in recent years on H ume the historian. Per-

ha ps most impor tan t of all, long-overdue recognition of th e integral

linkage between Hume’s historical and philosophical writings has opened

up one of the most rewarding avenues of inquiry in current Hume

studies.

H istory being one of the more eph emeral arts, most studies like this

on e, after a n in terval of several decad es, have necessarily for feited some

degree o f relevan ce. If this work is still able in some measure to make a

contribution, it is no doubt because—in an a rea wherein the violent ba t-

tles of th e past are constan tly being reformulated a nd refought by the

factions of the present —it cho oses to focus exclusively on interrogation

of the primary texts, texts that a re invited to speak as much as possible for

themselves. David Hume, Prophet of the Counter-revolu ti on does no t set out to

decree wha t “really” happened d uring th e G reat Rebellion in England o rwhat was “really” going on during France’s even greater Revolution when,

in an ongoing confl ation of day-to-da y histor y and coun ter-revolution ary

historiograph y, the lessons and pa rallels drawn from H ume ’s H istory of the

Stuarts were regular ly weighed an d scrutinized. Rath er, my study focusses

on the interplay of confl icting perceptions, privileged as the only “facts”

that are relevant to the investigation. Whether such facts can exist inde-

pendently of their interpretative perceptions and whether they can be

stripped bare a nd objectively recovered in un corrupted form by the “sci-entifi c” historian are very large q uestions that I do no t pursue here.

As much the courageous contrarian, sceptica l exploder of myths,

and lucid revisionist in history as he was in philosophy, David Hume prided

xi





xiii

1. See my “H ume and skepticism in late eighteen th-centur y Fran ce,” inJ. van d er Zand e and R. H. Popkin, eds., The Skeptical Tradi tion Around 1 8 0 0 : Skep- ti cism in Phi losophy, Science, and Society (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1998), pp. 15 –29.

In t r o d u c t io n

I

Da vid H ume was und oubted ly the eighteenth -centur y British writer

whose works were most widely known and acclaimed on the continent

during the later Enlightenment period. Ample proof of the great repu-tation h e acquired in France as an historian and ph ilosopher at th is time

is readily available. Contrary to various expectations, however, evidence of

a profound infl uence as opposed to the mere reputation of his purely

philosophical writings has proved to be disappointingly meagre. Occa-

sionally even, H ume ’s most telling impact in this respect appears, not

in the works of h is bro ther philosophes, who largely misunderstoo d or wil-

fully ignored his highly original epistemological doctrine, but—usually

through the device of retortion —in the writings of their greatest ene-mies, the religious tradition alists.1

Less surpr ising, perhaps, is the fact that these same traditionalists in

formulating their political principles found it possible to profi t to an even

greater extent from H ume’s historical writings. His unrivalled history of

the Stuarts had not only enjoyed spectacular success in eighteenth-

century France; it h ad related as well what many viewed as the most sig-

nifi cant, or at least the most horrifying, series of political events in the

annals of modern Europe, namely the seventeenth-century English rev-olution. The particular manner in which Hume had narrated the hap-

less career of C harles I and ha d presented the sho rt-lived En glish

republican experiment was to seem to man y French conservat ives, both

before and after 1789, of great practical applicability in th eir defence o f

the ancien r é gime. It will be seen, I th ink, tha t H ume’s impact here was of

undeniable importance, greater even for a time than the related in fl u-

ence of Burke, although it represents a con tribution to French coun ter-





Int r o duc t io n

xv

Int r o duc t io n

3. David Hume, The H istory of England, London, 1808–10, VIII. 414. Fur-ther references in this section to The H istory of England will be placed within paren-theses in the text itself.

which he might easily ha ve allowed, I th ink, to be q uite proper ly applied

to himself. The “entertaining” Clarend on in his most “candid ” history of

the G reat Rebellion is, Hume tells us, “more partial in appearance than

in reality” ; for though he seems perpetually anxious to apo logize for theKing, his apo logies “are often well grounded .” 3

In the seventeen-fi fties when H ume composed h isH istory of the Stu-

arts it was clearly neither fashionable nor profi table to apologize for King

Charles. The Whig party, Hume tells us, had, for a course of nearly sev-

enty years, enjoyed the whole authority of government. In some particu-

lars the state had not suffered as a result. But history, certainly, had

suffered an d truth ha d suffered. The b iased writings of such apo logists as

Rapin-Thoyras, Locke, and Sidn ey were praised an d propaga ted as if theyequalled the most celebrated compositions of ant iquity. “And forgett ing,”

H ume complains, “ tha t a regard to liberty, tho ugh a lauda ble passion,

ought commonly to be subordinate to a reverence for established gov-

ernment, th e prevailing faction has celebrated on ly the pa rtisans of th e

former, who pursued as their object the perfection of civil society, and

has extolled them at the expense of their antagonists, who maintained

those maxims tha t a re essent ial to its very existence” (IX. 524). Liberty is

a good and noble principle but it has its dan gers and if one has to choose,

it is surely much better for human society “ to be deprived of liberty tha n

to be destitute of government” (VII. 125–26). Hume also observes that

extremes of a ll kinds in these matters are to be avoided ; truth and cer-

tainty are most likely to be met with on middle ground. There is little

doubt th at H ume hoped his own h istory would be seen a s brillian tly im-

partial. In fact, he may even have believed that he would, by some mira-

cle, please a ll factions with his “moderate opinions.”

As he set about his attack on the fortress of Whig dogma, Hume

made persistent and unwavering use of one favourite weapon: his con-trary—and, many though t, perverse—view of what the English con stitu-

tion was like before the accession of the Stuart kings. The partisans of

liberty were in the ha bit of a ffi rming th at the English con stitution , long

before the settlement of 1688, was “a regular plan of liberty.” They

heaped abuse on James I and Charles I as usurpers and inn ovators in the

ha ted a rts of despotism. But wha t a paradox in human affairs it is, Hume

objected, that H enry VIII should have been almost adored in h is lifetime





Int r o duc t io n

xvii

Int r o duc t io n

unknown and deemed everywhere to be incompatible with all good gov-

ernment. “It seems unreasonable,” Hume maintained, “ to judge of the

measures embraced during one period, by the maxims which prevail in

another” (VII. 204).Hume clearly felt that he had achieved this just sense of perspective

and the result is that he made every effort while dealing with the civil-war

period to understand and forgive the po licies o f James I and Charles I.

Whether he also understood and forgave with equal sympathy and justice

the policies of their opponents has remained, however, a matter of much

heated debate ever since the fi rst volume of his Stuarts appeared in 1754.

For H ume th e moral issues of the case are n ot simplifi ed, moreover,

by the fact that what were traditionally described as the major vices ofthese early Stuar ts could eq ually well be viewed as ill-timed but hon est

virtues. These were not the grander virtues, to be sure, but the every-day

virtues of sincerity, integrity, and con viction. These kings were not “great”

men but they were “good” men. In a ll history, for example, it would be dif-

fi cult to fi nd a reign “ less illustrious, yet more unspotted and unblem-

ished, th an that of James” (VI. 662). P erhaps James erred occasionally in

forgetting to ask himself the q uestion What is best? This is because he be-

lieved in all piety that the q uestion What is established? was more importan t .

H ume ha s no doubts about what was established when James came to the

English throne. Everyone accepted in those times the doctrine of blind

and un limited passive obedience to th e prince. U nd er no pretence had

it ever been seen as lawful for subjects to depart from or infringe that

doctrine. So completely had these principles prevailed tha t, during th e

reigns of Elizabeth and her predecessors, opposition to them was re-

gard ed as the most fl agran t sedition not only by the mo narch but by the

people as well. James I had thus inh erited an absolute throne. H is pre-

decessor was, for example, allowed to have a divine right; was no t JamesI’s title quite plainly the same as tha t o f h is predecessor? Was it not n at-

ural for him to take the government as he found it and to pursue the

long-applauded measures of the popular Elizabeth ? Perhaps, H ume add s,

but it is someth ing of an a fterthough t, James should have realized tha t his

character and his circumstances could not support so extensive an au-

thority. In fact his major difficulties arose chiefly from these circumstan ces

which h ad suffered during h is reign a rad ical transforma tion. Partly as a

result of th e changing econ omic situation, par tly as a result of th e in-crease in knowledge, a new spirit of liberty was born at this time and

spread rapidly und er the shelter of “puritanical absurdities” —that theo-

logical plague which had so sudd enly and inexplicably infested the peo-





Int r o duc t io n

xix

Int r o duc t io n

Mainly as a result o f h is world ly d istaste for “enthusiasm,” Hume,

we see, held a ra ther low opin ion o f the va rious parliamenta ry heroes.

Was not Parliament after all the aggressor during this unhappy period of

civil d iscord? The Stua rt kings had fought on ly a defensive campa ignfo rced o n th em b y th e fa ct th at P arlia men t h ad un ila tera lly seen fi t to

ch an ge th e rules o f th e ga me a nd h ad in no va ted vio len tly in co nstitu-

t ional matters. All things considered, Hume readily admit ted that many

constitutions in the history of human affa irs and “none more than the

British” have in fact been improved by such violent innovations. He felt

compelled to insist, nevertheless, that “ the praise bestowed on those pa-

trio ts to whom the nation has been indebted for its privileges, ought to

be given with some reserve, and surely without the least rancour againstthose who adhered to the ancient constitution” (VI. 404). The motivation

of these patriots is suspect . Hume notes, for example, that the untimely

end of Hampden leaves doubtful and uncerta in whether his conduct was

founded in a love of power or a zeal for liberty. With Cromwell, of course,

th ere is n o such d oub t a nd un certa in ty. H ume sees h im a s a fa na tica l,

ambit ious hypocrite; an art ful and audacious conspirator who from the

beginning engaged in his crimes “from the prospect of sovereign power,”

a temptat ion, Hume adds, which is, in general, “ irresistible to human na-

ture” (VII. 572). Hume admits, however, that Cromwell, by making some

go od use of th e auth ority h e h ad attain ed by fra ud a nd violen ce, “has

lessened , if not overpowered , our detesta tion of his enormities, by our

admirat ion of his success and of his genius” (loc. cit .).

More repelled than amused by the “cant,” “mystical jargon,”

“hypocrisy,” “ fury,” and “ fanaticism” o f th e P arlia men ta ria ns, H u me

found himself unable to take too seriously patriotic a ttempts to dignify

the Civil War with causes more considerab le or noble than bigotry and

theological zeal. Of course the Royalists too were zealots “but as they wereat the same time maintaining the established constitution, in state as well

a s ch urch , th ey h ad a n o bject wh ich wa s n atura l, a nd wh ich migh t pro -

duce the greatest passion, even without any considerable mixture of the-

ological fervour” (X. 183, note DD to vol. VII) . The opponents of Charles

d id n ot fi ght fo r liberty; they fought fo r ignorant and fana tica l trivia li-

ties. “The generality of the nation,” Hume writes, “could never have fl own

out in to such fury in order to obta in new privileges and acquire grea ter

liberty th an th ey a nd th eir a ncesto rs h ad ever been acq ua in ted with .Their fathers had been entirely sa tisfi ed with the government o f Eliza -

beth: why should they have been thrown into such extreme rage aga inst

Charles, who, from the beginning of his reign, wished only to mainta in



xx

Int r o duc t i o n

such a government? And why not, a t least, compound matters with him,

when by a ll h is laws, it appeared that he had agreed to depart from it? Es-

pecia lly, a s he had put it en tirely out o f h is power to retract that reso lu-

tion” (loc. cit .).Perhaps the revolution , up to a cer ta in point and despite it s t rivia l

orig ins, d id achieve some posit ive good . During the fi rst period of th e

Long Parliament’s o pera tio ns, if we except th e cruel in iq uity o f Stra f-

ford ’s a ttainder, the merits of its transact ions may be judged to outweigh

its mistakes and even entit le those measures which remedied abuses and

redressed grievances to the praise o f “a ll lovers of liber ty” (VII. 36I) .

H ume even co nfesses a willin gn ess at o ne po in t to ad mit th at a few old

eggs h ad to be broken to make th e n ew omelette. Such is th e price ofprogress, and if the means used to obtain these sa lu tary results savour

o ften o f artifi ce and violence “ it is to be considered , tha t revolutions of

government cannot be effected by the mere force o f a rgument and rea-

soning; and tha t fact ions, being once excited , men can neither so fi rmly

regula te the tempers o f o thers, nor their own , a s to ensure themselves

against a ll exorbitances” (VII. 362) . B ut, wh ile exa ltin g th eir o wn a u-

thority and diminishing the king’s, th e pa trio ts wen t to o fa r a nd to ta lly

subverted the constitution. They forgot that authority as well as liberty is

requisite to government and is even requisite to the support of liberty it-

self , by maintaining the laws which can alone regulate and protect it (VII.

406) . Soon, not a limitat ion but a total abolition of monarchica l author-

ity appeared as th e true aim of th ese “sanctifi ed hypocrites.” Their vio-

lence disgraced the cause of liberty and was injurious to the nation: “It is

seldom,” Hume concluded, “ th at th e peo ple ga in a ny th in g by revo lu-

tions in government; because the new settlement, jealous and insecure,

must commonly be supported with more expense and sever ity than the

o ld : but o n n o o cca sio n wa s th e truth o f th is ma xim mo re sen sibly felt,th an in th e presen t situatio n o f En gla nd . Co mplain ts a ga in st th e o p-

pression o f sh ip-money, aga inst the tyranny o f the Sta r Chamber, had

roused the people to a rms: and having gained a complete victo ry over

the crown, they found themselves loaded with a multiplicity of taxes, for-

merly unknown; and scarcely an appearance of law and liberty remained

in the administration” (VIII. 102) .

So great were the alterations imposed fo rcibly on the constitution

in th is later period that H ume feels Charles I was essent ially right in say-ing, “ tha t he h ad been more an enemy to h is people by these concessions,

could he have prevented them, th an by any other action o f his life” (VIII.

110). Having violently pulled the government to pieces, the patriots of



Int r o duc t io n

xxi

Int r o duc t io n

course thought up schemes for establishing a per fect republic in its place,

par ts of which, Hume observes, were plausible but o ther par ts were “ too

perfect for human n ature” (VIII. 122, 412). Such schemes when held by

men in power are dangerous. Dangerous also was the current doctrine ofpopular sovereignty. Tha t th e people are the origin o f a ll just power is a

principle which, H ume asserts, “ is noble in itself, an d seems specious, but

is belied by all histor y an d exper ience” (VIII. 124).

Finally, “ the height of all iniq uity and fana tical extravagance” (VIII.

123), th e public trial and execution of England ’s legal sovereign, re-

mained to be add ed to the list of parliamentary crimes. It is clear from the

History that the King ’s behaviour during the last scenes of his life com-

manded Hume’s greatest admiration. Our historian notes that Charlesin all appearances before his judges never forgot his part “either as a

prince or as a man ” (VIII. 131). The people too , “ though under the rod

of lawless unlimited power, could not forbear, with the most ardent

prayers, pouring forth their wishes for his preservation” (VIII. 132). How

they regretted th e blind fury with which they had earlier rejected their

king! The en ormity of the trial “was exclaimed aga inst by the gen eral

voice of reason and h uman ity; and all men, under wha tever form o f gov-

ernment they were born, rejected this example, as the utmost effort of

undisguised usurpation , and th e most heinous insult on law and justice”

(VIII. 133).

I shall not dwell further on Hume ’s account of the grief, indigna-

tion, and aston ishment which struck the who le nation as soon as the news

of Charles I ’s execution, or rather his “murder,” reached the na tion.

Hume’s version of these events will be encountered with perhaps more

than sufficient freq uency in the var ious French counter-revolution ar y

writings dealt with later in this study.

The English soon realized that they had murdered a n honourableand honest king, who was, moreover, innocent of the crimes with which

he was charged. “And though ,” H ume adds, “some violations of th e Pet i-

tion of Right may perhaps be imputed to him; these are more to be as-

cribed to the necessity of his situation, and to the lofty ideas of royal

prerogative, which, from former estab lished precedents, he had imbibed,

tha n to any failure in th e integrity of h is principles” (VIII. 142). Nor is it

even possible to say tha t with a little more tact here, a little more imagi-

na tion there, Charles could have perhaps avoided this fata l clash with Pa r-liament . Even lon g after the event , when it is commonly a simple matter

to sort out the errors of bygone quarrels, one is at a loss to determine

what course Charles, in his circumstances, could have followed to main-









1

1. See E. C. Mossner, The L ife of David Hume (Nelson), 1954, pp. 441–506.

I Before 1 7 8 9

1

Roya l Panegyr ics

In 1763 David H ume arrived in Paris to take up duties with Lord

Hertford, B ritain’s fi rst peacetime ambassador to France since the

outbreak of the Seven Years’ War. Author of a famous H istory of the Stuarts, Da vid H ume, freq uently hailed as the “English Tacitus,”

was given an o ffi cial and personal welcome such a s few foreign au-

thors have ever received in th e French capital.

The story of France’s adulation is too well known to need

retelling here,1 although one example of it is particularly relevan t

to our purpose. Let us read H ume’s own account o f h is presenta-

tion at Versailles in 1763 to the children of the Dauphin, three fu-ture kings of France:

The scene which passed today really pleased me without embar-rassing me. I attended Lord Hertford to Versailles in order to bepresented to th e Dauphiness and the young P rinces, the only partof the royal family whom we had no t yet seen. When I was presentedto th e Duc d e Berry, a child of ten years of age, he said to me, “Mon-sieur, you are much ad mired in th is coun try; your name is very well-

known; and it is with great pleasure that I welcome you.” Immed i-ately upon which his brother the Comte de Provence, who is two









5

Th e Sc i e nc e a n d Ar t o f En g l i sh H is t o r y

10. Essays Moral, Poli tical and Literary, by David Hume, ed. T. H . Green andT. H . G rose, London, 1875, II. 68.

11. Gazette litt é rai re de l ’ Europe, February 1766, p. 382.

12. June issue, p. 54.

we may form our observations, and become acquainted with theregular springs of human action and behaviour. These record s ofwars, intrigues, factions, an d revolutions, are so man y collection s of

experiments, by which the politician or moral philosopher fi xes theprinciples of his science; in the same manner as the physician orna tural philosopher becomes acq uainted with the nature of plants,minerals, an d oth er externa l objects, by the experiments, which heforms concerning them. Nor are the earth, water, and other ele-ments, examined by Aristotle, and H ippocra tes, more like to th ose,which a t present lie under our observation, than the men, describedby Polybius an d Tacitus, are to tho se, who no w govern the world.10

It should also be noted that Hume’s earlier writings in phi-

losophy and economics could only add to h is potential success and

stature as an historian in the eyes of the eighteenth-century reader.

History, as we know, had to be “philosophical”—l ’ histoire raisonn é e

as opposed to l ’ histoire simple. Only the profound thinker was

judged worthy of attempting it and such non-professionals as Smol-

lett d id little more than anger the French with their ama teurish

and pretentious imitations. “How could Mr. Smollett take it intohis head,” ind igna ntly writes Chastellux in 1766, “ to write his H is-

tory at the same time as Mr. H ume is writing his! The match is not

e q ua l . . . .” 11 That history ought to be written only by men “pro-

foundly versed in th e science of politics” is the corresponding sen-

timent expressed in the fashion able Mercure de France of 1763.12

To recapitulate, th en, history in the eigh teenth century was a

very popular literary genre, vested also with an almost sacred func-

tion; and H ume was judged to be o f a suffi ciently refl ective turn ofmind to put a soul into its otherwise dead bon es.

Another explanation o f H ume’s great success in this fi eld lies

undoubtedly in the fact that he had chosen to write a history of

the English na tion a t a time when a strange anglomania was at its

height on the continent. French interest in all things English from



6

Be f o r e 1 7 89

13. Edward Gibbon, Autobiography, Everyman ’s Librar y, p. 114.

14. D.-J. Garat , M é moires histori ques sur le 1 8 e si è cle et sur M . Suard, Paris,1821, I. 72.

15. Jan uary–March 1765, p. 232.

jurys to jockeys, from fi st-fi ghts to glorious naval battles, despite

the frequently inane sacrifi ce of national pride involved, hardly

subsided, even during the Seven Years’ War. Gibbon tells of his wel-

come in Paris in 1763 and speaks of ho w English opinions, fash-ions, even games were adopted in France at th is time and o f how

every Englishman was viewed as a born patriot and philosopher.13

G arat gives an account of the phenomenon tha t conveys perhaps

a special mean ing to readers of our own space age:

After Volta ire published his Letters on the English an d Montesquieu

his two chapters of th eEsprit des Lois,

a strange appetite developedin France for knowing everything th at happened or might h appen,or might be th ought, spoken or dreamed of in England. If a tele-scope like Herschel’s an d a listening d evice with similar range hadexisted a t the time, these would have been pointed at England moreoften than at the moon and the other heavenly bodies. This en-thusiasm was as much a matter of d eeply reasoned a dmiration, as itwas a kind o f craze.14

British national history naturally reaped the benefi ts of the

current mania and H ume is but the fi rst in ran k of many authors

on the subject who were read widely in France at this time. In 1765

the Biblioth è que des Sciences et des Beaux-Arts, seeking an appropriate

metaphor to describe the great number of recent publications in

the fi eld of English history, felt compelled to exclaim: “Histories of

England are pouring down on us! ” 15

Anglomania, however, is not a suffi cient explanation of th istorrent. One must also bear in mind the fact that English h istory,

per se, was judged to be peculiarly superior to all other modern n a-

tional histories, both as an art istic theme-source and a s a scientifi c

repository. Hume himself had written to the Abbé Le Blanc in



7


16. Greig, op. cit., I. 193.

17 . See, for example, his letter to the Marq uise Du Deffand , 20 June 1764,in Voltaire ’ s Correspondence, ed. Besterman, D11939.

18. Ibid ., 28 April 1769; Best.D15614.

1754 tha t he esteemed the Stuart period “both for signal events

and extraordinary characters to be the most interesting in mod-

ern history.” 16 Voltaire, who frequently complained of the “ in -

sipidness” of French history and wondered even if it were worthwriting,17 agreed that the superiority of English events gave H ume

an advantage in the fi eld . Writing in 1769 to G abriel-H enri G ail-

lard, he expressed the following bitter sentiments on the subject:

I can see nothing, in short, from the t ime of Saint Louis to H enri IV.That is why the compilations of French history bore everyone todeath , myself included. David H ume has a great advantage over the

abbé Velly an d his ilk, because he has written the histor y of the En-glish, and in France no one has ever written the history of theFrench. Every husband man o f mean s in England is ent irely familiarwith that nation ’s constitution a nd keeps a copy of Magna Carta inhis home. As for our histor y, it is made up o f petty court squabbles,grea t ba ttles lost, small ba ttles won, and lettres de cachet. Were it notfor five or six famous assassinations, and especially the SaintBartholomew ’s Day massacre, nothing could surpass us in insipidity.

Note too tha t we have never invented anything; and , fi na lly, truth totell, we exist in the eyes of Europe only in the century of Louis XIV.I’m sorry, but th at is how it is.18

Later on in the century, Soulavie, commenting on a similar

view of the dullness of French history—this time expressed by

Rousseau—showed to wha t extent the q uestion o f whether their

subject truly “existed ” or not had become a matter of serious con-

cern to French historians. His conclusions were, however, ratherhopeful: “Our circumstances. . . have been suffi ciently varied, and

human passions have exercised their power in our midst with

enough energy and effect to provide interest and instruction for

every age and every nation . H owever, even if we have so many lit-



8

Be f o r e 1 7 89

19 . Jean-Louis Giraud Soulavie, Trait é de la composition et de l ’é tude de l ’ histoire,

1792, p. 64.20. L’ Angleterre instruisant la France, Londres, 1793, p. 70.

21. August 1764, V. 8–10. See also ibid ., June 1760, IV. 3–4.

22. Consid é rations sur l ’ esprit et les moeurs, Londres, 1787, pp. 364–65.

erary masterpieces in every genre, we are still lacking a history that

will do honour to France.” 19

We see that a n at ion ’s history, to be interesting and signifi -

cant, had to present the greatest possible variety of human socialsituations; fi rst, because such variety was aesthetica lly necessary in

a literary composition and, second, because the greater th e num-

ber of events permuta ted an d combined, the greater the resulting

information about man ’s moral nature. English history best ful-

filled both of these requirements according to an anonymous

counter-revolutionary work of 1793: “The history of na tions, an d

particularly that of G reat B ritain, instructs and interests by the va-

riety of its tableaux and events; it is in that faithful mirror that one

sees refl ected the interplay of every passion that stirs the human

heart.” 20 The Journal Encyclop é dique thirty years earlier had made

the same point: “ . . . no nation offers more varied scenes, characters

more diverse or illustrious; no history provides a richer or more

sweeping background of instruction, amazement and pleasure

than the history of Great Britain. . . . ; what other European people

has witnessed more frequent alteration in its manners, laws andgovernment?” 21

Perhaps the only serious competitor to English history was, as

could well be expected in th is neo-classical age, that of the an -

cients. Sénac de Meilhan in 1787 expressed his opinion on the

problem in the fo llowing manner: “Few modern historians can be

placed side-by-side with Thucydides, Xenophon, Sallust, Livy, and,

especially, Tacitus: Hume an d Robertson appear to have followed

most closely in their footsteps; perhaps they would have evencaught up with th em had th ey written in their language and been

provided with equally interesting scenes to depict.” 22 Mme de Staël,

writing some years later, agreed and a lso explained the superiority

of the ancients in history by the superiority of their subject matter:



9


23. De l ’ Allemagne; in Oeuvres compl è tes de Mme La Baronne de Sta ë l, publiéespar son fi ls, Par is, 1820–21, XI. 113.

24. La Quotidienne, No. 39, 8 February 1826.

“The historians of an tiquity remain unsurpassed because no oth er

period in h istory has witnessed superior men play such infl uential

rôles in the affairs of their country.” English historians, however,

were next in rank: “It is the nation in England that possesses great-ness, more so even than any particular individual; that is why his-

torians there are less dramatic but more philosophical than the

ancients.” 23

Other opinions expressed during the first decades of the

nineteenth century suggest th at this view of English national h is-

tory still widely prevailed. We read the following observat ion , for

example, in La Quotidienne of 1826: “Of a ll mod ern na tional his-

tories, the mo st fa scinating is unq uestionably the h istor y of En-

gland: as in a d rama, suspense constantly increases, calamities and

sudd en shifts of fortune are at every moment renewed.” 24

We see how important this largely eighteenth-century concept

of the art of history still was in 1826—not just the art of the individ-

ual historian, but the dramatic art, as it were, of a nation’s own past

in its unfolding. The great variety of events in English historyand the

order in which these had occurred seemed to permit a per fect fu-sion of both artistic and scientifi c elements in one literary genre.

The modern world had, quite plainly, no greater or more signifi cant

story to tell. This view was to change only after a somewhat delayed

realization came to Europe that the events of the French revolution

had suddenly presented historians with an even greater story.

We shall in the course of this study see that there are many ad-

ditiona l reasons which explain why David H ume succeeded so well

in eighteenth-century Fran ce as an historian . These are of a moreparticular nature and more complex to analyse. Generally, and per-

haps truistically speaking, however, we might initially conclude that

his great success was to a large extent foun ded on the fact that he

could h ave chosen no other topic more suited to satisfy at the same

time both the political curiosity and the artistic interests of most

French read ers of his da y.



10

Be f o r e 1 7 89

25. Greig, op. cit., I. 193.

26. For further details on H ume’s French translations, see my “DavidHume and the Offi cial Censorship of the Ancien Régime,” French Studies, 1958,XII. 234–46.

27. M é moires de l ’ Abb é Morellet, Paris, 1821, I. 92.28. Greig, op. cit., II . 348.

29. See Oeuvres de Turgot et documents le concernant, ed. G. Schelle, Paris,1913, I. 27. Turgot’s translation was not published.

3

Jeh ovah Among t h e Hebr ews

Already in 1754, even before the English publication o f his Stuarts,

H ume had intimated to the Abbé Le Blanc, translator of his mod -

era tely successful Poli tical Discourses, that the History would succeed

well in France.25 H ume proposed a t th is same time that Le B lanc

sho uld also translate the H istory and Le Blanc accepted, although

he later found it necessary to give up the translation, which was

continued by the Abbé Prévost and published in 1760.26 There isa good dea l of evidence to show that, even before the long-delayed

appearance of Prévost’s translation, impatient readers in France

had turned to the original English version. Morellet tells us how,

imprisoned in the Bastille in 1760, he had asked Malesherbes to

bring him a copy of Tacitus an d H ume ’s History in English.27

Chastellux the social historian declared to friends that he had

learned English only to read H ume;28 and Turgo t a t th is time felt

the Stuarts important enough to justify a personal translation.29 Sev-

eral hundred pages of excerpts from the Stuarts also appeared in

various French journals before 1760. Add itiona l proof of such pre-

translation success is provided by the results of a survey which I

carried out some years ago in the “Delta” series at the Bibliothèque

Nationale in Paris. Out of 240 private library sale catalogues from

the pre-revolutionary period ch osen completely at random, 109

listed Hume’s historical writings. Of these 109, 12 included ver-sions of the Stuarts in English as well as in French. This work, in

fact, was already well enough known in France by 1759 for Hume



11

Jeh ovah Amon g t h e Hebr ew s

30. Greig, op. cit., I. 302–3.

31. Greig, op. cit., II . 366–67.

to convey to his fellow-historian Robertson in March of that year

the facetious warning tha t the latter would fi nd it more diffi cult to

thrust him out o f his place in P aris than he had in Lond on .30

Once Prévost’s translation was published in 1760, page afterpage of acclamatory no tices appeared in the leading French jour-

nals. Similar editorial atten tion was generously accorded in 1763

and 1765 to Mme Belot’s tran slations of the Tudors and the Plan-

tagenets. During this time too Hume received in his correspon-

dence a great many tributes from distinguished continental

readers. A letter in 1761 from the Comtesse de Boufflers is ex-

treme in its praise but q uite sincere; parts of it are worth quoting

here as fairly typical of the reactions to H ume ’s Stuarts among the

fashionable P arisian nobility:

I cannot fi nd the words to convey to you what I feel as I read thiswork. I am moved, carried away, and th e emot ion it causes in me isso susta ined that it becomes in a sense painful. My soul is uplifted,my heart is fi lled with sentiments of humanity and benefi cence . . . .

You are, Mon sieur, a ma ster ly pa inter. Your por tra yals have a

gracefulness, a genuineness and an energy that surpass what eventhe imagination can attain.

But wha t expressions sha ll I employ to tell you ho w your divineimpartiality affects me? I would have need of your own eloquenceto express my though ts fully on th is subject. In t ruth , it is as thoughI h ave before my eyes the work of a celestial being , freed of a ll pas-sions, who for the benefi t of mankind has deigned to write an ac-count of recent events. . . . 31

Similar references to David H ume as the “angel of truth,” the

“voice of pure reason,” the “voice of posterity,” are not uncommon

at this time. Rousseau, who was soon to write of H ume in a d iffer-

ent tone, made eq ually laudatory statements in a letter of February

1763 to the Scottish philosopher: “Your grand perspectives, your

astonishing impartiality, your genius, would raise you too much

above ordinary mortals, did not the kindness of your heart bring





13

Jeh ovah Amon g t h e Hebr ew s

37. June 1760, IV. 3–6.

38 . Gazette li tt é rai re de l ’ Europe, 2 May 1764, I. 193–200; see also Oeuvres com-

pl è tes de Voltai re, ed. Molan d, XXV. 169–73.

39. H ume’s great reputa tion in h istor y was, of course, by no mean s re-stricted to Fran ce. In Ita ly, for example, such men as Beccaria, Algarotti, and G en-ovesi were n o less fl attering in their praise.

historians; that is to say by men who, without regard to any coun-

try, any faction, any sect, have as their only ambition to write the

truth. Our author comes very close to that model. . . .” 37

Voltaire, the most important historian of the day, praised Humeon much the same grounds in a long review published in 1764:

One can add n oth ing to th e fame of th is H istory, perhaps the bestever written in any language. . . .

Never has the public so clearly sensed that only philosophersshould write history. . . .

The ph ilosopher belongs to no countr y, to no faction. One would

like to see the history of the wars between Rome an d Cartha ge writ-ten by a man who was neither a Roman n or a Carthaginian. . . .. . . Mr. H ume, in his H istory, seems neither a parliamentarian,

nor a royalist, nor a n Anglican, nor a Presbyterian; we fi nd in h imonly the fair-minded man. . . .

The fury of parties has for a long time deprived England of bo tha good history and a good government. Wha t a Tory wrote was de-nied by the Whigs, themselves given the lie in turn by the Tories.Only Rapin-Thoyras, a foreigner, seemed to h ave written an impar-

tial history; but the stain o f prejudice is yet visible even in th e truthsthat Thoyras recounts; whereas in th e new historian we fi nd a mindthat rises above his matter, one who speaks of failings, errors andbarbarities in the same man ner tha t a physician speaks of epidemicdisease.38

The apparent total agreement of such unlike men as Voltaire,

Fréron, and Rousseau on the subject of Hume’s impartiality should

be enough to ind icate in th is respect the unanimity of opinion inFrance. Since, however, many of my later conclusions concerning

the infl uence of th e Hume image must stand or fall on the basis of

a careful evaluation of that image, and since it is important to show

that this view of H ume ’s history persists in France39 with a few no-



14

Be f o r e 1 7 89

40 . Biblioth è que d ’ un homme de go û t, Avignon, 1772, II. 178 –80. See also sim-ilar opinion s of Court de G ébelin a nd de Tressan , in Le guide de l ’ histoire, ed. Jean-François Née de la Rochelle, Paris, 1803, I. 161–62, 280.

table exceptions right up to th e time of the Revolution, I may be

permitted to labour this point a little longer.

Do m Lo uis-Mayeul Chaud on in a work of 1772 again re-

viewed the three most widely read authors of English history:H ume, Rapin-Thoyras, and le Père d ’Orléans. Rapin, a s was usual

in French Catholic estimates at th is time, is accused of H uguenot

prejudices: “He can be deservedly reproached for showing bias

against the land of his birth, made hateful to Protestants by the

harshn ess of Louis XIV, and for favouring the Puritans, those dan-

gerous enthusiasts whose religious views are fi t on ly to make men

grimly ferocious and whose system of political independence is cal-

culated only to manufacture malcontents and rebels.” As for

le Père d ’Orléans, Abbé Chaud on shows surprising fran kness in

judging his fellow-ecclesiastic: “He is too obviously biased in his

treatment of the Stuart period . Most of th is French Jesuit’s deter-

mina tions are designed to fi t either the interests of the papacy in

Rome or the principles of th e French monarchy.” Hume’s fairness

is seen, on the other hand, as unique, quite without precedent:

“Never before has any author raised himself so much above thesectarian bias and party prejudices that divide the kingdom; ever

impartial, he seems to be the spokesman of posterity. . . .” 40

Also defending Hume’s impartiality, the Reverend Samuel

Formey, secretary of the Berlin Academy and formerly hostile ed-

itor of the French translation of H ume’sPhi losophical Essays (1758),

contrasted in 1777 the anticlericalism of the philosophes with

Hume’s fairness toward the representatives of the church:

There is no thing quite so curious as the relent less enmity directedagainst them by persons who, far from having any cause for com-plaint against them, owe them a gen uine debt o f gratitude, since itis they who in th e majority of countries preserved learning and afounda tion of humanity, benefi cence, and charity through out thecenturies of barbarism; were it not for them, the lawlessness of th oseunh appy times would h ave been carried to a far greater degree ofexcess. H ume, who se testimon y will no t be ch allenged , formally ac-





16

Be f o r e 1 7 89

43. W. S. Lewis and R. S. Brown, Horace Walpole ’ s Correspondence wi th George Montague, New Haven, 1941, II. 176, letter of 22 September 1765.

tion ; English , Scotch , and I rish; Whig and Tory; church man andsectary, freethinker and religionist; patriot and courtier, united intheir rage against the man who had presumed to shed a generous

tear for the fate of Ch arles I and th e Earl of Strafford; an d a fter thefi rst ebullitions of th is fury were over, wha t was still more mortifying,the book seemed to sink into oblivion. Mr. Millar told me, th at in atwelvemonth he sold only forty-fi ve copies of it. I scarcely, indeed,heard of on e man in the th ree Kingdoms, considerable for ran k orletters, tha t could endure th e book. I must on ly except the Primateof England, Dr. Herring, and the Primate of Ireland, Dr. Stone;which seem two o dd exceptions. These dignifi ed prelates separa telysent me messages not to be discouraged.

Hume was, nevertheless, d iscouraged and he tells us in this

same brief auto biograph ical sketch that, had not the war at that

time been breaking out between France and England , he would

have retired fo rever fro m Engla nd to so me pro vincia l French

town. Horace Walpole clearly refl ects the typica l a ttitud e to the

History in En gland in a letter to Montague from Paris in 1765.

P arisian s, h e affirmed , were totally lackin g in literary taste:

“ . . . could one believe that when they read our authors, Richardsona nd Mr. H ume should b e their fa vo urites? The la tter is trea ted

here with per fect venera tio n. H is H isto ry, so fa lsified in many

points, so partial in as many, so very unequal in its parts, is thought

the standard of writing. . . .” 43

The French were fully aware o f the discrepancy between their

own estimates of H ume ’s worth an d those of the English. We read ,

for example, in the Journal Etranger of 1760 the following state-ment on tha t subject:

Mr. Hume has been accused by his compatriots of striving too ea-gerly after singular opinions; it is not our function to debate this re-proach . We will no te on ly that, a lthough Mr. H ume is English, arepublican, and a Protestant, he has always spoken of the Frenchwith esteem, and o f kings and Cath olics with moderation ; and it ispossible that th is singularity has offend ed a na tion tha t is too much

in the ha bit of seeing in monarchies on ly a h erd o f slaves and in pa-







19

Pa pi st o r Py r r h o n ia n ?

50. Ibid ., I. 198, letter of 15 October 1754.

51. August 1764, V. 6–7. The probab le auth or o f the above is J.-L. Castil-hon, who repeated his charges six years later in Le Diog è ne moderne ou le d é sappro-

bateur, Bouillon, 1770, II. 228. See also E. Joliat, Smollett et la France, Paris, 1935.

pected from my country, though I hope tha t I carry no t tha t pas-

sion to any ridiculous extreme.” 50

For an example of current French reactions to British histo-

rians who d id indulge in “ that low practice” of speaking with ma-lignity of France, we have only to see what the French though t of

Smollett’s H istory. A fairly typical review of it can be found in the

Journal Encyclop é dique of 1764:

Mr. Smollett believes himself to be entirely above all national prej-udice and jealousies; he sees himself as per fectly free o f th ose un-just pa rtisan sent iments that disho no ur the works of several English

historians; he assures the reader that no religious controversy, nopolitical faction commands his arden t allegiance. . . . This mannerof declara tion appears to us all the more aston ishing in tha t we canscarcely think of any historian who surpasses Mr. Smollett in par-tiality, whether in the various parallels he has drawn between themonarchs of France an d th e kings of Great Britain, or in the exag-gera ted pra ises he is forever heapin g on his fellow-coun tr ymen .More circumspect at times, but also more satirical and more caus-tic than Rapin de Thoyras, he rails aga inst Ca tho licism, he dredges

up everything that indecency and irreligion have expoundedaga inst the venerab le bishops who brought ren own to Englan d; hesees their zeal as blind fan aticism, th eir cando ur as hypocrisy, theirattachment to the Roman church a s criminal, outrageously inde-pendent, an unpardonable felony.51

To fi nd a French-language eq uivalent of English h ostility to

Hume’s history during this early period, it is necessary to look

through the pages of the erudite “Dutch” journals, edited byHuguenot refugees. H ere the similarity of views seems almost au-

tomatic. Maty, in the Journal Bri tannique, speaking of the fi rst vol-

ume of Hume’s Stuarts, declared: “So little does the work I have

before me seem a model to imitate that, quite to the contrary, I

fi nd in it the various defects that an author whom Mr. Hume would









23


62. Ibid. , February 1759, pp. 475–76.

writer, we can draw the following conclusions: 1. That since theirseparation from the Roman Church, Protestants, left to their ownthinking , can h ave on ly an irresolute and uncertain doctrine which

leaves them exposed to the most frightful aberration s, with no solidmeans to regulate their belief and bring it to true uniformity. 2 .That the infl uence of their doctrine has given rise to the most hor-rible disruptions in England, and the most abominable crimesagainst sovereigns. 3. Tha t under the cover of d isputes over do gmaamong the Protestant sects, fanaticism, at fi rst insidiously, and af-terward with great clamour, put the fi nishing touches on the na-tion ’s disorders. 4. That this heretical fanaticism not only spreadswith grea t rapidity, it also pro vides a rich a nd inexhaustible breed -

ing ground for dangerous monsters; since the Independents, hadtheir leader Cromwell not forestalled th e danger, were on the po intof being subjugated by the Agitators, or the Levellers, a sect whose en-thusiasm, grafted onto the fanaticism of these same Independents,

aimed to introduce perfect equality among the citizens, and, con-sequently, the most monstrous confusion and anarchy in thegovernment. 5. Tha t debate, as Mr. Hume insinuates, even of a spec-ulative na ture, on the extent and limits of th e royal prerogative,must never be brought before the people’s tribunal; that in suchmatters the strictest silence must be imposed, even among philo-sophical reasoners; and tha t in general it is safer to keep the peopleignorant of th e limits of th eir obedience, than it is to instruct themon the limits that sovereigns ought to o bserve.62

As I have already pointed out, the q uestion o f whether H ume

really implies all this, whether the Jesuits made a correct or dis-

torted interpretation of his intentions, is somewhat irrelevant to

my purpose. The essential fact is that such interpretations were made and made frequently by an astonishing variety of readers in

eighteenth-century Fran ce. Of course, the M é moires de Tr é voux ed -

itors are forced to dodge about rather awkwardly when they en-

counter passages inspired by Hume’s more frankly irreligious

mood s. Still, this aspect of the History was not seen as an insupera-

ble problem. The Stuarts was af ter a ll by a “Protestant” and even a

Hume must be expected to wander from the truth from time totime. The Protestant Biblioth è que des Sciences et des Beaux-Arts, we re-



24

Be f o r e 1 7 89

63. Ibid. , March 1759, p. 197.

64. Ib id ., p. 198.

65. Ann é e litt é raire, 1760, IV. 313.66. Ibid. , IV. 323.

67. Ibid ., 1763, II. 297.

member, had found H ume’s portra it of James II totally false. The

M é moires de Tr é voux, on the other hand , did no t fi nd it suffi ciently

“ false,” that is to say, suffi ciently “ true” : “We must not expect Mr.

H ume to be strictly impartial in h is treatment of this reign: he istoo biased against the person , the court, and the religion o f James

II , as well as against France, Louis XIV, and all forms of zeal, to pre-

vent h is pen from leaving traces of his prejudices in this history.” 63

Hume’s occasional lapses were seen as faults on ly in some absolute

sense; on this question the journal concluded: “In any case, among

Protestan t h istorian s who h ave dealt with English history of the last

century, Mr. Hume is still the least biased against the Roman

Church, and the least prejudiced in favour o f the Pro testan t sects;

for th is he deserves due cred it.” 64

Th e same aspects of the Stuarts pleased Voltaire’s en emy

Fréron in the Ann é eli t t é raire. He poin ts out fi rst of all that H ume

displays none of the “odious prejudices common to English au-

thors, which even French historians show at times.” 65 He notes with

particular approval H ume’s trea tment of Charles I’s tria l and exe-

cution: “I would have to copy out several entire pages to present toyour humanity and sense of outrage the horrifying scene in which

th is king was judged , condemned , and executed by his own sub-

jects.” 66 All th e h orrors surro un din g th e mon ster republica n

Cromwell, the regicide fanaticism of the hated Puritans, are evoked

in th is ancien-r é gime Frenchman ’s review. Later, while examining

the Tudors, Fréron shows the same highly favourable attitude to the

Scottish historian ’s impartiality. He underlines the fact that Hume,

for example, “stoutly defends Cardinal Wolsey. . . against the attacksof Protestant writers who have sullied his memory.” 67 On the ques-

tion of H enry VIII’s divorce he is happy to point out also that

Hume “pertinently justifi es the P ope’s infl exible resistance to the



25


68. Ibid ., I I. 301.

69. Ibid ., I I. 302–3.70. Ibid ., 1760, IV. 313.

71. Ibid ., 1763, III. 35.

English king ’s imperious and threatening solicitations.” 68 Along

the same lines, Hume’s impartiality is contrasted with Burnet’sbias

on the question of the suppression of monasteries:

Doctor B urnet complacently relates all the infamies the mon ks wereaccused of in the reports prepared by the commissioners Henry VIIIsent to all the religious ho uses to make inq uiries regarding the con-duct and mora ls of the nuns and friars. Mr. Hume, wiser and morecircumspect in h is judgements, does not rely much on the accuracyof th ese reports; ever on guard aga inst the partisan spirit that d ic-tated them, he acknowledges that in times of fa ction, especially ofthe religious variety, little truth is to be expected from even the most

ostensibly auth ent ic testimon y. . . . H e refuses as well to impute tothe Catholic religion abuses tha t the Ch urch in fact condemn s, suchas exposing false relics, and the pious impostures employed in someplaces by the mo nks to increase the devotion and consequently the contributions of the people. Such fooleries, he writes, as they are to be found in all ages and nations, and even took place during the most re fi ned periods of anti quity, form no parti cular or violent reproach to the Catholic religion. Itmust be admitted, Monsieur, that nothing resembles less the ordi-na ry rantings of Pro testan t writers than d oes such language.69

Fréro n to o a dmits that H ume experienced d ifficulty o cca -

sionally in stripping himself entirely of “English” ideas when speak-

ing about relig ion; he states, however, that it would be ridiculous

and unjust to judge the Scot “according to the principles received

among us.” 70 Hume is occasionally wrong, but he is wrong with sin-

cerity: “It can be seen that he seeks the truth in a sincere manner

and if h e sometimes drifts from it, it is less th e result of a pre-med ita ted in ten tio n to d isguise o r co rrupt it, than it is a co nse-

q uen ce of th e fact th at th e h uman min d is n ot always capable of

fi nding it .” 71

It would be difficult to find any other subject on which

Voltaire and Fréron seem to have been in such complete agree-



26

Be f o r e 1 7 89

72. Ibid ., 1766, II. 4.

73. Ibid ., II . 28.

ment. But even here we must make a d istinction . Fréron ’s praise so

far has been for the Stuarts and the Tudors. Voltaire, when he ex-

tolled Hume’s virtues in the long review of 1764 already referred

to, was judging th e English edition o f the H istory in its completedform—after, that is to say, the publication of the Plantagenets. It was

especially th is last section which permitted the French h istorian to

praise the work as a more geographically restricted version of his

own Essai sur les Moeurs. Conversely, when Fréron considered th e

Plantagenets in 1766, his admiration sudd enly became considerably

less warm: “H alf of the fi rst volume is on ly remotely connected to

what is supposed to be its subject. If you remove from the remain-

der the author’s frequent a ttacks on the Church and its clergy. . .

his harangues against the old Catholic religion, you will discover

that this History of all the Plantagenet princes is very succinct.” 72

There is no doubt that Fréron was genuinely surprised to fi nd what

appeared to be a wealth o f insulting epithets and vulgar abuse di-

rected aga inst religion in this work. Hume no longer seemed to be

the divinely impartial historian , that ra re angel of truth . He is now

accused of having failed in the fi rst duty of an historian, and Fréronnotes that it was not with works like the Plantagenets that Hume had

built up his great reputation in the literary world.73

Just as many trad itionalists in France had been disappo inted

in 1758 to see th e free-th inking Phi losophi cal Essays appear only a

few years after the fairly orthodox Poli ti cal Discourses of 1754, a

number o f conservative French admirers of the Stuarts and Tudors

withdrew their support for the h istorian after the appearance of

the Plantagenets. As in the case of the Phi losophi cal Essays, however,a much smaller group, the philosophes, greeted H ume’s apparent

return to san ity with a sigh o f relief.

To say that the philosophes liked th e last part of H ume’s His-

tory with its à la Voltaire treatment of the Middle Ages, and disliked

the Stuarts and the Tudors, would be to propose a rath er n eatly

symmetrica l but not entirely true simplifi cation . O ne can n ote,

however, among members of this group, a dist inct preference for









30

Be f o r e 1 7 89

83. Oeuvres compl è tes, ed. Lewinter, VII. 653, letter of 22 February 1768.

84. Letters of Eminent Persons, p. 183, letter of 28 February 1766.

was now high time to get on with more serious matters: “Return, re-

turn quickly, my dear ph ilosopher, to your books, to your pursuits.

I much prefer seeing you whip in hand, dealing out justice to all

those celebrated ruffi ans who have disturbed the peace of yourcountry. . . .” 83

After the Plantagenets, Hume aban doned English history. Al-

though he had a t one time thought of continuing the work, the

plan was never realized. D ’Alembert, writing to H ume in 1766,

urged him on in this project and showed in his letter that he too

saw Hume’s chief historical merit as a wielder of the philosophic

scourge: “If you choose to, you will have some very pertinen t truths

to tell about all the stupidities committed by France and h er ene-

mies during the War o f Succession, and about th e causes of those

stupidities. But no matter how interesting that subject might be in

your han ds, I would n evertheless ha ve preferred to see you un -

dertake an ecclesiastical history. It is a greater curiosity, it seems to

me, to see men cutting each other’s throats for theological irrele-

vancies, than for provinces and kingdoms which are somewhat

more deserving of the effort.” 84

What the philosophes wanted from an ecclesiastical history is

not a matter of doubt. D’Alembert himself had given only a year

before an example of the best clichés of the genre in his anony-

mously published work, Sur la destruction des J é suites en France

(1765). Ecclesiastical history would show all manner of usurpation

of the spiritual powers over the temporal, the hideous crimes and

bloody wars caused by religious fanaticism, the persecutions and

murders committed in the name of Christ—such were the gifts ofChristianity to mankind th at would be recorded in a good “philo-

sophically” inspired ecclesiastical history. In a letter of 1773,

d ’Alembert once again solicited Hume on the subject and com-

miserated at the same time on the fate o f tha t “poor lady” who is

called Philosophy: “ . . . those who would like to write on her beha lf

dare not—those like you who could, prefer to sleep and digest,





32

Be f o r e 1 7 89

86. De la f é licit é publique (1772), nouvelle édition, augmentée de notes in-édites de Volta ire, Paris, 1822, II. 48–49; see also I I. 10, 13, 24, 31, 43, 91.

