blessings of a liberty the nature of which they do not understand, and the want of which they did not feel. So, though in a different degree, we apprehend it was at the commencement of the French revolution. We do not deny, that in such a country as France, especially after the events of the American revolution, and the connection which they had in those events; and after the labours of their philosophers (as they were called) to teach the people their political and civil rights, there must have been many who united themselves to the cause of the French revolution, because they hoped and expected it would remove grievances which they actually felt, and put them in possession of rights and privileges which they were convinced they ought to possess-the nature of which they understood, and which they were well qualified and entitled to enjoy. But we mean to speak of the great bulk of the nation; and on them we think two causes principally operated in inducing them to take such a zealous and determined part in support of the revolution. In the first place, the labours and writings of the philosophers had stimulated all who were superficial thinkers (and this class in France always has been very numerous) to the adoption of several wild and chimerical ideas respecting human liberty and the rights of man. The very extravagance and impracticability of those notions, falling as they did on the brains of hot-headed men, produced a more wild, determined, and desperate enthusiasm than could have been produced in them by any display of their real and rational rights and privileges. Their political knowledge (if so it may be termed) had come upon them unprepared; and besides, it was of such a nature as

could never have taught or disposed them to understand and relish the blessings of those political rights, which alone, in a state of society, man can safely and wisely enjoy. In short, a most violent enthusiasm was produced in the minds of 2 large portion of the French nation, in defence of what they did not comprehend; and like all enthusiasts, and all worshippers of unknown deities, they repelled with indignation, and with their mightiest efforts, all who they imagined wished to deprive them of the god of their idolatry. It is probable, however, that this cause would soon have died away, had it not been kept alive and strengthened by the attack of the combined powers against France: and this attack not only produced this effect, but it also brought into existence, or more properly speaking into operation, that feeling and sentiment of national independence, which when roused and threatened is the most effectual defence of the people. Such, in our opinion, were the two principal causes which existed and operted at the beginning of the French revolution, and which, aided by others which we shall immediately notice and describe, enabled that nation not only to protect themselves, but to commence the work of Europe's subjugation and misery: we say to commence the work, because we are persuaded that, in a subsequent part of the French revolutionary history, those causes gave place to others of a very different description, but which were at least equally effectual in produ cing the subjugation of the continent of Europe.

Of the subordinate or rather the secondary causes which began to operate at the commencement of the revolution, and which still ope

rate,

rate, the most conspicuous and powerful consisted in the opening to the ambitious, of the road to fame and authority, which that event produced. All hoped by it to better their situation and fortunes; and under this impression all were induced to act in that manner which they knew would have a tendency to forward and secure the object of their wishes. Thus talents of all kinds were brought into notice and exertion, at the very moment they were wanted; and not only were they brought into notice and exertion, but each description of talent took the situation for which it was best calculated. In these two respects, therefore, the French revolutionists had greatly the advantage over their opponents; for under the old and regular governments of Europe little talent existed, or at least was cherished and called forth; rank, interest, and intrigue stinted its growth, or kept it in obscurity; and besides, where talents were employed in the public service, it not unfrequently happened that they were misdirected; for, in the application, the same causes, interest and intrigue, which in many instances kept them back altogether, operated to render them of comparatively little service,

Let us now see what advantages the French derived from the circumstances we have stated; in the first place, their soldiers were enthusiastically attached to the cause of the revolution, from causes which we have already attempted to explain; and to this enthusiasm, powerful as it was, was added another feeling scarcely less powerful and advantageous to the revolution,--the hope and expectation of rising to the highest military glory and command. We cannot be surprised, if, actuated and directed by two such

animating motives, the French soon became good soldiers, and fought with great success against the veteran troops of Europe. But these causes would probably have been of little avail, at least they would not have insured regular and permanent success, had they not received the assistance of the other cause which we stated; had not all the talent of the nation been called into full and complete action, and stationed exactly where it was most wanted and most useful. Thus every thing went on well, after the machine had been once put in regular motion; or, if any stoppages took place, they were almost immediately perceived and rectified by those who managed the machine. Another circumstance yet requires to be noticed: nearly all who thought, acted, or fought for the French revolution had but one object in view; though that object was of a twofold nature, and thus became much more influential than if it had been single: this object was the establishment of the revolution, and, by means of it, the security of their own elevated rank and increased fortune: all were interested, and most powerfully interested, in supporting it, because they were partakers of the blessings which it produced: whether those blessings were real, we shall not stop to inquire; such at least they were deemed by the French people; and it cannot too often be repeated, that their feeling, and not our own ideas, must be investigated, when we endeavour to account for the conduct of foreign nations.