87. De la phi losophie de la natu re ou Trai t é de morale pour l ’ esp è ce humaine ti r é de la phi losophie et fond é sur la nature, troisième édition, Lon dres, 1777, II. 274;VI. 412.

88. Ibid., VI . 317–18. Hume’s text is as follows: “By some computa tions,

those who perished by all these cruelties are supposed to be a hun dred an d fi fty,or two hun dred thousand : by the most mod erate, and probably the most reason-able accoun t, they are mad e to amoun t to forty thousan d; if this estimation itselfbe not, as is usual in such cases, somewhat exaggerated.” (The H istory of England,

VII. 388.)

cially: “Let them consult,” Chastellux advises, “ l ’ Essai sur l ’ histoire g é n é rale, the mod el of h istorico-philosophical writings; let them

consult Mr. Hume, illustrious in the same career. . . .” 86

Delisle de Sales, another of Volta ire’s understudies but fondtoo of calling Hume “ the Tacitus of Englan d,” 87 found materials

for the good cause not only in the Plantagenets but in the Tudors

and Stuarts as well. Particularly useful to his purposes was H ume ’s

account of the religious massacres in Ireland, seen by the French

author as having been unequalled even by that of Saint

Bartholomew ’s Day, the event, we remember, which mad e French

history almost worth writing about in the opinion of Voltaire.

Delisle de Sales ignored, curiously enough, Hume ’s own estimate

of the number of victims, established in the History at the suffi-

ciently horrifying fi gure of 40,000, and chose instead th e more

polemically useful fi gure of 200,000.88

As an illustration of how the same passage from H ume ’s His-

tory could a t times inspire both the philosophes and their enemies to

reach completely an tithetical conclusions, it is amusing to no te

that the Abbé Bergier, a Roman Catholic apologist to whom weshall refer again, d iscussed in 1767 th is same massacre; and h e was

delighted to point out tha t religion was no t the only, nor even the

principal, cause of it: “Mr. Hume, a witness whose testimony will

no t be seen as suspect, admits in good fa ith that th e inveterate an -

imosity of the Irish toward the English, their attachment to free-

dom, property, and their ancient customs, their envy of the English

recently transplanted to Ireland and fear that even worse mis-

treatment from them would follow, in short, dissatisfaction with





34

Be f o r e 1 7 89

91. G .-J. Holland , in the most valuable of the man y contemporary refuta-tions of d ’Holbach’s Syst è me de la Nature, pointed out on this question that H ume—who d id defend eth ical motivat ion as involving mo re tha n self-interest—couldhardly be classed as an ignorant th eologian. See R éfl exi ons philosophiques sur le Sys-

t è me de la Nature, Paris, 1773, p. 129. Also in this work, in an analysis quite un-usual before Kant, H olland uses Hume’s causality doctrine to comba t d ’Holbach’sdeterminism. ( See ibid., pp. 5–6, 16–17.)

92 . See Oeuvres complettes de M. Helv é tius, Londres, 1781, IV. 268. This sameessay was commented on at great length in the revolutionary period by Joseph-

Michel-Antoine Servan, Correspondance entre quelques hommes honn ê tes, Lausanne,1795, III. 136–78. See also Joseph d e Maistre, Consid é rations sur la France (1796)in Oeuvres compl è tes, I. 72–73.

1759, tha t he is in almost total agreement with his correspondent

concerning ethical motivation . A few lines farther along in his let-

ter, however, he shows that nothing could be more distant from

the truth and d isplays an almost wilful tendency to ignore the factthat Hume’s Enquiry specifically combats such simplistic “self-

interest” theories as his own. D ’Holbach, in a letter of August 1763,

calls Hume one of the greatest ph ilosophers of any age. There is ev-

idence to show too tha t he had read, or at least tha t he owned, all

of Hume’s works and yet, again on the question of eth ics, he main-

tained in several of his own compositions that only ignorant the-

ologians deny self-interest as the basis of morality.91

We have perhaps another example of th is basic lack of com-

prehension, I think, in Helvétius’s rather earnest reaction to

Hume’s fairly ironically titled essay on the “perfect” common-

wealth. Hume warns in his preliminary remarks that all plans of

government tha t pre-suppose a great change in man ’s nature are

“ imaginary.” He seems to in tend, as he does so often in his episte-

mological inq uiries, little more than a good intellectual exercise;

but it is a game which we suspect H elvétius takes perhaps too seri-ously when he solemnly speculates in De l ’ homme on the practical

applicability of the means Hume proposes.92 D ’Alembert, though

perhaps Hume’s closest friend in Paris, seems to labour under a

somewhat similar misconception in a letter to the Scot introducing

his neighbour and friend, the latitudinarian Abbé de Vauxcelles:

“H e is going to England,” d ’Alembert writes without an y excessive





36

Be f o r e 1 7 89

94. Dictionnaire social et patri oti que ou pr é cis raisonn é des connai ssances relatives à l ’é conomie morale, civi le et poli ti que, Par M.C.R.L.F.D.B.A.A.P.D.P., Amsterdam,1770, p. 141.

95. Ibid ., pp. 176–78.

Voltaire had spoken of the English as tolerant in religion,

mod erate and free in politics and, most importan t of all, profoun d

in their philosophical thinking. If on ly, Volta ire seemed to be say-

ing, France took England fo r its model, then all would be well.Lefebvre de Beauvray disagreed vehement ly. Quoting as evi-

dence Hume’s sentiments on England ’s lack of an equivalent of

the French Academy, he stated that the city of Paris by itself had

more to o ffer the intellectual than th e whole of G reat Britain.94

As for England ’s hideous “republican ” liberty, so often pra ised

by the encyclop é di stes, de Beauvray proposed th e following counter-

arguments in his article “Frondeurs” :

We are haran gued every day on h ow little liberty is affo rded un dermonarchical government. . . .

To silence th ese critics, I sha ll ask them on ly to weigh the fo l-lowing considerations, set out in good faith by Mr. Hume himself,in his Histoire de la Maison de Stuart, volume III , page 429 [VIII. 143 –44]: “G overnmen t is instituted in ord er to restrain th e fury and in-justice of the people; and being always founded on opinion , not on

force, it is dangerous to weaken, by these speculations, the rever-ence which the multitude owe to authority. . . . Or should it be foundimpossible to restrain the license of human disquisitions, it must beacknowledged that the d octrine of obedience ought a lone to be in-

culcated and that the exceptions, which are rare, ought seldom ornever to be mentioned in popular reason ings and discourses. Noris there any danger tha t ma nkind , by this pruden t reserve, shoulduniversally degenerate into a state o f ab ject servitude.” 95

The bloody revolutions of England ’s history stro ngly suggestto de Beauvray that liberty is not a worthwhile political goal.

Hume’s paraphrased opinion o f the British parliamenta ry leaders

during the Civil War is seen as suffi cient proof of th is point :

“If one cannot deny that the fi rst group ( the extreme supporters ofEnglish liberty) had more noble aims and held views more advan-





38

Be f o r e 1 7 89

98. Ibid ., pp. 257–58.

99. Ibid ., pp. 356, 365, 469, 514–15.

100. Ibid ., pp . 275–78.

101. Ib id ., p. 284.

102. Ib id ., p. 446. Readers of de Beauvray’s Dictionnaire may be somewha tsurprised after such praise to discover that in a parallel of English and Frenchthinkers matching Hobbes and Gassendi, Shaftesbury and Montaigne, and in

which n o English eq uivalent o f Montesquieu can be foun d, H ume is labelled th eEnglish eq uivalent o f Buffi er. (Ib id., p. 26.) The mystery is solved, however, whenwe encounter, buried away in ano ther part o f the Dictionnaire, proof that de Beau-vray considered Buffier to be “the most judicious, and perhaps the most profound ,of a ll our ph ilosophers” (p. 329).

the ring in marriage and of the cross in bapt ism.” (See l ’ H istoire de

la Maison de Stuart sur le tr ô ne d ’ Angleterre, t. 2, p. 327.) 98

De Beauvray also cites Hume on the advantages of the monar-chical form o f government a s compared with the English “repub-

lican” system.99 In suppo rt o f such a nti-liberal views, th e article

“Liberté” of the Dictionnaire reproduces a long quotation from

H ume which de B eauvray interprets as a lesson to the French on

the worth lessness of England ’s much-vaun ted Magn a Carta.100

In tellectually backward, into lerant in religion and blood y in

politics, the English are seen by de Beauvray as perversely wrong

even in the way that they treat their on ly good h istorian , the judi-cious David H ume: “It is far from being the case tha t Mr. Hume’s

work has received an equally favourable welcome from all En-

glishmen. Some reproach h im his Scott ish birth and his predilec-

tion for the Court party. As a consequence they deny him the

acclaim his writings and research deserve. If they persist in the as-

sertion tha t Mr. H ume is not a good historian, then England does

not yet have a national history and can never have one.” 101 Not only

is Hume a great h istorian , he is, “among all the political philoso-

phers, the one who is most familiar with the interests and resources

of his coun try.” 102

We see that it was on ly too easy, albeit with a certain measure

of misrepresenta tion, for anti-philosophes like de B eauvray to inter-

pret much of Hume as supporting the cause of the ancien r é gime

against the lessons of Voltaire ’s Lettres phi losophiques. Volta ire had





40

Be f o r e 1 7 89

104. I bid ., pp . 60–62. French anglophobes of the Napoleonic era seizedupon similar passages from H ume’s writings. See, for example, the anonymouspamphlet, Le peuple anglais bouf fi d ’ orguei l, de bi è re et de th é , jug é au tri bunal de la rai -

son, Paris, An IX–1803, pp. 67–87.105. August 1758 , IV. 59–63. The same debate is repeated in Abb é

Chaudon ’s Dictionnaire anti -philosophique, Avignon, 1767, pp. 375–77.

106. See ibid., May 1759, III. 91–92; March 1760, II. 36–38.

of Power ) states tha t above half of England ’s wars with Fran ce, and a llits public debts, are owing more to its own imprudent vehemencethan to the ambition of its neighbours. . . . 104

Let us proceed now to examine the writings of a number of

French traditionalists who exploited Hume’s impartiality as they

defended not on ly the ancien r é gime ’ s national self-esteem and its

politics but its religion as well. Here too the phi losophes ’ false

brother, David H ume, was deemed to have mad e valuable contri-

butions. Immediately after the French publication of his Philo-

sophical essays, for example, he was recognized by yet another

enemy of Voltaire, the Abbé Trublet, as a useful source of ideasagainst the current irreligion. Voltaire and the phi losophes had

made a great man of John Locke and had praised especially

Locke’s rejection of innate ideas. In the Journal Chr é tien of 1758

Abbé Trublet applauded the “judicious” Hume for having shown

at last that Locke’s ideas on this subject, as well as on many other

subjects, were totally confused.105

It is a strange irony that the phi losophes, who at this time

praised H ume so h ighly as a kindred spirit, had failed to recognizehis originality in epistemology even as Christian apologists, how-

ever insincerely, were using H ume’s theory of kno wledge to attack

the very basis of Enlightenment philosophy. Hume’s scepticism,

perhaps even charitably viewed as an unavoidable fi rst step toward

fi deism, seemed particularly useful to Trublet against the dogmatic

conclusions of rat iona lism. In the same way, the French abbé had

earlier defended Berkeley against the charge made by someCatholic apologists that the Irish bishop’s strange idealism was im-

pious. British ph ilosophers, it had to be admitted, could be rather

eccentric but they were “uneq ually erroneous” and proper dis-

tinctions had to be made if one rejected them.106 With such dis-



41

Th e Sc o t t i sh Bo s s ue t

107. Ibid. , September 1762, p. 5.

tinctions in mind, Trublet an d o ther eighteenth-century apologists

occasionally attempted to revive the old technique of retortion,

the rhetorical engine of war that had earlier been used with success

aga inst the Pro testan ts and rationalists of the Renaissance.David Hume’s scepticism, with its dialectic based on the max-

imum multiplication of view-points, was particularly vulnerable to

exploitation by this technique. The phi losophes were not to be al-

lowed the sa tisfact ion of thinking tha t a ll o f modern philosophy

supported their cause. They prided themselves on having recourse

to reason alone, but if a sceptic could show, as David Hume, for ex-

a mple, had shown , that many o f their a rguments were ba sed o n

Lockian “acts o f fa ith ,” then that sceptic, though not a religious

man, could be useful in the defence of religion. Hume was not re-

ally an angel of truth , but he could be spirited away from his evil

broth ers a nd put to work again st th eir in cred ulity. “Monsieur

Trublet ’s purpose in most o f the a rticles that appear throughout

thisjournal,” notes the Abbé Joannet, editor of the Journal Chr é tien,

“ . . . has a lways been to remove from the rosters of impiety and irre-

ligion the men of letters whom our so-called philosophers have hadthe vanity to list as supporters of materialism and incredulity.” 107

In 1768, although all of Hume ’s works were by then on the

Index, the future card inal, H yacinth e-Sigismond G erdil, sho wed

that even some of the h igher church offi cials were on occasion able

to view David Hume in this same friendly light. In his Discours sur

la divini t é de la religion chr é tienne, for example, G erdil attacked th e

philosophes for their irreverent views on the lives of the Christian

saints. H appily, there was a remedy for their blindness:

More judicious authors have remed ied th is failing with more accu-rate studies, based on authentic documentation. If among thosepersons who h ave fallen away from religion because of unfortuna teprejudices there can be found minds of rectitude and equity andhearts inclined to virtue, what better way for them to be cured oftheir prejudices and recon ciled to Christianity than by read ing the

life of Jesus Ch rist and the lives of the saints who, imbued with thespirit of Jesus Christ, have exemplifi ed in all of their cond uct the





43


111. Ibid ., pp . 1414–15.

112. See below, chapter III. pp. 107–8.

public authority does not rest, then, in the free consent of indi-

viduals who have given up for this purpose part of their natural

rights. Public authority takes all its force from the right that nature

implicitly gives every society to see to its well-being and survival:

Sovereign power in society is thus estab lished by na ture ’s law, andsince natura l law is decreed by G od , it follows that sovereign poweris founded on the very order established by God for the preservationan d well-being of mankind : Qui potestati resisti t, ordinationi Dei resisti t [Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinanceof G od ]: th us spoke the Apostle.

Mr. H ume pays homage to this truth in h is twenty-fi fth moral andpolitical essay: On ce we admit a general pro vidence, he writes, “andallow that all events in the universe are cond ucted by an un iformplan , and d irected to wise purposes,” we canno t deny that the D eityis the ultimate auth or o f all government. And “as it is impossible fo rthe human race to subsist, at least in any comfortable or secure state,without the protection of government, this institution must certainlyhave been intended by that benefi cent Being, who means the goodof a ll his crea tures: And a s it has universally, in fa ct, taken place, in

all countries, and all ages, we may conclude, with still greater cer-tainty, tha t it was intended by tha t omniscient B eing, who can neverbe deceived by any event or operation.” 111

Gerdil applauds this argument as entirely solid. Unfortu-

nately, Hume spoils his line of reasoning somewhat by his subse-

quent conclusions. Gerdil then quotes the passage in H ume’s essay

“Of the O riginal Con tract,” which h is friend , the Abbé Maury, an-

other “H ume-inspired ” future Cardinal of the Church, did notdare cite later while debating the concept of sovereignty with

Mirabeau on the fl oor of the Assemblée Nationale.112 If the nature

of th ings and providential arrangement are equated , the authority

exercised by a pirate o r a commo n robber is, H ume arch ly con-

tends, as inviolable as that of any lawful prince. Gerdil gives the ob-

viously con fused but no doubt well-intentioned Monsieur Hume a

kindly correction on this point :



44

Be f o r e 1 7 89

113. Ib id ., p. 1416.

114. Ib id ., p. 1417.

“God who mean s the good of all his creatures, also intend s tha t theybe governed ” : that is Mr. Hume’s principle. The establishment ofgovernment conforms to th e intentions of the omni scient Being, and

the sovereign occupies a place in society that is designated expresslyby Providence; but the abuse that a bandit makes of his physicalpower in order to rob the passerby is a crime against the laws ofG od , who, while allowing th is evil, disapproves of it, con demns an dpunishes it. How then could Mr. Hume suggest that th e authority ofthe most lawful prince is no t mo re sacred, or more inviolable thanthat of a brigand?113

After thus disposing of this minor lapse in what is otherwise

seen as a brilliant argument, G erdil returns to base his conclusionon Hume’s authority:

We must therefore look upon the estab lishment o f government no ton ly as the simple effect o f thi s secret in fl uence that animates all of na-

ture but also as an institution tha t G od desires, tha t conforms to theintentions of the all wise Being and to his supreme benefi cence.This confo rmity tha t Mr. H ume acknowledges is revealed to us by

right reason , informs us by clear a nd immediate logic that we can-not attack the sovereign authority of government without at thesame t ime defying th e intention s, the laws, an d the will of the om-niscient Being . This pro ves suffi ciently that such authority is sacredan d inviolable. What reason demon stra tes on th is subject is fullyconfi rmed by the testimony of the Scriptures which reveal to us ina more distinct and authentic manner the will of the SupremeBeing. To be entirely con vinced o n th is point, on e has on ly to rea dthe th ird boo k of Bossuet’s Politique ti r é e de l ’ Ecriture Sainte.114

It can be easily imagined how Hume’s alleged testimony in

favour of wha t is in fact a full-blown system of theocracy was seen

as all the more valuable by religious conservatives precisely because

it did not come from Bossuet but rather from the sceptical and

therefore “ impartial” Hume. Joseph de Maistre, who was later

probably even more thoroughly “ infl uenced ” by H ume in th is di-

rection, expressed the belief that one could trust such a man to



45


115. Du Pape (1817); in Oeuvres compl è tes, II. 413.

116. Dictionnaire philosophique de la religion, o ù l ’ on é tabli t les points de la reli-

gion attaqu é s par les incr é dules, et o ù l ’ on r é pond à toutes leurs objections. Nouvelle édi-

tion, Besançon, 1774, I. 368–69.

117. An example of Voltaire’s opinion of the Protector may be found in thearticle “Cromwell” of the Dicti onnaire phi losophique, in Oeuvres compl è tes de Voltai re,XVIII. 294–99; see also Essai sur les Moeurs, ibid., XIII. 74–82.

speak the truth because, as he tells us, “Hume . . . believed in noth-

ing and con sequently held back noth ing.” 115

On anoth er ma tter, the Jesuit Claud e-François Nonnotte, re-

membered today especially as an adversary of Voltaire ’s Essai sur les Moeurs and Dictionnaire philosophique, also occasionally invoked

the testimony of David Hume. In the article “Christianisme” of his

own antidotal Dictionnaire philosophique de la religion, Nonnotte set

out to disprove the common philosophes ’ contention that Christ’s

kingdom has been th e scene of mankind ’s bloodiest wars. Chris-

tianity, he maintained to the contrary, has been a civilizing and

benefi cial factor in good government throughout the ages:

. . . Christianity has had a civilizing effect on customs, it has checkedthe spirit of sedition, it has uprooted and destroyed the seeds ofcivil war. It is therefore und eniable that it h as been a force for goodin the un iverse.

These same frenzied tubthumpers who constantly proclaimChristianity to be a religion of disorder and discord, a disruptiveforce tha t overturns states, kingd oms, and empires, also seek to d e-

pict it as a bloodthirsty religion, the most dangerous to crownedheads.

In th at, they are no t of the same opinion as one of the most cel-ebrated learned men o f this century who, th ough a P rotestant, a c-kno wledges that, o f all religions, Ca tholicism is the most favourableto sovereigns. (Hume, H ist. de la Maison de Stuart.)116

Nonnotte also a ttacks Voltaire for what h e considers to be the

French historian ’s too favourable attitude to the hypocritical as-sassin Cromwell and to the en tire Puritan rebellion.117 Moreover,

Volta ire lies in h is teeth when he pra ises Elizabeth as toleran t and

attacks Mary as a persecutor: that “wise author, Monsieur Hume”



46

Be f o r e 1 7 89

118. Nonnotte, op. cit., I. 370; III. 328–29. See also h isErreurs de Monsieur

de Voltai re, Paris, 1770, I. 273–77; II. 407–10.

119. Abbé Royou’s publication a ppeared in the Ann é e li tt é raire, June 1779,IV. 73–113, an d was reprinted in S.-N.-H . Linguet’s Annales poli tiques, civi les et l it- t é rai res du dix-hui ti è me si è cle, 1779, VI. 15 –48 . Linguet, himself an enemy of d ’Alem-bert, also lauded Hume’s impartiality and q uoted his auth ority in 1774 to provetha t so-called English liberty was noth ing mo re tha n the muddle-headed delu-sion o f those who wished to foment political disord er. (Oeuvres de M. Linguet, Lon-dres, 1774, II. 139, 244.) I t is well known tha t Linguet, fo llowing a two-year

imprisonment in the Bastille, was destined to revise his opinion somewhat on thislast po int.

120. Lin guet, Annales, VI. 21; Ann é e li tt é raire, 1779, IV. 77.

in his “excellent Histoire ” easily proves how wrong th e grea t infi del

is in both cases.118

In an article attacking d ’Alembert’s eulogy of George Keith,

Hereditary Earl Marischal of Scotland and Governor of Neuch â-tel, the future counter-revolutionary journalist Abbé Royou a lso il-

lustrated how it was possible to appeal to Hume for aid in

protecting the ideological inertia of the ancien r é gime.119

D ’Alembert in his Eloge had spoken disparagingly of the Stu-

art kings and had referred specifi cally to James II as Jesuit-inspired

a nd in to lera nt. As we have a lrea dy noted , eigh teen th-cen tur y

French Catholics seemed to fi nd it pa rticula rly important to de-

fend Ja mes II’s memory: “ . . . the Jesuitism of King James,” Abbé

Royou insists, “ is one of those popular opinions tha t are spawned

by hatred and adopted through gullible malevolence; it has, how-

ever, never been test ifi ed to by any cred ib le witness. Hume does

not speak of it. . . .” 120 As for the a lleged in to lerance o f James I I,

th at too, Royou affi rms, is a ma licious lie. Quite to the contra ry,

James was forced to leave the English throne because he was ex-

cessively tolerant. “Had he favoured the atrocious and sanguinarylaws of the Anglican sect, he and his family would still be enjoying

the en tire affection o f h is subjects, ea rned for h im from the be-

ginning by his virtues. But he wished to grant complete freedom of con-

science to all sects within his kingdom, and to mitiga te the harshness

of the laws against Catholics, without, however, as he persisted in

asserting to his last brea th (Hume, t . 6, p. 536) , in trud ing on the



47


121. Linguet, VI. 21–23; Ann é e li tt é raire, IV. 79–80.

122. Linguet, VI. 23–24; Ann é e li tt é raire, IV. 81.

123. See the correspond ence of Bergier published by Léonce Pingaud in

the proceedings of the Acad é mie des sciences, belles-lettres et ar ts de Besan ç on (1891).Bergier, whose dates are 1718–90, spent his last days editing the massive three-volume Th é ologie section of th e Encyclop é die M é thodique (Paris, 1788–90).

privi legesand prerogati vesof theProtestants. That was the source of his

misfortunes!” 121

D ’Alembert’s radical view of Stuart intolerance inspired this

brother-in-law of Fréron and future editor of the counter-revolutionary journal l ’ Ami du Roi to attack the philosophes generally

for endlessly speaking of tolerance and, a t the same time, for being

highly intolerant toward Catholics. Coming back to d ’Alembert’s

portrait of James II, he proposed to show wha t that monarch was

rea lly like: “Let us contrast this truly odious and culpable depiction

of the cond uct of King James with the portra it drawn by Mr. Hume:

a Pro testan t in origin, an unbeliever by profession, a subject an d

partisan of th e House of H anover: his auth ority should not be sus-

pect to our panegyrist. Here is how he ends his history of James

I I . . . .” 122 Royou’s attack concludes with a triumphant confronta-

tion of the impartial Hume and his vanquished philosophe friend

d ’Alembert.

The last example we will consider with regard to the infl u-

ence of H ume’s con servat ive image in the pre-revolut ionary pe-

riod is much along the same lines. It cann ot be ignored, however,because of the sheer q uan tity of references to H ume’s works in-

volved and because of the importance of the Abbé Nicolas-Sylvestre

Bergier, the apo logist in question.

Abbé Bergier saw himself as rather like a new Samson sent by

G od to destroy the Philistines of eighteenth -century French phi-

losophy. Some idea of the stature of his attacks may be had , per-

haps, from the fact that, for a time, he frequented the d ’Holbach

c ô terie and that rival apologists occasionally complained that hetreated his philosophe opponents with more respect and temper-

ance than he accord ed the Jansenists.123

The extent of H ume ’s philosophical infl uence on Bergier,



48

Be f o r e 1 7 89

124. Bergier, unlike the philosophes, gives ample proof of having recognizedthe originality of Hume’s contributions to epistemology. Like Hollan d ( see supra

p. 34, n . 91), he makes clever polemical use of Hume’s analysis of causationagainst the determinism of such materialist philosophers as d ’Holbach. See inOeuvres compl è tes de Bergier the following references: I. 38 –42 , 61 –72 , 624–30 , 691–93; II. 40–44, 713; III. 749–50; IV. 786–87; V. 385–87; VI. 340–42, 358, 561 –62,602–15, 696–97, 941–42, 1002–3, 1031–32, 1346–47; VII. 813; VIII. 412–13,

527. It is fairly eviden t, however, that Bergier merely exploits Hume’s scepticismaga inst th e philosoph ical dogmatists. He makes it clear, at the same time, th at hewholeheartedly disapproves of the Scottish philosopher ’s irreligion.

125. Ibid., VI . 137, 451; III. 1357; VIII. 195.

following in the tradition already established by Trublet, is a q ues-

tion that need not detain us here.124 More important to our pur-

pose is an examina tion of the religious, social, and political image

of David H ume that emerges from the mass of references found inthe Abbé’s works published between 1765 and the Revolution.

Any statement made by H ume that could be construed or, to

be q uite frank, ha lf-construed and even misconstrued as testifying

in favour o f religion or o f the Catholic Church is laboriously noted

down in Bergier’s works. The Abbé records emphatically, for ex-

ample, that H ume “has expressed h imself in a most forceful man-

ner on the benefi cial effects of religion: ‘Tho se who attempt to

disabuse mankind of religious prejudices, may, for aught I know, be

good reasoners, but I cannot a llow them to be good citizens and

politicians; since they free men from one restraint upon their pas-

sions and make the infringement of th e laws of eq uity and o f soci-

ety, in th is respect, more easy and secure.’” 125 Like Volta ire quoting

the Bible, Bergier does no t hesitate to repeat h is favourite H ume

passages and he used this particular on e, wrenched from the essay

“Of Providence,” in at least four different works.The philosophes mainta in that religion is unnecessary in a well-

run society. But, objects Bergier, “no nation since the beginning

of the world has possessed good civil laws, sound polity and gov-

ernment, without religion. No legislator has set out to bring under

the rule of law a people deprived o f a belief in G od and in a future

life. It is sheer folly to consider feasible an enterprise that no sage

has ever dared to attempt. ‘Look out for a people, entirely destitute

of religion ,’ states Mr. Hume; ‘ if you fi nd them at all, be assured,



49


126. Ibid. , VI. 156–57, 1347.

127. Ibid. , VI. 105.

128. Ibid. , V. 385–87.

tha t they are but a few degrees removed from brutes.’ (H ist. nat. de

la relig., p. 133). . . . From this undeniable fact we may conclude that

religion is an integral part, so to speak, of man ’s constitution. . . .” 126

Hume is a lso cited aga inst those who mainta in that religiontakes its orig ins in the duplicity of priests and the credulity of the

masses: “ It would be fruitless to reply to th e n oisy clamours of

those who cla im that religion was invented by priests out o f self-

interest . First of a ll, it is absurd to suppose that there were priests

before there was religion. Mr. Hume, who is anything but b iased

in their favour, a cknowled ges in goo d faith that they are not the

original authors o f religion or o f superstition; that a t most they

may have helped to foster it. (H ist. nat. dela relig., [section] 14, p.

127.) ” 127

Bergier defends religious belief as a normal part of man ’s na-

ture. Is it sensible, then, he a sks, to spend one’s lifetime question-

ing a duty which is born with us, which makes for the happiness of

virtuous people and determines our eternal fate? Even Hume—

for the moment a H ume pascalisant —was forced to admit that no

good can come of religious scepticism: “David Hume, a zealouspartisan of philosophical scepticism, after setting forth all the

soph isms he could devise for its found ation, is forced to admit tha t

no good can come of it, that it is ridiculous to attempt to destroy

reason by argument and ratiocination; that nature, more powerful

than philosophical pride, will always mainta in its rights over all ab-

stract speculations. We can conclude without hesitation that the

same is true of religion, since it is grafted on na ture. . . .” 128

Even a certa in fanaticism in a n ation is preferable to the tota labsence of religion : “Fanaticism occurs, moreover, on ly when the

people are much agitated and religion appears to be in peril; it is

a passing frenzy that grows weak from its own efforts, an d its crises

cannot be frequent. ‘Its fury,’ writes Mr. Hume, ‘is like that o f thun-

der and tempest, which exhaust themselves in a little time, an d

leave the a ir more calm an d pure than before.’ Atheism is a slow



50

Be f o r e 1 7 89

129. Ibid., VI . 149.

130. Ibid., VI . 269, 289.131. Ibid ., I I. 34–35.

132. Ibid. , VIII . 571.

133 . Ibid. , V. 82; VII. 896, 902; VIII. 228.

poison that destroys the principle of social being and its effects are

incurable. . . .” 129

With H ume defending religious fanaticism in small doses and

even proving to the Abbé’s satisfact ion that the ancients were verymuch in need of Christ’s mission,130 let us now turn to h ear what

he has to say, still according to Bergier, specifi cally in defence of

Christianity and the Catholic Church.

Bergier quotes from Hume’s Tudors to show the important

rôle played by the Church during the Dark Ages: “The barbarian

nations that ravaged Europe in the fi fth century and a fterwards

would have smothered even the last vestige of human knowledge,

had religion not opposed barriers to their fury. . . . If some traces of

humanity, mora ls, order, and learning are to be found in the fi f-

teenth century, it is undeniably to Christianity that we must be

grateful.” 131 We remember that the Protestant minister Formey had

cited Hume to the same effect. The clergy, Hume is quoted as

maintaining, a lso served during th is time as a barr ier against po-

litical despotism.132

Attacking the Reformation, Bergier finds himself able toquote profi tably page after page of Hume ’s works. Not only did

the clergy of the pre-Reformation Church stand as a barrier against

despotism, but the union of the Western Churches under on e sov-

ereign pontiff facilitated commerce and was a highly desirable,

politically unifying principle. The wealth and splendour of the

Church had the effect of encouraging the arts. Though some cor-

ruption in the Church ind eed existed, it was no t the main cause of

the Reformation, nor was the issue of religion the main cause ofthe massacres which took place in England , Scotland, an d Ireland

at that time.133 After giving consecutively fi ve “ impartial” Hume

quotations to support this view, Bergier adds: “Here, it seems to

me, is confi rmation of everything we have already said about the so-



51


134. Ibid. , VIII . 228.

135. Ibid. , VII. 925 –26.

136. Ibid. , VIII . 584.137. Ibid. , VIII . 538–39.

138. Ibid ., II I. 237–38; IV. 571; VIII. 1302.

139. Ibid ., I. 329.

called Reformation, and it is a Protestan t who provides it for us.” 134

Were the Pro testants right, Bergier asks, to at tack the Church for

depriving the faithful of scripture in the vernacular? “David H ume

tells us that in England , after the ad vent of the so-called Reforma-tion, access to the English translation o f the Bible had to be with-

drawn from the people for fear of the consequences and the

fan aticism fostered by such read ings. (Tudor, II. p. 426.) ” 135 Hume

also states that the destruction of the monasteries at the time of

the Reformation in England did no possible good to the country:

“A fi ne lesson ,” Bergier add s, “ for those who would seek to reform

the wealth of the clergy! ” 136 For his defence of the utility of con-

vents and for h is denial that the celibacy of priests has base politi-

cal motives, Hume receives once again the French Abbé’s

benediction. The Scot had shown on these matters “more dis-

cernment than our philosophes .” 137 Like Louis de Bonald later on,

Bergier also cites Hume ’s authority to support his arguments

against divorce.138

One last example of Bergier’s use of Hume must suffi ce al-

though it by no means exhausts the list of references scatteredthroughout the Abbé’s voluminous works. After stating on the

great historian ’s authority tha t the philosophes were wrong to at tach

intolerance exclusively to religious opinions, that, in fact, an y opin-

ions men hold d ear, whether out of van ity or self-interest, can oc-

casion intolerance and that, consequently, atheists can be found

who are just as intolerant as believers,139 Bergier approached the

problem of to leration in seventeenth-century France:

The question is to determine whether the Calvinists had a legiti-mate claim, whether the government was obligated, in terms of na t-ural law, to satisfy it, and whether it could do so as a matter o f soun d





53


142. See supra, p. 48. The future counter-revolution ary theoretician AbbéDuvoisin also q uotes the passage in 1780, adding that “ the po litical usefulness ofthe dogma of an a fterlife is so obvious tha t impiety itself has been ob liged to a c-

knowledge it” (Essai pol é mique sur la religion naturelle, in Oeuvres compl è tes de Du- voisin, é v ê que de Nantes, publiées par M. l’Abbé Migne, Montrouge, 1856, p. 146).

143. . . . par dif f é rents auteurs, Londres, 1770; possibly edited by Naigeonan d conta ining works by d’Holbach and oth ers.

about the fourth time to the effect that th ose who disabuse the

human race of its religious prejudices may be good reasoners but

are certa inly not good citizens or legislators,142 the d ’Holbach c ô terie

decided to moun t a protest in their an onymously published Recueil Philosophique ou M é lange de Pi è ces sur la Religion & la Morale.143 The

work attacks Bergier on th is very point:

Monsieur B ergier, as is customary with theo logian s, ends by indict-ing h is ad versaries as disturbers of th e peace and as bad citizens; hebases his claim on the authority of a renowned philosopher (Mr.H ume) who acknowledges that those who a ttack the established re-

ligion of a country may be good reasoners, but a re clearly bad citi-zens. We will an swer Monsieur B ergier b y pointing o ut tha t it isscarcely fi tting for theologians and priests to accuse philosophersof causing d isorder in the sta te. We will say to h im that it is theology,with its sha meful abuses of power, that ha s been in a position overnearly the last eighteen centuries to disturb the peace of na-tions; . . . We will say to him that . . . we are no longer in th e twelfthcentury . . . and that human ity, weary of authority, seems willing, fi -

na lly, to have recourse to commo n sense an d reason .As for the opinion of Mr. Hume which seems to provide Mon-sieur Bergier with such a tr iumphan t victory, we will respond by say-ing to h im that th e authority of a philosopher d oes not carry thesame weight for other philosophers, as the authority of a ChurchFather or Council might for a theologian; we will say to him thatMr. H ume could have been mistaken in his judgement of tho se whooppose established opinion and tha t if he had taken careful note o fthe countless evils brought down on the world by Christianity, he

would h ave been obliged to admit tha t those who forcefully attackprejudice and superstition are, on the contrary, very good citizensindeed. Mr. Hume himself has done so in a manner th at has earnedhim, an d right ly so, the great reputation he enjoys thro ughout Eu-



54

Be f o r e 1 7 89

144. Recueil phi losophique, II . 204 –6. Bergier answered by pointing out tha the was puzzled as to why Hume ’s testimony should not be used if he indeed hadthe great reputation his philosophe admirers attributed to him (Bergier, op. cit.,VIII. 259). Ironically, the Recuei l phi losophique published at the same time, butan onymously, two of Hume’s strongest disserta tions, “Of th e Immortality of theSoul” and “Of Suicide,” both probably translated by d ’Holbach. It also includedin its pages some ra ther d ifferent comments by Hume on the clergy—chosen thistime by the phi losophes (Recueil phi losophique, II. 237). All this was perhaps to sho w

Bergier whose ally Hume really was. For the French Abbé’s reactions to th e twoan on ymous disserta tion s, see Bergier, op. cit., VIII. 262.

145. See Diderot’s letter of 6 October 1765 to Sophie Volland; Lewinter,V. 946.

rope where h is history and his philosophical writings are everywhereread and admired by all those who do not think like Monsieurl’Abbé Bergier.144

6

Debat e wit h Tur got

As their answer to Bergier ind icates, the philosophes were fairly con-

fi dent tha t Hume belonged, despite occasional appearances to thecontrary, heart and soul to the camp o f the d ’Alemberts and d ’Hol-

bachs. Moreover, even though this fi rst generation of philosophes

saw the success of their cause as largely dependent on a victory

over traditionalists in the religious controversy, they were proba-

bly quite willing to forgive not on ly David H ume ’s laziness or lack

of militancy in not writing an ecclesiastical history but also the gen-

eral ignorance of the harsher “religious” facts of life he at times

displayed as when, fo r example, he confi ded naïvely to the aston-ished baron d ’H olbach that he had never seen an a theist and tha t

he did not believe such creatures existed.145 Such errors were amus-

ing or a t least pardonable in a man who had already written so clev-

erly on miracles, divine providence, and the immortality of the

soul. As for H ume’s apparen t lack of a libera lly orientated political

philosophy, the philosophes of th is generation from about 1750 to

1770 could have no insurmountable objections on this point ei-



55

De ba t e w it h Tu r g o t

146. See Letters of Eminent Persons, pp. 139, 144–45, letters of 27 July an d7 September 1766.

147. Greig, op. cit., II . 91.

ther. Revolution, if not reform, was as far from their aims as it was

from H ume’s. Few philosophes showed any real objections to living

und er a political despot provided he, like Frederick the G reat, for

example, was witty and a good priest-hater as well.As is well known, the intellectual mood in France was soon to

change. A second generation of philosophes begins to emerge in the

1770s and 1780s, still anti-clerical—although this question was by

now rather old hat—but more interested in investigating and

pointing out the sins of kings than of priests. These last very defi -

nitely do n ot claim David H ume as an ally. There is even some ap-

prehension on their part that h e might be just what Trublet,

Bergier, Nonno tte, Royou, G erdil, Lefebvre de Beauvray, an d oth-

ers in their use of h im had suggested he was—a treacherous enemy

in disguise.

I t is in the correspondence of Turgot and Hume exchanged

between the years 1766 and 1768 that we ca tch perhaps our fi rst

real glimpse—and it is still only a glimpse—of what was to be a con-

sciously acknowledged fundamental disagreement between H ume

and the politically idealistic French intellectuals of this later period.Turgot was with d ’Alembert one of Hume’s closest friends on the

continent. Un like the other philosophes, however, he showed on the

occasion of the Hume-Rousseau quarrel a certain unfl attering if

sincere reserve in judging the wrongs of the affair which left unsat-

isfi ed the wounded feelings of the Scottish historian. After receiving

letters from Turgot in which Rousseau’s ingratitude is called real

but unpremeditated, more the result of madness than of villainy,146

Hume could not help accusing the French physiocra t o f “partial-ity” for the black-hearted citoyen deGen è ve.147 This aspect of the cor-

respondence will not concern us further here, but what is especially

signifi can t for us is the fact that it led fi nally to an open discussion

between Hume and one of his liberal French admirersof their gen-

uine political differences—differences which the earlier uncritical

pra ise of Hume by the philosophes had all but totally obscured.



56

Be f o r e 1 7 89

148. Letters of Eminent Persons, pp. 150–51, letter of 25 March 1767.

149. Ib id ., p. 152.

Hume opened the controversy by pointing out that Rous-

seau’s writings, however eloquent, were extravagant and sophisti-

cal. Their tendency, moreover, was surely rather to do hurt than

service to mankind .In his reply the distinguished In tend ant of Limoges, who was

soon to a ttempt h is great reforms and was already aware of the dif-

fi culties presented by ill-will and the routine immobility of privi-

lege, defended Rousseau, and a t the same time defended his own

political involvement in the Enlightenment’s hopes to improve the

world. Speaking in the new political tones to be heard more and

more freq uently in France as 1789 approached , he warmly praised

Rousseau’s works:

U nlike you, I am far from judging them to be harmful to the inter-ests of mankind; on the contrary, I think that he is one of the au-thors who has contributed most to morals and the good ofhumanity. Far from reproaching him for having on this point sethimself too much apart from common notions, I believe, on thecontrary, that he has respected still too many prejudices. I think that

he has not gone fa r enough along that road, but it is by following hisroad that we shall one day reach the goal of bringing mankindcloser to equality, justice, an d humanity.148

Turgot adds that of course H ume will no t th ink he is defend-

ing Rousseau ’s early writings against the arts and sciences. These,

he says, were the products of a beginning writer’s vain desire to

make his mark; Rousseau was consciously paradoxical here to avoid

being tr ite. The Contrat social, however, is a d ifferent ma tter:In truth, this book sums up the precise distinction between the sov-ereign and the government; and that distinction offers a most lu-minous truth, one that settles for all time, no matter the form ofgovernment, o ur no tions of the people’s inalienable sovereignty. Tomy mind , Emile seems inspired by the purest mora lity ever ta ugh t inlesson form, a lthough I th ink one could go even fa rther; but I sha llbe very careful no t to tell you my ideas on that subject, for you would

judge me to be even more mad th an Rousseau. . . .149



57


150. It is interesting to n ote that the future monarchien Pierre-Victor Mal-ouet q uoted H ume’s auth ority in rejecting the contract theory in 1777. See Jean -Baptiste-Antoine Suard , M é langes de litt é rature, Paris, 1803–4, I. 277.

We have here, a t last, the beginn ings of an honest recogn i-

tion o f the vast d istance between H ume ’s political views an d those

of the French reformers. Hume ’s History had been before the

French reading public for several years already without elicitinganything approaching a similar response. On ly the extreme right

had taken grateful notice of his conservatism. Moreover, to the

“ lessons” of the History remarked upon by the Journal de Tr é voux,

Bergier, and others, ha d to be ad ded the fairly explicit anti-liberal

doctrine available in Hume’s political essays. In these as well the

French had been able to read H ume’s opinion th at th e world was

still too young and human experience too sho rt to a llow much in

the way of scientifi cally valid political speculation. Hume had a lso

declared that the contract theory and the corollary doctrine of the

people’s inalienable sovereignty were totally without foundation.

Opinion, n ot con tract, was at the basis of human government and

most governments had, in fact, been founded on conquest or

usurpation.150 Hume implies too that those who reject the lessons

of history in favour of a priori na tural rights are to be condemned.

Few changes in government can ever be wisely carried out on such“philosophical” grounds. Established government bears a sacred

authority by the very fact that it is established. Resistance to it is al-

ways unwise and must be considered only as a last resort since noth-

ing is more terrible to contemplate than the ana rchy tha t would

result from a complete d issolution of government:

Did one generation of men go off the stage at once, and another

succeed , as is the case with silk-worms and butter fl ies, the new race,if they had sense enough to ch oose their government, which surelyis never the case with men, might voluntarily, and by general con-sent, establish their own form of civil polity, without any regard tothe laws or precedents, which prevailed among their an cestors. Butas human society is in perpetual fl ux, one man every hour goingout o f the world, ano ther coming into it, it is necessary, in ord er topreserve stability in government, that the new brood should con-form themselves to the established constitution, and nearly follow





59


153. Greig, op. cit., II . 180–81, letter of 16 June 1768.

154. Letters of Eminent Persons, p. 163, letter of 3 July 1768.

ance, I do no t on ly say, real, but even imag inary; and witho ut an y ofthem being ab le to tell one circumstance of government which theywish to have corrected: They roar liberty, though they have appar-

ently more liberty than a ny people in the world; a g reat deal morethan they deserve; and perhaps more than any men ought toha ve. . . . You see, I give you freely my views of things, in which I wishearnestly to be refuted : The contrary opinion is much more conso-latory, and is an incitement to every virtue and laud able pursuit.153

With all the idealism and moderate optimism which he

shared with the Enlightenment ’s better political prophets, Turgo t

returned H ume a frank rebuttal:

If my departure allowed me a few moments, I would add a word ortwo in defence of my ideas on th e perfectibility and th e perfectingof our poor species. These minor disord ers now taking place beforeour eyes do no t sha ke my confi dence one whit; and I say, with morejustifi cation than the G eneral of the Jesuits—alios ventos alias tem-

pestates vidimus. . . . [we have seen other winds, other storms]. G oodgovernment will no t come without crises, and th ese will be accom-

panied by disorder. Should we blame enlighten ment and liberty forguiding us through this turbulence to a happier state? Obviouslyno t. In juries will be suffered during o ur passage, of course! But willthese be more ha rmful than the injuries suffered under th e rule oftyranny and superstition that seeks to smother liberty and enlight-enmen t, and strives to do so th rough mean s tha t, once things haveprogressed beyond a certain point, are either totally useless or en-tirely abominable, and often bo th on e and the other? I doubt th atyou th ink so any more than I do. The people preoccupied with their

necessities, the grea t with their pleasures, have no time to be savan tsand to shake off their prejudices on their own; but a consequenceof th e progress in knowledge is tha t on e does no t need to be a sa-van t to have good sense and to popularize truths tha t today can bemad e con vincing only with work and effort. Adieu, Monsieur—timeis short an d I must hurry. . . . 154

In fact time was runn ing short; there were man y important

reforms to carry out ; perhaps even, for oth ers if not for Turgo t,





61

Ea r l y Ho st i l i t y

158. Des lettres de cachet, op. cit., VII. 184.

159. Ibid. , VII. 184 –85.

160. Loc. cit .

“The celebrated Hume,” Mirabeau writes, “ in giving an ac-

count of the Habeas Corpus Bill, states: ‘ . . . it must be confessed that

there is some dif fi culty to reconcile with such extreme liberty the full

security and the regular police of a state, especially the police ofgreat cities’ . . . .” 158 H ume, Mirabeau adds, is guilty of excessive cir-

cumspection in th e defence of liberty: “This eq uivocal style of writ-

ing, to which this famous auth or is a little too prone in all matters

relating to government, almost leaves us to question whether he

unreservedly approves or disapproves of th is famous law. The great

philosopher certainly forgot himself most strangely if it is true th at

he seriously hesitated on this occasion.” 159

Mirabeau admits that Hume in a preceding passage had

seemed to call this law necessary for the protection of liberty in a

mixed monarchy and had seemed to say that, since it existed

nowhere but in England, it alone was a con sideration suffi cient to

induce the English to prefer their constitution to all others. To this

Mirabeau ad ds the following comment:

If th e law which proh ibits all forms of a rbitrary imprisonment is essential ly requisite for the protection of liberty, it is forever sacred and ir-refragable; for what is the benefit of government if not theprotection of liberty? And what can authorize it to commit evils itmust prevent? The supposed disadvantages that this much slan-dered liberty entails for th e police are man ifestly, an d could n ot beother than , the con sequences of an administration’s clumsiness, itslack of vigilance, fi rmn ess, an d in tegrity. In an y case, if the sole ob-ject of government is not to guarantee our liberty and property,

what care we for its fi ne police; wha t care we for the advan tage o f so-ciety that serves as a pretext for all forms of individual injustice ifthat advantage can only be obtained at the cost of the rights andbenefi ts whose protection and enhancement formed the originalpurpo se of o ur un iting with our fellow-creatures.160

Habeas corpus, contrary to H ume’s fears, has not produced

great disorders. The lesson , Mirabeau concludes, is obvious: France



62

Be f o r e 1 7 89

161. Ibid. , VII. 205.

could d o away with its system of lettres de cachet and its complicated

apparatus of despotism which induced foreigners to laugh at

Frenchmen as poor, down-trodd en slaves. The raison d ’é tat, more-

over, can never be legitimately invoked to suspend such measuresof legal protection :

Let us not then abuse this word necessi ty, capable of authorizingevery act of tyrann y, as well as arbitra ry imprison ment. Never let itbe introduced into a legal cause, or in any circumstance tha t is an-ticipated in the law. When this deadly necessity exists in fact, it re-q uires no explanation: no one will call it into q uestion . . . . This

supposition o f a state of emergency is thus ent irely irrelevan t to thepresent d iscussion; we have asked the q uestion : Is the use of lettres de cachet just? Is it ben efi cial? We are given the an swer that there arecircumstan ces when they become necessary.

Why this ridiculous evasion? Do such circumstances exist? No,they do no t, and if they did, it is highly doubtful that th e lettres wouldbe obeyed; for orders so a rbitrary can have force on ly in times of th emost peaceful and complete obedience. . . . 161

Mirabeau, who, like Turgot, shows unbound ed admiration for

Rousseau’s political writings, goes on for an entire chapter de-

fending habeas corpus against H ume’s objection . He hints that prac-

tical observers like Hume are guilty, through their pride in being

“empirical politicians,” of a certain scholarly charlatanism. Mira-

beau does in fact condescend to cite facts to support his arguments

but, in the typical radical trad ition of many later revolutionists, he

prefers to talk of principles rather than precedents. History issomehow irrelevant in a question o f right:

Polemica l details should never be more than a secondary consid-eration in politico-philosophical writings, if I may employ that term,a nd th e prin ciples o f n atura l la w m ust b e given fi rst pla ce . . . fo rnatural law is the only law that men have not the power to abro-gate. Arguments of reason are always infi nitely stronger than those

o f any o ther authority and in po litica l and philosophica l mattersthey render historical dissertations that are subject to interminable



63

Ea r l y Ho st i l i t y

162. Ibid. , VII. 388.163. Collection compl è te des oeuvres de l ’ Abb é de Mably, Paris, An III, V. 197.

164. De la mani è re d ’é crire l ’ histoire (1783), in Oeuvres, XII. 379.

165. Ibid ., p. 397.

debate quite superfl uous. Everyone will agree that it would be mostun fo rtun ate if a n atio n’s liberty and rights hinged on a poin t ofgrammar. . . . 162

Besides rejecting history altogether, another possibility open to

the revolutionary who fi nds the evidence of history in apparent con-

tradiction with his principles is, of course, to rewrite history or at

least to fi nd historian s whose ideas are more in keeping with those

principles. We shall see that Mirabeau a ttempted this last solution

as well when he set out later, partially, no doubt, because of dis-

satisfaction with Hume, to translate and publish the “republican”-

inspired History of England by Catherine Macaulay-Graham as well assome of the political doctrine of Milton . But more on that later. Let

us now examine the work of another radical theoretician who

found it necessary at th is time to attack the historian H ume.

Although Mably in 1757 had called H ume the economist “a

man of genius,” 163 he was unable, later, to fi nd any words of praise

for H ume the historian. In the workDes droits et des devoirs du citoyen,

this disciple of Rousseau, who tended in his own writings to de-

fend a primitive form of idealistic communism, gives us a fairlygood idea why. H istory, fi rst o f a ll, must be a source-book of liber-

alism: “Let it show the rights of peoples; let it never stray from th at

primary truth from which all the others are derived.” Pre-requisite

to the writing o f history is the study of natura l law or of just politi-

cal theory which is based on “ the laws that na ture has established

for providing mankind with the happiness she has made them ca-

pable of.” These laws, Mably tells us, are invariable and “ the worldwould have been a h appy place had it observed them.” 164 History

then has an explicit propaganda purpose: “ . . . the object of history

is not simply to enlighten the mind, its function is also to guide

the heart and give it an inclination for the good .” 165 Thus it is that

Mably judges Rapin-Thoyras, the Huguenot h istorian of England

who was generally seen as biased against France and in every way



64

Be f o r e 1 7 89

166. Ib id ., p. 430.

167. Ibid ., pp . 111, 226.

168. Ibid ., pp . 430–31.169. Ib id ., p. 520.

170 . Correspondance universelle sur ce qui int é resse le bonheur de l ’ homme et de la

soci é t é , Neuchâtel, 1783, II. 54.

inferior to Hume, as in fact superior to the Scottish historian:

“ . . . his views are upright, he loves justice, and his politics are based

on the principles of n atura l law.” 166

Unusual too in France at this time is Mably’s emph asis on thelove of liberty rather than on the fanaticism shown by the

seventeenth-century Puritan s.167 Beginning as he did with these

revolutionary premises, it is perhaps on ly to be expected that Mably

found H ume wanting: “His own refl ections are commonplace, and

too often based on fa lse politics that morality canno t sanction.” 168

In some parts of the H istory H ume is even judged to be “unintelli-

gible,” and Mably, contemptuous of th e great pra ise given H ume

in France only twenty years earlier, asks: “ . . . and how can I approve

of a work that, whether because he was ignoran t of his art, or lazy,

or slow-witted , the historian h as on ly sketched out? All these un-

connected facts slip from my memory, I have wasted my time. . . .” 169

During this same period we find the future revolutionary

leader Brissot de Warville largely agreeing that history should be,

fi rst and foremost, a school of liberalism. Discussing the duties of

an historian in 1783, Brissot takes up a position similar to that ofMirabeau and Mably: “ . . . his purpose is to instruct h is times, pos-

terity, princes especially, and ministers; for it is they who can profi t

from h istory. Who among them will no t amend an inclination for

arbitrary government after contemplating the fate of Charles I and

James II?. . . The fi rst duty of the historian is thus to be courageous

and fearless, if he wishes to be useful. . . .” 170

Impartiality is seen by Brissot as a rather secondary virtue in the

historian. In fact, Brissot makes it something of a sin for the historianto be impartial in the wrong way. Speaking of Catherine Macaulay’s

H istory, which was later to infl uence the revolutionary Brissot and

several other leading G irondins to a surprising extent, he writes:



65

De f e n c e a n d De f i a n c e

171. Journal du Lic é e de Londres ou Tableau de l ’é tat pr é sent des sciences et des

arts en Angleterre, Paris, No. 1, Janua ry 1784, pp. 33–34. A resident o f London a tthis time, Brissot was personally acquainted with Catherine Macaulay. A letter of

30 January 1784 sent by her to his Newman Street address indicates that discus-sions concerning th e tran slation o f some o f her work into French were already tak-ing place (Archives Nationales, 446 AP2).

172. June 1760, IV. 25.

She has been blamed as an historian whose partiality for republi-canism is too marked. But how could she have avoided partialitywhile depicting th e tyran nical excesses that signalled th e ministries

of the Buckinghams, the Laud s, and th e Straffo rds? H er partiality infavour of th at system speaks highly of both her spirit and h er intel-lect. Partiality for characters alone dishon ours the h istorian. . . . Re-spect for the sacred rights that nature ha s gran ted to man kind iswhat distinguishes this histor y and places it well above that o f H ume,whose fawning courtier spirit often alters or effaces the colours oftruth. . . . Madame Macaulay has had the courage to . . . go off thebeaten track tha t other historians have followed, to open up a new path , to censure the servile principles of H ume, to defy the body of

public opinion he had man aged to captivate. . . . And now I have butone wish: th at h er H istory be tran slated into French .171

8

Defence a nd Defi an ce

The change in political climate which took place between the

1760s and the 1780s is well illustra ted by earlier French react ions

to republican interpretat ions of the English revolution. The Jour-

nal Encyclop é dique, not th e least liberal of ancien-r é gime periodicals,

refused in its highly laudatory review of H ume’s Stuarts in 1760 to

go into any deta il concerning the most guilty activities of Cromwell

and h is ho t-bra ined pa rliamenta rians: “Our readers would shud-

der if the boun ds of th is journal allowed us to place before th eir

eyes portraits depicting some of the features of these tyrants.” 172

Nor is it easy to find at this time in France a very much more

favourable opinion of the English Protector and his Puritan sup-





67


177. Ibid ., p. 6.

178. See letter to R. Shackleton, in The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, ed .Lucy S. Sutherland, Cambridge, 1960, II. 150 . Bridget H ill has graciously adoptedthe appellation as a title for her excellent study, The Republi can Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, H istorian, Oxford, 1992.

Il a reçu du Ciel des talens en partage,

La valeur, l’éloquence, et même des vertus;

Mais ces présens des Dieux, il les a corrompus,

Il les a dégradés par un coupable usage:Il d éguise le crime et la rébellion

Sous le ma sq ue sacré de la religion :

Il veut être Tyran, sans jamais le para ître;

Enn emi san s retour, Juge san s équité,

Po litique subtil, et Guerrier redouté;

Voilà q uel est Cromwel, voilà cet heureux Tra ître,

Qui pro scrit d es Anglais le véritab le Ma ît r e . . . . 177

[None more cleverly than he with innocent ai r, did ever hide great schemes so deeply. Valour, eloquence, and even virtues were Heaven ’ s gifts, but these he corrupted and degraded in gui lty use. ’ Neath religion ’ s sacred guise he masked crime and rebellion: Wi th purpose veiled he seeks a tyrant ’ s throne,relentless foe, unjust magistrate, cunning politi cian, dreaded warri or; there

you have Cromwell, thi s thriving trai tor who denied Engli shmen their true

master.]

In 1764 the Journal Encyclop é dique reviewing Catherine Mac-

aulay’s work in the English edition illustrates much the same atti-

tude. It begins by translating (or, rather, “colourfully adapting”)

the “horrifying” introduction of this female historian, this “Ama-

zon,” whose “patriotic scoldings” would soon remind Burke of the

“heroines in Billingsgate” and earn from him the designa tion “our

republican Virago” :178

From my early youth , I h ave nourished my mind by reading tho sehistories which exhibit liberty in its most exalted state; the word Re-public alone is enough to raise up my heart, and my soul rejoicesevery time I think of the independence of the Greeks or the freeand nob le pride of the Roman s. Reading a nd studying the auth orsof th ose two na tions nurtured in me an extreme love of Freedom,that intense and irresistible passion which is na ture’s gift to every ra-



68

Be f o r e 1 7 89

179. Jan ua ry 1764, I. 91–100 . Brissot (M é moires de Brissot, Paris, 1877, p.422) was highly indignan t on reading the fo llowing anecdote reported by Boswellin his Life of Johnson :

tion al being. . . . The mind of th e historian must be similarly dis-posed, in my view, if he wishes to see the events he recounts in amanner that differs from the productions of most of our political

writers, those outrageous an d con tempt ible sycoph an ts whose on lytalent lies in casting a seductive veil over the most monstrousvices; . . . insipid auth ors who lack even that discernmen t requiredto distinguish truly virtuous an d exalted patriots from time-servingplace-men who sacrifi ced the most essent ial interests of the publicto the baseness of their private affections. I propo se in my history toaccord praise only to true virtue, paying no heed to the rank or fameof those who h ave dishonoured th eir name, etc., etc. . . .

The Journal Encyclop é dique editors, choking with indignation,seem scarcely able to believe that such a writer could exist. Still

commenting on Catherine Macaulay’s introduction, they warn

their French readers of h er seditious intent:

MissMacaulay’s purpose in this introductory speech is to predisposeher readers in favour of the history, or rather the libel, she is aboutto present, and for which she pleadsin advance. . . . She protests thatshe will say nothing that is improper, nothing that breathes licenceor sedition; but does she speak the language of the good citizen, doesshe seem to love the public peace when she asserts tha t whoever at- temptsto reconci lemonarchywith liberty is a rebel in theblackest and ful lest

sense; heisa rebel to thelawsof hiscountry, thelawsof nature, thelawsof rea-

son, and thelawsof God. . . .We shall note only a few isolated passagesin this History; our readerswould be too outraged at the author’sef-frontery were we to give them an account of the cr iminal lengths towhich she goes to inspire in her fellow-citizens a hatred of royalty and

scorn for the memory of Great Britain ’s most respectable princes.

Signifi can tly, the Journal Encyclop é dique cites as an example of

Cath erine Macaulay’s bias her portrait of James I and then adds:

“what we have said about this monarch, following Mr. Hume, ex-

empts us from having to recount here Miss Macaulay’s observa-

tions . . . because, in th is regard, we cann ot possibly give an account

of her inaccurate narrations and insulting commentaries.” 179



69


He (Johnson) aga in insisted on the duty o f main ta in ing subordinat ion ofrank. “Sir, I would n o more deprive a n ob leman o f h is respect, th an o f h ismoney. I consider myself as act ing a par t in the great system of society, andI d o to oth ers a s I wo uld h ave th em to d o to m e. I would beh ave to a n oble-man as I sh ould expect h e would b eh ave to me, were I a n ob leman and h eSam. Johnson. Sir, there is one Mrs. Macaulay in this town, a great republi-

can. On e day wh en I was a t h er h ouse, I put on a ver y grave coun ten an ce,and sa id to h er, ‘Madam, I am n ow become a convert to your way o f th in k-ing. I am convinced that all mankind are upon an equal footing; and to giveyou an unquestionable proof, Madam, that I am in earnest, here is a verysen-sible, civil, well-behaved fellow-citizen, your footman; I desire that he may beallowed to sit down and dine with us.’ I thus, Sir, showed her the absurdityof the levelling doctrine. She has never liked me since. Sir, your levellerswish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up tothemselves. They would a ll have some people under them; why not thenhave some people above them?”

For a somewhat different yet essentially good-humoured narration of thissame incident, see Catherine Macaulay’s own accoun t o f it in h er Letterson Educa-

tion, London, 1790, pp.167–68.Dr. Joh nson was not a lone in criticizing Ca therine Macaulay as is evident in

the fo llowing passage from a letter ad dressed to her by Hume: “I grant, that thecause of liberty, which you, Madam, with the Pyms and H ampden s have ad opted ,is noble and generous; but most of th e partizans of that cause, in th e last centurydisgraced it, by their violence, an d a lso by their can t, hypocrisy, and bigotry, which,more than the principles of civil liberty, seem to ha ve been the motive of a ll theiractions. . .”—Letter from Paris, 29 March 1764. (See New Letters of David Hume, ed .

R. Kliban sky an d E. C. Mossner, Oxfo rd, 1954, p. 81.)

180. Journal Encyclop é dique, July 1778, V. 109 . In D ecember 1781, however,the ed itors, albeit more gent ly than in 1764, again chide h er for her an ti-royalistbias. (Ib id., 1 December 1781, VIII . 230–31.)

The next two decades were to witness a rapid evolution of

French political a ttitud es. This same journal which in 1764 could

not even bring itself to reproduce examples of Catherine

Macaulay’s crimina lly seditious republican ism for fear of shockingits read ers (and, of course, the censors) was able to speak in 1778

of the “sound ideas, the solid judgement of Miss Macaulay, and the

profound knowledge she has of human nature. . . .” 180

A similar evolution in political attitudes is refl ected to some

extent by the opinions of a few pre-revolutionary writers who take

a more positive approach to the idea of Cromwell as the central

fi gure in philosophical tragedy. Delisle de Sales, for example, pon-

ders in 1772 the q uestion of a Cromwel in which Locke would play



70

Be f o r e 1 7 89

181. Essai sur la trag é die: Par un philosophe, 1772, p. 368.182. L’ An deux mille quatre cent quarante, nouvelle édition, Londres, 1785,

I. 162, note A.

183. Ib id ., I. 163.

an important rôle.181 Later, the future conventionnel Louis-Sébastien

Mercier almost begs dramatic authors to treat the subject of

Cromwell: “What can you tragic poets be thinking o f? You have

such a subject to deal with and yet you speak to me always of an-cient Persians and G reeks, you give me novels in rhyme! Pray, be-

stir yourselves! Paint me a Cromwell! ” 182 Mercier imagines himself

at the theatre in the year 2440, just after attending an historical

play on the Calas affair. He hears announced that the following

day the tragedy Cromwell, or the Death of Charles I is to be per formed:

“ . . . the assembled spectators,” th is visitor to the future informs us,

“appeared extremely happy with the announcement. I was told that

the play was a masterpiece, and that th e case of kings and the peo-

ple had never before been presented with such fo rce, eloquence,

or truth. Cromwell was the avenger, a hero worthy of the sceptre he

had dashed from a treacherous hand tha t was guilty of crimina l ac-

tions aga inst the state. Kings inclined in their hearts to commit in-

justice had never managed to read through this drama without

sensing that a deathly paleness had crept over their arrogant

brow.” 183

Mercier’s a ttitud e, unhea rd o f ea rlier in Fra nce, is still ex-

tremely ra re even a t th is t ime. Not only, a s we have seen , d id the

French of the ancien r é gime generally consider Cromwell to be one

of the greatest of polit ica l cr iminals, they were also quite certain,

and Monsieur Hume had not contradicted their belief in the mat-

ter, that the eighteenth-century English fully shared this view. Fre-

quent a llusions are made in tradit ionalist ancien-r é gime literature

suggesting that the English natio n still felt d espera tely guiltyconcerning the crime of regicide committed in its name in the sev-

enteenth century—so guilty, in fa ct, that it a nnua lly held a co m-

memorative day of national mourning for the tragic loss of Charles I.

A typical expression of this belief is found in Pierre-Jean Grosley’s

Londres:



71


184. Londres, Lausanne, 1770, I . 354–55. In fa ct the En glish seem to havehad three da ys commemorating th e Stuarts: January 30 in memory of Charles I;

May 29 to celebrate th e Restora tion; and , paradoxically perhaps, November 5 tocelebrate the expulsion o f James II.

185. Oeuvres de Louis XVI , Paris, 1864, II. 49.

186. Ibid ., I I. 51.

January 30th is ded icated everywhere in th e Anglican ch urch to alengthy ann ual service commemorating th e martyred Prince. Dur-ing the pra yers of th is service, worshippers beg fo r D ivine m ercy

and implore G od to never again ask England for th e blood of theho ly martyr who faced with ca lm serenity the outrages leading up todeath, following in the footsteps of his Saviour who died prayingfor his assassins and executioners.184

So strong indeed were offi cial French feelings on the subject

that in 1779 Louis XVI’s council, preparing a war man ifesto against

G reat Britain, included among its accusations the charge that the

House of Hanover held its power through usurpation and a lso re-

proached the English with the assassination of Charles I an d Mary

Stuart. Louis XVI in margina l comments on the dra ft ma nifesto

typically pointed out that England was already sufficiently re-

morseful concern ing those crimes and that it would be unwise to

include such a reminder: “Regarding the assassination of King

Charles and Mary Stuart, those are crimes for which England still

feels such deep shame a century and more later, that we should

not remind her with reproaches that would seem all the more bit-ter and humiliating since it is a King of France, enjoying the love

of his subjects, who would be including them in a declaration of

war. The H ouse o f H an over, mo reover, played no part in those

crimes.” 185 Where the manifesto pointed out that, since Cromwell’s

day, all English treaties had shown revolting and subtle traces of

base and envious policy, Louis XVI further observed: “I would pre-

fer to remove entirely the word Cromwell and replace it with the

date o f his government; the English also blame us for giving recog-nition to the regime of th is od ious man. I would remove the entire

sentence; after all, since Cromwell’s time we have acq uired many

territories and possessions.” 186

In total disagreement with such sent iments, Mercier sees the



72

Be f o r e 1 7 89

187. Mercier, op. cit., I. 382–83.

188. M é moires de Brissot, p. 19.

English o f the year 2440 as a wiser race and favouring a ra ther dif-

ferent attitude towards the P rotector:

The English are still the leading na tion of Europe: they continueto en joy their ancient glory for having shown their neighbours thekind o f government that befi ts men who are jealous of th eir rightsand th eir happiness.

There are no longer solemn processions commemoratingCh arles I; people see mo re clearly in politics.

The n ew statue of th e Pro tector Cro mwell has just been erected .. . . The people’s assemblies will hen ceforth take place in the pres-ence o f th is sta tue, since the great man it represents is the true au-

thor of the glorious and immutab le constitution.187

We will see that n ot even in the Convent ion a d ecade later

was such an enthusiastic attitude to Cromwell anywhere to be

found. Although during th e Revolution his ostensible opinion was

to be quite differen t, the pre-revolutionary Brissot a lso grea tly ad -

mired Cromwell if we are to believe his own retrospective account

of certain cherished youth ful dreams:

This no tion of revolution, which I da red no t avow, often occupiedmy though ts. As can be easily imagined , I gave myself a lead ing rôle.I had been singularly impressed by the history of Charles I andCromwell; I constan tly thought of the latter, tearing up the portra itof his king while he was still a child, cro wning his career by havinghim decapitated, an d o wing solely to h is own gen ius the great rô lehe had played in the English revolution. It seemed to me not im-possible to renew that revolution. . . . 188

Brissot in fact was, perhaps more than any other revolution-

ary fi gure, deeply infl uenced by the events of Stuart history. As in

the case of Mirabeau, h is favourite historian of those events, several

years before th e Revolution , was Ca therine Macaulay. In May 1784

Brissot expressed the hope that she would a lso write the h istory of

the American revolution so that Americans might learn how to

avoid the fa ults of the English, who had allowed republicanism to



73


189. Journal du Lic é e de Londres, I. 335–36.

190. Ibid., July 1784, II. 150–51.191. Ibid ., p. 151.

192. Ibid ., p. 159.

193. Ibid ., p. 161.

die in their own coun try.189 H ume, on the oth er han d, Brissot sin-

gles out as the great enemy; only the Capuchin friar, the Père d ’Or-

léans, ha d written a worse history,190 but Hume is judged, because

of his popularity, to be much more dangerous. Brissot speaks ofthe need to diminish “ the implicit political faith people have in

him.” 191

In September 1784, on the occasion o f the English publica-

tion of H ume’s essays “Of Suicide” and “Of the Immorta lity o f the

Soul,” Brisso t devoted fourteen pages of his journal to a genera l

review of H ume’s reputation . H e praises H ume’s ea rly ph ilo -

so ph ica l essays a nd jud ges th at th ey h ad been mista ken ly n e-

glected by the public since, a fter a ll, they conta ined a good dea l

of useful material against superstition and prejudice.192 It was be-

cause he had fa iled to please with these, Brisso t main ta ins, that

Hume decided to prost itute his pen, vowing to succeed in history

a t any cost: “ . . . an d h e succeed ed . Perh aps h e owed some of h is

enormous success to the party whose principles he embraced, the

party of th e Crown against the people; he espoused it in all his

underta kings a nd ma de h imself o dio us in the eyes o f the pa rti-sans of republicanism; but philosophers forgave him his a ttach-

ment, his devotion to the Crown of England , because of his

philosophical observations which, moreover, he scattered through-

out his History.” 193

Brissot thus admits that the early philosophes had admired

Hume for his “philosophy,” mean ing his an ti-clericalism. This was

not in itself bad but French intellectuals had now outgrown that in-

termediate stage of enlightenment and needed something more.The struggle now had to be more political than religious in em-

phasis. Now was the time for history to attach itself to a loud and

clear defence of the people’s liberty; the long-neglected rights of

humanity had to be avenged:



74

Be f o r e 1 7 89

194. Ib id ., p. 164.

195. Ibid ., pp . 171–72.

196. Ib id ., p. 172.

197. Some hint too of the cul te de l ’ Etre supr ê me can be found in Bernardinde Sain t-Pierre ’s virtuous charge of the same year con cerning writers like Hume:

“ . . . reading them is such an a rid, disheartening exercise. . . . Posterity will preferHerodotus to David Hume . . . because we still prefer to hear related the fables ofthe D ivinity in the history of men than th e reasonings of men in the h istory of th eDivinity.”—Etudes de la Nature (1784), in Oeuvres compl è tes deJacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Paris, 1830–31, V. 111–12.

H ume did not, in my view, ad van ce th at kind of ph ilosoph y farenough: clearly, he belonged to those times when one protested morea ga in st th e infl uen ce of priests th an in favour of men . Th at was

Voltaire’s fa iling as well; the step they took led to those we are now taking, and theirswas the more diffi cult: we must thank them for risk-ing it, the word is not inappropria te, given the character of the En-glish clergy. We must, however, blame H ume rather more severely forhis apology of the Stuarts, as well as his unduly pompous encomiumson the English constitution and on Roman law; he must be censuredaswell for confounding too often the people and the populace. . . . 194

Even H ume ’s arguments against immortality are cited by Bris-

sot as additional proof of his callous insensibility: “H ume, one cansee, had never been tortured by oppression. H e had never heard

the d ismal, soul-wrench ing sound of a prison gate closing behind

him. . . . H ume had no need of such beliefs; his soul was desiccated

and his character matched the cause he defended , a cause in which

nothingness is a resource.” 195 To complete the picture Brissot adds

a note on Hume’s Poli tical Discourses; it is in these that Hume es-

pecially betrays his selfi sh character: “You will fi nd such aridness,

such insensibility, such unfeeling, if I may be allowed to coin th is

English word, in his discourses on commerce, luxury and money;

he there declares himself to be an apologist of luxury, and why?

Because as a recipient of pensions and great income he enjoyed

drinking champagne and living the Epicurean life. . . .” 196 H ow cor-

rupt, how unclean the sage Monsieur H ume seems now! O ne a lmost

hears in the distance, not the intellectual Brissotins of a decade

later, but the ostentatiously austere and often frankly obscurantistfollowers of Robespierre.197



75

An t i c ipa t i ng t h e St o r m

198. See “Journa l des livres suspend us depuis jan vier 1778,” BibliothèqueNation ale, Fond s Fr. 21,934, f. 67.

199. Essai sur l ’ hi stoire des comices de Rome, des Etats-G é n é raux de la France et du

Parlement d ’ Angleterre, Philadelphie, 1789, III. 111. See also Gudin de La Brenel-lerie’s defen ce of Hume against Mably in Suppl é ment à la mani è re d ’é crire l ’ histoire ou r é ponse à l ’ ouvrage de M. l ’ abb é de Mably, 1784, pp. 113–14.

200. See supra, p. 11.

9

Ant icipat ing t h e St or m

Such bitter attacks on the Scottish historian are still fairly rare before

1789. On the eve of the Revolution, proof o f Hume’s continuingly

great histor ica l reputa tion can be seen in the appearance of a new

edition of the Stuarts in 1788—possibly the tenth separate French

edition since 1760 of th is the most popula r part o f the H istory. Ad-

d itional proof o f h is enduring success is provided by the po lice

recordswhich show that on 20 June 1786 the Paris authorities seizedin a book shipment from Marseillesthe proof sheetsof a counterfeit

ed ition of Hume’s H istory.198 Quite obviously, book pirates do not

go to the trouble of printing works whose popularity has run out.

Not only was Hume’sHistory still popular on the eve of the Rev-

olution, its authority continued to mould the opinions held by most

Frenchmen, whether of traditionalist or liberal persuasion, on the

English revolution. If we fi nd, for example, a Mably attacking Hume

at this time, we fi nd also a Gudin de La Brenellerie defending him.

In fact Gudin de La Brenellerie’s important analysis of the British

parliamentary system, published in 1789, follows Hume very closely,

because, the author tells us, “he is the least partial of English histo-

rians, and the least opposed to the royal prerogative.” 199

H ume, moreover, could still appeal in the 1780s to the fa sh-

ionable nobility he had pleased so much a quarter of a century ear-

lier. The Comtesse de Bouffl ers’s gracious letter to Hume on hisHistory 200 should be con trasted with the following note by the same

author to G ustavus III o f Sweden con cerning, not her great good

friend the respectable statesman David Hume, but the rabble-



76

Be f o r e 1 7 89

201. Lettres de Gustave II I à la comtesse de Bouf fl ers et de la comtesse au Roi, de

1 7 7 1 à 1 7 9 1 , Bordeaux, 1900, letter 62.

202. See Nouveaux m é langes extrai ts des manuscrits de Mme Necker, Pa ris, An X ,I. 202.

203. M é moires sur la librairi e et sur la libert é de la presse, par M. de Lamoignonde Malesherbes, Ministre d ’Etat, Paris, 1809, p. 306. Additional evidence ofMalesherbes’s extremely high regard for the wisdom of Hume ’s Stuarts may befound in the following fragment of Abbé de Véri’s Journal, dated 5 October 1788:

After the removal of the two min isters, after th e re-assembly of th e Pa r-lements an d when th e convening of th e States-G eneral had been decided ,the King sent for Malesherbes and had a conversation with him lastingthree quarters of an hour or an ho ur.

rousing, squalid Rayna l: “ . . . of low birth, lacking wit, driven out o f

France for having attacked with impudence an d fo lly the very prin-

ciples that hold society together and assure the safety of princes;

and , on top of all that, a dreadful bore.” 201 Hume, if noth ing else,had never been found “dreadfully boring.” We can especially ap-

preciate the fo rce of th e comtesse’s words when we learn that this

famous salon hostess on one occasion had lovingly spent an entire

day trying to equal in French tran slation one paragraph of H ume’s

elegant History ! 202

Our chapter on H ume’s pre-revolutionary image can perhaps

best be concluded with the q uotation of an opinion expressed by

Malesherbes late in 1788. At the time he was writing , all of France

was waiting for the pro mised convoca tion of th e States-G enera l.

Malesherbes, less than on e year before the fall of the Bastille, runs

over in h is mind the intellectual achievements of the century and

the titles of importan t works which, because of censorship restric-

tions, had no t appeared in France with the express or sometimes

even tacit permission of the authorities and yet which were neces-

sary. Montesquieu’s Esprit des Lois was one such work; anoth er wasHume’s H istory of England: “Mr. Hume is generally regarded in

France as a paragon o f wise and impart ial historians, and now that

the entire French nation is discussing the Constitution, and even

expressly invited to do so by its King , we must fi nd our instruction

in this author ’s account of the constitution of his coun try, either to

extract from it wha t might be useful to us or to reject what would

no t accord with our customs and laws.” 203



77

An t i c ipa t i ng t h e St o r m

Malesherbes related to me parts of the conversation which I shall re-produce here in h is words without , however, pretending to eq ual his livelyan d eloq uent style.

“I know of no situation,” he told him, “more distressing than that of aking in your current position. . . .

“You read a good dea l, Sire, an d you are mo re learned than is genera llythought. But reading unaccompanied by refl ection is of little consequence.I have recently been read ing the section on C harles I in Da vid H ume’s His-tory. Read it again a nd refl ect on it . Your position s are similar. This princewas gentle, virtuous, and devoted to the laws; he was neither ruthless norrash, but just an d benefi cent; and yet he died on a scaffold. Here, I think,is the reason. H e came to th e thron e at a t ime when the preroga tives of thecrown a nd those of the nation were being h otly disputed. If he h ad aban -

doned his prerogatives he would have been viewed as base by those whosaw them as sacred through lifelong habit and because of the advantagesgained by the nobility from th ese prerogat ives. But, on the other hand, hewas the weaker party in the d ispute and he was constan tly forced to makenew concessions. Had he come to the throne fi fty years earlier, h is virtueswould have mad e him a mo del king; if he had arrived fi fty years later, whenthe q uestion o f mutua l rights was more or less settled, he would no t havetran sgressed those limits and his reign would have been long an d happy.

“Your position is the same. The d ebate arises from the precedents of a u-thority and the d eman ds of the citizens. Fortun ately, the q uarrels of religionare not part of it.”

“Oh! in that respect, very fortunately indeed! ” the King an swered, t ak-ing me by the arm. “And because of tha t th e at rociousness of it will not bethe same.”

“Moreover, today’s more temperate ways ensure that the excesses ofthose times will not recur. But little by little your prerogatives will besna tched from you. It is up to you to decide in your Coun cil on a fi rm planregard ing which concessions you must make for the genera l good , and onwhat you must never surren der. Only your fi rmness can determine the suc-

cess of such a plan. Without that fi rmness, nothing can be certain. I canpromise you that what happened to Charles I will not happen here, but Ican no t promise that there will no t be a ll manner o f oth er excesses. Youmust look to forestalling these. . . .” (See “L’Abbé de Véri et son journal”par le Duc d e Ca stries, La Revue de Paris, November 1953, pp. 84–86.)

Someone once said of Malesherbes that he devoted his life-

time to pleading the cause of the people before the tribunal of the

king and that he died pleading the cause of the king before the

tribuna l of the people. We shall see tha t once more, not lon g be-fore his death on the revolutionary scaffold, while pleading the

cause of his king, he would have occasion to deal with David

Hume’s H istory. In 1788 his plea is more general; it is for the peo-



78

Be f o r e 1 7 89

204. Greig, op. cit., I. 259.

ple as much as for the king and he speaks for that peculiarly sane

group of moderates who worked actively for reform within the

structure of the ancien r é gime and who followed Montesquieu rather

than Rousseau. On the whole, it is also to this same group thatHume the historian —despite the extreme reactions of the Bergiers

and the Brissots—appealed most during this period. After Mon-

tesquieu ’s death, Hume had been hailed as the only man in Eu-

rope capable of replacing th e author of the Esprit des Lois.204 With

the arrival of the Revolution, the stars of both writers fell consid-

erably. Both were eventually to recover their losses in prestige but

at different times and in d ifferent ways. Montesquieu would take

up h is now permanent place as one o f the eighteenth century’s

greatest political theoreticians. Hume, on the other hand, was to

be recognized as one of the eighteenth century’s most h ighly orig-

inal ph ilosophers. But before th at, within only a few years, Hume

the historian would play his greatest political role ever, as prophet

of the French counter-revolution.



79

IIT he R ev olu tion an d the

R ôle of H istor y

1

Hist or y as a Weapon of

Count er -r evol u t ion

We have examined at the beginn ing of chapter I the prevailing

eighteen th-century view of h istory. Some further general consid-

erations on the subject are necessary at this point, however, since

it is especially at the time of the Revolution in France that history’s

traditional rôle as the scientifi cally validating factor o f all political

speculat ion is seriously questioned.

Of course, with the conservat ives, th is traditional view of h is-tory’s function still largely prevails, and, in fact, becomes, if any-

thing, mo re intense. H istory shows us the stab le facts of human

na ture. It represents, in a hard physical sense, the unchanging “na-

ture of th ings.” It has a certain Newtonian o rder to its predictably

cyclical patterns of un folding.

True enough, events in one century may differ from events

in another: that is because of particular variations which charac-terize each nation and each century. One does not, therefore, be-

come a helpless prisoner o f the “science” of histor y; it does not

repea t itself exactly. But history’s essential aspect is its constant sim-



80

Re v o l ut io n a nd t h e Rô l e o f Hist o r y

ilarity from century to century. Since the human heart and the

human passions do not change, the present and the future must re-

semble the past. If th is were not true then history would have no

purpose; the past is not studied for its own sake. History has its“ lessons” to teach. It is the science, admittedly imperfect, admit-

tedly based on analogy, of human social behaviour. One must be

just as empirically minded, just as anti–a priori in dealing with th is

science as with any other. When one speaks of a “revolution ” in

man ’s form of government, for example, one must understand

what can possibly be meant by such a term. A tota l change in th e

forms of man ’s social organization is a distinct physical impossi-

bility. It is as impossible as miracles are in the un iverse of Newton.

Neither human na ture nor the law of gravity can be repealed.

History is thus the ordered apprehension o f the moral nature

of things. It condemns in advan ce any over-optimistic attempts to

ach ieve ideal or drastically rat ional political change. It tells us that

what has never yet been witnessed in man ’s behaviour in the past

can hard ly be expected to appear in th e present o r future. J.-H .

Meister in 1790 sums up the view very clearly and with a certainirony not uncommon at th is time in th e writings of those who felt

the reassuring weight of the centuries behind them as they at-

tacked the impertinent a priori sts:

It may be that a great moral transformation has recently occurredin the world and tha t a mar vellous revolution h as sudd enly turnedall ord er and principles upside down. Before tha t memorable mo-

ment occurred, h owever, if we man aged to have an y confi dence atall in the more obvious teachings of h istory and the experiences ofthe h uman heart, would we not have acknowledged witho ut hesita-tion that what infl uences most powerfully the will of man is the forceof things and circumstances; that this supreme power is counter-balanced on ly by the force of the passions, and th at only for a shorttime; that the passions in turn have more force than habits, andhabits more than prejudices, an d prejudices more than life’s ordi-nary interests, and these everyday interests more than the simple

notions of justice and fi tness; that, in short, of all the motives thatdetermine our actions and our behaviour, the weakest of all is rea-son , no matter how splend idly logical it might be?

Now if the occult infl uence of some superna tural power had n ot



81

We a po n o f Co u nt e r -r e v o l u t i o n

1. J.-H . Meister, Des premiers pr incipes du système social appliqués àla Révolution présente, Nice, 1790, pp. 120–27.

Meister, one of the more original thinkers of late eighteenth-centuryFrance,givesproof, not only in this work but in several others, of having been generally in-fluen ced by th e wh ole H um ia n d octrin e o f h um an n ature. See De l’origine des principes reli gieux, 1768, pp. 5–49; Lettres sur l’ imagination, Londres, 1799, passim; Mélangesdephi losophie, demoraleet deli ttérature, Gen ève, 1822,pp . 212–15, 243–44.

2. Bibliothèque de l’homme publi c ou analyse rai sonnée des pri ncipaux ouvrages

français et étrangers. . . par M. le Marquis de Condorcet . . . , M. de Peyssonnel . . . ,M. Le Cha pelier, et autres Gen s de Lettres, Paris, 1790, I, tome 2. Balestrier wasthe major editor of this valuable compilation. See also his Poli ti con ou choix des meilleurs di scours sur tous les sujets de politique trai tés dans la première assemblée nationale de France, Paris, 1792, and Manuel des autori tés constituées, Pa ris, An IX.

magically transformed all of these relationships, could we reallyhave imagined that th e more or less haphazardly traced bo undariesof a metaphysical notion are all that is needed to conta in the volatile

fl uctuations of the human will and passions? . . .Would we still be a llowed to do ubt that only a form o f govern-ment that h as never existed anywhere is incon testab ly the most per-fect and most admirable?. . .

I h ave th e greatest respect fo r pamph let-philosophy revolution s,especially when they are backed by a coalition as terrifying as thatformed by the rabble mob an d th e army; but no matter how deci-sive their progress may seem, I rath er fear that a force which shouldnever be overlooked must inevitably return, namely, the force of

things and circumstances. . . .1

The reformer of society must bear in mind not only man ’s un-

changing passions in h is lofty search for what is ideally right in gov-

ernment; he must pay attention also to more earthly matters, to

what h istory, for example, has shown to be socially useful. Such is

the opinion o f the Abbé L.-S. Balestrier de Canilhac who in 1790

devoted well over a hun dred pages of th e Bibliothèque de l’homme

public to a critically timed reprinting of H ume’s politica l essays2 andwho subsequently provoked the angry protests of h is fellow editor

Condorcet by defending the historical empiricism of Burke aga inst

the a priori sm of Thomas Pa ine:

Mr. Paine reason s in th is work, like most o f our mod ern legislators,in the manner of a simple philosopher, never departing from theprinciples of natural law and their most logical consequences. In



82

Re v o l ut io n a n d t h e Rô l e o f Hist o r y

3. Ibid ., 1791, IX. 247–48.

contrast, Mr. Burke reasons in the man ner o f a wise politician whohas made a study of men and of human passion ’s social effects inlarge societies. . . .

In politics one must con sider not o nly wha t is right, but a lso wha tis useful. Reason unaided teaches us natural law; but only experi-ence combined with observation can inform us with any certainty onwhat is truly useful. No one questions tha t the people, strictly speak-ing, ha ve the right to elect their kings, and even to depose them atwill. It d oes no t take a grea t ph ilosopher to prove tha t truth ; but ittakes more than a ph ilosopher to decide the question on th e basisof ut ility, an d o ne o f the grea t principles of po litics is that i t is not always useful for the people to do what they have a right to do. The truths that

regard our rights are immutable; those relating to utility vary ac-cording to circumstance, and the situation of the world is alwayschan ging. From th is we do n ot conclude that government must beconstantly in the process of ch anging its principles but rather thatit must take care to mod ify them on ly with tha t same wise an d un-hurried gradualism observed by nature in her own operation s.3

The eighteenth century had indeed witnessed the production

of a good many rather long, geometrically assembled, h ighly indi-gestible ex professo treatises on na tural law, most o f which, when all

was said and done, proved impeccably in many languages that man

sho uld be just. One sometimes has, on read ing such productions,

the classic impression of watching mountains give birth to mice.

The Age of Reason also spoke a good deal of natural rights, but

na tural rights, too , the empirical politician might object, seldom

appear to be more than tautological fi ctions: there are no n aturalrights as such, there are only the historical ad justments of d ifferent

men ’s conflicting claims. The reformer of society should be

guided, then, by positive law rath er than by so-called natural law.

H e should consult Hume an d Montesquieu, not the reason of the

Age of Reason. Cerutti, a member of the Assembl é e l é gislative and

one of the warmest eighteenth-century admirers of Hume’s History

( “ the history of English passions, as written by human reason ”)

sums up the practical applications of th is empirical view:



83


4. Lettre de M. Cerutti adress é e au caf é de Foix, in Oeuvres diverses de M. Cerutt i

ou recuei l de pi è ces compos é es avant et depuis la r é volution, Paris, 1792, II. 3–5; see alsoI. 4–7.

5. See L’ Esprit de l ’ H istoire ou Lettres poli ti ques et morales d ’ un p è re à son fi ls,Paris, 1802, III. 400, 497–98.

A principle is. . . the result of experience and calculation . Politics isnot . . . an art based o n sentiment, nor is it a systematic science. New ideas cann ot . . . prevail over old ones solely by the fact that they are

new. One d oes no t become a legislator overnight . Tho se who scornthe n otion of con sulting the o racles of antiq uity, tho se who lookwith pity on the Senate o f Rome, the Areopagus of Athen s, an d theParliament of England, the meditations of Montesquieu, the ob-servations of Blackstone, the refl ections of H ume, Robertson , Fer-guson, and Delolme, may indeed be men of genius but their geniusis most immature, most hasty, and, let us say the word , most infan-tile, if th ey dismiss in th at way the wisdom o f the ages.

All revolutions require courage; consequently, nothing hastens

their progress more tha n the generous vitality of th e young. But ifyouth excels in demolishing th e present, it do es not similarly excelin building th e future. Tha t is the work of maturity, of mature mindsan d mature ideas. Such maturity casts aside passions that a re alwaysextreme an d always lacking in foresight, and concentrates insteadon laying down solid founda tions and on establishing proper limits.4

The coun ter-revolutionist Count Ferrand, future minister of

Louis XVIII and ano ther admirer of H ume’s Stuarts,5

gives in 1793yet anoth er conservative’s view of the rôle of h istory. H istory shows

how human nature can be “modifi ed ” but can never be “changed.”

On ce he has a good understand ing of the “nature of th ings,” the

reformer will automatically avoid a ll abstractions and general prin-

ciples which always appear simple, since they ignore diffi culties but

which a re, in fact, invariably based on false hypoth eses:

He will not a im at mere simplicity or single methods, because natureis no more simple in moral th an in physical man, because the goa lsand ends of society are so complicated that it becomes impossibleto operate it by mean s of simple mechan isms that would be inad e-q uate and con sequently dan gerous.

Well convinced of these general truths, the reformer will exam-ine the particula r situa tion o f the Sta te, but without cla iming the





85


7. Correspondance poli ti que pour servi r à l ’ histoire du r é publi canisme fran ç ais, pa rM. Mallet du P an, H ambourg, 1796, p. xiii.

8. See Opinion de L.-M. Revell i è re-Lé peaux, député de Maine-et-Loire, 7 jan-vier 1793.

gard what the great historical empiricists ha ve written, who make

up new men and new constitutions with th e scissors and paste of

mere logic, are condemned in advance to failure: “When one con-

templates their political levellings an d symmetries,” writes Malletdu Pan, also a counter-revolutionary admirer of H ume, “one can-

no t help thinking o f a band o f lunatics attempting to line up the

Alps in the pattern of Saint Peter ’s colonnade.” 7

Such being the case, wha t must one think of a “revolution ” in

the a ffairs of men or of those who claim to be placing man in an

entirely new world where all the old problems, the old injustices

will be eliminated? For the conservative the an swer is not diffi cult:

one has very little to th ink or to do except to wait and, perhaps, if

circumstances permit, to smile ironically at such na ïvely enthusi-

astic but completely wasted efforts. A “revolution ” mean s exactly

what it seems to mean etymologically: it is a wild and wasteful ride

on a merry-go-roun d which, after go ing thro ugh the classical

phases of saving everyone, ends up by, temporarily at least, enslav-

ing everyon e, and it ultima tely leaves a nat ion in a social position

much worse very often than the one it was in before th e foolish po-litical ride began . Revolutions go the full circle; they are “hori-

zontal,” and we sha ll see that even in th e Convention the hope of

many of the more h istor y-mind ed radical members was not th at

such a view was untrue but that somehow history could be de-

ceived, that the merry-go-round could be stopped at a half-turn .

“Revolutions,” one of them tells us, “do no t follow a straight line,

but progress in a circle. . . . Consequently, each step forward takes

you in the d irection of despotism, once you have reached the pointtha t was diametrically opposite it. . . .” 8

All revolutions consequently resemble each o ther. If on e has

studied those of the past in the works of a good h istorian one can

predict with accuracy and profi t the course of present or future

revolutions:



86


9. G a briel Sénac d e Meilhan , Des principes et des causes de la r é voluti on en France, Londres, 1790, pp. v–vi.

10. G .-M. Sallier-Chaumont de la Roche, Essais pour servi r d ’ introduction à l ’ histoire de la R é volution fran ç aise, Paris, 1802, p. 184.

After two thousand years, Roman history thus becomes useful to theman of genius who analyses political events, determines their causes,and discovers their basic elements. By adopting this method, Mon-

tesquieu, in one volume on the Romans, provided more food forthought than a ll of the historians before h im who chronicled eventhe tiniest details of Roman histor y. The majority of h istor ians arelike those gamblers who note and talk about the number of winsand losses, whereas the mathematician analyses the basics of thegame, determines the od ds, and has no n eed to know the game ’sevents which, in a sense, he ha s pred icted.9

So great are the resemblances between revolutions that the

observer may be tempted even to believe that revolutionary lead-

ers consciously imita te th e actions of their pred ecessors. We shall

see that extreme royalists did in fact make the charge that the

French revolutionists were imitating, point for point , procedures

of the seventeenth-century English revolution. Others seemed con-

tent with a less sinister accoun t of similarities, explaining them as

the unavoidable results of the “nature of things” :

. . . van ity, self-interest, the spirit of independen ce, terror. These didnot appear for the fi rst time in this revolution; they will all be foundrecorded in history and will always be reproduced in a thousandvaried forms by all those who undertake to attack governments.

For con vincing proo f on e has only to read Tacitus, Sallust, Livy,de Tho u, Vertot, H ume, Velly, and in gen eral any historian who h asleft us an account of the upheavals experienced by various empires.

These simila rit ies have been so str iking tha t it has been com-

monly thought that the leadersof the revolution had made a specia lstudy of a ll those in the past, and tha t they had pondered these longand hard in order to ava il themselves of every means employed bytheir predecessors to ensure success in thisdiffi cult career. . . ; it mustbe acknowledged, on the other hand, that a great many of these sim-ila rities a rise a lm ost en tirely fro m th e n ature o f th in gs wh ich . . .could not have fa iled . . . to present such frequent parallels.10



87


11. See, for example, Lettre à Monsieur Rabaut de Saint-Etienne sur l ’ huma-

nit é , par un aristocrate sans le savoir (April 1790), in Oeuvres choisies de Servan, Avo-

cat G é n é ral au Parl ement de Grenoble, Paris, 1825, III. 356–63; and, especially,

Correspondance entre quelques hommes honn ê tes, Lausanne, 1795, III. 136–78.12. Des r é volu ti ons dans les grandes soci é t é s civi les consid é r é es dans leurs rapports

avec l ’ ordre g é n é ral, in Oeuvres choisies de Servan, V. 70.

13. Ibid ., pp . 76–77.

Alth ough h e was n ot a bove o ccasion ally playin g th e very

popular game of historical rapprochements or parallels himself, the

celebrated lawyer, Joseph-Michel-Antoine Servan, perhaps the

eighteenth -century French political th inker who most admiredHume,11 cautions that the sociology of revolutions is still in its in-

fancy. It is undeniable, of course, that general laws governing

human events exist: “No doubt,” Servan concedes, “ if we consider

the matter from a very elevated perspective, we have to agree that

all moral and physical events result from general causes. But how

useful is that fi nd ing? Apart from the fact tha t these causes are ex-

tremely diffi cult to apprehend, their application to particular cases

is very freq uently impossible. . . .” 12 Montesquieu’s historical deter-

minism, in part icular, sometimes goes too fa r in making a science

out of politics. The solution, although the end result still leads to

political conservatism, lies in a H umian scepticism:

I h ave d iscovered in th e political essays of Mr. H ume certain refl ec-tions which, though seemingly paradoxical, provide us with whatstrikes me as an intriguing truth :

“I am apt,” he writes, “ to en tertain a suspicion, th at th e world isstill too young to fi x many general truths in po litics, which will re-main true to the latest posterity. We have not as yet had experienceof th ree thousand years; so th at n ot o nly the art o f reason ing is stillimperfect in this science . . . , but we even want suffi cient materialsupon which we can reason . It is no t fully known, wha t degree of re-fi nement , either in virtue or vice, human na ture is susceptible of.” 13

What is the value of all these tantalizing analogies that come

to mind when one compares the histories of mankind ’s various rev-olutions? Servan answers this question with another analogy:

In conjecturing about the future, a man who po ssesses the greatestnative sagacity, and who joins to it the most intense study and the



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14. Correspondance entre quelques hommes honn ê tes, III. 72–78.

widest experience, is rath er like a traveller . . . who, by dint of prac-tice and habit, can estimate fa irly accurately the d istance betweenhimself and far-away objects, while a less experienced or less obser-

van t person will make serious mistakes; but this same man who, byobserving the effects of light an d shadow and by comparing the sizeof intermediate objects is able to determine with great accuracy thedistance to a certain mountain, a city, or other such elevated ob-jects, will never be able to guess the existence of any interveningcrevasse that might impede his progress toward tha t mounta in orcity or even cause him to lose his life should he attempt to crossover it.

No matter how much we study we sha ll never learn more th an a

little of the present, far less of the past, and almost nothing, per-haps even noth ing at a ll, of the future.

The torch of history is a magnifi cent fi gure of speech; it shows upwell in a line of poetry or in a harmonious bit of prose, but whenone attempts to reduce it to an exact truth, it turns out that thistorch is little more than a dim cand le. . . . H istory, in short, provideswarning signals but not guidance; it is a light that alerts us to thedangers of a reef ahead, but it is no t a chart and compass.14

Servan ’s rather balanced if sceptical attitude is fairly rare

among French thinkers of the Right at th is time. We shall have oc-

casion to cite various counter-revolutionary texts that betray a great

deal more confi dence in the prophetic value of h istory and d raw,

in minute detail, historical analogies intended to condemn the sim-

ple optimism and criminal tampering of the revolutionary leaders.

This almost literal belief in h istorical parallels extended, moreover,

well into the early nineteen th century an d is effectively illustra tedby the fo llowing anonymous and rather curious document pur-

port ing to be a h istory of the session of 1828, written in advance by

the great Scottish prophet of prophets, David Hume.

The “editor” of the ultra work in question begins by telling

his readers tha t he ha d intend ed at fi rst to write h is own history of

the session , “when I noticed,” he goes on to say, “that it had a lready

been written a long time in advance, and in the most exact deta il,



89


15 . H istoire abr é g é e de la session de 1 8 2 8 ,é crite à l ’ avance par David Hume, Paris,1829, Avis de l ’é diteur, p. 3.

16. Ibid ., pp. 3–15. In his Analogies de l ’ hi stoire de France et d ’ Angleterre ou 1 8 2 8 et 1 6 4 0 , Louis de Bon ald also invites the French to study Hume at this time:“It is in the history of the last Stuarts, especially in tha t of the most unfortuna teStuart o f all, tha t we must study our own h istory, tha t of our own times.” Thosewho felt in 1828 tha t th ere was no da nger o f revolution were especially urged to

re-read the events of Ch arles I’s reign : “They will recognize in th e two n ations, for1828 as for 1640, the same causes of revolution, th e same mean s employed, thesame effects. . . .” (See Oeuvres compl è tes de M . de Bonald, publiées par M. l’Abbé

by David Hume, in his history of the Stuarts.” 15 Happy at fi nding

his work already done, the writer abandons his original project and

begins to copy:

. . . I place before my readers an account of what h as just occurredhere, penn ed by a necessarily impartial hand. I f by th is striking pa r-allel I am able to o pen th e eyes of so man y honest persons who arebeing deceived with fi ne phrases, I would be only too h appy. . . .

They will see that in a ll times and in every country the pro gressof revolutions do es no t vary; that in th is century of per fectibility, wehave been at pa ins to invent no thing , and tha t we are merely slav-ish imitators of th e seventeenth-century English. . . .

Could we not say today as the English royalists did in 1641:“Never was sovereign blessed with more moderat ion, with more jus-tice, more humanity, or more ho nour? Wha t pity tha t such a princesho uld so long ha ve been ha rassed with suspicion s, calumn ies, andcomplaints! If there have been instances of abuse, is there n o o therway to prevent th eir return tha n by tota l abolition of royal author-ity? . . . Authority as well as liberty is req uisite to government; and iseven req uisite to the support of liberty itself. Wha t mad ness, while

everything is so happily settled un der ancient forms and institutions,to try the hazardous experiment of a new constitution, and re-nounce the mature wisdom of our ancestors for the crude whimsiesof turbulent innovators! ” (H ume, tome XIV). . . . The English h is-torian gives us here the explanation of many fi ne speeches, the mea-sure of man y great men, and the key to many great mysteries.

Men are ind eed th e same in all centuries and in all places; thecunning of some exploits the passions or the credulity of others,and th e vile motto of 1789: That ’ s my place if you don ’ t mind! has been

an d always will be that of all revolution s.16



90


Migne, Paris, 1859, III. 913.) Joseph de Maistre, much earlier, had already in-cluded as the fi nal chapter of his famous Consid é rations sur la France (1796) a sim-ilar “posthumous” work entitled “Fragment d ’une histoire de la révolutionfrançaise par David H ume.” That de Maistre considered it an important and in-tegral part of his text is mad e clear in the following letter to de B onald from Turin,15 November 1819: “Everything you tell me in your last letter about th e EnglishRevolution compared to yours is per fectly true. I was right , therefore, to use it asthe last chapter of my Consid é rations and even more right to be angr y with that

brute of a publisher who took it upon himself, by his own authority, to exciseit from the latest edition.” (Oeuvres compl è tes, XIII. 192.) See also de Bonald ’s let-ter to de Maistre in 1819: “That deplorable history is ours, point for po int, an dup to this stage the two revolutions were copied, one from the other. ” (Ibid.,XIV. 348.)

The prime examples cited in th e preceding no te suggest th e

extent to which the idea th at the French revolution paralleled the

English revolution and para lleled it not on ly closely but , for many,

identically, caught ho ld o f the conservative imagination in revolu-tionary Fran ce. It is, in fact, through the counter-revolutionists’ all

but tota l acceptance of th is idea tha t the infl uence of H ume’s his-

tory had its effect from 1789 to 1800. For most Frenchmen of the

time, no other history of the Stuart period existed; and Hume’s

manner of relating the events of the English revolution, his fre-

quent refl ections on those events, the guaranty provided by his

long-standing reputation for nearly superhuman impartiality were

all factors which served to increase the authority of his accoun t in

support o f the doctrines of the Right.

A careful examination o f all types of righ tist literature of th is

ear ly counter-revolutionar y period would show, I th ink, tha t

Hume’s infl uence, though in some ways more subtle and diffused,

is greater before the turn of the century than even th e sensational

but somewhat speculative impact of Burke. Burke ’s shouting,

cranky pamph let on the Revolution caused more amusement thanconcern among those it was mean t to ann ihilate. Jokes were made

about the probable insanity or at least senility of this raving En-

glishman who had been con sidered a frank liberal in France until

the appearance of his Re fl ections. Burke’s new tone could convince

only those who wanted to be convinced. On the other hand,

Hume’s Stuarts, widely read during th e th irty years preceding the



91


Revolution had had wha t we might call a subliminal infl uence even

on the hostile, on those who did not want to be convinced and who

were forced by the resulting intellectual tension to rewrite history

in a more suitable form or to reject its auth ority altogether.Through his popular description and analysis of the English

revolution, Hume had helped to condition th e mind s and to form

the prejudices, both nega tive and positive, of the genera tion which

was to be so vitally concerned with similar events. H e had provided

in advance an almost irresistible set of categories to impose on

France’s own revolutionary events—a fo rmula o f response most

suited to conservatives, it is true, but which, even as late as the pe-

riod in which Louis XVI was tried, a fa ir number of conventionnels,

I will not say accepted, but at least felt obligated to consider.

Mailhe’s report is on ly the most outstanding example of the n eed

that was felt by many to formulate revolutionary activity in terms of

the para llel act ivity which seventeenth-centur y Eng land had

witnessed.

The many conservative parallels, and there are almost none

which do not make specifi c use of Hume, were not thus just thefashionable and fl imsy games of idle pundits. In most cases, his-

torical analogies were pointed out with deadly seriousness and

were consciously intended to provoke or encourage a vigorous

counter-revolutionary response. I will cite here one of the earliest

of these rapprochements which, brief a s it is, serves as a good exam-

ple. It is revealed in an anecdote that we fi nd in Soulavie’s M é moires

and though its author, Louis XVI’s brother, did not express it in the

form of a published document, many documents published sub-sequently make a similar point:

On th e day tha t M. Necker succeeded in do ubling the representa-tion of the third estate in defi ance of the advice of the royal princesand the notables, the Comte d ’Artois took down the portrait ofLouis XV that was hanging in the King’s chambers and replaced itwith a likeness of Charles I. And on the day tha t Louis XVI asked M.

Necker to remain in the Ministry, the same day that the people ofVersailles demonstra ted by their r ioting their support fo r M. Necker,M. d ’Artois removed the excessively mute portrait and substitutedfor it a recent ly published engraving th at showed King Charles I on



92


17. Jean-Louis G iraud Soulavie, M é moires historiques et politiques, VI.312–13.

18. François-René de Chateaubriand, Essai sur les R é volutions, in Oeuvres

compl è tes de M. le vi comte de Chateaubri and, Paris, 1834, I. 202.

the point of having his head cho pped off by the executioner’s axe.This second hint h ad n o greater effect than the fi rst.17

Indeed, as Soulavie also suggests, there is perhaps good evi-d ence to show that such rapprochements may h ave h ad , at least on

Louis XVI , an effect opposite to tha t intended . But not a ll the par-

a llels were conceived so bruta lly. Some were published to lend

hope to the royalists in their darkest hour, to console them by show-

ing that h isto ry was on their side, that a ll would come out righ t in

the end and that they should therefore continue their faithful sup-

port of the counter-revolution. Others were quite obviously pub-

lished to shame the revolutionaries, to humiliate the pride of those

who ignorantly proclaimed that the bonds of history had been bro-

ken, that their revolution was new and without precedent. Pointing

to the Stuart parallels, the royalist felt he could prove conclusively

that the revolutionaries were not at all original; they were not even

original in their crimes, and their wasted and bloody efforts would

be condemned to futility once the whole sorry mess had gone the

full circle. Some parallel makers, with their studied analogies, seemeven to have cherished the rather sanguine hope of converting the

radical enthusiasts to conservatism. Chateaubriand tells us, for ex-

ample, that it is important to show there is nothing new under the

sun since a man “well convinced that there is nothing new under

the sun, loses his taste for innovations.” 18

One last more general reason for the proliferation of para llels

during this period should not be neglected. In addition to their

polemical value, they obviously provided a certain intellectual andaesthetic satisfaction to the hundreds of amateur pamphlet-

historians who sprang up everywhere and who found it under-

standably diffi cult to give immediate meaning to the confusion and

chaos of contemporary events. For these, the obvious parallel with

Stuart history furnished a read ily available short-cut to the time



93

Hi st o r y a s t h e Supe r st i t i o n o f Sl av e s

perspective and allowed the chronicler of current happenings to

speak with the borrowed auth ority of th e ages. Here for the asking

was a pre-fabricated dra matic structure ready to be imposed on

events only an hour old. Here, Hume seemed to say, was the be-ginning, there was the middle, and finally, there would be the

happy conclusion. Some parallels end, in fact, with wistful invoca-

tions to G eneral Monk! The making of historical para llels was no t

new at th is time nor has it entirely disappeared from serious mod-

ern h istorical literature. O ne would probably have diffi culty fi nd-

ing, however, a period in history in which such analogies were

more widely used and in which they had more real infl uence.

2

Hist or y a s t h e Super st it ion o f Sl aves

If we turn now to th e opinion s of th e Left on this matter we will seethat the revolutionary ideologists disagreed passionately with the

basic assumption on which such historical conservatism rested:

namely, the idea o f a stable human na ture, of an infl exible mora l

“nature of th ings.”

True enough, if man at b irth is shown to be a creature o f in-

nate principles, of unchanging pa ssions, of tota lly predictable mo-

tivation , why then his range of potential behaviour would be strictly

limited; nothing really new could ever be expected of him; his“original sin” would be the d espair of all social reformers and all ef-

forts to change and improve his form of social organ ization would

be predestined to fa ilure. But original sin, even in its naturalistic in-

terpretat ions, had been driven out with the advent o f Lockian epis-

temology. Man is no t, Locke tells us, born with a human nature, h is

mind is a tabula rasa; his heart, too, others said, is a blank sheet.

Man is merely what, not nature, but nurture makes him. G ood ed-ucation for the individual an d for the society, good legislation, can

change man , not overnight, of course, but at least in a generation.

Thus the so-called nature of th ings is no lon ger a great stumbling



94


19. Emman uel-Joseph Sieyès, “Vues sur les moyens d ’exécution dont lesReprésenta ns de la Fran ce pourront d isposer en 1789,” in Collecti on des é cri ts d ’ Em- manuel Siey è s, édition à l’usage d e l’Allemagne, P aris, pp. 8–10.

block; history becomes bunk, and progress, even indefinite

progress, becomes a real possibility.

No one, perhaps, argues the case for a rejection of history

more cogently than the Abbé Sieyès:

Let us leave it to o thers to th ink that th ey must go back to ba rbar ictimes to fi nd laws for civilized na tions. We have no in tention of be-coming lost in a labyrinth of random searches through antiquatedinstitutions an d a rchaic errors. Reason is timeless and it is made fo rman; it is especially when reason speaks to man of what he holdsmost dear tha t he must listen to it with respect and confi dence . . . .

Ask a clockmaker to ma ke you a clock an d ta ke no te whether hewastes an y time extracting fro m the histor y of clockmaking , true orfalse, th e d ifferent meth od s the industry in its infan cy may ha vethought up for the measurement of time. . . .

We are a lways so eager to take advan tage, for our own enjoyment,of the slightest improvements in the arts of luxury and commerce:do we then turn our backs in shameful ind ifference when it comesto improvements in the social art, this most important of all the arts,on whose expert arrangements depends the happiness of the

human race?19

We should note that, with the eighteenth century’s empirical

connota tion for the word science, Sieyès prefers to speak of an art

social and not a science sociale. The choice of words is highly signif-

icant for it is the conservative ’s privilege to speak at this time of

history as a sacred repository of all the empirical data from which

could be derived a science o f human nature. I t is the conservative

who speaks also of general psycho-physical laws governing with

Newton ian regularity the processes of moral phenomena. Those

who reject history are forced, on the other hand, and n ot without

considerable embarrassment, to resort to an a lmost pre-scientifi c

moral indeterminism and to claim, paradoxically for th is monistic

age, an almost spiritually independent status for man ’s moral and

political being :



95


20. Ibid ., pp . 40–41.

Every day we witness the inane ef forts of pedants con fi den tly tryingtheir ha nd at belittling philosophers who go back to fi rst principlesin th eir analysis of the social art. U seful, semina l meditat ions are

viewed as noth ing more than evidence o f laziness by these pompousscholastics; and when a man of superior genius, as much from dis-gust as discernment, abandons the d epressing chron icles of erro rbeq ueathed by our ancestors, mediocrity immediately sets about thematerial task of noting down assiduously every single page of his-tory, seeing in the mere ability to read and tran scribe a pre-eminen tmerit, a s well as the answer to every question .

Unfortunately, the philosoph ers themselves, who in the course ofthis last cen tury have rend ered such signa l service to the ph ysical sci-

ences, seem to lend credibility to th is ridiculous presumption , aswell as the auth ority of their own genius to these mindless declara-tions. Quite properly sickened by the systematizing mania of theirpredecessors, they devoted themselves single-mindedly to the stud yof facts, and proscribed all other methodologies; for this they de-served only pra ise. But when, leaving the physical sciences, they rec-ommended and applied the same method to their study of themoral world, they were mistaken. Before prescribing a uniformtreatmen t for a ll of the sciences, they should have examined theirdifferences—both in essential na ture an d in subject matter.

Nothing is more sensible than the physical scientist ’s determi-na tion to limit himself to observing an d gathering facts, and to try-ing to discover their interconnections. The physicist ’s object is todiscover na ture; an d since he was no t called upon to advise on or tosha pe th e plan of the physical world , since th e physical universe ex-ists and cont inues on q uite ind ependently of his corrective med ita-tions, he must obviously restrict h imself to the experience of facts.

Ph ysics can be noth ing oth er than knowledge of what is.But the limits of science are n ot the same as the limits of a rt. Art

takes bolder fl ight; it proposes to bend an d accommod ate facts ac-cording to our needs and enjoyment; keeping in view the benefi t o fmankind, it asks the question : what ought to be. . . .20

The histor ico-scientific method in politics, Sieyès affirms,

leads not to science but to superstition. It is true that history can

provide some useful information to the legislator who ha s a med-

itative turn of mind, but he must also look beyond mere facts. Mosthistorical facts are, moreover, entirely unedifying:



96


21. Ibid ., pp. 42–45.

O h ! if th e ro ad o f experien ce is lo ng fo r th e ph ysica l scien tist, a tlea st it pro mises a useful jo urn ey; a t least h e ca n be certa in th atby contin uin g to ad van ce along th at road h e will in crease h is

store o f knowledge. How differen t is the situa tion o f the leg isla -to r! How heavily even ts must weigh on his spir it! How pressed hemust feel to leave beh in d a t last th e a ppa llin g a ccumula tio n o fpast experience. . . .

Take care that your representa tives are no t infl uenced by the no -tion, a lready preached to excess by your learned philosophers, thatmorality, like the physical sciences, must be based on experience. . . .

Never has it been more urgent to restore to reason its full au-thority, to take back from the facts the power that, unhappily for

the h uman race, they have usurped from reason. I am governed bysuch considera tions an d, yes, I sha ll give free rein to my complaintsand my ind ignation against that multitude o f writers who are ob-sessed with asking the past what we should become in the future,who are consumed with a desire to search through the debris ofmiserable tra ditions composed of irrationa lity and falsehood s inorder to fi nd the legislation needed to restore health to th e socialfabric; who stubborn ly dig away in the arch ives, inspecting an d com-piling countless repo rts, reveren tly seeking out for purposes of wor-ship even the most minute fragments, however doubtful theirauthen ticity, however obscure and unintelligible these may be. Andall in the h ope o f d iscovering what? Old certifi cates of title, as if intheir gothic rapture they dream of calling upon th e entire nation toshow its proofs of worthy ancestry.21

Legislators will find nothing useful searching in historical

arch ives; the true archives of man lie in h is heart :

. . . the light of reason must fi na lly be joined to the sentiment of lib-erty. We are capab le of fi nd ing the way to social order on our own;and once on that road, we shall not be so ridiculously weak as tochoose for our guides people who know on ly how to look backwardsto the past . . . .

. . . let us hasten to a bjure the superstition of slaves; let us ceaseour resistance to the light tha t surroun ds us on all sides; an d whenthe great day tha t is dawning for us comes, let us make clear to all

that we are aware of our rights; let us no t allow our Representativeswho a re charged with d etermining the destiny of twenty-six million



97


22. Ibid ., pp . 50–53.

23. The Rights of Man, Part I, Everyman ’s Librar y, p. 12.24. Ibid. , Part I I, p. 223, note 1.

25. See G. Bapst , “Inventaire des bibliothèques de q uatre conda mnés,” La R é volu tion Fran ç ai se, July–December 1891, XXI. 534.

people to debase themselves in vain q uarreling, offer ing to a worldtha t is watching the ridiculous and shameful spectacle of a theo-logical rabble fi ght ing over texts, competing o n ho w best to tear

reason apart, an d, a fter much n oise an d uproar, achieving in th eend nothing more than the profoundest nullity.22

There are thus no lessons from the past worth worrying about.

History is largely irrelevan t. It is not, for example, a valid argument

to point out that certain political institutions deserve respect be-

cause they are old and therefore good. All human institutions are

old, and d espotism is perhaps the oldest of all. The French would

be wrong to follow the examples of past generations or of othernations. They must have the ambition and courage to strike out

on their own, to develop independently the ideal forms of politi-

cal government, and to serve, fi na lly, as a model for other nations

and for future generations.

Thomas Paine in 1791 stresses th is same need for emancipa-

tion from the tyranny of o ld h istorical adjustments: “Every age and

generation,” he writes, “must be as free to act for itself in all cases

as the ages and genera tions which preceded it. The van ity and pre-sumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and

insolent of a ll tyrannies. . . . Every generation is, and must be, com-

petent to all the purposes which its occasions req uire. It is the liv-

ing and not the dead, that are to be accommodated.” 23 Paine’s own

description of how he set about writing his highly infl uential pam-

phlet Common Sense is typical of th is rad ical rejection of history: “I

saw,” Pa ine wrote in 1792, “an opportunity in which I thought I

could do some good, and I fo llowed exactly what my heart dictated .

I neither read books, nor studied other people’s opinions. I

though t for myself.” 24

The inventory of Robespierre ’s Paris library seems to indicate

tha t he too was no t an avid reader o f h istor y.25 It is not too far-



98


26. “Sur les rapports des id ées religieuses et morales avec les principesrépublicains et sur les fêtes na tiona les,” séance du 7 mai, 1794, in Oeuvres de Robes-

pierre, ed. A. Vermorel, Paris, 1867, p. 324.

27. At the risk of soun ding facetious in defen ce of outworn perspectives,

one might observe tha t it was no longer possible, tha nks to the t idy efforts of th isgentleman from Arras, for a good number of them to blush a t this time.

28. Ib id ., p. 325.

fetched, moreover, to see in the Incorruptible ’s famous diatribe

on the philosophes an an ti-history attitude, directed as much against

their learning —which Robespierre seems to equate with sophistry

—as against their religious disbelief. He pra ises Rousseau, on theother hand, for the purity of hi s doctrine, “drawn from nature and

from the detestation of vice.” 26 The virtue of un lettered patriots, he

affi rms, is to be con trasted with the craven neutra lity of the once-

celebrated intellectuals:

Generally speaking, the men of letters have disgraced themselvesin this Revolution; to the eternal shame of intellect, it is the peo-ple’s reason that alone has made a con tribution.

Blush with shame if you can,27 you vain little men ! The miraclesthat will forever immortalize this period of human h istory have beenwrought without you, and in spite of you; simple, honest good senseand unschoo led genius have carried Fran ce to our present g reatheights that terrify your craven baseness and crush your nullity.While this artisan was displaying skillful knowledge of the rights ofman , that scribbler of boo ks, almost a republican in 1788, was stu-

pidly defending the cause of kings in 1793; while this ploughmanwas spread ing light in the countr yside, the acad emician Cond orcet—once a great geometer, they say, accord ing to the men of letters,and a great man of letters, according to the geometers, but after-wards a cowardly conspirato r scorn ed by every party—was workingincessantly to obscure that light with his treacherous ho tchpotch ofmercenary rhapsodies.28

Ironically, Condorcet himself not long before, although hedid not attack history per se, had assailed the old historians on much

the same grounds:



99


29 . Sur l ’ instruction publique, “5ème mémoire,” in Biblioth è que de l ’ homme public, XI, tome 9, pp. 57 –59.

30 . See J.-J.-G . Levesque, Essai sur la mani è re d ’é crire et d ’é tudier l ’ histoire, Paris,An I II, pp. 79–80.

31. De J.-J. Rousseau consid é r é comme l ’ un des premiers auteurs de la R é volution,Paris, 1791, II. 194.

32. See La D é cade philosophique, li tt é raire et poli ti que, XVII. 493.

U ntil now, mod ern history has been corrupted: a t times because ofthe need to d eal tactfully with established tyran nies, at oth er timesbecause of partisan bias. . . .

. . . Even Voltaire, the grea test of mod ern h istorians, so outstand -ing in the mora l portion of h is historical writings, was not ab le in thepolitical sections to give free rein to his genius. Obliged to spareone enemy of the h uman race in o rder to h ave the right to attackthe other with impunity, he crushed superstition but opposeddespotism only with the rules of personal justice and the cries ofhumanity; he reproa ched it for its crimes, but he left unto uched inits royal hand s the power to commit them.

We need, con sequently, an ent irely new h istory, on e that is con-

cerned essentially with the rights of man and with the vicissitudesthat both the knowledge and the enjoyment of those rights havesuffered over the centuries and in every place. . . . 29

Other republicans had even more severe recommenda tions.

The reading of history, some suggested, should be sternly limited;

that of the ancients and that of on e’s own coun try suffi ced.30 That

of one’s own country, agreed Mercier, provided it was fi rst prop-

erly purged: “The h istory of France should be burn ed and begunafresh; it must be d iscard ed a long with a ll those massive tomes of

juri sprudence and scholastic philosophy. . . .” 31 In 1798, the id é ologues

in La D é cade go even fa rther: “Every history book must be made

over; every book dea ling with political, civil, or criminal legislation

must be rewritten; all books on moral philosophy, up until now

uniformly tainted with mysticity, must be redone.” 32

Once history was burned it could of course be rewritten along

republican lines for those who still felt some need of it. We shall seetha t such revolutionary fi gures as Mirabeau, Brissot, Condorcet,

Mme Roland, and others did indeed actively publicize Catherine



100


33. Discours contre la D é fense de Louis Capet, Dernier Roi des Fran ç ais, par leCitoyen Ca rra, député de Saône-et-Loire, prononcé à la séance du 3 janvier 1793.

34. Discours et projet de d é cret de Henri Bancal, député du Puy-de-Dôme, p. 4.

Macaulay’s history of the English revolution as most suitab le to re-

place the ha ted royalist account by Hume. For o thers, however, the

history of former revolutions was totally irrelevant. Carra, speak-

ing during the Con vention deba tes on Louis XVI’s trial, exempli-fi es the new attitude:

I shall try to present to your enlightened wisdom the fi ndings ofbroad common sense, dispassionately calculated comparison s, sim-ple and straightforward ideas, reasoning ground ed in th e humanheart’s inner conscience and in the intellect ’s sense of morality. Ishall not quote from history, because history offers nothing that

compares to our Revolution . . . ; because history, as I have observedit since the beginn ing of th e Revolution, has done noth ing but leadkings and ministers astray in th e way they have applied it to futureevents; because our Revolution, being the product of decisive ad-vances in un iversal reason an d politics, can have absolutely no thingin common with the revolutions of earlier times, nor can it sufferretrograde interpretations or the application of empirical datataken from history. Everything in our Revolution is new. . . . 33

Everything was new in Carra ’s revolution —a radical senti-ment which was very neatly answered by Bancal who summed up in

his reply the trad itionalist defen ce of history: “ . . . yes, everything is

new, except for the human beings involved, who constitute the

basic elements of a revolution, and who, no ma tter the coun try or

the century, continue to be ruled by the passions.” 34

Saint-Just even implies that holding to the old cyclical view of

revolutions was part of the Girondist conspiracy. In his report of

1793 to the Committee of Public Safety concerning the G irondins

arrested after 31 May and 1 June, he made the following accusa-

tion: “Every step taken by the prisoners led in the direction of

restoring the monarchy. . . . These cunning men, cunning and d e-

praved, sensed in the end tha t they sho uld follow the people, con-

vinced as they were that revolutions progress horizontally and th at

because of the excesses, the misfortunes, and the reckless actions



101


35. “Rapport sur les trente-deux membres de la Convention détenus envertu du décret du 2 juin,” in Oeuvres compl è tes de Saint-Just, ed. Charles Vellay,Paris, 1908, II. 10.

that accompany them, revolutions eventually return to their start-

ing point. . . .” 35

Quite to the con trary, revolutions progress vertically not hor-

izontally; they are the instruments of man ’s moral ascent. To saythat similar attempts had been made before and had necessarily

failed, to identify the French revolution and the English revolu-

tion—these were counter-revolutionary ideas and a subtle form of

treason: rather like pointing out that the total number of victims

of the Bastille in all the centuries of its existence probably never

equalled the number of prisoners confi ned in the Châtelet and

the Abbaye during the fi rst two or three glorious years of the reign

of l iberty.





103

IIIFrom 1 7 8 9 to the

T rial of L ou is X VI

1

Pr oph et ic Par a l l el s a nd t h e

Count er -r evol u t ionar y Lesson s of Hu me

Abbé Maury fi gures most appropriately at th e beginn ing of this

chapter dealing in part with examples of Hume’s influence on

some of the early counter-revolutionary leaders. Maury, genera lly

recognized as the leading ora tor of th e Righ t in th e Assemblée

Constituante, had been since 1785 a member of th e French Acad-

emy and was eventually to be named a card inal of the Church. He

seems to have been a witty, rather forceful person and an extem-porary speaker of some brilliance. It is not too inappropriate to

contrast him, as contemporaries often did, with Mirabeau, his op-

posite number on the Left.

Like his personal friend s G erdil and Bergier, Maury was fond

of quoting Bossuet in defence of the ancien régime but, like them

too , he occasiona lly found it useful to invoke also th e authority of

that new Bossuet, the historian David Hume. Long before the Rev-olution h e had commend ed H ume as a loyal and impartial histo-

rian worth using to attack the “English bias” of the philosophe Voltaire. In 1777, for example, he q uite happily pointed out tha t



104

Fr o m 1 7 89 t o t h e Tr i a l o f Lo u i s XVI

1. Discours choisis sur divers sujets de religion et de li tt é rature, par M. l’AbbéMaury, Paris, 1777, p. 132. See also Oeuvres choisies du cardinal J.-Sifrein Maury,

Paris, 1827, II. 142–51.

2. Ibid ., III . 361 –62. Maury q uotes Hume’s portra it of th e French king.

the Scottish h istorian disagreed with the great Voltaire on the qual-

ity of English eloquence.1 Voltaire had d evoted one of h is famous

philosophical letters to praising Bacon, and Maury points out at

this time—as Joseph de Maistre was to later—that Hume had at-tacked the infl ated reputation of this culture hero of the encyclo-

p é distes and had rightly put h im well below Galileo in importance.

On at least one occasion we even fi nd the Abbé adducing proofs

from H ume in his sermons, as in his panegyric of Saint Louis de-

livered to the assembled members of the French Academy in the

chapel of the Louvre on 25 August 1772.2

Hume is not infrequently mentioned in Abbé Maury’s

speeches delivered during the early revolutionary debates. De-

fending th e rights of the throne in 1790, he accused th e National

Assembly of an illegitimate a ttempt to deprive the Crown of its tra-

ditional prerogative to declare war and make treaties. The rôle of

the Assembly, as Maury saw it, was not to establish a n ew constitu-

tion but to correct with the help of th e king an y current abuses in

government an d to revive, to that end , the ancient con stitution of

Fran ce. History, he asserted , provides a warn ing to th ose who d areto attempt more radical reforms and who, wishing to extend ille-

gitimately the powers of popular representatives, reduce the

monarch ’s importance to that of being merely a “republican”

fi gurehead:

We know that Card inal Mazarin, a fter the tra gic death of Ch arles I,went to great lengths to encourage th e English to adopt a purely

republican style of government in their island , Mazarin . . . realizingas he did how that form of government, by its slowness of actionand its internal divisions, would weaken the political power of theEnglish n ation ; but the English, after tr ying, as Mr. Hume has said ,to do without a king, realized that their parliament needed counter-balancing by royal autho rity; with patriotic han ds they raised up th ethrone once more, and for a century now, they have not tried toshake the sacred foundations of their constitution. Is it possible,



105

Pr o ph e t ic Pa r a l l e l s

3. Opinion sur ledroit defairela guerreet deconclureles trait é sdepaix, d ’ allianceet decommerce; prononcéedans l’assemblée nationale le 18 mai 1790, ibid., IV. 99 –100.

4. Opinion sur les fi nances et sur la dette publique, July 1790, ibid., IV. 172.

5. Discours sur la sancti on royale, ibid., V. iv.6. A note of caut ion is necessary here. That Maury was the only right ist or-

ato r at this time who could m atch the vigour of Mirabeau seems little in d oubt.That such was the opinion of con temporaries is evidenced in the following not en-tirely biased “Ana gram-Epigram concerning two very well-known party leaders,”which we fi nd in the Actes des Ap ô tres, 1789, I, No. 28, p. 16:

Deux insignes chefs de partiD ’ intrigue ici tiennent bureau,Chacun à l’autre est assort i,

Même audace & voix de ta ureau;L’on po urrait faire le pariQu’ils son t n és da ns la même peau;Car retournez ab é Mauri,

Vous trouverez Mirabeau.

Gentlemen, that this assembly could forget the great lesson thatEngland h as taught Europe?3

A reader of the Poli tical Discourses as well as the H istory, Maury

cited H ume in July 1790 against the fi scal policies of Necker:

He alone, it must be acknowledged, by lending an outward ap-pearan ce of prosperity to o ur fi nances, by mainta ining the lie tha the was able to sustain the costs of war without recourse to additiona ltaxation, brough t about the ruin of the kingdom th rough borrow-ing at exorbitant rates. The enticements he held out to investorsstrengthened considerably his own personal credit, which after-

wards proved so disastrous for us. Either the nation must destroy public credit, writes Mr. H ume, or public credi t will destroy the nati on. . . .4

Abbé Maury had already quoted Hume ’s testimony in his

maiden speech of September 1789 on the question of the royal

veto, aga in to the effect that the king ’s authority must not be weak-

ened, that revolutions are basically futile, that Charles II, for ex-

ample, had found the source of his restored power in the after-

effects of his unfortunate father’s execution.5 Maury’s greatest

H ume-inspired parliamen tary triumph was to come, however, in

1790 during a verbal exchange with his noted enemy Mirabeau

concerning the sovereignty of the people.6



106


[ Two distinguished par ty chiefs

Scheme and hold forth here;

Well-matched to one another,

Both are brassy, both bellow li ke bul ls; One could almost lay odds

They are brothers under the skin;

For if you shuf fl e abé Mauri,Out comes Mirabeau. ]

There are many anecdotes attesting to Abbé Maury’s quick wit. The fol-lowing example of it is related by Montlosier, who describes how one day the fu-ture Cardinal was walking near the Halles market area: “Several of the localstreetwalkers caugh t sight o f him a nd accosted h im: —‘Good -da y to you, my fi nesturdy fellow! ’ —‘G ood-da y lad ies.’ —‘You’ve got wit en ough , ’tis true, but no

matter how you kick and struggle, you’ ll be f . . . . . in the end!’ —‘Oh ! ladies, asyou very well know, one doesn ’t die from tha t! ’ At which they burst out laughingand rushed up to hug and kiss him.” (M é moires de M. le Comte de Montlosier sur la

R é volution fran ç ai se, Paris, 1830, II. 314.) There is evidence to show, nevertheless,that Maury’s power ful lungs an d sharp wit were not always suffi cient fo r the taskof o vercoming th e increasingly impatient h eckling of th e opposition benches(see, for example, the Journal des d é bats, Nos. 153 and 382). Although he re-mained a t his post until 1791, he more th an ever took to publishing dictated ver-sions of his speeches. It is thus very likely, as Aulard points out, that “ the mostcelebra ted speeches of Abbé Maury were n ever delivered by him.” (F.-A. Aulard , Les

Orateurs de l ’ Assembl é e Consti tuante, Paris, 1882, p. 234.)

7. Opin ion sur la souverainet é du peuple, prononcée dans l’Assemblée Na-tionale en 1790 par M. l’Abbé Maury et publiée sur les manuscrits autographesde l’auteur par Louis-Sifrein Maury, son neveu, Avignon , 1852, pp. 95–96.

Maury began his attack on the concept of the people’s sover-

eignty with an appeal to the trad itional arguments of Fénelon and

Bossuet on the subject. The theory of contract is a fi ction. Society

took its origins in man ’s natura l, that is, G od -given, sociability. Au-thority and subordination are thus also divine in origin. Express

or tacit consent of a primitively “ free” people may seem at times to

ha ve been the source o f government, but th is is a fallacious ap-

pearan ce. Free consent is sometimes the channel of authority, it is

not the source. “The consequence of this theory,” Maury con tinues,

“ is that religion gives us a notion of authority that is both true and

inspiring when it shows how it emana tes originally from G od . By

presenting th e Supreme Being as the d irect author of sovereignty,

the protector and avenger of the laws, it illustrates clearly in this

perspective that every human society is a theocracy. . . . ” 7



107


8. See supra, pp. 43–44.

Preparing to go on with the practical applications of th is pious

theory, Maury, as he tells the story, was interrupted by that foo lish

fellow Mirabeau who shouted:

—“ You are makin g a mockery of th e Assembly wh en youco me here a nd ped dle yo ur lesso ns in theo lo gy. O nly fa na tica l

and ignorant theologians have ever professed such a doctrine re-

garding the supposed origins of sovereignty. I defy you to cite the

name of even one person of sense who has ever argued such

nonsense!”

Quite unruffled and wisely prepared in advance to answer

such an impertinence, Abbé Maury took up the challenge:

—“I accept your generous cha llenge, Monsieur de Mirabeau,

fi rst, by pointing out that we should in no way be surprised that

the human mind is obliged to have recourse to God in order to

fi nd an unshakeable support for sovereignty, since without divine

intervention even a solid foundation for morality would be lack-

ing. I sha ll therefore cite among the defend ers of my doctrine, not

a theologian but on e of the most celebrated political writers of th is

century, an English philosopher whom no one has yet suspected o fbelieving in pious superstitions. Here is what I read in the twenty-

fi fth mora l and political essay of David Hume: . . .”

If we are to believe Maury’s account, he then recited to the as-

sembled representa tives of the French na tion the “ theocratic” pas-

sage already used for a similar purpose in 1769 by his friend

Cardinal Gerdil,8 omitting, however, and hardly because of its

length , the last half. His conclusion is triumphant:

—“Have you had enough, Monsieur de Mirabeau? I’ ll spareyou ten other quotations just like that one. As you can see, even the

greatest authorities support my opinion and have joined in these in-

controvertible arguments, while you are left with making assertions

that I disprove and issuing challenges that only advance my cause.

“Along with Mr. Hume, then, I say to all short-sighted philoso-

phers tha t sovereign power emanates not from the people, but only

from God. The magnifi cent and fertile nature of God which hascreated in the immensity of his though t a ll of his decrees has also



108


9. Ibid ., pp . 96–98.

10.See Oeuvres compl

è tes de J. de Maistre,

VII. 503. Worth men tion ing herealso is the use made at a bout this same t ime of H ume’s position on divorce by an-oth er representat ive of the clergy in the Nationa l Assembly, the Abbé Armand deChapt d e Rastignac, in his work Accord de la R é v é lation et de la Raison contre le divorce,

Paris, 1790, pp. 332–33, 339, 347–48.

created this tutelary authority by summoning mankind to the social

s ta te . . . . ” 9

Abbé Maury leaves it to be understood that a fter such a com-

plete answer his opponent Mirabeau was, momentarily at least,struck dumb with defeat. Of course, at least in this last example,

Maury is merely continuing th e practice of retortion in the tradi-

tion of Gerdil, Bergier, Nonnotte, and others, and it would be a

mistake to imagine on h is part anything more than a polemical at-

tachment to Hume’s statement. H is perhaps more sincere opinion

of Hume he confided privately years later to another counter-

revolutionary ideologist, Count Joseph d e Maistre, when they met

in Venice during the winter of 1799. There they had an extensive

conversation on various literary subjects and one of these was the

question of H ume’s merit as an historian. De Maistre notes without

comment that Maury judged Hume to be “a mediocre historian

who gained a reputation fo r impartiality by what he said of the Stu-

arts.” The English were really superior only in their novels, of

which Clarissa Harlowe and Tom Jones seem to have been the good

Cardinal’s favourites.10

It is not diffi cult to fi nd oth er coun ter-revolutionary fi gures

who make at this time less spectacular but undeniably infl uential

use of H ume’s writings. In this regard , his statements on the em-

pirical nature of the British constitution, denying that before the

seventeenth century it formed a “regular plan of liberty,” were

found of special interest.

Trad itionalists were disturbed from th e very beginning o f the

revolutiona ry deba tes by the ra dicals’ claim that France had noconstitution. It was of no use to speak, as Fénelon, for example,

had spoken years before, of an ancient “unwritten” constitution. A

constitution, as Tho mas Pa ine wrote in 1791, “ is no t a thing in

name on ly, but in fact. It has no t an ideal, but a real existence; and



109


11. The Rights of Man, Part I, p. 48.

12. Félix-Louis-Ch ristoph e de Mon tjoie, H istoire de la R é voluti on de France et

de l ’ Assembl é e Nati onale, Paris, 1792, cinq uième partie, pp. 127–28.

wherever it cann ot be produced in a visible form, there is none.” 11

A constitution, in short, had to be something that one could roll

up and put in one’s pocket. The English ha d no constitution until

Magna Carta; France in 1789 was in rather the same position asEngland before the granting of the Great Charter.

Along with others on the Right, the extreme royalist de Mont-

joie took exception to this view. The revolutionists, he jeered,

ta lked endlessly about constitutions without having even the most

elementary understand ing of what th at word meant. Constitutions

are not theoretical a priori constructions, they are as natural as grav-

ity itself. It is impossible for a nation not to be “constituted” and

France was no exception:

Our parlements, our assembl é es du clerg é , our provinces àé tats and sous-

é tats, were not a constitution; but the existence of these institutions,the way they were organized and connected to the whole of gov-ernment, that was the con stitution of France.

It is my ardent wish th at from the current an archy a reasonableconstitution will emerge, but it is no t I who have dug this deep abyss

of anarchy; it is those, rather, who misled Frenchmen in 1789 intobelieving that they had n o constitution. . . .

Every civilized people has a constitution, for a civilized peoplecould not exist without some fo rm o f government.12

What de Montjoie and others who took this position are really

doing, of course, is rejecting the contract theory of the origin of

government in one of its various manifestations. H ume ’s political

empiricism helped to support this an ti–a priori line o f argument.

H is H istory, de Montjoie pointed out, und erlines the fact tha t con-

stitutions are nothing more than the products of time and cir-

cumstance. One cannot say that the British nation had a fixed

constitution in all the years of its political existence following

Magna Carta. The British con stitution had been a fl uctuating and

ill-defi ned thing th roughout the ages. H ume had in fact viewed

the “usurpations” of the Stuart kings with more leniency than most



110


13. Ib id ., p. 127.

14 . De l ’ Etat de la France, pr é sent et à venir, par M. de Calonne, ministre d ’Etat,Londres, 1791, pp. 360–61; M é moire de M. le Comte de Lally-Tollendal , ou Seconde

Lettre à ses Commettans, Paris, 1790, pp. 107–8.

15. Lally-Tollendal, op. cit., p. 109.

historians precisely because of his belief in the extenuating cir-

cumstances provided by such constitutional variation. Speaking,

for example, of the constitution under James I, de Montjoie asserts:

. . . it was fathered by violent inn ovations and bears so little resem-blance to th at of the English und er James II th at Mr. H ume de-scribes them as two absolutely differen t con stitutions. Here are hisremarkable words on th e subject:

“ The praise bestowed on those [patriots] to whom the nation hasbeen indebted for its privileges ought to be given with some reserve,and surely without the least ran cour against tho se who adhered tothe an cient constitution .”

It is thus no t because the English h ad a G reat Charter in the th ir-teenth century that England ’s constitution is what it is today.13

From the tabula rasa political view of France without a consti-

tution na turally followed fo r many revolutionary theoreticians the

conclusion that the National Assembly was invested with the pri-

mary status of a convention nationale representing all the authority

of the nation in its pre-constituted state. Radical attempts to grace

the National Assembly with this title were of course vigorously op-posed by members of th e Right. C iting H ume on the q uestion,

both Ca lonn e and Lally-Tollenda l14 insisted that to call the Na-

tional Assembly a Convention would be to imply with impudence

and q uite erroneously tha t all preceding government had been en-

tirely dissolved, whereas France’s na tional parliament had in fact

been convoked by the king in conformity with the “constitution”

and with all the ord inary formalities “as have all of the NationalAssemblies since the time of Charlemagne. Consequently, we were

not a Convention Nationale.” 15

The details of the semantic con troversy just n oted may seem

trivial in retrospect. What was certa inly not trivial, however, was the

na ture and amount of political power being hotly disputed, and it



111


16. Recherches sur les causes qui ont emp ê ch é les Fran ç ais de devenir libres et sur les moyens qui leur restent pour acqu é ri r la l ibert é , Gen ève, 1792, I . 210 . In this same workMounier, q uoting H ume’s sentiment tha t despotism is preferable to popular an-archy, urges the French to rally round Louis XVI and place absolute power in h ishand s for the period o f one year. (Ibid., II. 213–15.)

17 . Introduction à la R é volution Fran ç aise (1792), in Oeuvres de Barnave, Paris,1843, I. 72.

18. Seconde Lettre de M. de Lal ly-Tollendal à M. Burke, Londres, 1792, p. 35.The French jurist J.-V. Delacroix also calls Hume “ the most impartial of h istori-ans,” in his Consti tutions des principaux é tats de l ’ Europe et des Etats-Unis de l ’ Am é rique,

Paris, 1791, II. 206.

is sign ifi cant, I think, that H ume’s auth ority was brought into the

question by two such important members of the Right. Also wish-

ing to show that France before the Revolution was not entirely with-

out legal foun da tion, ano ther noted trad ition alist, Jean-JosephMounier, quoted Hume’s opinion that the privileges of English

peers and the liberty of the English Commons had in fact origi-

na ted in France. Consequently, Mounier asserted in 1792, if the

French had adopted th e British con stitution they would only have

repatriated what was to begin with their own.16

It can be easily seen that, with the parties of the Right, Hume’s

reputation and authority as an historian are in this period perhaps

even greater than they were during the thirty years preceding the

Revolution, when he was so widely read under very different cir-

cumstances. Barnave in 1792, for example, called H ume “ the best

of mod ern historians,” 17 an d Lally-Tollendal in the same year re-

cited H ume-inspired political lessons to Burke.18

Hume’s interpretation of the Long Parliament’s activities as a

series of cunning usurpations seems to have been particularly useful

to those rightists who at this time wished to attack the National As-sembly’s claim that it fully represented the true wishes of the nation.

What was this nation, royalists liked to ask, this fantastic creature

whose mandate was always being invoked, which was presumably all

of France but which apparently made its wishes known only to a few

and at the bidding of a few? Attacking a current practice of some par-

tiesin the National Assembly, the Comte d ’Antraigues, who was later

to play an active cloak-and-dagger rôle in the counter-revolution,

quoted Hume against the demagogic use of adresses or petitions:



112


19. Quelle est la situation de l ’ Assembl é e Nati onale? (1790), pp. 41–44.

20. Ibid ., pp. 43–44. The same passage from “ the wise Hume” is quotedagainst the Convention in December 1792 by Dugour: M é moire justi fi cati f pour Loui s XVI, Paris, 1793, pp. 119–21.

We kno w only too well ho w people go about generating bun dles ofpetitions.

But I say to you tha t while these petitions may be fl attering to the

assembly that receives them, th ey can never be regard ed as substi-tutes for the required and absolutely essential forms. Petitions re-ceived from even a thousand municipalities cannot be equated tothe decree o f a single bailiwick; it would be as if the pa rtial an d iso-lated consent of ind ividuals who make up the na tional assembly wasenough to form a decree.19

In a three-page note atta ched to th is passage, d’Antraigues

reproduces Hume’s description of the similar abuse of petitionsby the Long Parliament. The petitions were, Hume tells us, a fraud -

ulent device of popularity, accepted only from groups favourable

to the Puritan faction and used to incite the people to civil discord .

All petitions favouring the monarchy or th e Church were, on th e

other hand, immediately rejected. D ’Antra igues concludes with

the darkly proph etic comment: “I sha ll add no observations to th e

quoted passage but prud ence a lone req uires that I prove it exists,

that I did n ot invent it; an d if presenting such tableaux is a crime,it is Mr. H ume who is guilty: see hisH istory of the Stuarts for the year

1642 . . . seven years before the murder of Ch arles I, eleven years

before C romwell was declared Pro tector.” 20

Comparisons such as that by d ’Antraigues, viewing at the

same time the activities of the Long Parliament and those of the

revolutionary assembly, form the basis of most pa rallels drawn be-

tween the English and French revolutions published by conserva-

tives at th is time.

Fairly typical of these are th e tableaux which appeared in the

ultra royalist journal Les Actes des Ap ô tres in 1790. Beginn ing in Jan-

uary of th at year and with a stud ied light-heartedn ess (since at fi rst

the ap ô tres seemed to believe that it would take no more than a



113


21. As in the following pastiche of the popular revolutionary song Ç a ira:

En fi n de la folieLe peuple guérira,Et de sa ma ladieLes auteurs punira.Je crois qu’après cela

Tout se rétablira;Je crois qu’après cela,Ça ira, ça ira.(Les Actes des Ap ô tres, No. 173, p. 16.)

[ Final ly, the madness of the people will be cured, and the authors of i t punished; I

think after that, everything wil l be right again; I think after that, ’ twil l be fi ne, ’ twill be fi ne.]

Along with those of other conservative heroes, Hume’sname fi gures in some of theap ô tres ’ light verse against Robespierre. See, for example, ibid., No. 15, pp. 5–6.

22. Ibid ., I I. 5–25.23. Ibid ., I I. 21.

24. Ibid ., I I. 22.

timely dose of Hudibras to push back the Revolution) ,21 the editors

presented their readers with the “ Tableau parlan t, Fragment de

l’histoire d ’Angleterre.” 22 Although it is an account largely from

H ume of the seventeenth -centur y revolution in England , thetableau is presented as an exact depiction of events taking place in

revolutionary Fran ce: “ . . . the plan was formed to do away with the

Church and the monarchy. The monarch ’s council had acted in

bad faith; the n ation was irritated , and its representa tives were am-

bitious and corrupt. The minister pa rleyed, the abyss grew deeper,

and th ickening clouds of blood darkened the horizon .” 23

At the end of this historical sketch the editors state its pur-

pose and promise more of the same:

We con clude a t th is point th e fi rst part o f our introduction , whichpresents an auth entic l ivi ng-image tableau. Since th ose times, similarevents elsewhere have fostered the same passions. We leave it to thereader to draw the lesson . By presenting to fa ithful subjects and en-lightened citizens the picture of on e great n ation ’s past disorders,we hope to spare others seeking renewal the errors and horrors tha t

will forever remain in the eyes of posterity a reason for proud Al-bion ’s shame.24



114


25. Ibid., I II . 5.26. Ibid. , IV. 15–16.

27. Ibid. , IV. 28.

28. Ibid. , IV. 29.

Volume III followed with the “Comparison Tableau” contin-

uing the account of Stuart history from 1641. Written in April

1790, and still inspired by the wise prophet David H ume, the new

sketch pictures the unfortunate king “struggling to defend his royalprerogative against a parliament made up of factious persons

determined to build a republic on the ruins of the monarchy and

the Church.” 25 In Volume IV we are presented with the “Royal

Tableau,” which quotes in full Hume’s portrait of Hampden, now

seen as describing perfectly the typical French revolutionist: “We

must only be cautious, notwithstanding h is generous zeal for lib-

erty, not hastily to ascribe to him the praises of a good citizen.

Through all the horrors of civil war, he sought the abolition of

monarchy and subversion o f the constitution; an end which, had

it been attainable by peaceful measures, ought carefully to have

been avoided by every lover of his country.” 26 Hampden ’s portra it

is then contrasted with that of the virtuous Falkland whom another

H ume d isciple, Lally-Tollendal, had already seen himself as imi-

tating when he resigned from the Assembly in 1789. In ad dition,

the ap ô tres note the existence in both countries of a “na tional as-sembly simulacrum” which, “contemptuous of the existing consti-

tution, did not fa il, in o rder to sho re up its auth ority, to decree as

a principle that all sovereignty emanates from the people. ” 27 Fi-

nally less concerned with pointing out parallels, the editors opti-

mistically attempt a number of predictions. They meditate without

sorrow on the fate of Ch arles I’s judges: “ It is no t without a certain

secret pleasure that we anticipate events by announcing that

twenty-seven of them were hanged when, ten years later, Ch arles IIregained the throne of his ancestors.” 28 Of course, bringing atten-

tion to this last fact was somewhat gratuitous. If the inexorable par-

allel between the two revolutions seemed to waver in one respect

it was that the French in 1790 were too wise to rush headlong into

the crimes of seventeenth-century England: “Louis XVI has already



115


29. Ibid. , IV. 31.

triumphed over the wicked; we hope that the monarchy will like-

wise triumph over the republic, and that one day we sha ll have a

translation into French of th e constitutiona l hieroglyphics that a re

being randomly engraved on the nat iona l obelisk.” 29

To celebrate this an ticipated happy change in the course of

the French revolution, a fourth and fi nal tableau was prepared,

the “ Tableau o f Resurrection ,” depicting, of course, the restora-

tion o f the monarchy in England. Events in France at the end of

1790 stubbornly refused, however, to follow true to form. The

ap ô tres ruefully concede in Volume V that the promised last instal-

ment would have to be postponed for a time; the task, it seems,

was even beyond th e strength of Hudibras and renewed meditation

on the darker parallels was necessary:

U nhappy people . . . they are trying to fl atter your passions with theword republic; their aim is to make you d esire it; they wan t the wordto infl ame your imagination , to lead you a stray, just as the word lib-

erty has already led you a stray. . . . Listen carefully for a momen t,learn what h appened on e hundred and fi fty years ago to your n eigh-

bours, compare the events, the meth ods employed, a nd the results;compare an d judge, so that, if possible, the misfortun es of o therswill not be lost on you.

Cromwell and his parliament still inspire universal horrorthroughout the ages and th ey will con tinue to be h eld in execra-tion by posterity; and yet they were ca lled patriots, defenders of the laws,

protectors of the people; they said th at everything they did, they did forthe good of the people, to preserve the rights of the nation , and inthe name of liberty. Inspired by such noble motives, they ravagedtheir country, erected scaffolds, an d executed a ll those whose virtueoffend ed them: they attacked the throne, harried the king, impris-on ed h im, protesting all the while their respect and love for h is per-son : fina lly, . . . these man y crimes placed sovereign power in th ehands of forty petty tyrants, and ended with the odious Cromwellbeing declared protector of the good people of the republic.

But listen still: scarcely was the monster in his grave when thespell was sudden ly broken, an d the eyes of the English people were

open ed. They pursued h is accomplices, and wreaked vengeance onhis memory; in every town, th ey hanged and burned the usurper’s



116


30. Ibid. , V. 43–44.

31. Ibid. , V. 63.

32. LeLongParlement et sescrimes, rapprochemensfaciles à faire, Paris, 1790, p. 9.

effi gy; they disinterred h is corpse, dragged it through the fi lth an dmire, and fi nally left it swinging on the gallows, a worth y reward forhis wickedn ess and treachery. . . . People of France, spare yourselves

these crimes; they bring in their wake misery and shame, remorsean d slavery.30

We have in the last q uotation a good average view of Stua rt

history as interpreted by the French of the Right. Important to

note also, it is seen a s David H ume ’s view. Even when the para llels

do not q uote him explicitly—and this is exceptional—his tremen-

dous hold over French conservative opin ion is still felt an d his ex-

planation of events a century and a half old also becomes theexplanation of wha t is seen as the eighteen th-century French ver-

sion of a similar evil cycle in the course of human history. The

ap ô tres ha ve suffered only a tempora ry delay in th eir presenta tion.

The “ Tableau o f Resurrection” is already prepared; its turn would

come, just as day follows night : “history has already presented the

same causes, the same effects.” 31

Very similar to the tableaux of the Actes des Ap ô tres are the par-

allels drawn also in 1790 by Angélique-Marie Darlus du Taillis,Comtesse de Montron d, in her work Le Long Parlement et ses crimes,

rapprochemens faciles à faire. The book is a 143-page h istory of the

Long Parliament, again summarized from H ume and illustrating

the harmon y of h is account with a royalist interpretation of “equiv-

alent” events in France. With regard to the causes of the two revo-

lutions, in both cases the antecedent actions of the reigning

monarch are exonerated. The Coun tess underlines, for example,

Hume’s statement that the allegedly unconstitutional levy of ship-

money by Charles I proved subsequently to be very useful to the

British n avy in its encoun ters with the Dutch. As for the individua l

members of the Puritan parliament, Coun tess Montrond affi rms

that “ the majority were ambitious schemers and hypocrites who

called not for the renewal of the state but for humiliation of the

king and abasement of the crown.” 32 Later her work draws a fur-



117


33. Ibid ., p. 108.34. Ibid ., p. 16.

35. Ibid ., pp . 84–85.

36. Ibid ., pp . 100–101.

ther para llel between th e English patriots and the French revolu-

tionary leaders: “ These diabolical impostors laid claim to saintli-

ness, just as our demagogues pretend to humanity.” 33

The suffering multitude is deceived by such unintelligible slo-gans: “Happy the English! writes Mr. H ume, had the commons proceeded

with moderation and been contented in their plenitude of usurped

power to make blessed use of it. Happy the French! one day the

Tacitus of our misfortunes will say; but who today can judge these

misfortun es heaped on a d eceived people!” 34

H olding to a cyclical view of h istory, the Coun tess invites her

French readers to compare events in both revolutions and to re-

fl ect seriously on them. The results of France ’s upheaval must in-

evitably be the same: “The misguided French will feel remorse,

soon to be followed by a resurgence of love for the best and most

courageous of kings; with mingled feelings of repentance and love

they will rush to throw themselves at the feet of this Monarch, so

sensitive, so self-denying, and their very error will fortify the ties that

sha ll forever bind their devotion to their generous Sovereign.” 35

Rarely, if ever, do the people gain anything from revolution;the new government is likely to be worse than the old one: “On no

occasion,” writes Monsieur H ume, “was th e truth of th is ma xim

more sensibly felt , than in the present state of England.” 36 The En-

glish had managed to pull d own the throne but, far from fi nding

themselves happy, they were soon crushed with an unprecedented

burden of taxes and subjected to a tyrannica l administra tion in

which there was not even the shadow of just ice and liberty.

H istory cannot be deceived. In evitably the French revolutiontoo would go the full circle and a Cromwell would appear on the

scene. A deadly experiment ha d pro ved th at to the English. Again

she q uotes from H ume: “By recent, as well as ancient example, it

was become evident that illegal violence, with whatever preten ces

it may be covered, and whatever object it may pursue, must in -



118


37. Ib id ., p. 143.

38. Ib id ., p. 103.

39. Ib id ., p. 45.

evitably end at last in the a rbitrary and despotic government of a

single person .” 37

Comtesse de Montrond ’s rapprochements clearly illustra te how

the parallels were not just idle works of analysis and prediction.H ers is a work heavily charged with emotion:

The spirit in which I fi nd myself writing this Histor y ha s caused meconstan tly to see Louis XVI a t the side of Ch arles I, in terms of bothsimilar ities an d con trasts; such a fl ood of sympath y for the misfor-tunes of Charles I and gratitude toward Louis XVI wells up in methat I am forced to suspend my arduous labours, and I know notwhether I sha ll be able to con tinue my account up to the time of theEnglish king ’s dea th ; if my tears are cruel, if they fl ow in such abun-dance, they at least raise up in me a con soling tho ught ! I , a French-woman , am no t alone in my fervid devotion to my King. . . . 38

There is even some hint in her book that if Louis were to

choose, as Charles had chosen earlier, to raise the Royal Standard

against these vile usurpers, he would not be lacking in support:

“Remember, oh! remember a lways, tha t thousands of Frenchmen

adore you, that they are silent on ly to be united with you in yourresignation and in that of your companion whom they honour and

cherish; that if your interests required it, or even allowed it, count-

less legions would fl y to your rescue. . . . ” 39

Another o f the “écrivains noirs,” François-Louis Suleau, pub-

lished more rapprochements in 1791 and 1792, again with the in-

tention of rousing the French and especially Louis XVI to more

vigorous counter-revolutionary action .

Side by side, in two columns of h is journal, he compared wha t

he called the “English drama” and the French “Imitation tha t ex-

ceeds the bound s of pa rody.” Through out the running account of

the “Imitation” column we fi nd added comments such as the fol-

lowing: “These parallels are striking,” “Exactly the same has hap-

pened here,” “The circumstances are precisely parallel,” “The very

same verbiage.” Suleau seems, in fact, to believe in an a lmost com-



119


40. Journal de M. Suleau, Paris, 1792, No. XII, p. 78.41. Ibid ., p. 85.

42. Ibid ., p. 77.

43. Ibid ., pp . 82–83.

plete identifi cation of th e two revolutions: “Our demagogues,” he

wrote, “have slavishly copied all of these stra tagems and I need not

add that they have obtained the same results. Nil sub sole novum.

[There is no thing new under th e sun.]” 40 We are not surprised tolearn, even, that the Puritans had th eir own Faubourg St. Antoine:

“The comparison holds up with amazing exactn ess, even in the

most wretched details. . . .” 41

As he draws his parallel, Suleau is no less explicit and no more

inn ocent of purpose than the Comte d ’Artois had been in per-

forming the portra it ant ics to which we have already referred. His

is a hawkish warning to princes “who, when they believe themselves

to be following only the advice of prudence, are in fact giving in to

the ever deadly vertigo o f bewilderment and fa int-heartedness.” 42

Pointing to Charles I ’s initial “co-operation ” with the Puritans,

Suleau warns:

G uided by terror, he resolved to appease them with various acts ofindulgence. He judged the torrent too strong to resist, he acqui-esced in all their measures and was even prepared, it seems, to make

peace with th e faction ists.We know how well tha t stra tegy succeeded for Charles I! Louis

XVI would be ill advised to ad opt such a h umiliating po licy. Thereare no doubt circumstances so critical that stiff resistance must in-evitably end in dead ly conseq uences; Louis XVI is in th at situation ;but at least he must preserve his honour and abandon himself toevents with dignity.

All th is is so horribly similar.43

Citing Bossuet rather than Hume but delivering essentially

the same message, the Abbé Marie-Nicolas-Silvestre Guillon pub-

lished in 1792 his Parall è le des R é volutions —a work which went

through at least four ed itions during that year.

Guillon praises Charles I as a just, moderate, and magnani-

mous prince, perhaps the most honest man o f his century and one



120


44 . Parall è le des R é volutions, Seconde édition, Paris, 1792, p. 297. In fact, thedenigrating title Cromwel had been used rather generously and indiscriminatelyfrom th e very beginning of th e Revolution by both the Right an d th e Left as thesupreme political insult. Within the space of on ly a few years it was applied vari-ously to, among o thers, Necker, Mirabeau, Lafayette, Dumouriez, Da nton, Robes-pierre, the entire Directoire, and, of course, Bonaparte. Curiously enough, it isthe royalists who most often saw Cromwell as a grea t gen ius, albeit evil, and far su-perior to th e revolutionary leaders, the “vile lowlifes,” of the Con vention. (See, forexample, the Comte d ’Antraigues’s Adresse à l ’ ordre de la noblesse de France, Paris,1792, p. 99 ; also the opinion of La Harpe expressed in December 1794: “ . . .Robes-

pierre and his henchmen ! You compare Cromwell to them! There is no t one (an dhistory will bear me out) that he would have wanted, even as a sergeant in hisarmy. . . .” —Lyc é e ou cours de litt é rature ancienne et moderne, VIII. 17.)

45. Ib id ., p. 292.

whose only fault was an excess of clemency. H e minutely notes par-

allels between the French and English revolutions, using a highly

emotional, breathless style, reminiscent, not of Bossuet, but of a

bad eighteenth-century drame:

O the courage to fl ee! O my King, how virtuous you are in yourmisfortunes! But . . . dreadful forebodings: he to o, the ill-fatedCharles I , departed . . . and Stra fford and Montrose! . . . Pa lace ofWhiteha ll! th eatre of gloom, soaked still with the fresh warm bloodof a murdered king, sacrificial victim of his people; are thereCromwells amon g us? No, n o! . . . scheming underlings, incapable

of either h is art ful hypocrisies or h is poten t at rocities that d efy un-derstanding, tha t require genius to devise and heroism to execute;a Bra dshaw, yes, or a Chabroud; an Ireton or a G régoire, a Fair faxor a Lafayette, . . . hideous memories! Parallels until now on ly toosimilar ! . . .44

Abbé Guillon makes parallels with other revolutions as well

as with that o f the Puritans, but a ll his evidence is chosen to prove

the cyclical nature of such violent occurrences. Like the Comtessede Montrond , he predicts the eventual replacement of popular an-

archy by a dictatorship. History shows no exceptions to the rule

that th e usurpation s of the multitude are followed by the tyranny

of one man.45 There is no thing n ew in the French revolution. It is

a base imitation from start to fi nish:



121


46. Ibid ., p. 414.

47. Ibid ., p. 417.

48. Mention should perhaps be made here of what seems to have been averitab le Strafford cult at this time among some French con servatives, directly in-spired, I think, by Hume ’s extensive and highly favourable account o f Ch arles I’smin ister. Already in 1788, Linguet, drawing the pa rallel between a French trial oftha t year and that of Strafford , had exclaimed prophetically: “G od grant that sub-sequent events not be the same! . . .” (Annales politi ques, civi les et l i tt é rai res du dix-

huiti è me si è cle, 1788, XV. 339 ; see also his La France plus qu ’ Angloise, Bruxelles,1788). At a bout this same time, Lally-Tollend al with the pa rallel of his hapless fa-ther in mind, gave private readings of his tragedy Le Comte de Strafford at Versailles:“My tragedy became a literal prophecy; I was urged to have it performed. . . .” Buthis Strafford was no t made, h e tells us, to compete with such admonitory school-for- tyrants traged ies as Brutus, C é sar, Gui llaume Tell, or Charles IX. (See his ded icato ry

rema rks inLe Comte de Strafford: Trag

é die en cinq actes et en vers,

Londres, 1795, inwhich Hume is praised as “especially dedicated to impartiality” and is contra stedwith Rapin-Tho yras, “whose on ly talents lay in being a Presbyterian a nd a rebel”—pp. 327–28.)

It is possible tha t Straf ford ’s execution was tacitly used as a con venien t eu-

If we examine th e succession of h eresies tha t h ave threatened thetran q uillity of empires by shaking th e pillars of th e church and oftruth, we see, right down to the smallest details, a picture of the

same events we are witnessing today. Change the names, change thesetting; what remains of our revolution? Only its acts of cowardicean d its heinous crimes. Nay, even here th ey are plagiarists! Whetherin th eir persecutions or their political schemes, they ha ve not evenbeen original in th eir crimes! 46

One critical deta il of th e French para llel with th e English rev-

olution was still seen as different in 1792, but G uillon, with a cer-

tain grisly tenacity (for most of the “Stuart prophets” avoided

before January 1793 going th is far), does not fail to no te it: “ therecords of Whitehall,” he writes, “will ind icate that to complete the

resemblance, the revolution needs one add itional crime, and that

th is crime is perhaps not far o ff.” 47

We shall deal later with other specifi c rapprochements made for

various purposes by coun ter-revolutionary writers during the trial

of Louis XVI and after th e Reign o f Terror. Those tha t we ha ve

no ted for the period from 1789 to 1792 by no means exhaust thebibliograph y on the subject but they are fa irly indicative of the sort

of th ing commonly done at this time.48



122


phemism symbolizing the most dreaded possible consequences of revolution forthose royalists who , befo re Louis XVI’s close arrest, wished to avoid indelicate ref-erences to regicide. Cazalès, another faithful H ume read er, refers in 1790 to Straf-ford as “ this minister who possessed so many talents and virtues, yet wasshamefully executed; b ut Englan d mourn ed his loss an d the whole of Europehonoured his memory, and to da y his name is venera ted by all subjects of th is now peaceful empire. Such is the example th at must be followed, such is the model tobe imitated by those who are called upon in these diffi cult times to administer theaffa irs of state.” (Discours et opinions de Cazal è s, Paris, 1821, pp. 114–15.) In 1792Barnave in yet another parallel of the English and French revolutions wrote:“There were, in both countries, three classes of pa triots. In Englan d, Strafford, thePresbyterians, and the Ind ependents; here, Mounier, the constitutionalists, an d

the republicans. M. de Lally with his tragedyStrafford

seemed to have had a pre-monition of th is ana logy by the importance h e gave to a man who had occupieda place correspond ing to his own.” (R éfl exions politi ques sur la R é volution, in Oeuvres

de Barnave, Paris, 1843, II. 69–70.) Lally-Tollen dal tells us, however, tha t h e saw himself as a Falklan d. ( See Seconde Lettre à ses Commettans, January 1790, p. 169.)

Perhaps the entire spirit of the para llels can be best summed

up iconographically. The frontispiece of an anonymous work en-

titled L’ Angleterre instruisant la France ou Tableau historique et poli ti que

du r è gne de Charles Ier et de Charles II, published in P aris early in 1793,provides a good contemporary example. The legend of the en-

graving reads: “England teaching France, 8 February 1649,” fol-

lowed by:

Je commis un grand crime.

Pren ez bien garde de suivre mon exemple.

Si du Dieu de bonté vous voulez implorer la clémence,

Ouvrez les cachots, et b risez les fers de l’innocence.

[ I committed a heinous crime, Take care not to follow my example. I f you

wish to implore a bene fi cent God ’ s mercy, Open up your dungeons, and free the innocent of their chains.]

Pictured are two women standing; one is showing the other a book

on which can be read th e words “Read and tremble.”

It is an irony of history that th is same idea of England teach-ing France could have changed so much in meaning in the sixty

years since Voltaire’s Lettres phi losophiques. At that time, England ’s

“ lessons” were feared by traditionalists in France. These were the



123

Th e Lo n g Pa r l i a me n t

lessons of Voltaire. Now traditionalists almost religiously sought

out other examples from across the Channel. These were the

lesson s of David H ume.

2

Th e Lon g Par l iament :

Br isso t Ver su s Cl er mont -Tonner r e

To illustra te the inten sity of the revolutionary deba tes provoked by

differing views of Stuart history and, what is more important, to

show how Stuart h istory infl uenced in an immediate sense the for-

mulat ion by both sides of many political problems of the day, let us

examine a t some length a controversy on the subject which raged

during the summer of 1790 between the two important fi gures,

Clermont-Tonnerre a nd Brissot .

Brissot is a particularly good example to choose here as rep-resenting the Left, since he was probably infl uenced more than any

other French revolutionary strategist by the examples of English

civil-war h istory. We have already noted in our ch apter on Hume’s

pre-revolutionary fortunes that the G irondin leader was one of the

fi rst in France to reject H ume ’s royalist interpreta tion of that pe-

riod. His own admiration for English parliamentary heroes knew

no bounds. H is very name, Brissot de Warville—anglicized from

the French place name Ouarville where his family held property—is a youth ful tribute to his long-standing political angloman ia. In its

essentials, this anglomania remained as one of his most notable

characteristics until his death by decapitation in P aris in 1793.

Also destined to be a victim of the Revolution, Stanislas

Clermon t-Ton nerre represents eq ua lly well, as a co nstitut ional

monarchist, that section of the rightist opposition most strongly

infl uenced by the familiar Hume version of Stuart history.A dispute over the famous Comit é s de recherches, the new tri-

bun als that Burke would a lso a ttack as likely to extinguish the last

traces of liberty in France and bring about “ the most dreadful and





125


51. Ibid ., p. 11.

52. Le Patriote Fran ç ais, 10 August 1789, 8 and 22 January 1790.53. Brissot à Stan islas Clermont, p. 7.

54. See in Oeuvres compl è tes de Stanislas de Clermont-Tonnerre, Paris, An III,volume III.

Ton nerre one of th ose classically familiar revolutionary lessons on

how people sometimes have to be forced to be free an d even killed

to be made equal: “Remember th e axiom, so trivial and so true: i f

you desire the end you must also accept the means.” 51 Then, having onoth er occasions already told his readers that there was great merit

in the English idea of d efi ning the crime of l è se-nation, that the

Long P arliament had many salutary lessons to teach the National

Assembly on how to choose its ambassad ors, deal with king ’s min-

isters, et cetera,52 he proceeded to justify the Comit é s de recherches

on the same authority: “And the Long Parliament o f England, dur-

ing a time when it was inspired by the purest form o f patriotism,

did it not also have its committee of safety or committee of inves-

tigat ions? More than once, the republic would owe its salvat ion to

that committee. And so I ask you, was France in 1789, is France

today, not caugh t up in a suffi ciently violent crisis to justify the in-

stitution o f these committees of safety?” 53

Clermont-Tonnerre ’s an swer, the Nouvelles Observations sur les

comit é s des recherches,54 was no t long in making itself heard :

I shall attempt to repress the horror that the English Long Parlia-ment inspires in me and examine for a moment this mon ster of pol-itics an d immorality in order to discover a long with J.-P. Brissot the precise instant during which i t was inspired by the purest form of patrioti sm.

The loathsome history of the Long Parliament displays for us twophases: we see it o bsessed fi rst with its Presbyterian fan tasies and ex-ploiting these as a vehicle for the private ambitions of several mem-bers; we see these men cleverly seizing upon an d man ipulating for

their own purposes the natural tendency of every political body toseek power and to act; we see this insan e body in turn usurp a ll royalprerogatives, form and sign a league and covenant, appoint to of-fi ce, raise an army, declare war on the king, purcha se him from th eScots whose protection he h ad sough t, place him on trial, abolishthe upper chamber which refused to participate in these crimes,



126


55. Ibid., I II . 341–42.

56 . R é pliquedeJ.-P. Brissot à StanislasClermont, Paris, 8 octobre 1790,pp . 8–9.

and then proceed to carry out the heinous act on its own: there youhave the crimes of the Long Parliament. I come now to its infamy:

after the king’s assassina tion , stricken with shame at its crime, it be-

comes an object of con tempt and ignominy; the a rmy insults it, thepeople defy it; Cromwell, weary of it, speaks but one word an d theLon g P arliamen t is gone. Now I a sk J.-P. Brissot, which o f th ese mo-ments exemplify his notion of the purest patr iotism? When was theLong Parliament pa triotic? Was it when it trampled under foot thebloody head o f its king? Was it when it too groveled at the feet of theusurper? Does J.-P. Brissot see appro ach ing in the d istan ce th isCromwell whose culpable power was the certa in consequence of theLong Parliament ’s crimes? If h e does see him, it is his duty to expose

him so th at we may smoth er the mon ster in h is crad le.What times must these be? What notions of liberty and patrio-

tism do we harbour, if there can exist among us a ma n who da res topromo te as a mod el the Lon g Par liament of England , this cowardlyassembly of regicides which with seven years of d isorder an d an ar-chy made the English pay dearly for the privilege of living afterwardsund er despotism?55

Brissot in a prompt reply showed tha t he had long since been

emancipated from such a view of the English revolution, that he

had read historians other than H ume:

My worship of liberty, my political credo, dates from a time whenStanislas Clermont was still part of the slavish herd of servilecourtiers who bowed an d scraped in the antechamber of the King’sbedroo m at Versailles, who were then pleased to ridicule the ph ilo-soph ical and political ideas that toda y they bravely parade, because

these ideas are no w victorious.When I despaired of ever seeing the destruction of despotism,

too proud to ben d un der its insolent yoke, too much th e enemy ofineq uality to a llow my children to witness such an od ious spectacle,I set off fo r America to settle in a republican land.56

We remember th at Brissot in 1784 had expressed the wish

that the history of this new republic in America would be written

by that most patriotic of English historians, Ca therine Macaulay. It



127


57. Ibid ., pp . 44–45.

is with her account of the English revolution that he now answers

Clermon t-Ton nerre:

The English Lon g Parliamen t inspires ho rror in you. I believe it: itis not surprising that the history of a republic jars the nerves of acourtier.

You call it a monster of poli ti cs and immorali ty. You are astonishedthat I fi nd in its loathsome history a mo ment when i t was ruled by the

purest patr ioti sm. You see in its history on ly two phases: th at of itscrimes, when Charles I mounted the scaffold; that of its infamy,when Cromwell dissolved it.

One can see from such observations tha t you h ave read the his-tory of this monster only in Hume, a writer who prostituted his tal-ents to mo narchism and betrayed so frequently the cause of liberty.H ad you studied the h istory of the immorta l Macaulay, a work sowell suited to rouse our indignation against tyranny, you woulddoubtless no t have been so ready to slander on e of h istory’s mostbrillian t epochs, a time when England produced its greatest profu-sion of virtues an d talents.57

After setting his oppo nen t straigh t on that all-importa nt

point, Brissot gives the rad ical view of Stuart history and a litan y of

an swers to Clermont-Ton nerre ’s accusations:

You a sk when was this parliament patriotic? It was patriotic when . . .it rebelled.

It was patriotic, when it determined to put an end to the tyranny

of a Strafford; of a perverted priest, Laud; of an inquisitorial courtcalled the Star Chamber; of Charles I, who summoned parliamentsonly to obtain money for his dissipations and debaucheries, whodissolved them when they refused to satisfy his criminal lusts, whoimposed taxes witho ut the con sent of th e people, who imprisonedthose who refused to comply, &c.

It was patriotic, when it refused to d isperse until all of the a busestha t England h ad been subjected to for cen turies were reformed.

It was patriotic when it ordered the criminal indictment of the

ministers who had given pernicious advice to the king; when, after



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58. Two weeks after writing this, Brissot, in Le Patriote Fran ç ais of 25 Octo-ber 1790, attacked the paragraph (see supra, pp. 121–22 , n . 48) pra ising Straffordin Cazalès’s speech on the d ismissal o f th e min isters: “M. Cazalès has frequentlyreminded us in th is speech o f the histor y of Cha rles I. We know to what end roy-alists quote these passages: they wish to frighten the head of our nation and to

compare the National Assembly to the Lon g Parliament. . . .” Brissot contradictsCazalès on the fo llowing po ints: “(1) Stra fford possessed no virtues; (2) Straffordhad few talents and th ose that he had were disastrous for the nation; (3) England ,in fact, rejoiced at his dea th; ( 4) Europe does not know his name, and venerationof th is name will be found only in the bra in of M. Cazalès.” Camille D esmoulinsthe very same da y also rebutted Cazalès’s Hume-inspired a ccoun t with a republi-can appraisal of Charles’s minister by Milton. (R é voluti ons de France et de Brabant,

IV. 404–7, 25 October 1791.)

59. “Mme Macaulay observes tha t everyone during that t ime breath ed th espirit of liberty. The a rtisan deserted his workplace, th e merch an t h is shop, even

the women aba nd oned their domestic chores to engage in politics: all talk was ofreform, of the destruction of tyranny. Is that not the picture of our own revolu-tion?” —Note by Brissot.

itself engaging zealously in that prosecution, it secured their con-demna tion and execution for crimes against the na tion.58

It was patriotic, when it decreed the exclusion of the bishops

from the upper chamber and required that the command ers of thearmy and the navy be chosen by the House of Commons; when it tookprecautions to ensure tha t ministers and ambassadors were selectedwho were sympathetic to the revolution and also tha t the education ofthe presumptive heir to the throne was entrusted only to h ands thatwere pure, th at is to say, the hands of the people.

It was patriotic, when it disban ded the foreign troo ps; when , be-cause conspirators were plotting to gain Hull as a stronghold forthe king when ce to begin a war, it ordered the governor to shut the

gates and refuse admittance to th e king h imself.It was patriot ic, when, wishing to avoid a civil war, it offered pro-

posals of peace to th e king, who was fi rst in erecting th e standard o fwar against the na tion.

It was patriotic, when it armed the na tion to resist th e king ’s ag-gression; when it armed the Lon don nationa l guard (trained band );59

when it did not give up on the public’s cause after its troops suf-fered three consecutive defea ts; when , in spite of those defeats, it or-dered the impeachment for high treason of the q ueen, who ha durged the king on in th is crimina l war.

I t was patr iotic, when, in the midst of this civil war, it adopted the



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60. Ibid ., pp . 45–47.61. Le Patriote Fran ç ais, 31 October 1790.

62. R é plique de J.-P. Brissot, pp. 48–49.

most vigorousmeasures to establish republicanism; when it abolishedthe upper chamber and established a single class of lawmakers.60

To pra ise the next accomplishment of the Long Parliamentwas still a matter of some delicacy in France in October 1790, but

Brissot, who a t th is time was recommending hair-cuts à la round- head 61 as superior even to the coiffure à la Brutus, does no t hesitate

in the slightest:

It was pat riotic, fi nally, when it abolished the monarchy. You will nodoubt cry shame, pronounce an ana thema , and ask me if it was alsopatriotic when it condemned the king to d eath? Will you h ear an d

understand my reply, you who have so recently come to know lib-erty! But I will be heard and understood, I have no doubt, by allthose who, convinced of the principle, do not cravenly capitulatewhen con fron ted with th e consequences; by those who refuse tokneel before the idols they have shattered.

Answer me this: a man guilty of the grea test of crimes, sho uld h ebe punished , or should he be exempt from pun ishment by the veryfact th at h is crime is so great? If this last opinion is one of ignorance,

of slavery, of denial of man ’s dignity and good sense; if you areobliged to agree that n o criminal on earth can be exempt from pun-ishment, th at his punishment must be in proportion to h is crime; ifyou a re obliged to concede tha t the greatest of crimes is to plungea n ation into slavery, to substitute whims for constitutional laws, tocrush the people under a burden of taxes to which they have notconsented , to d issipate in debauch ery the mon ies received, to mockjustice an d morality; if, fi nally, the greatest of crimes is to provokea civil war, to shed men ’s blood in order to enslave them; if, I say, you

avow all these truths, you have yourself passed judgement onCharles I, for there is not one of these crimes that he did notcommit.62

Before going on to defend the Long Parliament ’s actions

und er Cromwell, Brissot adds a note on the supposed inviolability

of kings: A king, he maintains, can be judged —as Milton , Sidney,



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63 . See also Brissot’s speech of 10 July 1791 on this subject, in F.-A. Aulard,La Soci é t é des Jacobins. Recueil de documents pour l ’ histoire du Club des Jacobins de Paris,Paris, 1891, II. 608–26; a lso Le Patriote Fran ç ais, 15 July 1791. In a February 1792issue of th is last work, Brissot ra ther gra tuitously reminded his read ers of th e an -niversar y of Ch arles I’s execution . Later, however, his vote in the Convention on

Louis’s trial was in favour of the appel au peuple (ratifi cation by referendum) anda suspend ed execution o f sentence.

64. Le Patriote Fran ç ais, 12 July 1790.

65. R é plique de J.-P. Brissot, p. 51.

Locke, Mrs. Macaulay, and other patriots have shown.63 As for

Cromwell, the French republican maintained that one had to

make distinctions between the victor at Naseby and the usurper.

To be ad ded to Brissot ’s current recommenda tions on hair-stylesare his revolutionary toasts. One of these is: “To the rights of man

and to the true friends of liberty who tried to establish republican

government in England in the last century; to Ludlow, to Ireton, to

Saint-John!” ; it is followed, however, by an equally clear “Anathema

to the Cromwells and to all the hypocritical scoundrels who would

disguise their ambitious designs under a cloak of sham popularity.

May they all, like him, devoured by remorse and terror, descend

into th e da rkness of the tomb amid th e execrations of th e peo-

ple.” 64 In con cluding his an swer to Clermon t-Ton nerre, Br issot

feels he can do no better than once more cite Mrs. Macaulay, now

to the effect that it was precisely because the Long Parliament had

been d oing so well in its reform programmes that C romwell, fear-

ing a possible loss in his military prestige, decided to dissolve that

assembly. I f C lermont-Ton nerre were to read Mrs. Macaulay in-

stead of Hume, he would no longer be surprised that men exist“who cite as a model (not in everything) this long pa rliament. Oh !

woe betide humanity, woe betide liberty if such men, consumed

with a burning passion for freedom, do n ot multiply; if everywhere

we do not renounce the ideas—so d egrad ing to men, so o ffensive

to God —of th ose vile courtiers who ra ise up the gran deur o f one

man on the backs of the oppressed millions. . . .” 65

Clermont-Tonnerre’s reaction, which followed in print within

only a few days, was one of complete horror. The extent to whichBrissot ’s unheard-of views on Stuart history must have seemed po-



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66 . Sur la derni è re r é plique de J.-P. Brissot, 14 October 1790, in Oeuvres compl è tes de Clermont-Tonnerre, III. 382–92.

67. Ibid ., II I. 382–83.

litica lly insane to him is made clea r by the fact that he obviously

felt it more necessary to reproduce without alteration Brissot’sde-

fence of th e Lon g Parliamen t th an h e did to attempt a detailed

refutation of the republican ’s “principles, as dangerous as they areculpable” :66

If J.-P. Brissot were alone in professing such views, I would not fear theconsequences; but J.-P. Brissot is associated with a party, a party whosemembers would have already caused us to curse liberty were it pos-sible to mistake it for the licence in favour of which they have pros-tituted their names. J.-P. Brissot is a member of the most accreditedof these clubs whose existence and infl uence was regarded by J.-J.

Rousseau as destructive of the true general will; it is possible that thedoctrine a ttributed to it is no more than hearsay and without wish-ing formally to accuse all the so-called patriots gathered there of shar-ing in it, I th ink I am authorized by th is considera tion to appea l tothe opinion of the public regarding this abominable doctrine.67

After citing Brissot ’s text in full, a text which he obviously

feels is enough to ha ng any man politically, Clermon t-Tonnerre

concludes:France is a monarchy or it is no thing . Monarch ical governmen t inthis country has two unshakeable foundations: national characterand size of territory. If the fi rst of these causes is momentarily al-tered, the second will sooner or later take effect in a decisive man-ner. England, after the assassination o f Charles I, became the captiveof a usurper ’s despotism, and soon a fter his death, returned to therule of Charles II. England achieved freedom only by adopting a

constitutional monarchy. . . . In vain will you preach republicanism tous, for if that political fanaticism were to triumph, our lives wouldbe subjected for the next twenty years to tortures and dissension,all in the interests of a dvancing th e private ambitions of a few andturning us once more perhaps into slaves. . . .

P.S. I ad vise J.-P. Brissot that I shall no longer reply in future, nomatter what insults he chooses to h eap upon me. H owever, I a lso ad-vise him that h e is sad ly misinformed as to the facts: he may wish, forexample, to consult the patriotic courtiers, and there a re such; they



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68. Ibid., I II . 391–92.

69. Le Patriote Fran ç ais, 21 October 1790, p. 3.

70. Ibid ., p. 4. Brissot on an other occasion ( see Le Patriote Fran ç ais, 11 Feb-ruary 1790) a lso complained about Lally-Tollend al’s use of Hume’s authority in

his arguments against Abbé Sieyès’s theory on the powers of aconvention

(seesupra, p. 110). There seems little doubt that Brissot consciously based some ofhis own political action on the precedents established by the Long Parliament.See, for example, his speech urging sterner measures against the é migr é s, 20 Oc-tober 1791; a lso h is various sta tements of 1792 on war policy for the Republic.

will tell him that they saw my face on ly at the fi rst Paris assemblies,hard ly the an techamber of th e king’s bed room at Versailles!68

For Clermon t-Tonnerre the debate ended with th e postscript

just q uoted , which Brissot immediately interpreted as a sign o f de-

feat: “To those who are not deceived by fi ne words, it must be clear

that h e has demonstrated his inability to answer me.” 69 After iron-

ically thanking h is royalist opponent for helping to advertise the

merits of the Long Pa rliament, Brissot con cluded with words that

forewarned of th ings to come:

England, free during the Long Parliament, lost most of its liberty onthe restora tion of Charles II: it recovered a portion of it by drivingout James II in 1688 , then lost it gradua lly thro ugh corruption an dthe pa rliamen tary majority’s coalition with the king und er the cur-rent, very unconstitutional, monarchy. . . .

. . . Frenchmen can be no more than slaves under an ancien-r é gime

king, only ha lf eman cipated un der a king o f the 1790 regime, and. . . they will be entirely free only when th ey no longer h ave any kingat a ll.70

3

A Republ ic an Ant idot e:

Cat h er ine Mac au l ay-Gr ah am

If th e debate between Clermont-Tonnerre and B rissot g ives proofof the continuing importance of Hume ’s Stuarts in France at this

time, it also makes clear th e fact th at the H istory of his republican



133

A Rep ubl i can An t id ot e

71. Supra, p. 65.

72. M é moires de Brissot, Paris, 1877, pp. 327–28.

73. Catherine Macaulay-G raham, H istoire d ’ Angleterre depuis l ’ av è nement de Jacques I, jusqu ’à la r é volu tion. Traduite en fran ç ais, et augment é e d ’ un discours pr é limi-

naire, contenant un pr é cis de toute l ’ histoire d ’ Angleterre, jusqu ’à l ’ av è nement de Jacques I: et enrichie de notes. Par M irabeau.

Brissot states in his M é moires, but somewhat unreliably, I think, thatMirabeau knew no English a nd that others did the work under Mirabeau ’s su-pervision. ( See precedin g reference.) Marie-Joseph Ch énier also expressed

doubts tha t Mirabeau translated the fi rst two volumes (the last three were publiclyavowed by Guiraud et), since he found the style quite bad: “ . . . the language in noway reveals the m an of ta lent: perhaps Mirabeau tran slated this part of th e worktoo hastily, or, more likely, perhaps he did no t translate it at all an d it is the resultof an all too common practice whereby mediocre writers or greedy booksellersspeculate fraudulently on a famous name.” (Tableau histori que de l ’é tat et des progr è s de la l itt é rature fran ç aise depuis 1 7 8 9 , 3eme édition, P aris, 1818, pp. 186–87.) Anundated letter by Mirabeau, probably written in 1784, indicates that he consid-ered the h istory an important one and that he highly approved, for example, ofCath erine Macaulay’s portra it of James II; it implies, nevertheless, th at J.-B. Duri-val and Guiraudet were to do the actual work of translation whereas Mirabeauwould lend his “plebeian aristocrat ” name to ensure success in the und ertakingwhich is also described as “an affair of money.” (See Mirabeau ’ s letters duri ng his residence in England, London, 1832, II. 230.)

On the o ther h an d, it seems equa lly clear tha t Mirabeau was not such acomplete stranger to the English lan guage as Brissot implies. In 1778 we fi nd himquoting from Hume’s History in the original and complaining that the Abb éPrévost had made many alterations in his translation of the Stuarts (see supra,

p. 60). The following q uotation from d ’Escherny also suggests that Mirabeau may

ha ve been actively involved in the translation: “I saw a good deal of the Comte d eMirabeau in Switzerland during the time that he was having his Lettres de cachet

printed there. I can visualize him still, a fug itive from the prison s of France, wan-dering th rough Holland , lacking foo d and shelter, hiring out to a bookseller and ,in order to put bread on the table, undertaking th e translation of a work without

rival, Cath erine Macaulay-G raham, had begun to play an equally

important ro le in countering its conservative effect.

Five years before the Revolution Brissot had already expressed

the hope that Mrs. Macaulay’s work would one day be translatedinto French,71 and in h is M é moires he speaks of h aving discussed at

that time the feasibility of such a project with Mirabeau.72 In fact,

although there are some few doubts still remaining in the matter,

it seems clear that Mirabeau undertook the initial responsibility

for the translation , the fi rst fi ve volumes of which were published

in the years 1791 and 1792 after his death.73



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understand ing its language; acq uiring a grammar, a dictionary, an d learning En-glish a t the same time as he tran slated the work into French. (It is Mirabeau h im-self who told me th is.)” F.-L. d ’Escherny, Correspondance d ’ un habitant de Paris, Paris,1791, p. 469.

74. Sur l ’ admission des femmes au droit de cit é , 3 July 1790, in Oeuvres de Con-

dorcet, X. 123–24. Cather ine Macaulay was herself attacking B urke at th is time inEngland. ( See Observati ons on the Re fl ecti ons of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke on the

Revolution in France, in a Letter to the Right Hon. the Earl of Stanhope, 1790.)75. O ctober 1791, p. 627.

76. Gazette Nationale, ou le Moniteur universel, No. 282, 9 October 1791.

77. H istoire d ’ Angleterre, Avis de l’éditeur, I. ix.

Even before the appearance of this long-delayed tran slation

other notable revolutionary fi gures had commented favourably on

Mrs. Macaulay’s views. Condorcet, in July 1790, for example, con-

trasts the reactionary activity of P itt and Burke with th e potentiallygreat rôle this republican historian could have played were she her-

self a member of the British H ouse of Commons: “Although as en-

thusiastically in favour of liberty as Mr. Burke is of tyranny, would

she, in defending the French constitution, have come anywhere

near the absurd and disgusting gibberish this celebrated rhetori-

cian has just employed in a ttacking it? . . .” 74

Hume rather than Burke, however, soon became the political

writer whose villainy was most often opposed to the virtue of this fe-

male patriot. The Journal desSavants, announcing in 1791 the ap-

pearan ce in tran slation of h er first two volumes, stated q uite

explicitly that they represented a “corrective” to Hume.75 The Moni-

teur, giving notice o f the History in the same month, added the

promise to publish a full review of the work which it called “on e of

the most important that has been undertaken since the start of the

revolution.” 76 Mirabeau himself is q uoted by th e editor of theMacaulayHistory as having stated in the following terms that he con-

sidered its transla tion to be a task of pa trio tism and good citizen-

ship: “In our present circumstance, this translation is no ordinary

work. There are so many points of contact , so many connections

b etween those even ts, those perso na ges a nd us, that merely b y

pointing these out in simple notes becomes in a sense the equiva-

lent o f writ ing the history of both revolut ions.” 77 We see that re-



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78. Ibid. , p. vi.

79. Ibid ., “Discours préliminaire,” I. cv.

80. Supra, p. 110 .

publicans were given to making para llels too, but to do th is they

needed a different historian, one who could avenge the “outrages”

of Hume.78

Mirabeau’s “Discours préliminaire” underscores some ofthese. The French parliamentary leader begins by attacking

Hume’s outrageously conservat ive premises:

Hume claims that when we consider the distribution of poweramong the various constituted bodies, there is rarely any other ques-tion to a sk than this: Wha t is the estab lished order?

But if the established order is bad, must we respect as constitu-tional the usages that prevent it from being good? Even if this ord eris excellent, what human authority can prevent a nation fromchanging it? H ume’s q uestion implies that everything is as it shouldbe, which is diametrically opposed to the historical record he him-self has produced; it supposes that one need only be the strongestto transform on e’s might into right; it supposes that there are cer-tain small groups of men, and even simple individuals, to whom en-tire nations must be inden tured.79

A passage from Hume, already cited enthusiastically by theroyalist d e Montjoie80 and showing very little admiration for po lit-

ical innovators but recommending a warm attitude of under-

standing toward their opponents, provokes another burst of

indignan t eloq uence from the great French orator:

What! we are not to show rancour toward oppressors? But even when th estrictest and most demand ing o f religions saw fi t to order the for-giveness of private injury, it req uired public cha stisement o f th osemon sters who persecute and dishonour entire na tions.

Prai se must be bestowed on the reformers of abuses only wi th some reserve!

What a confusion of ideas! What a disgrace! Who then, should becrowned by glory if not tho se who h ave given their all for h er? Letancient institutions be respected when they are n ot pernicious; butwhen they are d ead ly, why not proscribe them? And if mere an tiq-uity is meritorious, how then can error compete advantageously inthis respect with eterna l truth? H ow can on e not acknowledge that



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81. H istoire d ’ Angleterre, “Discours préliminaire,” I. cvii–cviii.

82. J.-P. Brissot à Stan islas Clermont, Paris, 28 August 1790, pp. 51–52.

while the lowest of men is able to carry out the functions of a gran dvizier, it requires a combina tion o f all the talents of both n ature andart to prepare an d bring to maturity a revolution, and to natura lize

liberty in th e souls of men accustomed to slavery!O Hume! It was not enough to combine the profundity of theEnglish with the good ta ste and elegance of the French; it was notenough to be th e man of all times and a ll places, the lover of a ll thearts, the faithful painter of manners, the impartial recorder of allfacts, of a ll opinions. It was incumbent upon you to push back theenclosures with in which your compatriots con fi ned civil an d politi-cal liberty; it was incumbent upon you to be indignan t about crime,to be passiona te for virtue, to thund er against oppressors; ha d you

done so, the illustrious Mme Macaulay, whose talents, though dis-tinguished, are unden iably inferior to yours, would n ot have wrestedfrom you, or even d isputed , the pa lm of histor y.81

We see that in this frankly hostile but not entirely unfl attering

passage H ume ’s famous impartiality is not q uestioned; what is im-

pugned is impartiality itself. Revolutions, of course, have little use

for impartiality and the French revolution was no exception. Fair-

ness to a ll sides would have implied a criminal ind ifference not totruth , for th at was a second ary consideration , but to justice. Neu-

trality as such was scorned. Robespierre was to sum up his chief

accusation aga inst th e philosophes of the eighteenth century with

the words l â che neutrali t é (cowardly neutra lity). Brissot, attacking

Clermont-Tonnerre ’s professed love of moderation, made the com-

ment that “moderation, impartiali ty, in these troubled t imes mean s,

in gaming terms, seeing all the hands, or betting on certainties.

The words also mean,” he added, “protecting ancient abuses fromuseful innovations.” 82 Mercier too shows his contempt for this

once-honoured attribute, the one most often attached in the pre-

revolutionary period to Hume’s History and which had now come

to be associated with the mon archist party. H is anecdote on the

subject is worth quoting:

“Impartiaux.”

The n ame g iven a t the beginn ing of the revolution to tho se men



137


83. Paris pendant la r é volution (1 7 8 9– 1 7 9 8 ) ou le nouveau Paris, Paris, 1862,I. 268–69.

who, h aving no opinion of their own, lacked the courage to adoptthe opinion of others, for fear of compromising themselves, be-coming in the end the laugh ing-stock of every party.

Some ind ividua ls were, or preten ded to be, at a loss (in 1789) toknow how much was six plus six. They asked a representative on theLeft: he replied: “Six and six make twelve.”

“Listening to only one party is of no value, ” exclaimed onethinker; “ let us hea r what a deputy on the Righ t ha s to say.”

The question is asked of the Honorable Member. After lengthyrefl ection he replies: “Six and six make fourteen.”

More perplexity. A centre deputy of th e Assembly is con sulted .“What,” he asked, “did they tell you on the Left?” —“ Twelve.” —

“And how much on the Right?” —“Fourteen.”“In that case, six and six make thirteen: as you can see, I am

impartial.” 83

So much for the imparti aux, monarchistes, monarchiens, and

moyennistes. So much too for H ume’s proud claim—recognized as

just by so many until then—to being neither Whig nor Tory, nei-

ther patriot nor courtier. With Catherine Macaulay there was no

room for d oubt on these matters, and the Moniteur, reviewing herHistory at length in February 1792, gratefully elaborates in her de-

fence an intricate dialectic of partiality. The historian must show

more than just that imagina tive sympathy which makes the past in-

telligible to the present. Imaginative sympathy must be one of his

characteristics but he must also show himself able to preach the

good cause:

It is already a commonplace truth for us, although we became awareof it very recently, that o nly free nations can ha ve a genuine h istor y.Another truth , equally und eniable, is tha t even in the case of a freepeople, the truth of its history can be altered, either by private in-terest and ambition, by a desire to please or to harm, by partisansentiments, or, on the contrary, by the historian ’s taking specialpride in a kind o f imperturbability, allowing him to view with totalcomposure the crimes perpetrated by vice aga inst virtue, by despo-tism against liberty, an d to relate as ordinary events and simple facts

what h e ough t to have depicted a s abominations. Take away from



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84. Gazette Nationale, ou le Moni teur uni versel, No. 45, 14 February 1792 ,p. 184.

Tacitus the verve of ind igna tion that rouses his spirits againsttyran ny, and perhaps still more against servitude, an d h e could h aveprovided an account of th e same a trocities, the same contemptible

actions, but the truth would have been altered by the very fact ofhis seemin g to be impa ssive.Let us not be deceived then by this notion of impartiality, so

properly commended to the historian. He must not be passionateto th e point o f no t seeing clearly, but he must be passiona te enoughto d epict in a spirited manner wha t he does see, this being the on lyway he can properly convey it to h is read ers.

Tod ay it is recognized, even in En gland, tha t in the section o nBritish history dealing with the dispute between the people and

their kings, a d ispute in which the people were victorious as they al-ways are when they wish to be, the celebra ted H ume was partial, asit were, by dint of impartiality. This is a charge that cannot be lev-elled aga inst Madame Macaulay. An ard ent friend of liberty, she hasviewed in a true perspective the crimes of the Stuarts against theEnglish constitution, the conn ivance of th e H ouse of Lords, an dthe steadfastness of the Commons during this stormy period thatextends from the accession o f James I to the abdication of James II,an interval o f eigh ty-four years.84

The Moni teur concludes by noting th at not on ly was Catherine

Macaulay’s work importan t in itself, it had also been transmitted to

the French by one of the founding fathers of their liberty; together

these two facts formed a suffi cient reason for a ll amateurs of h istory

and all lovers of liberty to read the work carefully.

That the lovers of liberty did read it and that Catherine

Macaulay played an importan t rôle in supporting, against H ume,the ideology of the revolutionaries is beyond any doubt . Let us ex-

amine one last example of h er revolutionary success which we fi nd

to be notably important especially among the Girondins: her in-

fl uence on Madame Roland .

A letter of November 1790 from Madame Roland to B ancal

illustrates aga in the fact that Cath erine Macaulay was being read in

English by patriots in France before the appearance of the

Mirabeau translation: “If I can devote a few moments this winter to



139


85. Lettres de Madame Roland ( 1 7 8 8– 9 3 ), 1ère série, Pa ris, 1902, II. 191.86. M é moires de Madame Roland, Paris, 1905, I. 37–38. It was, in fact, Bris-

sot who had lent Madame Roland th e fi rst volumes of Mrs. Macaulay’s H istory.

87. See La D é cade, lettre du 24 messidor, An VI, XVIII. 309.

the study of English,” she writes, “ it will be in order to read

Madame Macaulay’s H istory. After the historians, I shall turn to

Rousseau ’s moral writings which are in such perfect confo rmity

with civic duty. . . . ” 85 It is probably fairly safe to assume also thatCatherine Macaulay’s H istory was being discussed at this time in

the infl uential Roland salon.

Several years later, in 1793, we find Madame Roland in

prison , drawing up a list of books she would like to be mad e avail-

able to her:

. . . I made a note of the titles: fi rst of all, Plutarch ’s Lives which, a t

the a ge of eight , I too k with me to church instead of a H oly Weekprayer book, and which I had not thoroughly reread since that time;the H istory of England by David H ume, along with Sheridan ’s Dictio- nary, to strengthen my comman d of tha t language: I would havepreferred to read Mme Macaulay’s, but the person who had lent methe fi rst volumes of th is autho r was certa inly not a t his ho use, and Iwould not have known where to ask for the work, which I had al-ready been unable to fi nd at th e boo ksellers.86

With all lovers of liberty presumably following the Moni teur ’s

urgent advice to read this work, it is perhaps understandable tha t

it was in short supply. The shortage was soon remedied after the

Terror, h owever, for we fi nd the Ministry of the Interior recom-

mending in July 1798 tha t Cath erine Macaulay’s H istory of England

be included on the list of books distributed as prizes “at en d-of-

school ceremonies and on national holidays.” 87 Meanwhile, in

prison , Madame Roland must do with second best. In her M é moires

particuliers we fi nd yet another great tribute paid to th e English re-

publican historian who, we remember, had been seen as defama-

tory, seditious, and criminal in France thirty years earlier: “Had I

been allowed to live,” Madame Roland concedes, “ I would h ave

had but one temptation: to write the annals of the century, to be



140


88. M é moires de Madame Roland, II . 264.

89. Supra, p. 69, n. 179. Not to be neglected too is the important r ôle ofMilton ’s political writings during this period. Also translated under Mirabeau ’sname an d similarly the h onoured recipient of B rissot’s revolutionary toasts, Mil-ton is cited enthusiastically along with Cath erine Macaulay by Camille Desmoulinsas an ard ent d efender of liberty. (R é voluti ons de France et de Brabant, 12 December1789, I. 125, 130; 19 December 1789, I. 180–81; 25 October 1790, IV. 404–7.)The Annales patriotiques of Mercier and C arra commen d h im as well (see No. 640,4 July 1791, p. 1534). Administrators of the Département de la Drôme even o r-dered the offi cial reprinting (Valence, 1792) of h is refutation of Saumaise in an-ticipation o f Louis XVI’s execution. It is interesting to note too th at Milton fi guresas a virtuous republican member o f Pa rliament opposed to anoth er M.P., a sinis-ter character named Burke, in M.-L. Tardy’s Cromwel ou le g é n é ral li berticide of 1793.It was, of course, especially during Louis’s trial th at his political writings took on

the greatest signifi cance an d h e is q uite frequently cited in the Co nvention . Roy-alists, on the o ther h an d, showed a very distinct tend ency to d enounce him as aregicide, despite his Ch ristian ity, in favour of th e conservative “atheism” of Hume.Abbé G uillon, for example, points out with horro r the rô le of Milton in both theEnglish an d the French revolutions. (Parall è le des R é volutions, 1792, p. 303.)

the Macaulay of my country; I was about to say, the Tacitus of

France, but that would not be very mod est on my part. . . . ” 88

Mad ame Roland wrote these words in prison ; soon she would

be condemned to die by the hatred of the Montagnards, and we re-member her famous remark as she mounted the revolutionary scaf-

fold: “O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name! ” It is

perhaps worth no ting th at, th irty years earlier, Hume had already

expressed the identical sentiment in a letter to the Englishwoman

Madame Roland h ad most wanted to emulate.89



141

1. Réflexi ons sur mes entretiens avec M . le Duc de La Vauguyon, par Louis-Auguste, Dauphin, in Oeuvres de Louis XVI, Paris, 1864, I. 310.

IVT he T rial of

“L e Stu art Fran çais”

1

Louis XVI and Ch ar l es I:

A Con demned King’s Medit at ions

We remember that during H ume’s visit to Versailles in 1763 the

historian o f the Stuarts had been complimented on his great rep-

uta tion in France by a n ine-year-old boy, the future king, Louis

XVI. As it turned out, th e young prince was to remain an avid and

faithful reader of history all his life. No study, everyone agreed, was

more suited to form part of the education o f a future ruler:

The second way to gain knowledge of m en is to compare them tomen o f the past, and th at comparison is mad e by read ing history. Ofall the sciences, history is the on e that a prince must stud y most.

. . . H e must read it as on e who seriously wishes to discover thetrue principles of government and to learn how to know men. Hewill derive far more en lightenment from th e history of monarchiesthan from the histor y of republics, which a re driven by mechan isms

that h e will be unable to make use of in a monarchy. . . .1



142

Th e Tr i a l o f “Le St ua r t Fr a n ç a i s”

2. Ibid ., I. 314. Louis XVI was not limited to reading English history intran slation. H is own knowledge of English was apparen tly excellent a nd he h adeven tran slated Walpole’s work on Richard III (published later as R è gne de Richard I II , ou Doutes historiques sur les crimes qui lui sont imput é s, Paris, 1800), a s well as frag-ments of G ibbon an d other English h istorians. With regard to Louis XVI’s read-ing habits, Necker notes the following in 1792 : “ I have always seen the Kingreading, diligently and by preference, the great works of history, politics, and

mora ls, written in French or in Eng lish.” (R éfl exions pr é sent é es à la nation fran ç aise sur le proc è s de Louis XVI , in Oeuvres compl è tes de M. Necker, publiées par M. le baronde Staël, Pa ris, 1820–21, XI. 363.)

3. Th e offi cial inventory of Louis XVI’s books, made at the Temple after h isexecution , shows tha t H ume’s was the only work of English history in th e impris-oned king’s possession. (Archives Nationales, F. 17, 1200, No. 70: see Bapst, op.cit., La R é volu tion Fran ç ai se, XXI. 533.) D elisle de Sales, who h ad his informationfrom Malesherbes’s son-in-law, the pr é sident Rosanbo, stated in 1803 that LouisXVI “had h is former minister (i.e. Malesherbes) ob tain from Nyon th e bookseller

David Hume’sH istory of the Stuarts,

in order to look at th e trial and execution o fCharles I.” He goes on to add, however, that Louis returned the work toMalesherbes after reading it and that “ th is copy, ma de precious by such use, wasin the library at the château of Malesherbes when the revolutionary vandals in-vaded.” (See Delisle de Sales, Malesherbes, Paris, 1803, p. 268.) It thus seems prob-

The history of the Stuart monarchy, in particular, was of spe-

cial signifi cance:

If the prince wishes to become familiar with the spirit of an ill-governed people, and to know to what extremes it can go, he hasonly to read Lord Clarendon ’s H istory of the Rebellion and Civi l Wars

in England. He will discover that all weak princes conduct them-selves like the unfortunate Charles I, that every people in fermentand rebellion a re like the people of England; th at every factiousand venturesome man possesses the inclina tions of a Cromwell, andthat, if he lacks Cromwell’s talents, he will at least have his hot-headedness and ma lice.2

It was not long before Louis XVI was to see his own kingd om

in the grip of similar revolutionary upheaval. His former rather

scholarly meditations on the lessons of Stuart history were suddenly

transformed into something much more urgent. In fact, as the

time of h is trial approached , one can almost say that h is preoccu-

pation with the events of Charles I ’s reign, Hume’s account of

which he seems fi nally to have preferred above all others,3 had be-

come a veritable obsession.



143

Lo uis XVI a nd Ch a r l e s I

able tha t Louis actually had two copies of th e Stuarts. Cléry, the king’s valet dur-ing his captivity, explicitly states that Louis read Hume in English during thattime. (Journal de ce qui s ’ est pass éà la tour du Temple pendant la captivi t é de Louis XVI ,

Roi de France, Londres, 1798, p. 96.)4. Mme Campan , M é moires sur la vie pri v é e de Marie-Antoinette, Paris, 1822,

II. 214–15.

5. Ibid ., I I. 205. This would be around June 1792.

The obsessive nature o f Louis’s interest in Stuart h istory is em-

phat ically pointed out by var ious contemporary eye-witnesses.

Madame Campan, for example, tells how the king consented to

wearing a plastron as protection against assassination during hisobligatory attendance at the July 14th ceremonies in 1792. He had

agreed to wear the device only to comply with Marie-Antoinette’s

wishes: “ . . . they will not assassinate me,” Madame Campan quotes

the king as saying, “their plan has changed; they will have me killed

another way.” The queen ’s reader then continues:

The queen saw tha t the king h ad lowered h is voice to speak to me,and as soon as he left the room she asked me what he had said. Ihesitated to reply but she insisted, add ing that n oth ing must be kepthidden from her, that she was resigned to every eventuality. Onlearning wha t the king had said, she to ld me that she had guessedas much; tha t for a long time now, he h ad been saying to h er thateverything tha t was ha ppening in Fran ce was an imitation o f therevolution in England under Charles I, and that h e had been con-stantly reading th e history of that unfortunate mona rch in o rder to

avoid making the same mistakes in a similar cr isis.4

Madame Campan refers also to the king ’s prolonged state o f

mental depression at this time: “—a despondency tha t extended to

physical prostration . For ten days he said no t a word, not even in

the privacy of his family. . . . The q ueen brought him out of th is

state, such a d angerous one during a time of crisis when every mo-

ment brought with it the need for action. . . . She even went so far

as to tell him that if they had to perish, it should be with honourand without waiting for both of them to be smothered on the fl oor

of their apartment.” 5



144

Th e Tr i a l o f “Le St ua r t Fr a n ç a is”

6. M é moires secrets pour servir à l ’ histoire de la derni è re ann é e du r è gne de Louis XVI, Roi de France. Par Ant.-Fr. Bertrand-de-Molleville, Ministre d ’Etat à cetteépoq ue, Londres, 1797, II. 259–61.

It is n everth eless q uite po ssible th at th e id ea o f bein g a s-

sassina ted was in fact less forb idd ing to Louis XVI than the fea r

of bein g d ish on oured by a crimin al trial like th at imposed on

C ha rles I . B ertra nd d e Mo lleville, who a s min ister fo r the navywa s in clo se to uch with th e kin g a t th is time, a lso suggests th at

Louis’s rea din g o f Stua rt h isto ry wa s clo sely rela ted to h is pro -

longed depression and his genera lly fa ta list ic inabilit y to take

decisive action :

H e was n ot at all con cern ed about protectin g h is own life; eversin ce th e Va ren n es m isa dven ture, th is un fo rtun ate prin ce wa s

fi rmly convinced tha t he would be assassina ted , tha t a ll measurestaken to guarantee his safety would be useless and might even placeh is family an d th e frien ds wh o h ad remain ed faith ful to h im ingreater danger. Domin ated by th ese gloomy forebodin gs, heawaited dea th with such heroic ca lmness tha t he seemed indiffer-en t to life.

H e often read th e history of Charles I of England , and concen-trated his atten tion mainly on avoiding any action tha t might serve

as a pretext for putt ing h im on trial as a criminal.The sacrifi ce of his own life seemed of no importance to him.The nation ’s honour occupied a ll of h is thoughts. The idea of beingpublicly assassinated in the name of the people affected him vio-lently. He would have preferred to die by the blade of an assassinwhose murderous deed would be seen as the crime of a few indi-viduals rather than an act of the n ation.6

In a later work Bertrand de Molleville comes back to this

point , commenting with surprise on the fact that Louis learned solittle from his haunted study of Charles I’s career: “But what is most

remarkable, is that the history of Charles I, which Louis XVI, from

the beginning of the Revolution un til the end o f his life made part

of h is regular read ing, instead of enlightening him on what mea-

sures he should adopt or avoid, became for him the most perni-





146


9. Cha rles-Jean-Dominique de Lacretelle, Pr é cis historique de la R é volution

Fran ç ai se, Paris, 1801, p. 242.

10. Jacob-Nicolas Moreau, Mes Souvenirs, publiés par Camille Hermelin,Paris, 1898–1901, II. 467–68.

11. Letter 49, 15 August 1791, in Oeuvres de Louis XVI , II. 157.12. Ibid ., II . 182.

13. See Le Marquis de Beaucourt, Captivit é et derniers moments de Loui s XVI; r é cits ori ginaux et documents of fi ciels. Paris, 1892, I. 385.

the English king ’s fatal destiny. H e consistently showed an excess

of weakness where Charles I d isplayed an excess of confi dence and

infl exibility.” 9 Jacob-Nicolas Moreau, H istoriogra pher of France

and librarian to Marie-Antoinette, also mainta ined tha t these ob-sessive Stuart readings were the cause of Louis XVI ’s being “ the

fi rst to give up on the public enterprise.” He also q uotes the French

king as saying as early as 1789, just after the march on Versailles:

“I am th reatened by the same fate; . . . if there is a way to avoid it, it

is by doing the exact opposite of wha t that un fortuna te monarch

did.” 10

Person al sentiments expressed in various letters by Louis XVI

also suggest that the example of Charles I was constantly before

his eyes whenever he considered the possible courses of action

available to h im. “If I must step down from the thron e,” we read in

one of h is letters of 1791 to the Prince de Condé, “and mount the

scaffold where Charles I was sacrifi ced, abandoning everything that

I hold most dear in the world, I a m ready to do so; but no war ! no

war! ” 11 The words “I may suffer the fate of Charles I. . . .” occur also

in another letter of 28 April 1792.12 Interesting to note too is thefact th at Louis was, on occasion, given to repeat ing Charles I’s last

words. When, fo r example, it was pointed out to him in 1791 that

his use of the veto might have dangerous personal consequences,

the king is said to have replied: “What will they do to me? They will

kill me: well! I shal l acquire an immortal crown in exchange for a cor-

ruptible one.” 13 It is quite possible even that his close knowledge of

Charles I ’s statements to the English tribuna l guided some of th e

feelings he h imself expressed concern ing the mann er in which hewished to have his defence conducted. The following letter to



147

Lo uis XVI a nd Ch a r l e s I

14. Oeuvres de Louis XVI, II. 207–8.

Malesherbes, written while Louis was a prisoner of the Convention ,

lends support to this conjecture:

I have no illusions about my fate. The ingra tes who h ave deth ron edme will not stop in mid course; seeing their victims always beforetheir eyes would shame them too much. I shall suffer the fate ofCharles I an d my blood will fl ow as punishment for my never hav-ing caused a ny to be shed . But would it not be possible to en noblemy last moments? The na tional assembly includes amon g its mem-bers the devastators of my mona rchy, my accusers, my judges, andprobably my executioners. Such men cannot be made to see thelight , one canno t make them just, an d even less can their hearts be

softened. Weakness can no t save me; would it not be preferable thento put some spirit into my defence? I imagine tha t it should be a d-dressed, not to the Convention , but to all of Fran ce, which wouldjudge my judges an d g ive me back a place in the h earts of my peo-ple that I never deserved to lose. Then my rôle would be limited tono t recognizing th e competency of the tribunal before which I amforced to appear. I shall maintain a dignifi ed silence, and , by con-demning me, these men who claim to be my judges would be nomore than my assassins.14

There are distinct echoes of Charles I ’s own formal defence

in the preceding letter. Wheth er these are th e result of more th an

the similarity of circumstan ces in which th e two monarchs found

themselves is diffi cult to say. Other questions of an equally idle na-

ture arise: one is permitted to wonder, for example, if Louis was

inspired by the English king ’s actions when he showed an unac-

customed fi rmness in defending th e established church , or, more

trivially still, when h e too , on hearing his sentence, asked fo r (but

did not receive) three days’ grace, wore the same colours to the

scaffo ld, and a ttempted (again unsuccessfully) to add ress the spec-

tato rs in th e last few minutes before h is execution. Such q uestions

cannot o f course be answered; indeed, there is some doubt even

whether they can be properly asked. P erhaps one can speculate le-

gitimately, however, on how pleased that style-conscious Scot David

Hume would have been had he lived long enough to read inCléry’s journal a description of the following rather quiet scene:



148


15. Cléry, op. cit., p. 203. In a somewhat cruel forgery of Cléry’s journ al,published in 1800, an editor’s note insists that this part of Louis’s fi nal medita-tions was a salutary pensum imposed on the king by members of the Commune:“ This histor ical work was not part o f th e sma ll library at the Temple when LouisXVI arrived but it was sent there by the general council of the Commune, per-suaded by Chaumette, Hébert, an d oth ers tha t it was improper for Louis XVI tobe reading Latin poets which the coun cil could no t und erstan d and to be askingtha t even more such works be purchased for him, instead of read ing the trial ofCh ar les I, which was more suited to his situat ion.” (M é moires de M. Cl é ry ou Journal

de ce qui s ’ est pass é dans la tour du Temple, pendant la d é tenti on de Louis XVI ; avec des

d é tai ls sur sa mort, qui ont é t é ignor é s jusqu ’à ce jour. Edition originale seule avouéepar l’auteur. Lond res, 1800, pp. 127–28.) The same work tells how on the eve ofLouis’s solemn appearan ce at the bar of the C onvention , Marie-Anto inette spentmany hours seated before her harpsichord merrily singing a collection of verynaughty songs.

Curiously, the account con cerning th e Commun e is a d istorted version o fan actual report on a meeting of its General Council, held on 23 November 1792,in which we read as follows: “At th e beginning of yesterda y evening ’s proceed-ings, a request from th e commissioners on duty at the Temple was read out , sta t-ing that Louis XVI wished to have various books for himself and also for hisson . . . ; in all, a total of thirty-three works in French and in Latin. . . . This appli-cation by Louis XVI sparked an extremely animated deba te.” Several members ofthe council were strongly opposed to the king’s request, one objecting that theprisoner “could scarcely count on having two full weeks of continued existence,whereas the boo ks he was asking for were enough to o ccupy the longest of life-times.” Martin, demand ing that a t least the works in Latin be suppressed, add ed:“I ask tha t th ese be replaced with works ent itled: The American Revolution , TheEnglish Revolution, The Life of Cromwell, The Life of C harles IX, including de-tails of the Saint Bartho lomew ’s Day Massacre.” The militant ly republican report

goes on to say that unfortuna tely Martin’s motion , “ though supported by severalmembers, was not acted upo n.” The application was fi nally approved. (See LeMarquis de B eaucourt, op. cit., II. 137 –39.) A list o f th e books requested by LouisXVI may be found in M.-A. de Beauchesne, Louis XVI I ; sa vie, son agonie, sa mort; Captivit é de la fami lle royale au Temple, Paris, 1852, I. 500–502.

The setting is the king ’s prison in the Temple; Louis has just learned

tha t the Convention h as voted th e death sentence:

He had been reading a logogriph in an old Mercure de France andasked me to guess the word; I was unable to fi nd the answer.

“Can you not guess wha t it is? And yet, it is so applicab le to me inmy present circumstan ce; the word is sacri fi ce.”

The king then asked me to get from the library the volume ofthe History of England containing the death of Charles I: he read itin the following d ays. . . .15



149

Da v id Hu me f o r t h e De f e n c e

2

David H ume an d St ua r t Hist o r y

fo r t h e Defenc e

Considerations drawn from Stuart h istory (an d ch iefl y Hume’s ver-

sion of it) form a ma jor part o f many unoffi cial defences of the

French king composed d uring his trial in 1792.

Undoubtedly one of the most important of these was the apol-

ogy for Louis XVI published by his former minister, Jacques

Necker, on 30 October of that year. In an eloq uent plea to the Con-vention , Necker begged its members no t to proceed with the trial,

promising that they would thus avoid committing a crime even

greater than that o f the Long Parliament:

An un dertaking uniq ue in th e ann als of the world, an atrocity tha thistorians narrate with horror and that the English still atone forevery year in solemn repentance, a public crime, the prod uct of one

man ’s ambitions: it is to this that they wish to a ccustom the Frenchna tion . You who ha ve so ca refully, an d perha ps even with a kind ofaffectat ion, avoided modelling yourselves on those Englishmen , willyou now make an exception only in favour of a barbarous action!No, not even tha t! You would be th inking that you were following inthe footsteps of Cromwell’s slaves, those judges pledged to his po-litical passions . . . and you would be deceived still, for you would noteven h ave their excuse. Would you indeed da re to co mpa re the

grievances on ly too legitimately cited a gainst the ha pless Stuart . . .with the accusations you are compelled to base on no more thanconjecture, or that you strive to wring from a few papers found inthe king’s private offi ce. . . ? H ere is what the English mon arch didduring his reign: a free constitution, defi ned in the most solemnena ctmen ts, prescribed h is obliga tions an d set out h is prerogatives,and yet, scorning this constitution, he levied several taxes withoutthe consent of th e nation ’s representa tives, he exacted forced loans,. . . he exceeded his authority in the regulation of ecclesiastical mat-

ters. . . . Finally, urged on by events, he placed himself at the headof an army and initiated a civil war which en ded in disaster for h im.Where is the para llel? Where is the similar ity between these variouspolitical offences and the conduct of a monarch who inherited pow-



150


16. R éfl exions pr é sent é es à la Nation fran ç aise sur le proc è s de Louis XVI , in Oeu-

vres compl è tes de M. Necker, Paris, 1820–21, XI. 376–78.

ers with no known limits and who inaugurated liberty by voluntar-ily sacrifi cing a portion o f his preroga tives tha t had belonged to th eCrown for so many centuries?16

Necker ’s concessions concerning Charles I ’s real guilt are

rarely expressed by members of the Right a t th is time but represent

proof of the Swiss banker ’s political astuteness. He reveals an

awareness, moreover, that in the preceding century of Anglo-

French rivalry, the French had often shown pride in th e claim that

their own ann als, at least, had never been defi led by the crime of

regicide committed with all the hypocritical trappings of a legal

trial. Now, Necker continued, the French would not even haveEngland ’s excuse that the evil genius of Cromwell had urged on a

small fanatic band of usurpers to this hideous crime. The French

Convention, claiming as it did to represent openly the justice of

the entire French na tion, would, if it sentenced Louis XVI to death,

make France the guiltiest nation of a ll.

Necker pursued his defence of Louis XVI by point ing out an-

other consideration which H ume, Adam Smith, and , on differentgroun ds, centuries of theocratic trad ition had helped to estab lish

in France as something of a dogma: the misfortunes of kings, he

observed, have quite extraordinary and awesome effects on the

feelings of the people. Kings are n ot ord inary creatures in th is re-

spect. Smith , in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, a work tha t was very

well known on the continent a t this time and which enjoyed three

different French translations, had analysed in detail our feelings

for th e traged ies of th e great. These feelings are often born of ourad mirat ion fo r the advan tages of th eir high position. We like to

serve the great in order to share in the completion o f a system of

happiness which seems so close to per fection . We ask for no o ther

reward . Conversely, when the great suffer adverse fortune, we can-

not help feeling that their situation merits more compassion on

our part than what is normally provoked by similar mischance oc-



151


17. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, the second edition, Lon-don, 1761; see Part I , Section III, Chapter II: “Of the O rigin o f Ambition, an d o fthe Distinction of Ranks,” pp. 87–90.

curring in the lives of lesser men.17 A like belief un derlies the true

intent of Burke’s rather over-roman ticized passage in the Re fl ections

bewailing the disappearance of the age of chivalry. Strange things

happen when kings and q ueens are unceremoniously hurled fromtheir thrones; we are as awed by such disasters in the moral world

as we would be by a miracle in the physical order of th ings.

Arguing a long such lines and citing H ume’s Stuarts as proof,

Necker ad dressed the Convention in th e following terms:

O men of France! In the name of your past glory. . . , but especiallyin the name of H eaven, in th e name of pity, be as one in rejecting

the plans of those who seek to lead you to the ultimate act of in-gratitude, who want you to share in th eir violent passions and dead lythoughts. A king, they say to you, is only a man, and his destiny isowed no special regard. That assertion is not true; it is not true inrespect o f our feelings. A king whose fortun es have collapsed, a kingwho h as fallen to the depth s of misfortun e, reminds us of every in-terest that attaches us to him. By virtue of his power of guardian-ship over us, he has seemed to us for a long time morally part ofourselves, an d his humiliation becomes our h umiliation . . . . Mo-

ments of enthusiasm or passion may distract us from these tho ughtsand for a time even appear to disrupt the na tural course of our sen-timents; but after th e utmost limits of revenge have been reached ,we look back at wha t has been done, and it is then tha t remorse andrepentance begin. I do not present h ere merely speculative no tions.Read in th e history of the H ouse of Stuart a ph ilosopher’s accountof h ow every hear t was thrown into con vulsions by the ultimate ca-tastroph e suffered by the unfortunate Ch arles I. Let your a ttention

dwell on that, if you can , then ask yourselves whether, in respect ofour feelings, a king is only a man; whether, especially, he is only aman after having been for so long the object of our love, after hav-ing been for so long the symbol of the bon ds that unite us. Yes! readtha t most horrifying of na rration s and then try to consider withoutemotion the deadly notions to which these men seek to inure theFrench na tion. Yes, read tha t h orrifying n arration , an d see after-wards if you d are to entrust to the infl amed passions of th e present



152


18. Necker, op. cit., pp. 400–403. Necker th en cites in full Prévost’s trans-

lation of th e following passage from H ume:It is impossible to describe the grief, indignation, and astonishment whichtook place, not only among the spectators, who were overwhelmed with afl ood of sorrow, but throughout the whole nation, as soon as the report o fthis fata l execution was conveyed to them. Never monarch, in the full tri-umph o f success and victo ry, was more dear to h is people, th an h is mis-fortun es a nd ma gn an imity, h is pa tien ce a nd piety, h ad ren dered th isunhappy prince. In proport ion to their former delusions, which had ani-ma ted th em a ga in st h im, wa s th e violen ce of th eir return to d uty a nd a f-fection; while each reproached himself, either with active disloyalty towardhim or with too indolent defence of his oppressed cause. On weaker minds,the effect of these complicated passions was prodigious. Women are said toh ave cast fo rth th e un timely fruit o f th eir womb: o th ers fell in to convul-sions, or sunk into such a melancholy as attended them to their grave: nay,some, unmindful o f themselves, as though they could not , or would not ,survive their beloved prince, it is reported, suddenly fell down dead. Thevery pulpits were bedewed with unsuborned tears: those pulpits, which hadfo rmerly thundered out the most vio len t impreca tions an d an athemasagainst him. And all men united in their detestat ion of those hypocr it ical

parricides, who, by sanctifi ed pretences, had so long disguised their t rea-sons and, in this last act of iniquity, had thrown an indelib le stain upon thenation. (VIII, 137–38; —It should be noted that in his translation of thisfamous passage, the auth or of Manon Lescaut did full justice—and no more—to Hume’s original.)

moment the judgement o f a prince reduced by fortune to th e mostabsolute abandonment. . . .18

If the amo unt o f attention accorded later by the Convention

to the task of refuting Necker’s points is any true ind ication , one

must conclude that he had chosen arguments which were partic-

ularly effective. In another uno ffi cial defen ce of Louis XVI, La lly-

Tollenda l also invited th at body to meditate on Stuart history:

Frenchmen, refl ect carefully on this; remember tha t it means end-less remorse and an eternal st igma. The English have been mourn-ing for a cen tury—and future cen tur ies will see them mourning

still—a reg icide committed by a much smaller number o f their fa -th ers, with m uch less so lem nity, a nd , it m ust b e sa id , in circum -stan ces much less o dio us th an th ose th at wo uld ma rk in Fra ncetoday a re-enactment of tha t same crime. Men of France, you havebeen strangely abused; they have counted heavily on prejudice, orfl ightiness, or ignorance when, in your presence, they have been



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19. Plaidoyer pour Louis XVI , Londres, 1793, pp. 11–12.

20. A work abo ut which the republican Jean -Jacques Leuliette contemp-tuously but signifi can tly no tes: “You seem to h ave borrowed Hume ’s brush in por-traying the bloody denouement of January 21st. I admit tha t it was a sad d ay; butI cannot agree th at it was the most ho rrifying day of the Revolution; the most hor-

rifying day of the Revolution was the da y the greatest number o f heads fell; onlyone head was cut off on January 21st.” (Des Emigr é s Fran ç ais ou R é ponse à M. de

Lally-Tollendal, Paris, 1797, pp. 91–92.)

21. Discours et opinions de Cazal è s, Paris, 1821, p. 267.

shameless enough to describe Char les I as infamous, a king who isstill honoured with the name of martyr by an entire nation that bya ll appearances needs no one to teach it either its righ ts or a sense

of dignity.19

Lally-Tollendal continued his plea for the king by assailing

what we might now call the Macaulay-Brissot version of the English

revolution —a version, moreover, which formed an important part

of Mailhe’s famous report. La lly preached, on the contrary, the fa-

miliar Hume account as he would again in 1797 in his D é fense des

é migr é s fran ç ais.20

Cazalès in h isD é fense de Louis XVI also defi es the revolutioniststo inq uire of the English if they now approved of their ancestors’

execution of Charles I. Their an swer would not, h e mainta ins, be

comforting to a na tion tha t seemed perversely bent on taking the

same course. Only ask the English, Cazalès warns the Convention ,

“and you would no longer evoke a period o f their history that th ey

wish to forget.” 21 Cazalès in 1792 was not a novice at this sort of

thing. Long before the King’s arrest he had warned France’s revo-

lutionaries that the English still mainta ined an expiatory cult forthe Earl of Strafford; n ow that even Louis XVI’s life was in d an ger,

the “cult” of Strafford could become the “cult” of Charles I.

In yet another defence of the French king, the royalist de

Montjoie addressed h imself even more d irectly to the Convention,

not more than forty members of which, he believed, sincerely

wanted Louis’s dea th . The best advice he could give to the oth ers,

to the vast majority whose opinions would decide the final out-come, was that they should study once more the lessons of Stuart

history:



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22 . Avis à la Convention Nati onale sur le jugement de Louis XVI , G en ève, 1793,pp. 6–7.

Ch oose; th ere is still time: wha t image o f yourselves would you ha vehistory hand down to posterity? Decide between crime and virtue,madness and wisdom. . . .

Do not be deceived by that fatal sense of security shared byCromwell’s confedera tes. . . . Will you give in to intimidation? Willyou a llow the h einous crime to be consummated even th ough youloathe it in your h earts? What will you have ga ined by it? No soon erwill the deed be done than a man of audacity will rise up, he willsmash the instruments of the crime, after which he will proceed toenjoy its fruits. Open your history books: is that not the way of allusurpers? In ord er to a tta in supreme power they need accomplices;but on ce they ha ve seized the sceptre, they wield it against the very

ones who d elivered it up to them. . . . Beware: the man of whom Ispeak is known to you. . . . 22

The warning about the dangers of a French “Cromwell”

formed, no doubt, the cleverest part of this particular attempt to

save Louis XVI’s life. De Montjoie knew that the a tmosphere in the

Convention at th is time was heavy with suspicion. Accusat ions and

coun ter-accusation s abo ut h idden C romwellian ambitions were

being mad e with great freq uency. Two dangers seemed especiallyimminent: tha t of a Cromwell or that o f a Monk. As one reads the

Convention speeches from September 1792 to January 1793 one

even senses, I think, that the national representatives viewed a

Cromwell as no t only the more likely threat but as also the more

horrifying of the two possibilities. De Montjoie hammered in this

point: If the members of the Convention lacked the courage to be

just with Louis XVI, their fate within six weeks would resemble that

of the Cromwellian underlings who had sent Charles I to the

scaffold.

A second major warning followed —this, too, taken from

Hume’s H istory:

Ind ependently of that consideration , the interests of each of youforbid an iniquitous judgement. . . . No sooner would this blood havebeen shed than Fran ce, joined for so long to h er leader, would cry

out in pain and terror. Injustice would be followed by repentance.



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23. Ibid ., pp . 9–12.

24 . Ibid., pp. 17 –18. See also the Oraison fun è bre de Henriette-Marie de France,

Reine de la Grande-Bretagne (16 November 1669), in Oeuvres compl è tes de Bossuet,Tours, 1862, I. 425.

Repressed for three years, love and gratitude would well up vio-lently; the conscience o f all would accuse you, every voice would callout your names: There they are! There they are! thousands of

Frenchmen will cry out; behold the murderers of Louis! Everyonewill recall his virtues, his kindnesses, his forbearance, his heroic pa-tience, the un failing gentleness with which h e suffered th e outragesyou allowed to be heaped upon him, under the burden of chainswith which you weighed h im do wn. . . .

And your assembly once dissolved, what would become of itsmembers? . . . Allow me to place before you on ce again the histori-cal record, allow me to remind you o f the pitiable end met with byall those who in times past contributed to the same judgement th at

Louis’s recklessly unth inking enemies seek from you. . . . In England ,the members of the court of iniq uity that condemned Cha rles I tothe scaffold perished in infamy and destitution. . . .

Do not let yourselves stand deservedly accused of being unableto learn from the past even as you see recurring th e same symptoms,the same crises, the same ph enomena tha t preceded th e deplorableera th at England wishes it could erase from its anna ls.23

De Montjoie thus invoked the traditional lessons of history.

He perhaps forgot th em when he came to his last piece of advice

for the members of the Convention: They were not to fear that

they had gone too far to reverse their course; they were not to fear

that kings are unforgiving: “Vengeance,” he insisted , “ is a passion

Louis knows only by name; . . . He can be blamed, as Bossuet said of

Charles I, only for an excess of clemency. . . .” 24

It would be possible to analyse other less important defences

of Louis XVI published a t th is time but the basic pattern of theseis not ma terially different from those of Necker, La lly-Tollendal,

Cazalès, or d e Montjoie. It is in such pleas for the French king th at

we fi nd the use of historical parallels attaining a peak of intensity,

a note of political urgency, uneq ualled by the many Stuart parallels

drawn before or a fter Louis’s tria l. The belief was expressed more

and more by royalists in th ese last few mon ths of 1792 tha t the two



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25 . A.-J. Dugour, M é moire justi fi cati f pour Louis XVI, ci-devant Roi des Fran ç ais,Paris, 1793, p. 123. (First published in parts, December 1792–January 1793.)

26. . . . pr é sent é s à la Convention Nationale, au nom du Comit é de Lé gislation,

7 November 1792.

revolutions had run along on exactly para llel courses, that Louis

XVI would never even h ave been brough t to trial if one hun dred

an d forty-three years earlier, the English “Jacobins” had not exe-

cuted Ch arles I. O ne last eleventh -hour defence of Louis XVIwhich repeats this sentiment is worth quoting from: “The course

followed by the English seditionaries and that followed b y their

counterparts who have been devastating for such a long time our

unhappy coun try are absolutely the same; if there is any difference

at all, it is that the present revolutionaries have surpassed in

hypocrisy, in viciousness, and in tyranny those who murdered the

unfortunate Stuart.” 25

3

Cr omwel l in t h e Convent ion :

Th e Judgement of Post er it y

The scores of published opinions emanating from the Convention

during Louis XVI’s trial and dealing with such q uestions as whether

the King could be judged, how he should be judged, and what

should be h is punishment are a ll quite heterogeneous in their var-

ious tendencies and d iffi cult to group in a signifi cant manner. One

common element becomes apparent, however, to anyone who ha s

taken the trouble of going through these opinions: the parallel be-

tween the English trial of Charles and the Convention trial of Louishaunted the minds of a ll but a minority of those who were destined

to judge the French king.

Signifi can tly even Mailhe’s Rapport et Projet de D é cret,26 the Con-

vention ’s offi cial pre-trial report which formulated so many of th e

members’ reactions in subsequent deba tes, could not avoid go ing

into the legality of C harles I ’s parliamentary hearing. Mailhe ’s re-



157

Cr o mwe l l in t h e Co nv e n t io n

27. Jean Mailhe, op. cit., p. 20.

port was to conclude that Louis XVI could be judged by the Con -

vention . The troublesome q uestion of what legal forms to follow

nevertheless remained. The English condemnation of Charles I

was an obvious preceden t; obvious too seemed the fact that h istoryreproached the English for h aving violated legal forms:

Ch arles Stuart was inviolable like Louis XVI; but like Louis XVI, h ehad betrayed the nation tha t had placed him on the throne. Beingindependent o f a ll the bodies established by the Eng lish constitu-tion, he could no t be charged or judged by any of them; on ly the na-tion could d o th is. When he was arrested, th e H ouse of Lords wastota lly in his camp. It wished on ly to save the king and mon archicaldespotism. The H ouse of Commons seized unto itself the exerciseof all parliamentar y authority; and no doubt it had the right to d oso given its circumstances. But Parliament itself was no more thana con stituted bod y. It did n ot represent th e na tion ’s full an d en tiresovereignty; it represented the nation ’s sovereignty on ly in respectof those functions that were determined by the constitution. Itcould thus neither judge the king nor delegate the right to judgehim.27

Although this interpretation of Charles I ’s trial is far from

being H ume’s, it is no less certa in that Mailhe’s inability to avoid

dealing with the question altogether is something of a tribute to

the widespread success of the H istory of the Stuarts in France before

1789 and especially to th e use mad e of H ume ’s work by the many

defenders of the king and the ancien r é gime after that date.

Mailhe’s report goes on to sho w that if the English had taken

the same precautions as the French, th eir republic would have sur-vived. The English Commons should have invited the nation to

form a convention parliament:

U nfortun ately, the H ouse of Commo ns was con trolled by the ge-nius of Cromwell, and Cromwell, who wished to become king und erthe title of protector, would have found in a National Conventiononly a to mb fo r h is ambitions.

It was therefore not any violation of the prescribed formalitiesfor criminal prosecutions in England, but rather the lack of a na-



158


28. Ib id ., p. 21.

29. Ib id ., p. 22.

tiona l mand ate, it was the pro tectorate of Cromwell, in short, thatattached to th e trial of Charles Stuart the od ium which is evoked ineven th e most philosoph ical accounts of it. Charles Stuart d eserved

to d ie; but h is execution could be command ed only by the n ationor by a tribunal chosen by the n ation .28

Many problems remained even though the Convention was

seen as representing, in th e words of the report, “entirely and per-

fectly the French Republic.” 29 Could the Convention , for example,

judge alone or should its judgement be ratifi ed by all citizens in an

appel au peuple? This question and others concerning the form of

the king ’s punishment were to occupy the debates of that body andexasperate the impatient Robespierrists for many weeks to come.

In examining the Convention speeches during Louis XVI ’s

trial I shall try to classify my sampling of opinions according to

three admittedly rather personal headings which relate to the

speaker’s apparent a ttitude toward history generally and, more par-

ticularly, toward Stuart h istory. My fi rst grouping will include those

whose att itudes imply a fund amental belief in the trad itional cycli-

cal view of revolution. It will include those who, speaking o ften ofthe lesson s of history, closely identifi ed the French and English rev-

olutions. This same group emphasized the conservative implica-

tions of the parallel and as a polemical tactic often called a ttention

to the possibility that Louis XVI ’s execution would automatically

leave the way open for an ambitious French Cromwell. Those

whom I speak of next comprise members of th e Con vention who,

although they seem to believe to some extent in the ideological

identity of the two revolutions as well as in the general value of h is-

tory’s lessons, rejected the validity of any parallels drawn between

the two trials because the English court had been infl uenced by

Cromwell whereas revolutionary France did not have and could

not possibly have an y such monster in its midst. Lastly, I have found

it useful to classify in a th ird group those who made it q uite clear

that not only Stuart history but all of history was totally irrelevant



159


30. I must point out that I make no claim here to a systematic analysis ofthe divisions along trad itional party lines of opinions expressed in the Conventionduring the trial. I am concerned only with a sampling of opinions in which theStuart parallel was actually made whether in a positive or negative sense. I shallalso make no distinctions between successive opinions delivered on different b utrelated issues, for example, on the ad visability of judging Louis XVI, on the appel

au peuple, on the king ’s guilt, or on the form h is punishment should ta ke. With afew unavoidable exceptions, the q uota tions are taken from the o riginal versionsprinted at the time of the trial by offi cial order o f the Convention. (B.N.Le37.2.G.)

to the deliberations, that no historical precedents were necessary,

indeed that no trial was necessary, and that the sooner justice (i.e.

decapitat ion) was carried out , the better.30

Fear of a “circular” revolution ending inevitably with theusurpation of a Cromwell heads the list of reasons cited by the

moderates of the fi rst group an d underlies their use of th e Stuart

parallel. The following opinion s represent typical examples: “It is

perhaps not diffi cult to prove, as the experience of every century

shows, that the violent or judicial death of a tyran t has never truly

served the cause of liberty an d has resulted only in the tran sfer of

tyrannical power to o ther hands.”—P. Marec. “I am unable to vote

sovereignly and without appeal for the death of Louis XVI, because

I cannot compromise either with my principles or my con-

science . . . ; because I abh or royalty even more tha n dethroned

kings, because I see waiting in the wings a Cromwell who is plott ing

for my country the fate suffered by England after the death of

Charles Stuart.”—F.-C.-P. G arilhe. “And who will provide us with a

guara ntee, citizens, tha t some ambitious person , taking advan tage

of the trust he has acquired th rough his popularity, will not seizeon the occasion of Louis XVI’s trial to attempt an assault on lib-

erty? Will anyone dare to swear that there are no Cromwells in the

Republic; and if there is only one, you have traced out the path for

his ambitions by following that of the parliament of England.”—J.

Guiter. “I see no Cromwell behind the curtain; but there are still

men with the soul of Cromwell; and who can assure me that criti-

cal circumstances are not favourable for conceiving an d hatch ing

plots to murder liberty?”—J.-B.-D. Mazade. “Citizens, listen to his-tory. . . . Consider the fate of the parliament that put Ch arles on



160


trial; it gave in to the passion of revenge, and overlooked the gen-

eral good ; it did not establish a constitution, an d it allowed the re-

public to perish. . . . Cha rles I had to die on the scaffold, not

because he was very guilty, like Louis, but because he lived in a su-perstitious century and he was judged by the faction supporting

the usurper Cromwell who wished to reign in his place.”—H. Ban-

cal. “Cromwell managed to build up his power on the blood-soaked

wreckage of Charles I ’s throne; and those same persons who had

urged th e king ’s death were afterward s moved to tea rs by his fate.

Representatives of the people, do not lose sight of this example. ”

—F. Buzot. “Republicans beware! you are too trusting; Cromwell

was a fatal exception to English liberty! And I see all too clearly

that one does not need his genius to have his aud acity.”—J.-B. Lou-

vet. “Yes, we could h ave dra wn some very useful political lesson s

from h istory: . . . A na tion is never closer to despotism than when it

surrend ers to ana rchy; the people grow tired of having a th ousand

masters, tired of being both tyrant and tyrannized, and in the end

it seeks the protection of o ne man . When Cromwell, hiding be-

hind the agitators, . . .” et cetera.—J.-P. Rabaut.There are many oth er opinions in the same vein. Let us look

at one last example, tha t of Vergniaud :

When Cromwell, whose name has already been mentioned here,set out to dissolve the parliament he had used to overthrow themon archy and place Charles I on the scaffold, h e mad e several in-sidious proposals to it. . . . Parliament ga ve way to h im. General un-rest soon fo llowed; and Cromwell easily smashed the instrument hehad employed to gain supreme power.

H ave you n ot heard within these precincts and elsewhere, menangrily sho uting: “ if the price of bread is high , the fault lies with theTemple; if money is scarce, if your a rmies are lacking in supplies, thefault lies with the Temple; if each day we must suffer the sigh t o f in-digen ce, the fault lies with the Temple” ?

Those who say these things know full well that the high cost ofbread, th e sho rtages in th e supply of provisions, the un satisfacto ry

administration in the armies, an d the indigence we are a ll grievedto see around us, have causes that h ave no thing to do with the Tem-ple. . . . Who can assure me . . . that, once Louis is dead, these same



161


31. Vergniaud’s fi na l vote despite these high-mind ed sentiments seemed ,

in the end , contrad ictory and disappointing to moderates: although in favour ofthe appel au peuple he later voted for the dea th-sentence and aga inst the sursis, orreprieve.

men will not begin shouting with the greatest of violence: “ if theprice of bread is high, the fault lies with the Convention. . . .” 31

Inspired by the Stuart parallel, other moderates added thefear of history’s cond emnation to th eir fear of a Cromwell. Men-

nesson warns of “ the opprobrium tha t still haun ts the English pa r-

liament of 1648” and adds: “ The judgement of posterity! . . .

Legislators, reflect on that word: one day, you too will be sum-

moned to appear before that court . . . : remember, O my col-

leagues! Remember all those voices conspiring to hasten your ruin

and their triumph by deman ding that the execution of the tyrant

be decided by acclamation and without h is being h eard. . . . Theyknow that if the mod el republican Brutus freed h is country simply

by driving o ut th e Tarq uins, the model usurper C romwell suc-

ceeded in erecting h is throne over the tomb of the Stuarts.”

Pierre-Floren t Louvet a lso refers to the “reputation that, even

a century and a ha lf later, still hangs over the English parliament

of 1648.” It was not, as Mailhe had attempted to prove, because

the English parliament had lacked the powers of the Convention

that posterity judged it guilty but ra ther because Charles I’s trial

had, in every respect, been conducted illegally: “Imagine then,”

Louvet continued, “since you have been asked to go even farther

than the parliament of England by judging d irectly yourselves, and

without allowing witnesses—something that was not done in the

trial of Charles Stuart—imagine then, I say, how much more blame

you should expect to incur if you accede to the proposal of the

committee.”Also objecting that the members of the Convention should

not be Louis’s accusers, judges, and executioners all rolled into

one, Antoine G irard expressed th e concerned belief that a loss of

interna tional esteem was as much to be feared as the judgement of

posterity: “The English were no doubt right with respect to the sub-



162


stantive issues of the hearing but the procedural illegalities and

the monstrous tribunal that served as a framework for the guilty

monarch ’s trial impaired commercial and political relations with

other nations. . . .” Even Brissot, who had evolved somewhat sincehis deba te with Clermont-Tonnerre ( “the Brissot of 1791 is not the

Brissot of 1793,” as the elder Pinet scornfully informed the Con-

vention), now warned that the European powers would ask for

noth ing better than Louis’s execution, “because for them it rep-

resents a guaran tee tha t the monarchy will be resurrected; because

the death o f Charles I won for h is son the throne and the hearts of

his subjects. . . . Yes, Citizens, the same farce th at was played out in

England when Charles I d ied has been repeated in our time. The

French cabinet of the day seemed to be interceding on the king’s

behalf, and at the same time it was subsidizing the Cromwellians

who put him to death.” Perhaps even, Brissot concluded, the sin-

ister po litics of the English cabinet was behind the bloodthirsty

cries of the P aris cannibales.

Not infrequen tly mentioned a lso by tho se who d uring the

trial deba te cited the lessons of Stuart h istory was the q uestion ofa d angerous popular reaction to the King’s execution. The Con-

vention was not, of course, excessively concerned with the number

of simple women who might, as H ume suggests, cast forth the un-

timely fruit of their womb or, more simply still, fall down dead on

hearing the fatal news. It was, on th e other han d, very much con-

cerned with the possible effects of pity which might prepare the

way in France for a restora tion of the monarchy. To the h earty guf-

faws of the assembled members, one earnest conventionnel even sug-gested the possible danger that Rome might canonize Louis. The

following opinion by Arma nd-G uy Kersain t clearly shows that

Necker’s q uotation o f H ume on the subject had not been lost on

all of Louis’s judges:

. . . true republicans rightly fear the reaction to vengeful attacks onpersons who h ave long been respected; they fear th e pity tha t the

human heart natura lly feels for th e unfortuna te and especially forthose who seemed d estined to atta in the pinnacles of happiness andwho are instead brought down by great misfortun es. The pro found



163


and judicious observation tha t Charles I had successors while the Tar- quins had none, has prompted them to adopt a moderate course. . . .

The same danger seemed eq ually eviden t to Jean-Jacq uesThomas:

Monk would never have found so many hands to help him placeCha rles II on the throne of Eng land , if he h ad not been assisted bythe memory of the fath er’s execution . The effects of pity an d com-miseration, both within France and abroad, must be feared. . . . H aveyou ever seen people on their way back from an execution no t feel-

ing sorry for the culprit, even th ough they still ha ve in their mindsa fresh impression of h is crimes? . . . Scorn , noth ingness, and obliv-ion for the ind ividual, that is what can save the na tion. . . .

Agreeing with Kersa in t and Thomas, Jean-Bapt iste Giro t

a dd ed h is o wn co rrespo nd ing sen timen ts o n the matter: “The

dea th o f Charles infl icted a deep woun d on liberty; it put an en d

to the ha tred his crimes had inspired . I t left regrets; it revived fa-

na tica l roya list sentiments tha t survive still and continue to cor-rupt the nation ’s sense of liber ty.” Thomas Paine’s o pin io n, the

read ing of wh ich was objected to by Marat on the grounds that a

“Quaker” sh ould n ot be allowed to vote in a case in volvin g th e

death penalty, pointed out essentia lly the same warning: the Stu-

arts returned to the throne of England after Charles I’s execution

but fell in to o bscurity after th e banishment o f Ja mes II. P ierre-

Joseph Faure concurred with the American Quaker: “The death

of Charles I was the chief cause of the restora tion of royalty amonga people too enlightened to love kings. The execution of the father

pleaded the cause of the son. The people are sometimes moved by

compassionate impulses—the frenzy and vio lence o f wh ich can-

not be calculated—that work against their own interests. The rev-

o lution that deposed James II, who a lso had a son, adopted o ther

measures; he was allowed to escape, and his son’s later efforts to re-

gain the throne were entirely unsuccessful. That is precisely yoursituation.. . . ”

Many other conventionnels appealed in their opinions to the





165

Th e Pa r a l l e l Re je c t e d

liberty, and the execution of the judges who had been cowardlyenough to lend themselves to perfi dious insinuations and stupidenough to abet the ambitions of a scound rel.

4

Th e Par a l l el Rejec t ed:

Br u t us t o t h e Rescue

Let us turn now to what we have arbitrarily set aside as a secondgroup and consider those members of the Convention who, al-

though they seem to hold a view of history not altogether in-

compatible with that of the group whose opinions we have just

examined , maintained nevertheless that the much-quoted paral-

lel with the seventeenth-century revolution in England was entirely

invalid.

We fi nd a good example of this attitude in the opinion of Ser-gent, one of the d é put é s for Paris. He expresses utter amazement

and d isbelief at th e hesitations of his colleagues who add uced par-

allels and who warned the Convention of great lessons to be drawn

from the English experiment:

What are you a fraid of? The example of England sacrifi cing CharlesStuart ! But, as you have alread y been told , Charles was sacrifi ced tothe ambition of Cromwell; and Louis will be brought to his death byhis treacherous actions; Charles was judged by a commission chosenby the usurper h imself, but you are chosen by the People who areLouis’s accusers. Charles had no defend ers attached to his tribunal,whereas Louis has found advocates even in o ur midst. . . . So muchthe bet ter, our judgemen t will be a ll the less suspect, a ll the more ir-reproachable. We are to ld, fi na lly, tha t the dea th of Charles was thesha me of the English peo ple. And what is the source of that claim?It is History! But is H istory written by a d ivinity immune to fear? No,

the h istory of Ch arles’s last days was written by men ; these men wroteunder the shadow of bast il l es. They had to choose between de-ceiving future generations or expiring in some d ark dungeon . Kings



166


persecuted though t even under th e humble roof of th e philosopherwho th ought h imself sheltered there with what is most sublime, Na-ture and his own soul. Times have changed; the men who today

record in stone the events that will amaze posterity are free, nolonger oppressed by the burd en of kings.

Ph ilippeaux similarly questioned the veracity of certain histo-

ries of the English revolution which seemed to have impressed too

vividly the imagination of “a few quaking spirits” in the Convention:

. . . the h istorical tradition regarding th is great period has been givenan od ious colouring as a result of the constan t efforts of kings and

their lackeys, who h ave sought to protect themselves from th e samefate by representing it as a time of criminal culpability. In a mon ar-chy, all affections are turned in the direction of idolatry; thethrone’s structure becomes a composite of illusion and wond er. Allthose whose interests lie in ma intaining the th rone an d who have itin their power to mould public sentiment could not but succeed fi -na lly in their self-serving effor ts to misrepresent as horrifying theact of justice tha t displeased them most. But we republican s, we whocondemned tyranny before condemning the tyrant, we are in an

entirely different situation: ghosts and disguises can no longer ter-rify our imagination ; it is on ly the hideousness of th e crime and thefact that it has gone unpunished that can sadden our hearts.

Several conventionnels, moreover, were not long in pointing

out th at n ot a ll historians of the Stuart reign preached the usual

servile principles. The myth o f a guilty English nation was nothing

more than a revisionist fabrication of fawning historians since the

time of the Restora tion, a ffi rmed Michel Azéma:

. . .England ’s so-called dishonour was no thing more than the effectof popular prejudice, error, an d blind ness, especially on the part o fthe t rusting, generous, frank, and loyal people of Fran ce who idol-ize their kings however little they may deserve it. Most of the histo-rians, authors, and learned con tempora ries of th is event, far fro mseeing it as England ’s shame, praise, on the contrary, the na tion ’senergy, courage, and justice, especially Milton, the author of Par-

adise Lost, an d several others.Ever since the revolution in thinking that has now taken place

nearly everywhere among men enlightened by reason and ph iloso-phy, the old prejudices that had been formed with rega rd to Charles



167


33. Rühl makes the same point and adds that in Milton ’s work the Con-vention would fi nd “stron g arguments for condemning Louis XVI” ; see also theopinion o f François-Siméon B ezard.

Stuart’s tragic death, prejudices that were carefully and shrewdlynourished and fostered by every despot, h ave to tally changed .33

The view that no Cromwell existed or could exist in Franceformed the basis of most rejections of the Stuart parallel. We fi nd

this judgement summed up briefl y in the opinion of Nicolas Hentz:

They ha ve tried to frighten you with th e spectre o f remorse; the ex-ample of Charles Stuart’s trial ha s been cited.

Listen carefully while I explain to you that our situation is en-tirely different. Who was it tha t sough t the death of Charles Stuart?It was a man who h imself aspired to the throne a nd who possessed

the mean s to ach ieve his goal; . . . H e succeeded in usurping royaltyin England. In other words, royalty never ceased to exist in England ;it no longer exists in Fran ce.

Dubo is-Cran cé felt provoked to indignation on the same

subject:

Wha t a comparison ! Are we usurpers, then? Were th e people igno-rant of the mission they entrusted to us? Have we not sworn toavenge and to obey the people? H ave we chosen among us a specialcommission corruptly dedicated to the purpose of beheading theenemy of a con spirato r? Is it, fi na lly, the will of one man tha t com-mands us, or is it a sense of the legitimate vengeance and com-pelling need of 25 million oppressed ind ividua ls? You have decreedthat if a Cromwell exists in France, h is head belongs to the lowest ofcitizens; and to lop it off, one need not be a Brutus. Let us thereforeno t dishonour our august functions with a comparison fi t on ly for

the Brunswicks and th e Con dés.

Directly refuting Vergniaud , Claude-Nicolas G uillermin also

could see no rhyme or reason to the pa rallel:

I confess that I am highly perplexed with respect to applying theexample. I look in vain for a Cromwell in our Revolution, I see non e;that is to say, I can see no Frenchman with Cromwell’s great popu-larity in the armies and amon g the people genera lly (fo r it canno t



168


34 . See the Comte d ’Antraigue’sAdresse à l ’ ordre de la noblesse de France, Paris,1792, pp. 124–35.

35. Revolutiona ry orators did no t always distinguish between the earlierand the later Brutus.

36. See La D é cade, 20 December 1794, III. 543.

be just the people of P aris who constitute on ly a Section). I can seeno Frenchman who commands the universal trust enjoyed byCromwell, who possesses his powerful means, his beguiling virtues,

his military talents, his political ad eptness, h is courage, his shrewd-ness, h is vices even, all of which were so man y rungs in th e ladderthat a llowed h im to mo unt the th rone from which h e had deposedCharles.

But I see, on the other hand, many who would play the rô le ofBrutus should even one Cromwell be foun d lurking in th e shadows.

Brutus of course! H ere was the answer to all rascally

Cromwells! Also cla imed , but feeb ly, by the Right as the pa tron

o f a ll those who defended the ancient const itution aga inst revo-

lutiona ry usurpers,34 B rutus was a h ero th e d etails of wh ose ca-

reer35 were sufficien tly obscured by an tiq uity to permit h is

ser vin g a s a n un assa ila ble exa mple to true repub lica ns wh en

even Sid ney, the martyr to Lib erty, had to be ca st o ff b eca use he

was English.36 O nly the bust o f B rutus a nd that o f Roussea u man-

a ged to sur vive th e years o f progressive ico nocla sm a t th e Ja -

cobins, and it was his again that dominated the chair of thepresid en t o f the C onven tio n . No revo lu tio nar y ha ir st yle, no t

even that o f the Ro und H ea ds, ever eq ua lled in fa sh io n the coif-

fure à la Brutus.

Brutus is also Louchet’s answer to th e threat of a Cromwell: “I

ask you! What man would be suffi ciently insan e to a ttempt to seize

royal authority in France once the sword of justice severs the

tyrant’s head. Oh! if such a man could exist, the Faubourg Saint-

Antoine is there; it is everywhere in the Republic; would not theland of liberty and equality. . . bring forth a thousand Brutuses who

would vie for th e honour of striking the fi rst blow against th is new

Cromwell?” Moïse Bayle was of the same confi dent opinion: “Have



169


37. It must be conceded tha t the modest Bona parte used only the wordempereur.

38. See also the opinions of Baud ot, Cledel, Deleyre, Guyton, and G er-toux: the last refers to Louis XVI as “ le Stuart fra nçais.”

39. One might possibly except such men as Deleyre and Jean-Bon Saint-

André, perhaps even Saint-Just who , it is worth no ting, possessed in h is small col-lection of bo oks a b iograph y of th e Pro tector. (See Bapst, op. cit., La R é volution

Fran ç ai se, XXI. 535.)

you not decreed that any man who speaks of a king37 will be pun-

ished with death? Are you a fraid th at this decree might no t be car-

ried out and that in th e whole of France not a single Brutus would

be found?”It is in th e opinion of C laude-Charles Prost that we fi nd th is

position most clearly summarized:

Let us reject any comparison of Charles Stuart ’s trial and that ofLouis; the fun damental da ta and the results are n ot n ecessarily thesame; Charles was a tyran t, but he was condemned by judges who a s-sumed an authority not conferred on them by the nation; in con-

trast, your mandate is explicit: Charles was the victim of anambitious hypocrite; we have no Cromwell in this republican par-liament an d I can see more than one Brutus. The death of Ch arlesdid no t ad vance the cause of liberty for the people; the n obility sur-vived the monarch, and everywhere that parasitical plant is to befound, on e can expect the poisonous regrowth of a king o r an op-pressor by ano ther n ame.38

The political image of Cromwell in France during the last

three centuries would provide the basis of a long and interestingstudy. On e fact would emerge certainly from such an investigation

with respect to the Co nvention period, n amely, that few revolu-

tionaries39 found it either in their conscience or in their political

interests to express anything but the greatest horror for the leader

of the English revolution . The subtitle o f M.-L. Tardy’s tragedy of

1793, Cromwel ou le g é n é ral liberti cide, typically sums up the current

attitude although , as we have already noted, the Puritan general

had been occasionally viewed as a hero by a few avan t-garde

thinkers before the Revolution. Robespierre frequently defended



170


40. Oeuvres de Danton, ed. Vermorel, Paris, 1866, p. 188.

41. See La D é cade, An III, V. 174.

42. Gazette Nationale, ou le Moniteur universel, No. 222, p. 902. See a lso Jour-

nal de Paris, No. 202 , 11 April 1797.

43. See also Alexand re Tuetey, R é pertoi re g é n é ral des sources manuscri tes de l ’ histoire de Paris pendant la R é volution fran ç aise, IV, Nos. 1125, 3342, 3458, 3643;VIII, No. 1403; X, No. 2102; XI, No. 28.

himself against the accusations of Jean-Baptiste Louvet and others

who charged him with harbouring the malign ambitions of a

Cromwell. Danton , interrupted in a speech of 1 April 1793 by the

cry “And Cromwell? . . . ,” furiously deman ded , to the wild applauseof h is supporters, that the “scoundrel who has had th e effrontery

to say that I am a Cromwell be punished : have him locked up in the

Abbaye! ” 40 After th e Terror, the Convention found it wise to de-

cree a menti on honorable for Dugour’s H istoire de Cromwel of 1795

and added the recommendation tha t the work be referred to the

Comité d ’Instruction Publique.41 The Moni teur commented with a

sigh of relief on 1 May 1795 that Dugour’s book could not have

been published at a more opportune time: “It is in the conduct of

this tyran t that our recent oppressors found the mean s to enslave

us anew. Read his biography and you will discover the same system

of oppression, devised in almost the same manner; it is as if one

were reading the history of our present times; the resemblances

are so striking that one would be tempted to question the histo-

rian ’s veracity were it not for the fact that everyth ing he narrates is

recorded in the accounts and memoirs of contemporary au-thors.” 42 Later still the parallel was frequently applied—perhaps

with greater accuracy—to Bonaparte. But no matter wha t circum-

stance or which party is involved, the image of the Protector re-

mains constant: Cromwell was as ostensibly od ious in 1793 in the

Convention as he was in Louis XVI ’s marginal notes of 1779.43 A

hero of any kind was feared and a Cromwell was feared perhaps

most of all; for, to transpose a sentiment already expressed by a

zealous English republican in 1649, if a king was desired, the lastwas perhaps as proper a s any gentleman in France.



171

Pr i nc i pl e s Ve r s us Pr e c e d e n t s

44. See Journal des d é bats et des d é crets, No. 102, 29 December 1792.

5

Pr inc ipl es Ver sus Pr eceden t s

Finally, let us consider those conventionnels whose opinions con-

cerning the relevance of history, expressed during the trial of Louis

XVI, a llow us to classify them as a third group. These last were, of

course, no less polit ically earnest than the others but they showed

a greater amount of impatience to get on with a revolution that had,

in their view, vertically outgrown history and was destined to lead

the French nation to unprecedented heights of vir tue and justice.For these true radicals, the Revolution had rendered the old inter-

pretation of history and all of the cyclical parallels meaningless.

Admittedly, some of the Convention parallel-makers had been

infuriatingly didactic; Birotteau ’s triple comparison provides us

with a good example: “Stuart died on the scaffold, and England

continued to have kings. Rome, on th e other han d, d rove out the

Tarq uins, and Rome became the most stable an d prosperous of re-

publics; and, fi nally, the tyran t Dionysius, sent into exile at Corinth

where he became a schoolmaster, saw no new tyrants succeed h im

in Syracuse.”

For our th ird group th is was too much ! We are told that as

the sober B irotteau prepared to leave the tribune the mocking

voice of Jullien was heard to shout: “Honourable mention! ” 44

To many, such parallels seemed indeed a practice more suited

to the pretensions of over-eager scho olboys than to the lead ers ofthe world ’s greatest revolution. Mont-G ilbert boasts that his opin-

ion will be unusual, that he will quo te no obsolete authorities from

history:

What do free Frenchmen have in common with Cromwell’s hench-men? . . . This obsession with fi nd ing gran diloq uent comparisons isunworthy of us.

I sha ll come right o ut and say it (an d may I be forgiven for do ing



172


so) , this assembly, in my view, will never achieve its full majesty until,along with o ther reforms, we get rid of a certain importun ate eru-dition which, to invest us with grea tness an d virtue, goes digging

thro ugh th e ruins of Athen s and Sparta to fi nd models. Woe betideus if to ach ieve great things we need to be encouraged by great ex-amples! H ow feeble these virtues of imitation are when they do no tderive their strength from the moral character of those who pro-fess them!

If at all costs Louis’s judges wanted to imitate a virtue of the

past, let it be, add ed Mont-G ilbert, the laconism of the Spartan s.

The familiar idea list’s cry of principles not precedents was

heard also from several other members: “What does it matter,”

asked Ichon, “ that England put Stuart on trial! . . . Basing on such

comparisons the right of the people to overthrow kings is an out-

rage committed against the nation ’s ma jesty. I t is from the very na-

ture of social organization, it is from the principles of immutable

justice, it is from the nation ’s code of sacred rights, that must be de-

rived . . . the power to judge a king. . . .”

Bernard Descamps, attacking Rabaut ’s Stuart-parallel, madea similar objection: “I will simply point out that it is very easy to

draw parallels, and tha t these are certain to lead you into error. It

is not a q uestion here of wha t has been done, but rather of wha t

must be.” What must be, he continued, does not depend on the bug-

bears of history: “We have been shown here the bloody head of

Charles I, and the Convention Nationa le of France has been com-

pared more or less to the executioners who did Cromwell’s bid-

ding; we have been h arangued here, not about justice, but aboutpolitics; not about d uty, but about accountability.”

Moderate appeals to the allegedly prudent lessons of history

were noth ing more th an ill-disguised counter-revolutionary delay-

ing tactics in th e opinion of Marc-Antoine Jullien:

The trial of Cha rles Stuart ha s been cited in o rder to justify the slow and complicated procedures tha t have been recommended to you,

an d you have been told tha t it was because such measures were nottaken that the English nation incurred the censure of the mostphilosophical writers. Be un deceived, C itizens; do n ot mistake tha texcuse for a reason . If the English, instead of merely truncating and



173


abridging the sceptre of kings, had, like you, broken it up andmelted it down; if the government that they adopted had beenpurely republican, and if the history of th eir revolution h ad been

written on ly by republican s, you may be certain that it would n everhave occurred to anyone to fi nd fault with how they judged theirtyran t. In th e eyes of true republicans, there are no inappropriateways to destroy the usurpers of the people’s sovereign ty; but thebest, in their opinion, is the shortest, it is the way of men likeScaevola an d Brutus. Either your republic will survive, in which casethe horror that the memory of your last king must inspire in youwill be record ed in a ll histor ical writings, or else the mona rchy willresuscitate, and then, no matter what formalities you employ to

dress up the trial of Louis XVI, there will be vile court ier slaves who,in order to fl atter new tyrants, will fi nd ways to stigma tize your glory,to dishonour your virtues, and to depict you in odious colours toposterity as the most sacrilegious of regicides. Make haste th en tosettle with the executioner’s blade a question that has already fortoo long taken up our time; make haste to found an eternal repub-lic, do n ot h esitate to cement it with the blood o f a perjuring king ,and be no t afra id that h is execution will ever be imputed to you asa crime.

To satisfy their van ity, certa in ph ilosophers hoping to estab lisherudite theories, certain orators seeking to compose sublimespeeches, have at tempted to persuad e you that this cause is diffi cultand of the greatest importance. Pay no heed to these sinister en-lighteners and follow as I do the pure guiding light of reason ; it willshow you th at th ere has never been an easier question to d ecide.

There are obviously no tiresome schoolboy pretensions in Jul-

lien ’s opinion any more than in the following one by Robespierre,which probably served as Jullien ’s model:

Without realizing it, th e Assembly has allowed itself to be led astray,far from the real question. There is no trial to proceed with h ere. . . .To suggest that Louis XVI should be tried , in whatever man ner, is toretrogress to royal and constitutional despotism; it is a counter-revolutionary notion, for it is putting the revolution itself on trial. . . .

The people do n ot judge in the man ner o f judicial courts; they

do not pass sentence, they hurl thunderbolts; they do not passjudgement on kings, they annihilate th em, and th at form of justiceis as good as what the courts offer. . . .

We ha ve allowed ourselves to be misled by foreign examples that



174


have nothing in common with us. Cromwell had Charles I tried bya commission that was at h is disposal . . . it is na tural tha t tyran ts im-molate their own kind, not for the benefi t of the people, but for

their own ambitions, seeking all the while to deceive the commonpeople with illusory formalities: it is no t a q uestion in such cases ofeither principles or liberty, but rather of scheming and imposture.But wha t laws can the people follow other th an reason and justice,backed by their own omnipotence?. . .

I for one would be ashamed to devote any more serious discus-sion to these constitutional quibbles. I consign them to the class-room or th e law-courts, or better still, to the cabinets of London,Vienna, an d Berlin. I canno t fi nd it in me to stretch o ut d iscussions

when I am con vinced that it is scand alous to d ebate at all.We have been told that the case is very important and that it must

be judged with wisdom and circumspect ion . I t is you who are mak-ing it an important case: What am I saying! I t is you who are makingit in to a case of an y kin d. . . .

Louis had to die so that the nation might live—such was

Robespierre’s conclusion. Saint-Just was equally frank: “One day,

peo ple will be amazed to lea rn that the eigh teen th cen tury wasless advanced than Caesar’s day: then , the tyrant was immola ted

righ t in th e Sen ate with n o oth er formality th an th irty blows of

the dagger. . . .” One is not obliged to cite legal or historica l prece-

dent to prove that kings a re guilty. Kings a re guilty by defi nition.

All formalit ies to prove this guilt are vain. Every king is a rebel and

a usurper. In Saint-Just’s celebrated words: “ I t is impossible to reign

innocently. . . .” Quite obviously it would be a fruitless task to search for the in-

fluence of Stuart history in these last opinions. One is almost

tempted to say that the infl uence of historical precedent is com-

pletely absent for, with these men, the Revolution seemed at last to

have outgrown all history.

If, however, one detects no infl uence, one at least senses in

the words of Robespierre and his supporters a quite intense and

highly revealing mood of exasperation. The debate over the wis-dom of the Long Parliament in judging Charles I had gone on a

very long time, far too long in the opinion of these men who

wished to make haste. If at worst the question o f the Stuart para l-



175


45. After a time there were so man y opinions that they could no t all be de-livered orally.

lel and the closely related issue concerning th e appel au peuple rep-

resented nothing more than a clever device invented by those mod -

erates who wished to save the king’s life (an d I believe it was much

more than tha t), it clearly was a q uestion on which a high propor-tion of members felt urged to speak or publish45 their sentiments.

The seventeenth-century revolution in England had provided

the only really significant modern European precedent to the

French revolution. H ow, so many conventionnels felt obliged to a sk,

did this precedent affect the new French Republic? What lessons

could be learned from it? Hume, th rough his long established pos-

itive infl uence on conservative thinking up until the time of the

trial and through his specifi c impact on the writings of the king ’s

chief apologists, had generated an important and not always to-

tally negative reaction among Louis’s judges. The Mailhe report

and the many “Stuart” opinions delivered during th e trial can be

interpreted to a substan tial extent as bearing witness to the inten-

sity of this reaction. Man y in th e Convention were apparently will-

ing to admit that there existed an ideological relationship between

the events in England and those in France. But they were obligedto admit also that the English revolution had ended in counter-

revolution and, fi nally, in the restoration of the monarchy. What

course of action would best prevent the occurrence of a similar

failure a century and a h alf later?

As it turned out, of course, the bloody spectre of Charles I was

not enough to save Louis XVI from the guillotine. I t is true, never-

theless, tha t this spectre remained to haunt even those who pre-

tended to feel only contempt for it. The symbols of Stuart historycontinued to present a threa t o f potentia l counter-revolut ion to

France’s revolutionary leaders. The following incident, recorded

during the Reign of Terror, though trivia l in itself, is suffi cient , I

th ink, to illustra te th is po in t. La te in December 1793, a certain

Amable-Augustin Clément, clock-maker by profession and living in

the rue Montmartre, was condemned to death by the revolutionary

tribunal. He had been denounced as an aristocra t and partisan of



176


46. See Alexandre Tuetey, op. cit., IX. 293–94.

Lafayette, charged with having wickedly and intentionally fi red on

the pa trio ts during the day o f 17 July 1791, and also with having

voiced counter-revolutionary sentiments tending to restore the

monarchy. Part of the damning evidence heard by the examiningjudge Etienne Foucault was an admission by the accused that he

had in his possession several prints: notably a picture of Charlotte

Corday and another of the execution of Charles I o f England .46



177

VT he A fterm ath

1

Republ ican Qual ms

The counter-revolutionary use of H ume’s H istory of the Stuarts as a

bible of un shakeable prophecies, complacently illustrating the ir-rationalism and ineradicable sins of human na ture, the implacab le

“force of th ings,” and the inevitable failure of all revolutions, con-

tinued with perhaps even greater intensity in the last fi ve years of

the century. Dishea rtening to some revolutionists too was the fact

that political events as they progressed seemed to lend a new re-

spectability to the fashionable science of historical analogies as

more and more o f the ro yalist predictions were, in appearance a t

least, fulfi lled.On the whole, however, few republicans showed signs of dis-

couragement. Although leaders of the Right fl attered themselves

with the h ope of restoration and pointed again and again to the

failure of the English republican experiment, those on the Left,

now publishing parallels of th eir own, staunch ly denied the valid-

ity of such royalist hopes.

Much of this republican optimism seems to have been basedo n the belief that the established church , acknowledged as the

throne’s chief support, was now gone forever. Such, for example,

is the opinion of Jean-Jacques Leuliet te, writ ing in 1797: “ . . . if I



178

Th e Af t e r ma t h

1. Des Emigrés Français ou Réponse àM. de Lally-Tol lendal, Paris, 1797, pp.104–5.

2. Journal d’économie politique, de morale, et de politique; rédigépar Roederer de l’In- sti tut national de France, Paris, 1797, II. 370. It is curious to n ote th at Montesquieu’sconservatism, alth ough it was often attacked d uring the Revolution, was also veryoften “explained away” as representing n othing more th an the exoteric principles

of a basically rad ical but prud ent po litical thinker who was obliged to use the sub-terfuge of a double doctrine und er the oppression of the ancien régime. See, forexample, Destut t de Tracy, M. de Tracy àM. Burke, p. 9; La Décade, 1795, V. 468;Brissot, Le Patriote Français, No. 915, 11 February 1792 , pp. 167–68; ThomasPaine, The Rights of Man, 1791, Part I, p. 75.

could hazard an opinion, I would say tha t the return of the monar-

chy is impossib le in France, that its very founda tions have been

overturned, that if this colossus were to rise again one day, it would

stand, like the statue of Nebuchadnezzar, only on feet of clay. JamesStuart o nce uttered a profoun d maxim: no Bishop, no King and

there is no likelihood tha t the reign of superstition will be easily

restored. . . .” 1

Republicans were generally confi dent on this last point. Nei-

ther th e Church nor th e mon archy could ever return to power.

Also writing in 1797, the idéologue Roederer explained just why

there was no need to fear a religious revival. H is reasons, given only

a few years before the appearance of the Génie du Christianisme and

the ratifi cation of the Concordat, are worth noting and invite cer-

tain refl ections on the advantages held, temporarily at least, by the

empirical conservatives of the opposing camp who spoke so lov-

ingly of the inertia in the nature of th ings and who went on mak-

ing their hopeful historical parallels:

Do you know that in France there are two million copies ofHelvétius, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montesquieu, and tha t every dayone hundred tho usand pages of philosophy are read in France? Doyou not th ink tha t it would be d iffi cult to destroy ent irely the powerof these men, even if their works were no more than part of th e per-son al furn iture of a h ost of people? No one likes to see his libra ry,the books that adorn his room, degraded. Certainly, the moroccoleather, the vellum b indings, the go ld tooling o f our Voltaire an dMontesquieu volumes weigh in our favour. Ask the o ld lawyers who

looked on with such regret as some of the worst laws were beingabo lished if part of th eir concern was no t because of their libraries.2



179

Rep ubl i can Qual ms

3. Essai sur les causes qui, en 1 6 4 9 , amen è rent en Angleterre l ’é tablissement de la R é publique; sur celles qui devaient l ’ y consolider; sur celles qui l ’ y fi rent p é rir. Par Boulay(de la Meurthe) , Représentan t du Peuple, Paris, An VII.

4. Ibid ., p. 4.

Confi dence in the future of the new Republic and the rea-

soned hope that it would consolidate its forces now that the days

of anarchy were over thus seem to have been the prevailing atti-

tude on the Left at this time. Some republicans, however, despitesuch assurances, did in fact worry about the Stuart para llels. Typi-

cally concerned was Antoine B oulay de la Meurthe, a member o f

the Conseil des Cinq -Cents, who in December 1797 became pres-

ident of the Assembly. Although Boulay had himself narrowly es-

caped the Terror, he became in th is post-Terror period a stron g

advocate of harsher measures aga inst refractory priests and aga inst

members of the nobility who had not emigrated. Such measures

are best described as ind icative of h is own pronounced fears of a

coun ter-revolution. At his suggestion even, a special promise not to

aid in attempts to restore the monarchy was added to the oath of

civil offi cers at th is time.

It can safely be said, I think, that much of Boulay’s preoccu-

pation with the dangers of a counter-revolution came to h im from

his study of Stuart history.

The English republic had not survived because, obviously, theEnglish had made mistakes. But what were those English mistakes?

As an answer to th is question , Boulay published in 1798 his popu-

lar essay showing the causes of failure in the English revolution.3

The basic implication of Boulay’s work is that the art of revo-

lut ion is a diffi cult one—more diffi cult certainly than was admitted

by those who had nursed France’s great social experiment through

its earliest years. The English had faced the same original problem.

They to o had o verth ro wn the monarchy in hopes o f d estro yingdespotism: “One of the more immediate causes of this revolution

was mon arch ical d espotism, elevated to a great h eigh t by th e

princes of the House of Tudor and imprudently susta ined by the

House of Stuart that followed.” 4 They had fa iled to mainta in their

republic, however, because of rigorous extremism. The English re-



180


5. Ib id ., p. 121.

6. Ib id ., p. 122.

public would have survived if patriots had steered a middle course

between the servile policies of the royalists—which Hume, Boulay

asserts, despite all his airs of impartiality, obviously supports—and

the fanatica l conduct o f the extreme Left wing. Boulay admits, o fcourse, that some harsh measures were necessary at the time:

However much one might wish to take pride in moderation, itwould be difficult to deny that, once the revolution was accom-plished, the people’s leaders had every right to repress the royalistparty by reducing it to a situation where it could do no ha rm. Whena political chan ge ha s been carried out in the interests of th e peo-ple and with their approval, it is obvious that a ll necessary measuresto con solidate it are no t on ly auth orized but req uired by justice, no tthat d istributive justice which operates among ind ividua ls, but gen -eral justice tha t sees to the preservation a nd the ha ppiness of soci-eties, whose acts, though always ad van tageous to th e majority, mayat times not seem favora ble to the minority.5

But having gone this far, Boulay warns, leaders of revolutions

must be careful to go no farther. Harsh measures must be re-

stricted to what is absolutely necessary: “The fi ne art of revolutionis to attain your goal while doing the least possible harm.” 6 The

delicate trick of survival enta ils giving on ly a half-turn to the polit-

ical wheel, which must come to rest at precisely the right point,

that is, before the necessity of react ion sets in. There are implica-

tions in th e following passage which make it possible for us to un-

derstand how republicans were soon able to reconcile in their

minds both the Revolution and the arrival of Bonaparte—however

much they were to murmur eventually at the title of Emperor:

On e of man ’s greatest needs, and, especially, one of the greatestneeds of any society, is the n eed for tran q uillity. . . . On e of th e fi rstduties of government is thus to secure the public peace, not thekind of pea ce sometimes provided by despotism and which resem-bles too closely the peace of the graveyard, but rather, the peacethat combines with dynamic action in proportions that are most

salutary for bo th the body politic and its ind ividua l members, such



181


7. Ibid ., pp . 126–27.8. De la force du gouvernement actuel de la France et de la n é cessit é de s ’ y rallier,

1796, p. 95, note f.

9. Des r é acti ons poli ti ques, An V, pp. 2–3.

peace being always the fruit of liberty wisely and fi rmly regulated bythe constitution and by laws.7

Disagreeing with Boulay de la Meurthe’s position on severalpoints but supporting basically his view that extremism could only

harm the Revolution, the young republican B enjamin Con stan t in

an earlier work had also invoked Stuart history to warn France o f

the dangers of counter-revolution.

First of all, Constant maintained, it was a mistake to say that

the English revolution had failed. Confusion had arisen on this

question because it was assumed that the French and English rev-

olutions had had similar goals:

When we attempt to measure the success of revolution s—the prod-uct of ideas—we sometimes confuse their second ary and primarygoals. We assume, fo r example, tha t th e revolution of 1648 in En-gland fa iled because the monarchy was later restored. But it was no tthe idea of a republic tha t sparked the revolution, it was the idea ofreligious freedom. The notion of a republic was no more than an ac-

cessory goal, an d in th is respect th e revolution fell sho rt.8

Even th ough an ideological iden tity did no t exist, there were

important lessons to be learned from Stuart h istory by those who

wished to maintain th e Republic in France:

The English revolution, which was essentially an attack on popery,having gone beyond its goal by abolishing royalty, provoked a violent

reaction: twenty-eight years later a second revolution was requiredto forestall the restoration of popery. The French Revolution, whichwas essentially an attack on privilege, having likewise gone beyondits goal by attacking property, has now provoked a terrible reactionand there will be need for, not ano ther revo lution, I hope, but fo rmuch precaution and extreme care to ensure tha t pr ivilege is notreinstated.9



182


10. Des suites de la contre-r é volu tion de 1 6 6 0 en Angleterre, Paris, An VII,pp. viii–ix.

Stuart history shows, accord ing to C onstan t, that th e greatest

diffi culties are encountered when one attempts to restore to its just

and moderate limits a revolution that h as gone too far. The po lit-

ical pendulum swings an equal distance in both directions. Re-pressive reaction eq ual to former excess is a constant threat . It was

to warn aga inst the dangers of such a reaction that Benjamin Con-

stan t added his own remarks to Boulay’s treatment of the English

revolution. Boulay had described the oppressive extremes of the

English revolutionaries; he had not, however, suffi ciently empha-

sized the greater h orrors perpetrated by those who subsequently

restored the monarchy. This was, Constant urged , the lesson of Stu-

art h istory that ca lled for France’s immediate attention:

The present state o f the republic has been a n additiona l reason forme to undertake this work. Men of every party, in their books andin their speeches, seem to be saying that a transition would be de-sirable, that coming to terms would be possible. I would like todemon strate that con tractual agreements between the republic androyalty are never more than d eceitful arrangements intend ed to d is-

arm those targeted for punishment; that compromises with kingsare a lways without gua ran tee; tha t the same impulses tha t argue fora restoration of the monarchy lead invariably to overturning thebarriers with which on e hopes to limit monarchical power; fi nally,that the nation that does not know how to live without a masterknows even less how to keep him in ch eck.10

To prove these points, Constant proposed to quote authorities

who could not be suspected o f republican b ias. H e deftly agrees to

leave aside Mrs. Macaulay’s accoun t and promises to use the roy-

alists Clarendon and H ume. Even these historians, he implies, had

found it impossible to veil the atrocities of the bloody Jefferies and

Kirkes. What is more, the force of this English lesson had to be

multiplied several times over for proper application to circum-

stan ces in France, since cond itions in Englan d had been o f such a

nature as to soften the violence of coun ter-revolution.



183


11. Ibid ., pp . 77–80.

12. J.-B. Salaville, De la R é volu tion Fran ç aise compar é e à celle de l ’ Angleterre ou Lettre au Repr é sentant du peuple Boulay (de la M eurthe ), sur la dif f é rence de ces deux r é volu tions; pour servi r de suite à l ’ ouvrage publi é par ce Repr é sentant sur celle de l ’ Angleterre,Par is, An VII , p. 2.

. . . what atten tive reader will no t be struck by the d ifferences tha tdistinguish our curren t situation from wha t prevailed in England atthe time, differences tha t would make the restoration of the monar-

chy a thousand times more dan gerous here? . . .To forestall the coun ter-revolution , to mainta in th e republic, isthus in the common interests of all Frenchmen of every class. Whythen is there this universal indifference, this pervasive lethargy, inwhich the people, despite the dangers that surround them, seem tobe submerged ?11

As we have already noted, not all republicans were as worried

about the Stuart parallels as Constant and Boulay seem to havebeen. Commenting in the same year on Boulay’s work, J.-B. Sala-

ville objected that such a show of uneasiness was bad for the morale

of republicans generally, and politically most unwise. Boulay had

no doubt been well intentioned in h is desire to warn the French by

citing the failures of the English revolution. But however laudable

his motives were, he was guilty in effect of telling h is compatriots

tha t much of wha t they had already accomplished was somehow

invalid and that the course of the revolution would have to bechanged. Was this not , Salaville asked, the very line preach ed by

French royalists who also liked to talk about th e revolutionary fail-

ures of the English? Had not Boulay unwittingly played into the

hands of th e counter-revolutionaries? “I am a ssured,” Salaville as-

serted, “ tha t your work has had an effect quite different from what

you expected; that it has discouraged republicans, the sincere

friends of liberty; that, conversely, it has singularly revived the

hopes of royalists because of th e resemblance they th ink they can

see between the English revolution and what has just taken place

here, a con formity tha t suffi ciently guarantees in their eyes the

coun ter-revolution they yearn for.” 12



184


13. Ib id ., p. 26.

France’s republicans had to be encouraged, not told that their

effo rts had been wasted . Royalists, on the other hand, had to be

stripped of any comforting and politically dangerous illusions. The

best way to effect both of these salutary measures was, in Salaville’sopinion, to prove that the English and French revolutions, which

even republicans now seemed to see as “perfectly similar,” were in

fa ct q uite d issimila r a nd that noth ing a t a ll co uld be co nclud ed

from the one to the other except perhaps that re-establishment of

the monarchy in France, in any form whatever, was henceforth an

impossibility.

To begin with, the English would not h ave had a revolution

had it no t been for the disagreement over religion. This in itself,

Salaville maintained, was enough to show that the French and En-

glish revolutions were quite different. England ’s quarrel over reli-

gion could have been resolved without a political revolution.

France’s revolution, on the o ther hand, had grown out o f the vi-

cious socio-political structure of the ancien r é gime; a political revo-

lution had been absolutely necessary to change that structure.

Salaville also repeated —only a few months before the 18thBrumaire—the arguments so popular with those members of th e

Convention who during Louis’s trial had rejected the Stuart

parallel:

I think one could successfully argue that there has never been arepublic in England. Cromwell was already king when Charlesmoun ted the scaffold; there is nothing more to be seen in tha t event

tha n the elimina tion of o ne d espot b y his competitor. The samething has occurred in countless mon archies. . . . H iding under thePro tectorate label, royalty became a ll the more absolute, and in theend, when Cromwell was allowed to name his successor, it was evenmad e hered itary.

In Fran ce royalty was abo lished both in law and in fact; no ind i-vidual took it upon himself to a ssume un der an y title wha tever theformer occupant’s place; the gen erals stayed with th eir armies. . . .No revolution had ever before provided such an example. . . . 13



185


14. Ibid ., pp. 29–30. Salaville rath er tha n Mirabea u is sometimes creditedwith the publication in 1789 of Th é orie de la royaut é , d ’ apr è s la doctrine de M ilton, pa rle comte d e M******* (see supra, p. 140, n . 89).

The 18th Brumaire was, of course, and very soon, to spoil

even this splendid example. Once again we are forced to think,

with all our advantages of hindsight, of Roederer and the warm

sense of security he felt as he contemplated the two million copiesof Volta ire, H elvétius, et cetera, that existed in France, providing

an “insurmountable” barrier to the religious revival! The makers of

parallels freq uently showed, it must be ad mitted , less innocence at

least in their empirical proph ecies. Innocence too is perhaps the

word that best characterizes Salaville’s apparent inability to eq uate

more meaningfully the factor of religion in the seventeenth cen-

tury with that o f politics one hundred and fi fty years later. He il-

lustra tes the defi ciency well in the following criticism o f Boulay:

Moreover, Citoyen repr é sentant, these factions or these parties that,especially in your work, seem to bear such a striking resemblance tothose created by our Revolution , migh t very well, after fa irly rigor-ous ana lysis, turn out to be q uite different in both their principlesan d procedures; everyone has seen in your P resbyterians the eq uiv-alent of our F é d é ralistes or Mod é r é s, and in your In dependents those

we have specifi cally labeled Jacobins; but th e fact is tha t the Presby-terians and the Independents, in conformity with the spirit of theEnglish revolution, were bigots an d fana tics, concerned mainly withreligion; politics had only a subsidiary rô le as a means to achievethe changes they wished to see made in their forms of worship;there is no t much there tha t resembles the motivating forces whichinspired in turn our own various parties.14

With the concluding thought that Salaville, even for his day,was perhaps too exclusive in h is application of the terms bigot and

fanatic, let us turn now to those whom he d escribed as sighing for

the counter-revolution an d as excessively comforted by the belief

tha t wha t had happened in England was happening even then in

France.



186


15. Oeuvres compl è tes de Duvoisin, p. 1302.

2

Wait ing fo r Gener a l Monk

The Abbé Duvoisin in h isD é fense de l ’ ordre social contre les principes de la R é volution Fran ç aise (1798) gives, along with the usual history-

inspired theocratic account of the origin of society, perhaps the

most precise expression to the royalists’ counter-revolutionar y

hopes at this time. God is the author o f society in the sense that h e

made man a social creature. Hereditary monarchy gives the best

demon stration o f th is na tural form of government; the “ force ofthings” as evidenced in the reassuring example of Stuart history

must inevitably return the French to their old r é gime:

Similar to the English republic in its origins, the French Republicwill likewise end in the same mann er. After th e dea th of Cromwell,England, tired of both parliamentary anarchy and protectoraltyranny, saw in the restoration of the slain king ’s son its only hope

for peace. The D irectoire, which subjugated the legislative bo dy,which destroyed all national representa tion, which stripped the peo-ple of all their constitutiona l rights, the Directoire is the Cromwellof the French Republic. It will fall, and with it will disappear a ll thatremains of the republic, its nomenclatures and its forms. . . .

Monarch ical government is a restorative for n ations tha t are ex-hausted by civil discord.15

Duvoisin then provides hints, drawn from his knowledge ofStuart history, as to h ow Fran ce’s government would become legal

once more:

Zealous or a mbitious generals, armies that h ave been ent iced away,have lent th eir support to the Directoire against the na tion. In themidst of these same armies, a more noble and enlightened ambitionmay raise up a Monk who, a s he unfurls the royal stand ard , will seehimself as the leader and liberator of the nation. . . .

If the past can pro vide us with conjectures for the future, h istor y



187

Wa i t i ng f o r Ge n e r a l Mo n k

16. Ibid ., pp . 1307–8.

17. Oeuvres compl è tes de J. de Maistre, I. 113.

18. Ibid ., I. 121–22.

aboun ds with actions that seem to justify the hopes of th e friends ofreligion and royalty. . . . 16

That the coun ter-revolution would be the work of a few menwas also the opinion of Joseph de Maistre in his famous Consid é ra-

ti ons sur la France, published in 1796, two years before Duvoisin ’s

work.

When we advan ce hypotheses regard ing the counter-revolution , wetoo often commit the error o f thinking tha t the counter-revolutionwill be, and can o nly be, the result of a popular decision. . . . H ow

pitiful! The people play no rô le in revolutions, or at least they areinvolved only as passive instruments. Perhaps four or fi ve personswill be responsible for giving France a king. . . . If the monarchy is re-stored, the people will not be involved in its reinstatement any morethan they were involved in its destruction o r in th e estab lishment ofa revolutionary government.17

Benjamin Constant had warned republicans that a counter-

revolution would be bloody and vengeful, and he had citedHume’s History to prove this. De Maistre, also writing with the

pages of H ume’s Stuarts open before h im, sees the exact opposite

to be the case. He soothingly reassured h is republican enemies that

the restora tion would be forgiving:

It is a very common piece of sophistry these days to insist on thedangers of a counter-revolution in order to show that we must nevergo back to the monarchy. . . .

Are people perhaps convinced that . . . because the monarchy wasoverturned by monsters it must be reinstated by men who are th eircounterparts? Oh! may those who employ this soph ism d o it full jus-tice by looking closely into their o wn h earts! They kno w tha t th efriends of religion and of the monarchy are incapable of commit-ting any of the excesses that stained the han ds of their enemies. . . .18



188


19. Ib id ., I. 153–56.

20. Ib id ., I. 157.

A return to the monarchy, far from producing such evils,

would put an end to the maladies affl icting France. Only the forces

of destruction, de Maistre blithely asserts, would be destroyed.

Were there foolish sceptics among h is read ers who still remainedunconvinced? For these he marshals his weightiest arguments, the

evidence of history:

. . . let us at least believe in history, h istory which is experimental pol-itics. In the last century, England presented more or less the samespectacle tha t we see in France today. The fan aticism of liberty, fi redup by religious fan aticism, penetra ted men ’s souls there much more

deeply than it has in France where the cult of liberty is based onno thingness. Wha t a difference, moreover, in the character o f thetwo nation s and in th e actors who played a rô le on the two stages!Where are, I will not say the Hampdens, but the Cromwells ofFran ce? And yet, in spite of the blazing fana ticism of the English re-publicans, in spite of the austere determination of the national char-acter, in spite of th e well-deserved fears of man y guilty person s, an despecially of th e army, did the restora tion o f the monarchy in En-gland cause the kind of d ivisions that were generated by the regicide

revolution ? Show us the atrocities, the vengeful reprisals of the En-glish royalists. A few regicides perished by authority of the law, butno battles too k place, n o ind ividual scores were settled. The king ’sreturn was marked only by a grea t cry of joy that was heard through-out England. Enemies embraced, and the king, surprised at whathe saw, exclaimed with great emotion: I t must surely have been my own fault that I have been absent so long from such a good people! . . . 19

After citing that impartial historian David H ume as his source,de Maistre in aphoristic style defi nes the one great truth he wished

the French to make theirs: “ The restoration of the monarchy,

which is called a coun ter-revolution, will not be a contrary revolu-

tion, but the con trary of the revolution.” 20

De Maistre saw Stuart h istory, properly interpreted , as a mar-

vellous specifi c against the unfounded fears of even the guiltiest

republicans. They had no need to be anxious about a future



189


21 . See supra,p. 90 , n. 16. Royalistswere immenselypleased with thisclever bitof editing. (See, for example, theSpectateur du Nord, July–September 1797,pp. 93–94.)

The infl uence of Hume on de Maistre is undeniably profound but defi essimple analysis. He quotes the “orthodox” Hume often, a s, for example, in the fol-lowing a ttack on a priori constitutions: “The principle that the people are the o ri-

gin o f all just power is noble an d specious in itself, but it is belied by all history an dexperience.” (Oeuvres compl è tes de J. de Maistre, I. 286–87.) H e also q uotes (or mis-q uotes) Hume ’s authority on the origins of European government (I. 440–41);aga inst th e alleged superiority of English eloquence (I. 194, 527); on the Coun-cil of Tren t ( II . 28–29); against th e Reformation: “H ume who h eld back noth ingsince he believed in nothing, openly admits that the true foundation of the Re-formation was the desire to ‘make spoil of the plate and all the rich ornamentswhich belonged to th e altars.’” (II. 413, 521); against so-called En glish tolerancein religion: “How much pa tience did England —which is always haran guing o therna tions on the subject of toleran ce—itself show when it though t its own religion

was under attack? Hume has reproached it for its Inquisition against Catholics,worse, he states, than that o f Spain, since it exercised its whole tyran ny though without its order.” (III. 359); against the Enlightenmen t heroes Bacon and Locke (IV.272, 375; VI. 44–45, 56–57); and on the worthy rôle of the Ch urch in preserv-ing civilization during the Dark Ages (VI. 473–74), et cetera.

On the other hand, it is also clear that David Hume represented for deMaistre perhaps the most frightening example possible of human wickedness:“Who has not h eard o f David H ume, cui non notus Hylas? I th ink, everything con-sidered, th at th e eighteenth century, so fertile in the gen re, produced no en emyof religion eq ual to him. H is icy venom is far m ore d an gerous than Voltaire’srabid frothings. . . . If ever among men who h ave heard the G ospel preached th erehas existed a true atheist (a question I sha ll not take it upon myself to decide) , itis he. I ha ve never been able to rea d an y of h is an ti-religious works without ex-periencing a kind of terror, without asking myself how was it possible for a manwho possessed every capacity for discovering the truth to fall to such depths ofdegradation. I have always felt that Hume’s hardness of heart, his insolent calm-ness of mind, must be th e ultimate form of pun ishment, beyond mercy, for a cer-tain rebellion o f the intellect tha t G od punishes only by withdrawing.” (III. 386–87.) The long letter aga inst H ume from which th is q uota tion is taken, along with

several o ther pa ssages in de Maistre’s works, indicates a q uite extrao rdinarily am-bivalent attitud e to the Scottish historian whose po litical conservatism attra ctedtradition alists with much the same force as his religious scepticism repelled them.De Maistre nevertheless insisted that the David H ume Fragment remain in later edi-tion s of h is no ted coun ter-revolution ary work.

restoration of the monarchy. That Stuart history could also give

unique hope an d assuran ce to long-suffering royalists is made

equally clear by the last chapter in de Maistre’s book, the title of

which is self-explana tor y and need s no fur ther comment . It iscalled, q uite simply, “Extract from a H istory of the French Revolu-

tion, by David Hume.” 21



190


Also infl uenced by Hume but in a more straightforward man ner is Josephde Maistre’s fellow theoretician of the counter-revolution, Louis de Bona ld. DeBonald an d d e Maistre shared similar views concern ing the proph etic signifi canceof English history and on many other subjects as well: “Is it possible, Monsieur,”de Maistre wrote to his friend in 1818, “ that nature h as been pleased to tightentwo strings in such perfect harmony as your mind is with mine! They are in per-fect unison, a truly unique phenomenon. . . .” (From Turin , 18 July 1818, ibid.,

XIV. 137.) De Bona ld too attacks a priori politics an d mainta ins tha t constitutionsare as natural as gravity and can never be “pocketable.” History is the sole vali-da ting principle of a ll political speculation . Like de Maistre, de Bonald a lso a ttacksHume for his irreligion but cites his authority against Calvinism, English repub-licanism, et cetera. (See, for example, Oeuvres compl è tes de M. de Bonald, Paris, 1859,II. 224: “Hume right ly remarks tha t in Englan d since the last revolution, publicfreedom and independ ence, from which individua l security is der ived, have beenmore un certain and precarious.”) H e too applauds Hume ’s impartiality and fair-ness to France: “Monsieur Hume notes with respect to the rivalry between ourtwo nations, that the French hate the English much less than the English hatethe French” (ibid., II. 509). De Bonald even found Hume less “English ” in hisprejudices than th e historian Lingard , who was not on ly a Cath olic but a memberof th e Cath olic clergy (ibid., III. 917). He also invokes Hume’s authority aga instthe physical determinism o f Montesquieu (ibid., II . 28–29) and against divorce(ibid., II. 113, 121, 125).

In man y ways the use of th ese “orthodox” themes taken from H ume by deMaistre, Duvoisin, de B onald, and oth ers, although it represents a fresh readingof the Scottish historian in th e coun ter-revolution ary context, consists of littlemore than a routine repetition of material already exploited to the hilt by such

historical conservat ives an danti-anglomanes

of th e pre-revolution ar y period asGerdil, Bergier, the editors of the M é moires de Tr é voux, Lefebvre de Beauvray, etcetera. It would deserve a more length y treatment here were it not for the fact thatwe have already given a good d eal of a ttention to th e writings of these oth ers inour fi rst chapter.

There was little doubt in the minds of most royalists that the

French revolution was going exactly the way of its English prede-

cessor. The on ly q uestion that remained involved the length of

time the whole inevitable process would take. Was it necessary, forexample, for the French Republic to pass through the Cromwell

phase? Was it not possible tha t the Cromwell era had already oc-

curred? We remember th at D uvoisin had seen the Directo ire in

1798 as the eq uivalent of Cromwell although, earlier still, others

had maintained tha t Robespierre was Cromwell and tha t counter-

revolutionary France had to make itself ready to welcome its Gen-

eral Monk.

Charles de Villers expressed the belief in 1798 that this last



191


22 . “Dialogue entre Cromwel et Robespierre,” Le Spectateur du Nord; journal poli tique, li tt é raire et moral, Hambourg, July–September 1798, VII. 76–85.

23. Mercure Britannique ou noti ces histori ques et cri ti ques sur les affaires du tems,

par J. Mallet du Pan, Lon dres, 25 December 1798, II. 23.

opinion attr ibuted possibly too much importance to Robespierre,

who is described in a dialogue by de Villers as newly arriving in hell

and greeting the English P rotector as follows:

Robespierre: “I have been looking for you ever since I got here.The striking resemblan ce of our two destinies, th e con formity ofour projects, of our methods and our talents, naturally draws usclose to each other and pro mpts us to reminisce together about thegreat events that we set in motion .”

Much offended , Cromwell disagrees and scornfully points out

tha t Robespierre is nothing more than a “minor rabble-rouser, a

market-stall schemer” :

Robespierre: “All the same, people back on earth openly compareme to you.”

Cromwell: “ That is because people back on earth are obsessedwith making comparisons; and most of those who put you on thesame footing with me know me only by name. . . . If France ever hasa C romwell, he will be an army genera l, a grea t leader, a statesman ,

an ora tor, and above all, a man blessed with good fortune.”Robespierre: “And who, pray, will th is fortunate person be? Quite

obviously, it must, as they say, en d with a master.”Cromwell: “ Time will tell. . . .” 22

Time would indeed tell. Mallet du Pan , perhaps the wisest roy-

alist spokesman in th is period, indicated in December 1798 that

the an swer to d e Villers’s question was close: “The Directoire,” he

stated, “ is now at the stage Cromwell was in when h e drove out Par-liament . There is no Cromwell in France, but the similarity of sit-

uations requires a similar outcome.” 23

Not long a fter th is, however, he began to express important

doubts about the tactical wisdom of counting on such parallels:

“ To t ry to th row ligh t on the h istor y of the revolution by these

means is to demonstrate that one is quite ignorant o f its true char-



192


24. Ibid ., 25 April 1799, III. 31.

25. Ibid ., 10 August 1799, III. 481.

26. Ibid., I II . 482–83.

acter.” 24 Not only were there bad analogies involved; politically

speaking, the parallels made the counter-revolution seem just a lit-

tle too easy: “It is asking much to suggest to the ind ividual who has

barely managed to save his life an d his few rags from Robespierre’sexecutioners that he should once more trust his fate to the hazard

of events! It takes a rare combinat ion o f circumstances to retemper

a man ’s spirit once it has been broken.” 25 The Stuart parallel was

especially harmful if, as seemed to be the case, it encouraged roy-

alists merely to sit back and wait complacently for the English

restora tion to be duplicated automatically in France. Much active

preparation had to be carried out:

The elements of a huge royalist party are there but the party itself—witho ut leaders, without con certed effort, witho ut fund ing, with-out weapons, without power, without gathering places—the partyitself is yet to be fo rmed .

Four fifths of all Frenchmen detest their government; but, asDavid Hume rightly points out, the English royalists living underthe republic made th e mistake of thinking tha t all those who com-

plained abo ut the n ew regime were supporters of the mona rchy. . . .The King of France h as fewer enemies to vanq uish than he h asuncaring self-servers to convince; it is less a q uestion for him of urg-ing royalists on to action than it is a ma tter of creating them: reduc-ing th e number of those oppo sed to his authority will be h is mostuseful victo ry.26

Mallet du Pan, himself an active agent of the counter-

revolution, is probably one of the few royalists at this time who, for

various reasons, felt it was necessary to abandon the fashionableparallel. Speaking of this current “abuse of similitudes,” he made

the following objection :

H eaven preserve the cabinets of Europe and the councils of LouisXVIII from deluding themselves with these romantic parallels. Aschoolboy could easily discern the crude similarities that seem toequate th e two revolutions; but it is the tableau o f their d ifferences



193


27. Ibid ., II I. 483–85.

that must be examined by anyon e dedicated to a nn ihilating theFrench Repub lic.

It was not necessary to arm Europe, or to invade England with

foreign troops, to bring about a restora tion whose constituent partswere already in place an d well matched to the task. When you com-pare th ese with the rubble to which the customs and institutions ofold France have been reduced, when you see in England the n obil-ity, the clergy, and nearly all English gentlemen continuing to oc-cupy their homes, reta ining their titles and their lands as well as therespect and admiration of the public, when you con trast the intensespirit of religion, the man ners, customs, and laws of England , the ju-diciary powers, the national character, the character of the army,

when you hear Cromwell address a member of the Upper Housewho appeared before him as Milord, when you set all that o ff aga instthe catastrophic ruins under which France lies buried, you throw all of your parallels into the fi re and yield to the realization thatidentifying the specifi c combina tion of factors that will bring Franceback to its original state might well be an entirely new problemunder the sun.27

Mallet du Pan ’s warning about the potentia l dangers of such

comparisons seems to have had little effect. English-French paral-

lels, a lmost a ll foretelling the imminent appearance of a French

Genera l Monk, became the hackneyed predict ion and common-

place hope of much é migr é literature, threatening even to grow to

the proportions of an elegant literary genre. Sometimes the treat-

ment was very light indeed, as can be seen in the following passage,

judged by its author Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Nougaret as a “curiousand

intriguing piece, worthy of being considered part of our history” :

Referring to the time when the parties divided the British Isles,when its citizens were at war with one an oth er an d b lood fl owedeverywhere, H ume writes of two citizens who presented themselvesto the king, “with lean, pale, sharp, and dismal visages: faces sostrange and uncouth; fi gures, so habited an d accoutred, as at on cemoved [according to Lord Clarendon] the most severe counte-nan ce to mirth and the most cheerful heart to sadn ess. . . .”

Do we not h ave here a portrait of our h ideous Jacobins, dirty, dis-gusting , wearing short jackets called carmagno les, long breeches or



194


28. Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Nougaret, Parall è le de la R é volu tion d ’ Angleterre en

1 6 4 2 , et celle de France, Metz, p. 13 [see Hume, H istory of England, VII. 501].29. Oeuvres compl è tes, Paris, 1834, I. 153.

30. Pens é es in é di tes de Rivarol, Paris, 1836, pp. 80–81.

31. Ib id ., p. 92.

trousers, their grimy, greasy hair topped with a fur cap or a redwoollen bonnet like those of galley slaves, the same colour as theblood they loved to shed so abundantly, wide moustaches, gaunt

and hollow cheeked from the forced abstinence of their recent stateof begga rliness and poverty?28

Admittedly, we are not dealing h ere with the most ponderous

examples of the genre, and Nougaret derived few great prophe-

cies from h is observation tha t both Round Heads and Jacobins had

the bad taste to be cosmetically below standard. Other parallels

pretended, however, to greater things. Chateaubriand in his Essai

sur les R é volutions (1797) states that the Jacobins directly imitatedthe English execution of Charles I when they put Louis XVI to

death: “I dare to go even further: if Charles had not been d ecapi-

tated in London, Louis, in all probability, would not have been

guillotined in Paris.” 29 Supporting such claims, Rivaro l complained

at the turn o f the century tha t on ly the leftist leaders had taken the

trouble to learn from previous revolutions. He affi rmed, even, that

he had personally seen members of the Constituent Assembly in

1789 reading Stuart h istory for the fi rst time “ to see how the Lon gParliament dealt with Charles I.” 30

The 18th Brumaire, immediately viewed by many royalists as

a fi rst step in the long-awaited fulfi lment o f the grea t prophecy,

rallied immensely the hopes of those who had been carefully tend-

ing their parallels: “Royalists are thinking of Monk,” wrote Rivarol,

“and are more in favour o f Bonaparte than the democra ts; mean-

while, he is fawned over like Necker, Lafayette, and Pétion.” 31 Even

the head of the counter-revolutionary party, Louis XVIII, at fi rst ex-

pressed the hope that Napoleon would be magnanimous enough

to play the rôle o f Monk. O n B onaparte’s refusal to be so gener-

ous and after a later counter-proposal from the French consul à vie tha t Louis XVIII renounce his cla im to the throne in exchange for



195


32. Letter of 10 August 1803, from Warsaw, in Correspondance diplomatique

et m é moires in é dits du Cardinal Maury, annotés et publiés par Mgr Ricard, Lille,1891, II. 271.

33. Parall è le entre C é sar, Cromwell, M onck et Bonaparte: Fragment tradui t de l ’ Anglais (published an on ymously by Charles-Jean-Dominiq ue de Lacretelle, Paris,1802), p. 2.

34. La D é cade, XXVIII. 281.

certain indemnities, the latter turned to an equally common prac-

tice of the day, that of calling Bonaparte a Cromwell. As the French

mo na rch in exile explain ed to Card in al Maury in 1803 : “ . . . i f

Cromwell, a fter conquering Jamaica , had offered it to Charles I I,he could not have accepted it: it would have implied recognition

of the Protector’s lega l existence. My case is the same. . . .” 32

Bonaparte’s own “republican” admirers felt that a ll the mod-

ern parallels were too confi ning when it came to describing the

greatness of the French Consul. The younger Lacretelle, for ex-

ample, made th is sentiment d ramatically clear in 1802:

Because of his astonishing destiny he has been compared to everyextraordinary man who has ever appeared on the world ’s stage. Ican see no on e in recent times who resembles him.

I’m told that a few superfi cial or malicious observers have com-pared him to Cromwell. Some lunatics hope he is a new GeneralMonk. France and Europe fi nd in him a striking resemblance toCaesar.33

The truth is, of course, that the epithet Cromwell was still seenas highly insulting by everyone in France at this time. Jean-Baptiste

Say, writing in La D é cade in 1801, ind ignan tly took to task Sir Fran-

cis d ’Ivernois for having made the “comparison, so threadbare and

so false, between our Bonaparte and Cromwell. The name Crom-

well,” he added, “has always been used to stigma tize the friends of

every kind of reform. During the American war it was applied to

Washington ; even before our revolution it became the appanage ofFox, and d uring the Constituen t Assembly, if I’m not mistaken, the

label was applied to Lafayette, who deserved it even less than the

others.” 34





197

Co n c l u si o n

36. Portalis, op. cit., seconde édition, P aris, 1827, II. 24–26.

ical consciousness and had imposed etiological categories which

the vast ma jority of Frenchmen o n the political Right and even a

fair number on the mod erate Left felt obliged to fo llow when giv-

ing explanation to what were seen as similar political processes intheir own coun try. Admittedly, much of the deta iled use made of

Hume’s History was purely polemical. That the greater part of it

cannot be dismissed as such , however, seems obvious. We have only

to look into a work such as De l ’ usage et de l ’ abus de l ’ esprit phi losophique durant le dix-hui ti è me si è cle by Jean-Etienne-Marie P orta lis to

see the permanent importance of H ume’s total impact a t th is time

on the thinking of French rightists.

Portalis’s book was written between 1798 and 1800. It did not

exert the influence or enjoy the reputation of Chateaubriand ’s

more frothy production, the G é nie du Christi anisme, perhaps be-

cause its message came too late. I t appeared fi rst as a posthumous

publication in 1820, thirteen years after its auth or ’s dea th. It n ev-

erth eless represents one of the few truly important end-of-the-

century French rejections of th e Enlightenment and was motivated

not by the cramped and bruta l spirit of some of Joseph d e Maistre’sformulas, but ra ther by a certain wise science of man which H ume

himself, on whose writings some of it is based, would probably not

have disavowed.

Portalis approved of the eighteenth century’s love o f ph ilo-

sophical history and Hume, he felt , had surely writ ten his history

o f Engla nd “as a philosopher.” The French phi losophes, on the

o ther hand, had not pro duced a n eq uiva len t h isto ry o f Fra nce.

Voltaire, it is true, had boasted of writing philosophical history buthad succeeded, like Gibbon, only in writ ing history that was anti-

ecclesiastical.36

The eighteenth century had prided itself on having no reli-

gious superstitions. It had nevertheless ended up being politically

superstitious. It was an eighteenth-century superstition , not shared

by H ume, to imagine that a ny political act was good provided it

was committed in favour of liberty: “In politics, a ll factiona l crimesare canonized for fear of violating the rights of peoples. . . . Some



198


37. Ibid ., II . 28.38. Ibid ., II . 39.

39. Ibid ., II . 299.

have dared to accuse Hume of bias because he criticized the ex-

cesses committed d uring England ’s revolutions.” 37

Thinking no doubt of histories like that of Catherine

Macaulay, so highly praised by the Mirabeaus, Condorcets, andBrissots, Portalis pointed out that n ot only had revolutionary opin-

ion dared to q uestion H ume’s impart iality, it had attempted as well

to make history over again into an arsenal of political propaganda :

“Some philosophers now regard historical facts as nothing more

than a basis on which to construct the most a rbitrary systems.” But

history, wrote the man o f the Concordat, could no t be denied, nor

could its true function, which was to present “an immense collec-

tion of moral experiments carried out on the human race,” 38 be

frustrated.

Such h istory damns forever all a priori political theorists: “All

of our false ideas, our exaggerated principles concerning the rights

of man , his independence, all of our ran ting speeches aga inst civil

and political institutions, derive initially from the notion we have

fashioned fo r ourselves of a so-called state o f nature. . . . Let us

aban do n all systems if we wish to be ph ilosophers; let us renounceour wand erings in the land o f illusion. . . .” 39

History never confronts us with a state of nature; society do es

not exist by reason of any social pact. It cannot therefore be dis-

solved at will like a business arrangement simply because of an al-

leged breach o f contract. Society is not a pact but a fact:

Society is, at the same time, a mixture and an unbroken succession

of persons of all ages and gen ders, constantly brought to gether o rpulled a part a t every instant by interest, chan ce, and a th ousan ddiverse conn ections. . . . The social order has as its object the per-man ent good o f humanity. It is founded o n th e essential and inde-structible relationships tha t exist amon g men . It is not d ependenton any gratuitous or arbitrary institution: it is commanded by na-



199

Co n c l u si o n

40. Ibid ., I I. 301.

41. Ibid ., I I. 334.

42. Ibid ., I I. 363.43. Portalis, though fully aware of Hume’s religious scepticism, believed

along with a number of o ther French conservatives tha t Hume regretfully bore h is

ture; . . . its source is the very structure of our being and it can endonly with that structure.40

Men are united in society because such is the wish of naturewhich made them social creatures. Of course, nothing is immutable;

time brings the necessity of change and adaptation, but a society, in

its transformations, must be very careful that it does not put its very

existence to the test: “It thus requiresverygreat, veryextreme, highly

intolerable evils, before the idea of change—always devastating, al-

ways marked by the most violent turmoil—can be authorized , be-

fore a revolution that attacks the verywellspring of legitimacycan be

legitimized.” 41 Politics is not the art of the ideal but of the real: “Letus not feed on fa lse notions, let us take care not to seek in human

institutions a perfection that is foreign to them.” 42 If man were a to-

tally reasonable creature such perfection would be possible. The sad

truth is, however, that he is not so constituted. The human cogitative

aspect is probably of less importance in our practical behaviour than

the sensitive parts of our nature. Man ’s sentiment, his irrationa lism,

is as basic and natural to him as his reason. Polit ically man is a crea-

ture of emotion, habit , opinion, and prejudice. When polit ical re-

forms prove necessary, these less fl exib le elements must not be

forgotten. Reforms must be approached with circumspection: one

does not tolerate everything, nor must one destroy everything:

Since ma n ’s na ture is no t a ltered by an a lteration in customs, formsmust be modifi ed without abandoning the principles tha t take theirorigin in the very na ture of man.

Characteristically, an erroneous philosophical approach impairsour ab ility to d istinguish principles. We imagine that institutionstha t may have degenerated were never useful. . . . All religious or sec-ular estab lishments in which we no longer believe are judged to bepolitically fraudulent.43 We want only absolute verities and maxims,



200


disbelief as an unwholesome burden. H e makes some of the same d istinctions we

ha ve already encountered in Trublet a nd opposes religious sceptics to theeighteenth-century ath eists: “In t ruth , these sceptics do no t pass censure on reli-gious institutions. They want free access to religion for those who feel uplifted byit; they even seem to complain of their own philosophy, which prevents themfrom believing. We sense, they say, that unbelievers are less fortunate, th at no th-ing can fi ll the void in th e huma n h eart th at a lively faith in religion would oth -erwise satisfy. And so it was that J.-J. Rousseau would say to his friends: ‘I wouldrather be a believer than a philosopher.’ Similarly, Hume, after one of thosetouching and sublime scenes that only religion can present so wondrously, criedout: ‘I would h ave been much happier had I never doubted! ’ ” (Ibid., II. 191–92.)

Po rta lis is no t the on ly victim at th is time of a purely fi ctiona l anecdote con cern-ing Hume; the “Story of La Roche,” contributed by Henry Mackenzie to the Scot-tish publicat ion The M irror in 1779 but which, perhaps no t too strangely, receivedwide circulation in France after th e Revolution. We fi nd it reproduced in La D é -

cade in 1796 (VIII. 554–62); the Biblioth è que bri tanni que in 1798 (VII. 199–215);and in the Spectateur du Nord (VII. 297–312) a lso in 1798.

The long sentimental anecdo te which shows the sceptic Hume weeping al-most religiously at his own incredulity (so different a picture from Joseph deMaistre’s icy sketch!) helped to reinforce occasional efforts to rehabilitate thewhole Hume in th e eyes of th ose orthod ox th inkers who warmly appreciated his

“politics” but who were dismayed by his “philosophy.” Similarly his “social” ethics—often opposed to the “egotistic” mora l philosophy of the m aterialists—had in-variably seemed a redeeming feature in the eyes of such men as Gerd il, Berg ier,Barruel, de Bon ald, and Portalis. Hume ’s moral views were even add uced on oneoccasion as suffi cient proof that he was not the guilty party in the quarrel withRousseau! Of course, the essential feature of Hume ’s image in the eyes of theRight remained his political conservatism. Religious disbelief was not always seen,moreover, as incompatible with royalist sentimen ts. (See Jean-Joseph Mounier,De l ’ in fl uence attr ibu é e aux Phi losophes, aux Francs-Ma ç ons et aux I llumin é s sur la R é vo-

luti on de France, Tübingen, 1801, p. 70.) H obb es versus Milton was a good ca se in

point and, a lthough Hume might very well be an unbeliever, he was, in th e wordsof the Spectateur du Nord, “ the best of the unbelievers.”

44. Portalis, op. cit., II. 503–4, 512.

as if such existed in po litics and in legislation. We replace the lesson sof experience with h ollow speculations. . . . We den y tha t we havebeen shaped by those institutions and laws that, disparaged and

weakened today, nevertheless survive in the habits we acquiredthrough them. . . .We compromise the civilization of a people when, under the pre-

text of giving it better governmen t, we do away with everything thatcivilized it; we plunge it an ew into barba rism by isolating it f romeverything that originally rescued it from that state.44



201

Co n c l u si o n

45. H istoire d ’ Angleterre depuis l ’ invasion de Jules-C é sar jusqu ’à la r é volution de

1 6 8 8 par David Hume et depuis cette é poque jusqu ’à 1 7 6 0 par Smollett . Traduite d e

l’an glais. Nouvelle édition, revue, corrigée et précédée d ’un Essai sur la vie et les é cri ts de D. H ume, par M. Campenon de l’Académie Française, Pa ris, 1819.

46. Ibid. , I . v.

On e can hear echoes of H ume’s own science of human na-

ture in Porta lis’s important man ifesto o f revolt aga inst some of th e

more transient bursts of illumina tion emitted by the si è cle des Lu-

mi è res. One also notes, of course, the influence of Burke; but itshould be remembered that Burke himself was probably influ-

enced by H ume to an extent greater than his Christian Whig prin-

ciples may have cared to admit. Soon, completing the image and

contributing to the destruction of what were seen as Enlighten-

men t excesses in n on -political fields, a n ew Hume was to enter

Fran ce via Kant’s G erman y. Hume the philosopher as opposed to

Hume the philosophe was destined to make the world almost forget

tha t there had ever been an “English Tacitus.”

But Hume’s radically empirical H istory, which some modern

scholars have tended to view as quite unrelated to h is rad ically em-

pirical philosoph y, was no t yet completely dead in France. Quite to

the contrary, after the Restora tion, during the reign of Louis XVIII ,

its importance seemed still great enough to ultra-royalists for sev-

eral of their number to set about editing a completely revised trans-

lation preceded by a long study of Hume’s life and works by theFrench academician Vincent Campenon.45 Needless to say, the

foreword of this new edition begins by reverently calling Hume

nothing less than “ the most impartial and the most judicious his-

torian who has ever lived.”46

Other editions of this work were to follow but as France’s po-

litical events evolved toward more liberal goals, H ume ’s great his-

torical reputation and influence fell. A different, although not

necessarily a more serious, conception of history was being born.Guizot in 1826 triumphantly proclaimed the new era: “ Today. . .

the history of the English Revolution h as taken on a d ifferent com-

plexion: Hume was once the arbiter of European opinion on tha t



202


47 . H istoire de la R é volution d ’ Angleterre depuis l ’ aven è ment de Charles Ier jusqu ’à la restauration de Charles I I, Première partie, Paris, 1826, I. xvii.

subject; and in spite of Mirabeau ’s support, Mistress Macaulay’s

declamations never managed to shake his auth ority.” 47

Europe, Guizot was happy to announce, had at last recovered

its independence. Two pages farther on , he voiced th e judgementtha t seems to have endured among many historians of the “English

Revolution ” ever since: “H ume no longer satisfi es anyone.”



Accord de la Révélation et de la Raison contre le divorce (Chapt de

Rastignac), 108

Actes des Apôtres, 105, 112–16Adresse àl’ordre de la noblesse de France

(d’Antraigues), 120, 168

Alembert, Jean Le Rond d’ , 30–31,34–35, 46–47, 54–55

Algarotti, Count Francesco, 13

l’Ami du Roi, 47

‘Ana gramme-Epigramme sur deux

chefs de parti trés connus,’ 105

Analogies de l’hi stoire de France et d’Angleterre (de Bonald), 89

l’An deux mil le quatre cent quarante (Mercier), 70, 72

l’Angleterre instruisant la France, 8, 122

Annales patr ioti ques, 140

Annales poli tiques, civi les et l i ttérai res (Linguet), 46, 121

Année littéraire, 12, 24, 46–47

Antra igues, Emman uel de Laun ay,

comte d’, 111–12, 120, 168Aristotle, 5

Artois, comte d’ , 2, 91, 119

Autobiography (Gibbon), 6

Avi s àla Convention Nationale sur le jugement de Louis XVI (de

Montjoie), 153–54

Azéma , Michel, 166

Bacon, Sir Francis, 104, 189Bailly, E.-L.-B., 164

Ba lestrier de Canilhac, abbé L.-S., 81

Banca l des Issarts, Jean-Henri, 100,138, 160

Barailon, Jean -Franço is, 164

Barnave, Joseph, 111, 122

Barruel, abbé Augustin, 200

Basset d e la Marelle, Louis, 39Baudin, Pierre-Charles-Louis, 164

Baudot, Marc-Antoine, 169

Bayle, Moïse-Antoine-Pierre-Jean,168

Beccaria, Cesare de, 13

Belot, Mme O ctavie-G uichard Dureyde Meynières, 11

Bergier, abbé Nicolas-Sylvestre, 32,47–54, 55, 57, 78, 103, 108, 190,200

Berkeley, George, 40

Bernard in d e Saint-Pierre, Jacques-

Henri, 74

Berry, duc de, 1. See also Louis XVI

Bertrand de Molleville, Antoine-

François, 144–45

Bezard, Fran çois-Siméon, 167

Bibliothèque britannique, 200

Bibliothèque de l’homme public, 81Bibliothèque de Madame la Dauphine

(Moreau), 17

Bibliothèque des Sciences et des Beaux-Arts,6, 20, 21, 23

Bibliothèque d’un homme de goût (Chaudon), 14

Birot teau, J.-B.-B.-H ., 164 , 171

Blackstone, Sir William, 83

Bodin, P.-J.-F., 164Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, 1st

Viscount, 28

Bonald, Louis de, 3–4, 42, 51, 89,

190, 200

203

In d e x o f Na me s

a n d Ti t l es



Bonaparte, Napoléon, 120, 169, 170,

180, 194–95

Bord as, Pardoux, 164

Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne, 44, 52, 66,

103, 106, 119, 120, 155

Boswell, James, 68

Bouffl ers, Marie, comtesse d e, 11, 75

Boulay de la Meurthe, Anto ine, 179–81, 182, 183, 185

Bourlet de Vauxcelles, abbé Simon-

Jacques, 34

Bradshaw, John, 120

Brissot de War ville, Jacq ues-Pierre, 64,

72, 73, 78, 99, 123–32, 133, 136,153, 162, 178, 198

Brosses, Ch ar les de, 12

Brutus, Lucius Junius, 161, 168–69

Brutus, Marcus Junius, 167–69, 173

Brutus (Voltaire), 121

Buckingham, George Villiers, 1st

Duke of, 65

Buffi er, Claud e, 38

Burke, Edmund, xiii–xiv, 31, 67, 81,

82, 84, 90, 111, 123, 134, 140, 151,

178, 201

Burnet, G ilbert, 12, 25

Burney, Fanny, 3

Buzot, François-Nicolas-Léonard, 160

Ca esar, Julius, 174, 195–96

Calas, Jean, 70

Calonne, Ch arles-Alexandre de, 110

Cambacérès, Jean-Jacques de, 4Campan, Jeanne-Louise G enest,

Mme, 143

Campeno n, François-Nicolas-Vincent,

201

Captivit é et derniers moments de Loui s XVI, 146

Carra , Jean -Louis, 100, 140

Cartouche, Louis-Dominique

Bourguignon, called, 66Castilhon, J.-L., 19

Catilina (Crébillon), 66

Cazalès, Jacques de, 122, 128, 153,

155

Cecilia (Burney), 3

Cerutti, Joseph-Antoine-Joachim, 17,

82

Ch abroud, Jean -Ba ptiste-Ch arles, 120

Cha pt de Rastignac, abbè Armand-Anne-Auguste-Antonin-Sicaire de,

108

Charlemagne, 110

Charles I, King of England , xiii, xv–

xvi, xxi–xxii, 16, 17, 22, 24, 29, 60,

64, 66, 70, 71, 72, 77, 89, 91, 112,

114, 116, 118–30, 131, 141–65,

184, 194, 196, 202

Cha rles II, King of England , 105, 114,122, 131, 132, 163, 195–96, 202

Charles IX , King of France, 148

Charles IX (Marie-Joseph Chénier),

121

Ch asset, Char les-Antoine, 164

Ch astellux, F.-J., marq uis de, 5, 10, 12,

31

Cha teaubriand , François-René, 92,

194, 197

Ch audo n, Dom Louis-Mayeul, 14, 40

Chaumette, Pierre-G aspard, 148

Chénier, Marie-Joseph, 133

Clarendon , Edward Hyde, 1st Ear l of,

xiv–xv, 142, 182

Clarissa Harlowe (Richardson), 108

Cledel, Etienn e, 169

Clémen t, Ama ble-Augustin, 175

Clermon t-Ton nerre, Stan islas, comte

de, 123–32, 136, 162Cléry, Jean-Baptiste-Antoin e Han et,

called, 143 , 147–48

Collecti on compl è te des oeuvres de l ’ Abb é de Mably, 63

Common Sense (Paine), 97

Complete H istory of England (Smollett),

5, 19

ComtedeStrafford (Lally-Tollen dal), 121

Condé, Louis-Joseph de Bourbon,prince de, 146

Cond orcet , Antoine-Nicolas Caritat ,

marq uis de, 81, 98, 99, 134, 198

Congreve, William, 28

204

In de x o f Na me s a n d Ti t l e s



Consid é rations sur la France (de

Maistre), 34, 90, 187–89

Consid é rations sur les principaux

é v é nements de la R é volu tion Fran ç aise (Mme de Staël) , 145

Consid é rations sur l ’ espri t et les moeurs (Sénac d e Meilhan ), 8

Con stant de Rebecque, Benjamin,

181–83, 187

Consti tutions des principaux é tats de

l ’ Europe et des Etats-Unis de l ’ Am é rique

(Delacroix), 111

Contrat social (Rousseau), 3, 42, 56

Corday d ’Armont, Marie-Ch arlotte,176

Corneille, P ierre, 35

Correspondance diplomatique du Cardinal

Maury, 195

Correspondance d ’ un habitant de Paris (d ’Escherny), 134

Correspondance entre quelques hommes

honn ê tes (Servan), 34, 87–88

Correspondance li tt é raire (Grimm), 3, 27

Correspondance poli ti que (Mallet du

Pan), 85

Correspondance universelle (Brissot), 64

Court de G ébelin, Antoine, 14

Crébillon, Prosper Jolyot de, 66

Cromwell, Oliver, xix, xxii, 23, 24, 37,

45, 65–67, 69–70, 112, 115, 117,

126, 130, 140, 142, 148, 153, 157–60, 162, 164, 167, 168–69, 170,

184, 186, 188, 190, 191, 193, 195,196

Cromwel (Maillet-Duclairon ), 66, 69

Cromwel ou le g é n é ral l iberticide (Tardy),

140, 169

Damiens de G omicourt, Auguste-

Pierre, 18

Danton, G eorges-Jacques, 120, 170

Dauphin of France (son of LouisXV), 1

D é cade phi losophique, litt é rai re et

politique, 99, 139, 168, 170, 178,

195, 200

Defence of the English People (Milton),

140, 167

D é fense de l ’ ordre social contre les principes de la R é volu tion Fran ç aise (Duvoisin),

186–87

D é fense de Louis XVI (Cazalès), 153

D é fense des é migr é s fran ç ais (Lally-

Tollen dal) , 153

Defense du Si è cle de Louis XIV (Voltaire), 20

De J.-J. Rousseau consid é r é comme l ’ un des premiers auteurs de la R é volution

(Mercier), 99

Delacro ix, J.-V., 111De la f é licit é publique (Chastellux),

31

De la force du gouvernement actuel de la

France (Constant), 181

De l ’ Allemagne (Mme de Staël) , 8–9

De la mani é re d ’é crire l ’ histoire (Mably),

63

De la phi losophie de la nature (D elisle de

Sales), 32

De la R é volu tion Fran ç ai se compar é e

à celle de l ’ Angleterre (Salaville),

183–85

De l ’ esprit (Helvétius), 27–28

De l ’ Etat de la France, pr é sent et à venir (Calonne), 110

Deleyre, Alexandre, 169

De l ’ homme (Helvétius), 29, 34

De l ’ in fl uence attr ibu é e aux Philosophes,

aux Francs-Ma ç ons et aux I llumin é s sur la R é volution de France

(Mounier), 200

Delisle de Sales, J.-C. Izoua rd , called,

32, 69, 142

Delolme, Jean -Louis, 83

De l ’ origine des principes religieux (Meister), 80–81

De l ’ usage et de l abus de l ’ esprit

philosophique (Portalis), 197–201Descamps, Bernard, 172

Descartes, René, 3

Des droits et des devoirs du citoyen

(Mably), 63

205




Des Emigr é s Fran ç ais ou R é ponse à Lally- Tollendal (Leuliette), 153, 178

Des lettres de cachet (Mirabeau), 60–63,

133

Desmoulins, Camille, 128, 140

Des premiers principes du syst è me social appliqu é s à la r é volution pr é sente

(Meister), 81

Des principes et des causes de la r é volution

en France (Sénac d e Meilhan), 86

Des prisons d ’é tat (Mirabeau), 60

Des r é actions poli ti ques (Constant), 181

Des r é volutions dans les grandes soci é t é s

civiles (Servan), 87Des suites de la contre-r é volution de 1 6 6 0

en Angleterre (Constant), 182–83

Destut t de Tracy, Anto ine-Louis-

Claude, comte, 178

‘Dialogue entre Cromwel et

Robespierre’ (de Villers), 191

Dialogues concerning Natural Religion

(Hume), 31

Dictionary (Sheridan), 139

Dictionnaire anti -philosophique

(Chaudon), 40

Dictionnaire philosophique (Voltaire), 45

Dicti onnaire phi losophique de la religion

(Nonnotte), 45

Dictionnaire social et patr iotique

(Lefebvre d e B eauvray), 35–38

Didero t, Denis, 29–31, 54

Diff é rence du patrioti sme national chez les

Fran ç ois et chez les Anglois (Basset dela Marelle), 39

Diog è ne moderne ou le d é sapprobateur

(Castilhon), 19

Dionysius the Younger, 171

Discours choisis sur divers sujets de

religion et de li tt é rature (Maury), 103,

104

Discours contre la D é fense de Louis Capet

(Carra), 100Discours et opinions de Cazal è s, 122, 153

Discours et projet de d é cret de Henri

Bancal, 100

Discours philosophique sur l ’ homme (Gerdil), 42–44

Discours sur la di vini t é de la religion chr é tienne (Gerdil), 41–42

Discours sur la sancti on royale (Maury),105

‘Discours sur la science sociale’(Cambacérès), 4

Dubois-Cra ncé, Edmon d Louis Alexis

de, 167

Du D effand , Marie de Vichy

Chamrond, marquise, 6, 27

Dugour, A.-J., 112, 156, 170

Dumouriez, Cha rles-Fran çois, 120Du Pape, (de Maistre), 45

Durival, J.-B., 133

Duvoisin, abbé Jean-Baptiste, 53,

186–87, 190

Elizabeth I , Queen of England , xvi,

xvii, xix, 45

Eloge de M ilord Mar é chal (d ’Alembert),

46

Emile (Rousseau), 37, 42, 56

Encyclop é die M é thodique, 15, 31, 47

Enqui ry concerning Human

Understanding (Hume), 4–5, 27

Enquiry concern ing the Principles of

Morals (Hume), 34

Erreurs de Monsieur de Voltaire

(Nonnotte), 46

Eschern y, Fran çois-Louis, comte d ’ ,

133–134Esprit de l ’ Histoire (Ferrand), 83

Esprit des Lois (Montesquieu), 6, 31,

60, 76, 78

Essai pol é mique sur la reli gion naturelle

(Duvoisin), 53

Essais pour servi r d ’ introduction à l ’ histoir ie de la R é volution fran ç aise (Sallier-Chaumont d e la Roche), 86

Essai sur la mani é re d ’é cri re et d ’é tudier l ’ histoire (Levesque), 99

Essai sur la trag é die (D elisle de Sales),

69–70

206




Essai sur la vie et les é cri ts de D. H ume

(Campenon), 201

Essai sur les causes qui amen è rent en Angleterre l ’é tablissement de la

R é publique (Boulay de la Meurthe),179–81, 183–85

Essai sur les Moeurs (Voltaire), 26, 31 –32, 45

Essai sur les R é volutions

(Chateaubriand), 92, 194

Essai sur l ’ histoi re des comices de Rome,

& c. (G udin d e la Brenellerie),

75

Etudes de la Natu re (Bernardin deSaint-Pierre) , 74

Etude sur la souverainet é (d e Maistre), 4

Fair fax, Thomas, 3rd Baron, 120

Falkland , Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscoun t,

114, 122

Faure, Pierre-Joseph-Denis-G uillaume,

163

Fénelon, François de Saligna c de La

Mothe, 106, 108

Ferguson, Ada m, 83

Ferrand, Antoine-François-Claude,

comte, 42, 83–84

Formey, Reverend Samuel, 14, 50

Foucault, Etienne, 176

Fox, Cha rles James, 195

‘Fragment d ’une h istoire de la

révolution française par David

Hume’ (d e Maistre), 90, 189la France plus qu ’ Angloise (Linguet),

121

François de Neufchâteau, Nicolas-

Louis, 66

Frederick the Great, King of Prussia,

55

Fréron , Elie-Ca therine, 12, 14, 24 –26,

47

Gaillard , G abriel-Henri, 7

Galilei, Ga lileo, 104

Garat, D .-J., 6

Garilhe, Fran çois-Clément P rivat de,

159

Gassend i, Pierre, 38

Gazette litt é rai re de l ’ Europe, 5, 13

Gazette Nati onale, ou le Moniteur

universel, 134, 137–38, 170

G é ni e du Christiani sme

(Chateaubriand), 178, 197

Genovesi, Anton io, 13

Gerdil, Hyacinthe-Sigismond , 41–44,

52, 55, 103, 107, 108, 190, 200

Gertoux, Brice, 169

Gibbon, Edward, 3, 6, 142, 197

Girard , Antoine-Marie-Ann e, 161Girot-Pouzol, Jean-Baptiste, 163

Graffi gn y, Fran çoise de, 28

Grégoire, abbé Henri, 120

Grimm, Friedrich Melchior, baron de,

3, 27, 29

Grosley, P ierre-Jean , 70

Gudin d e La Brenellerie, Paul-

Philippe, 75

Guide de l ’ histoire (Née de la Rochelle),

14

Gui llaume Tell (Lemierre), 121

Guillermin, Claude-Nicolas, 167

Guillon, abbé Marie-Nicolas-Silvestre,

119–21, 140

Guiraudet, Ch arles-Ph ilippe-

Toussain t, 133

Guiter, Joseph-Antoine-Sébastien, 159

Guizot, François, 202

Gustavus III, King o f Sweden , 75Guyomar, Pierre-Marie-Augustin, 164

Guyton-Morveau, Louis-Bernard , 169

Hampden, John , xix, 114

Hébert, Jacq ues-René, 148

Helvétius, Claude-Adrien , 12, 15, 27–28, 33–34, 178, 185

Henri IV, King of France, 7

Henriette-Marie de France, 155Henry VII I, King of England, xv, 24

Hentz, Nicolas-Joseph, 167

Herodotus, 74

207






Le Cha pelier, Isaa c-René–Guy, 81

Lefebvre de Beauvray, Claude-

Rigobert, 35–36, 55, 190

Le Long Parlement et ses crimes

(Comtesse de Montron d) , 116–18

Le Mercier de La Riviére, Pierre-Paul-

François-Joachim-Henri, 3

Letter to the Earl of Stanhope (Macaulay-

Graham), 134

Lettre à Monsieur Rabaut de Saint-

Etienne (Servan), 87

Lettre de Charles Ier (François de

Neufchâteau), 66

Lettre de M . Cerutti adress é e au caf é de Foix, 83

Lettres à Sophie Volland (Diderot), 54

Lettres de Madame Roland ( 1 7 8 8– 1 7 9 3 ), 139

Lettres phi losophiques (Voltaire), 3, 7,

28, 35, 40, 103, 122–23

Lettres sur l ’ imagination (Meister), 81

Leuliette, Jean-Jacques, 153, 177–78

Levesque, J.-J.-G., 99

Life of Johnson (Boswell), 68

Lingard, John , 190

Linguet, S.-N.-H., 46, 121

Livy, 8, 86

Locke, John, xv, 3, 27, 40, 42, 69, 93,

130, 189

Londres (Grosley), 70 –71

Louchet, Louis, 168

Louis XIV, 7, 14, 20, 24

Louis XV, 91Louis XVI, 60, 71, 91, 92, 100, 111,

114, 118–19, 120, 121, 141–65

Louis XVII, 148

Louis XVII I, 83, 192, 194, 201

Louvet, Pierre-Florent, 161

Louvet de Couvrai, Jean-Ba ptiste, 160,

170

Ludlow, Edmond, 130

Lyc é e ou cours de li tt é rature (La Harpe),120

Mably, abbé Ga briel Bonno t de, 63–64, 75

Macaulay-G rah am, Cath erine, 63,

64–65, 67, 68, 69, 72, 99–100,

126–30, 132–40, 153, 182, 198,

202

Mackenzie, H enr y, 200

Mailhe, Jean-Ba ptiste, 153, 156, 157,

161, 175

Maillet-Duclairon , Antoine, 66

Maistre, Joseph de, 4, 34, 42, 44, 90,

104, 108, 187–90, 197

Malesherb es, Ch rétien-G uillaume de

Lamoignon de, 10, 76, 77, 147

Malesherbes (Delisle de Sales), 142

Mallet du P an , Jacq ues, 85, 191–93Malouet, Pierre-Victor, 57

Manon Lescaut (Prévost), 152

Manuel des autorit é s consti tu é es

(Balestrier de Canilhac), 81

Marat , Jean-Pa ul, 163

Marec, Pierre, 159

Marey, Nicolas-Joseph, 164

Marie-Antoinet te, 17, 143, 146, 148

Martin, Jean-Marie, 148

Mary Stuart, 17, 71

Mary Tud or, 45

Maty, Dr. Matthew, 19–20

Maury, abbé Jean -Siffrein , 42, 43,

103–8, 195

Mazad e-Percin , J.-B.-D. de, 159

Mazarin, Jules, 104

M. de Tracy à M. Burke (Destutt de

Tra cy), 178

Meister, J.-H., 80–81M é langes de li tt é rature (Suard), 57

M é langes de phi losophie, de morale et de

litt é rature (Meister), 81

M é moire de Lally-Tollendal , ou Seconde

Lettre à ses Commettans, 110, 122

M é moire justi fi cati f pour Louis XVI (Dugour), 112, 156

M é moires de Brissot, 68, 72, 133

M é moires de l ’ Abb é Morellet, 10M é moires de l ’ Insti tut National des Sciences et Arts, 4

M é moires de Madame Roland, 138–40

M é moires de M. Cl é ry, 148

209




M é moires de Montlosier sur la R é volution

fran ç ai se, 106

M é moires de Tr é voux, 21–24, 28, 31,

190

M é moires histori ques et politi ques du r é gne

de Louis XVI (Soulavie), 60, 91, 92

M é moires histori ques sur le 1 8e si è cle (Garat), 6

M é moires secrets pour servir à l ’ histoire de la dern i é re ann é e du r é gne de Louis

XVI (Bertrand de Molleville), 144

M é moires sur la librairi e et sur la libert é de la presse (Malesherbes), 76

M é moires sur la vie pri v é e de Marie- Antoinette (Mme Campan) , 143

Mennesson, J.-B.-A.-P., 161

Mercier, Louis-Sébastien, 70, 99, 135,

140

Mercure Bri tanni que (Mallet du P an) ,

191

Mercure de France, 3, 5, 148

Mes Souvenirs (Moreau), 146

Meynard, François, 164

Millar, Andrew, 16

Milton, John , 28, 63, 128, 129, 140,

166–67, 200

Mirabeau, Honoré–Gabriel Riquetti,

comte de, 17, 43, 60–63, 72, 99,

103, 105–8, 120, 133–35, 198, 202

Mirabeau ’ s letters during his residence in England, 133

Mirror, The, 200

Mohammed, 37Monk, General G eorge, 66, 93, 163,

193, 194

Montague, George, 16

Montaign e, Michel de, 38

Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat,

baron de La Bréde et de, 6, 60, 78,

82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 178, 190

Mont-Gilbert, Fran çois-Agnès, 171–72

Montjoie, Félix-Louis-Ch ristophe de,109–10, 135, 153–55

Montlosier, François-Dominique de

Reynaud, comte de, 106

Montron d, Angélique-Marie D arlus

du Taillis, comtesse d e, 116–18,

120

Montrose, James Graham, 1st Marquis

of, 120

More, Sir Thomas, 42

Morea u, Jacob -Nicolas, 17, 146

Morellet, abbé André, 10

Morisson, C.-F.-G., 164

Mort de C é sar (Voltaire), 121

Mounier, Jean-Joseph, 111, 122, 200

My Own L ife (Hume), 15–16, 21, 58

Naigeon, J.-A., 31, 53Natural H istory of Reli gion (Hume), 27,

42, 49

Nebuchadn ezzar II, 178

Necker, Jacques, 91, 105, 120, 142,

149–50, 152, 155, 162, 194

Necker, Mme Suzann e Curchod , 76

Née de la Rochelle, Jean-François, 14

Newton, Sir Isaac, 79, 80

Nonno tte, Claude-François, 45–46,

55, 108

Nouga ret, Pierre-Jean-Ba ptiste, 193–94

Nouveaux m é langes de Mme Necker, 76

Nouveaux M é moires de l ’ Acad é mie de

Berlin, 15

Nouvelles Observations sur les comit é s des

recherches (C lermon t-Ton nerre), 125

Nyon, Jean-Luc, 143

Observateur Fran ç ais à Londres (Da miens de G omicourt), 18

Oeuvres compl è tes de Stan islas de Clermont-Tonnerre, 123–28

Oeuvres complettes de M. H elv é tius, 34

Oeuvres de Louis XVI , 71, 141, 146–47

Oeuvres de M. Linguet, 46

Oeuvres diverses de M. Cerutt i , 17

‘Of Miracles’ (Hume), 27‘Of Suicide’ (Hume), 54, 73

‘Of th e Balance of Power’ (Hume),

39–40

210




‘Of the Immortality of the Soul’(Hume), 54, 73

‘Of the O riginal Contract’ (Hume),

43, 58, 107–8

Opinion de L.-M. Revell i è re-Lé peaux, 85

Opinion sur la souverainet é du peuple (Maury), 106–8

Oraison fun è bre de Henriette-Marie de

France (Bossuet), 155

Orléan s, le Père-Joseph d ’ , 12, 14, 73

Paine, Thomas, 81, 97, 108, 163, 178

Paradi se Lost (Milton), 167

Parall è le de la R é volution d ’ Angleterre et celle de France (Nougaret), 193–94

Parall è le des R é volutions (Guillon),

119–21, 140

Parall è le entre C é sar, Cromwell, Monck et

Bonaparte (Cha rles-Jean-Do miniq ue

de Lacretelle), 195

Paris pendant la r é volution ou le nouveau

Paris (Mercier), 137

Patriote Fran ç ais, Le (Brissot), 124,

125, 128–29, 130, 132, 178

Pens é es in é di tes de Rivarol, 194

Pétion de Villeneuve, Jérôme, 195

Peuple anglais bouf fi d ’ orguei l, de bi é re et

de th é , 40

Peyssonnel, Claud e de, 81

Ph ilippeaux, Pierre-Nicolas, 166

Phi losophical Essays (Hume), 2, 14, 26,

32, 40, 74

Pinet, Jacq ues, 162Pitt, William , 134

Plaidoyer pour Louis XVI (Lally-

Tollen dal) , 152 –53

Plantagenets (Hume), 11, 21, 26–29,

30, 31, 32

Plutarch, 139

Politi cal Discourses (Hume), 2, 10, 26,

74, 105

Politi con ou choix des meilleurs discours (Balestrier de Canilhac), 81

Poli tique ti r é e de l ’ Ecri ture Sainte (Boussuet), 44

Polybius, 4

Porta lis, Jean-Etien ne-Marie, 197–200

Pr é cis histori que de la R é volution

Fran ç aise (Charles-Jean-Dominique

de Lacretelle), 146

Prévost, abbé Antoine-François, 10,

28, 133, 152

Prost, Claud e-Ch arles, 169

Provence, comte de, 1. See also Louis

XVIII

Prun elle-Lière, Léon ard -Joseph, 164

Pym, John , 68

Quelle est la situation de l ’ Assembl é e Nationale? (d ’Antraigues), 112

Quotidienne, La, 9

Rabaut Saint-Etienn e, Jean-Pa ul

Rabaut, called, 87, 160, 172

Racine, Jean , 35

Rapin-Thoyras, P aul de, xv, 12, 14, 19,

63, 121

Rapport et Projet de D é cret (Mailhe), 91,

153, 156–58, 175

Rapport sur les trente-deux membres de la

Convention (Saint-Just), 101

Rayna l, abbé Guillaume-Thomas, 76

Recherches sur les causes qui ont emp ê ch é les Fran ç ais de devenir libres (Mounier), 111

Recueil phi losophique, 53–54

Re fl ections on the Revoluti on in France

(Burke), 90, 151R éfl exi ons philosophiques sur le Syst è me de

la Nature (Holland), 34

R éfl exions politi ques sur la R é volution

(Barnave), 122

R éfl exions posthumes sur le grand proc è s de Jean-Jacques avec David, 33

R éfl exions pr é sent é es à la nation fran ç aise sur le proc è s de Louis XVI (Necker),

142, 149–52R éfl exions sur mes entretiens avec M. le

Duc de La Vauguyon (Louis XVI) ,

141

211




R è gne de Richard I I I (Walpole) , 142

R é pertoire g é n é ral des sources manuscrites

de l ’ histoire de Pari s (Tuetey), 170,

176

R é plique de J.-P. Brissot à Stanislas Clermont, 126–30

R é ponse de J.-J. Rousseau au Roi de

Pologne, 66

R é tablissement de la Monarchie Fran ç oise (Ferrand), 83–84

Revellière-Lépeaux, L.-M., 85

R é voluti ons de France et de Brabant

(Desmoulins), 128, 140

Richard I II, King of England , 143Richard son, Samuel, 16

Riffard St. Martin. See Saint-Martin

Rights of Man (Paine), 81, 97, 108,

178

Rivaro l, Antoine, 194, 196

Robertson , Reverend William, 8, 11,

28, 83

Robespierre, Maximilien de, 74, 97–98, 113, 120, 136, 169, 173–74,

191

Rochester, John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of,

28

Roed erer, Pierre-Louis, 178, 185

Roland , Marie-Jeanne (Mano n)

Ph lipon , Mme, 99, 138–40

Rosan bo, Louis Le Peletier de, 142

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 3, 7, 11, 13,

33, 37, 42, 52, 55–56, 62, 63, 66,

78, 98, 99, 131, 139, 168, 178, 200Royou, ab bé T.-M., 46, 55

Rühl, Ph ilippe-Jacq ues, 167

Sain t-John, Oliver, 130

Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine-Léon de,

100–101, 169, 174

Saint Louis, King of France, 7, 104

Sain t-Mart in, François-Jérôme-Riffard,

164Salaville, J.-B., 183–85

Sallier-Ch aumon t de la Roch e, G .-M.,

86

Sallust, 8, 86

Saumaise, Claude d e, 140

Say, Jea n-Ba ptiste, 195

Scaevola, G aius Mucius, 173

S é ances des é coles normales, 4

Seconde Lettre de M. de Lally-Tollendal à M. Burke, 111

Semaine-Sainte, 139

Sénac d e Meilhan , G abriel, 8, 86

Sergent, Antoine-François, 165

Servan, Joseph-Michel-Antoine, 34, 87

Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper,

3rd Earl of, 28, 38

Shakespeare, William, 28, 35Sheridan , Thomas, 139

Sidn ey, Algern on , xv, 129, 168

Sieyès, abbé Emma nuel-Joseph, 94–97, 132

Smith, Adam, 150–51

Smollett, Tobias G., 5, 19

Soci é t é des Jacobins: recueil de documents,130

Soulavie, Jean -Louis G iraud , 7–8, 60,

91, 92

Spectateur du Nord, 189, 191, 200

Staël-Holstein, Anne-Louise-

G ermaine Necker, baron ne de, 8–9, 142

Stanhope, Charles, 3rd Earl, 134

Stanislas I, King of P oland, 66

Stone, G eorge, Primate of All Ireland ,

16

‘Story of La Roche’ (Mackenzie),200

Strafford , Thomas Wentworth , 1st

Earl of, xviii, xx, 16, 65, 120, 121–22, 127, 128

Stuarts (H ume), xiii–xxii, 1, 10–14,

15–24, 26, 29, 31, 32, 36–37, 46–47, 58, 75, 77, 83, 89–90, 108,

112–26, 132, 133, 142–43, 146–

48, 151–54, 157, 177, 180, 187–89,196–98

Suard , Jean -Baptiste-Antoine, 6, 57

Suleau, François-Louis, 118–19

212




Suppl é ment à la mani è re d ’é cri re l ’ histoire (G udin de La Brenellerie), 75

Sur la dern i è re r é plique de J.-P. Brissot

(C lermon t-Tonnerre), 131

Sur la destructi on des J é suites en France

(d ’Alembert), 30

Sur l ’ admission des femmes au droit de cit é (Condorcet), 134

‘Sur les rapports de idées religieuses

et mora les avec les principes

républicains’ (Robespierre), 98

Sur l ’ instruction publique (Condorcet),

99

Syst è me de la Natu re (d ’Holbach), 34

Tableau historique de la litt é rature

fran ç aise (Marie-Joseph Chénier),

133

Tacitus, 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 32, 86, 140,

201

Tard y, M.-L., 140, 169

Tarq uins, 161, 163

Th é orie du pouvoir poli tique (de

Bonald), 4

Theory of M oral Sentiments (Smith),

150–51

Thomas, Jean-Jacques, 163

Thou, Jacques-Auguste de, 86

Thucydides, 8

Tom Jones (Fielding), 108

Trait é de la composition et de l ’é tude de

l ’ histoire (Soulavie), 7–8

Tressan, Louis-Elisabeth d e LaVergne, comte de, 14

Trublet, abbé Nicolas-Charles-Joseph,

40, 55

Tudors (Hume), 11, 20, 24–26, 32,

50–51

Tuetey, Alexandre, 170, 176

Turgot , Ann e-Robert-Jacq ues, ba ron

de L’Aulne, 10, 33, 54–60, 62

Vauxcelles. See Bourlet de Vauxcelles

Velly, abbé Paul-François, 7, 86

Vergniaud , Pierre-Victurnien , 160,

167

Véri, abbé Joseph-Alphon se de, 77

Vertot, a bbé René Aubert de, 86

Vies des hommes illustres (Plutarch), 139

Villers, Charles-Fran çois-Dominiquede, 191

Volland, Sophie, 54

Volney, Con stant in Fran çois de

Chasseboeuf, comte d e, 4

Voltaire, Fran çois-Marie Arouet de, 3,

6, 7, 12, 13, 18, 20, 24, 25, 26, 27,

28, 29, 32, 35–40, 45, 99, 103–4,

122–23, 178, 185, 197

‘Vues sur les moyens dont les

Représentans pourront disposer’(Sieyès), 94

Walpole, Horace, 16, 28, 142

Washington , G eorge, 195

Wedderburn , Alexand er, 2

Wilkes, John, 35, 58

William of Orange, 12

Wolsey, Thomas, 24

Xenophon, 8

Za ï re (Voltaire), 39

213








The typeface used for this book is New Baskerville, which is based on the

types of English type founder and printer John Baskerville (1706–75) .

Baskerville is the quintessential “ transitional” face: it retains the bracketed

and obliqued ser ifs o f “old style” fa ces such a s C aslo n a nd G a ra mo nd ,but in its increased lowercase height, lighter color, and enhanced contrast

between its thick and thin strokes, it presages “modern” faces.

Laurence L. Bongie-David Hume_ Prophet of the Counter-Revolution-Liberty Fund Inc. (2000)

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