The causes which we have hitherto assigned for the success of the French, at the commencement of the revolution, if not very creditable to the soundness of their judgement, are not disgraceful to their

moral

moral feelings and character: but these causes soon gave place to others of the latter description: they began to fight to protect themselves; afterwards, they asserted, and perhaps believed, in order to bestow upon other nations the liberty which they themselves enjoyed; and at last solely for the purposes of glory, conquest and plunder. One of the most distinguishing and detestable tenets of the French philosophy was, that the end justified the means; and this doctrine, they soon convinced the world most fatally, they did not regard as merely speculative; for they reduced it to practice in the most regular and systematic manner. Every species of fraud, and deception was employed to secure the success of their arms: the inhabitants of the countries which they invaded were taught to receive them as benefactors: their victories and triumphs were exaggerated, both in number and in their results; their defeats were either entirely concealed, or represented as trifling and unimportant. The press, which at first they had used for the purpose of propagating their doctrines, was entirely devoted to these nefarious practices; till at length the nations whom they invaded were prepared, by the misrepresentations which they put forth, to receive them either as friends, or as enemies so invincible and so habituated to conquest that all resistance to them would be in vain.

By degrees, as we have already remarked, the feelings and sentiments which existed and operated at the commencement of the revolution, began to give way to that passion for glory and conquest, which seems almost natural, and is certainly most congenial, to the temperament and disposition of a Frenchman. At first he fought for

what he conceived to be liberty, and he liberally promised the same liberty to the nations whom he invaded: afterwards glory was his sole object; and in the pursuit of it were forgotten not only his own liberty and the independence of his own country, but the personal liberty and national independence of those whom he had before promised and undertaken to make free. It may however be doubted, whether this love of glory, natural and endeared as it is to a Frenchman, would have carried him on so unweariedly and cheerfully through all the wars in which France has been engaged, had it not been assisted and encouraged by the hope of plunder: but these two objects united have urged him on to all the feats which he has performed, and to the perpetration of all the crimes which he has committed.

Continued warfare, always or generally conducted with great talent and success, necessarily generated a military character in the French nation, and put them in possession of an army not only powerful in respect to its numbers, but much more formidable for the single master-spirit which actuated every part of it, and for the consummate skill and experience of its generals. Perhaps there was not in it a single soldier who did not believe that France, his country, was destined to be the mistress of the world; that he was destined to contribute his share towards this grand and glorious consummation; and that while he was engaged in this work he should enrich himself with plunder, and probably rise to a high and distinguished command. From this hasty and rapid sketch of the first feelings of the French at the commencement of the revolution; of the feelings which afterwards

took

took possession of their minds and influenced their conduct; and of the talents by which these feelings have been uniformly directed, and the success to which, when thus directed, they almost necessarily led, we may easily explain how they became the conquerors of most part of the continent of Europe: this, however, will become still more strikingly evident, if we briefly contrast the character, talents, and conduct of their opponents in the mighty conquests, with their own.

The coalesced powers entered on their first war with France in total ignorance of the character of the nation against whom they were about to fight, and of the nature of those circumstances which at that particular period affected that character: hence, had their views been ever so laudable and disinterested, had they been solely what they professed, for the reestablishment of social order, and for the benefit of the French themselves, they could not have accomplished them: but their views undoubtedly were either undefined even to themselves, or they were selfish and narrow. This alone must have mate. rially injured their cause; but it soon appeared that not only were the joint views of the coalesced selfish and narrow, but that each branch of the confederacy had its own peculiar interest in contemplation. To the compact and indissoluble unity, therefore, of the French nation was opposed a body formed of loose, disjointed, and heterogeneous materials, which must necessarily fall to pieces by mere length of time, even if no external force had operated against it. The monarchs who headed the confederacy, too, were insensible to the danger with which the French revolution threatened them;

though they pretended'that from an apprehension of this danger alone they had taken up arms. There is, however, reason to believe that at first they were actuated solely by the hope of dividing France, and that the real danger to which they were exposed, did not present itself to their apprehension till it was too late to ward it off. But their great inferiority to the French was in talent, and in the want of unity of views and interest: in the French army, all ranks of men felt that they had a common interest in success or defeat, and consequently all ranks cheerfully, nay enthusiastically, put forth their respective talents and efforts to obtain the one and avoid the other. With them it was no common and every day war; it was not a war in which, in consideration of the pay which they received, they were to discharge the routine duty of a soldier; it was a war, in their estimation, not only of a higher character, but one in which they were principals, and not merely agents. No such feeling,could actuate the soldiers of the coalesced powers; no such feeling appears to have operated even in the breasts of their officers: they went into this war as they had been accustomed to do into former wars; and meeting with opponents of a different stamp, it is not surprising that they were defeated, But the French, as we have already remarked, did not trust entirely to the profound and comprehensive plans on which each campaign was arranged; nor to the extensive combinations by which it was to be carried into execution; nor to the consummate skill and experience and enthusiastic fidelity of their officers and men; nor to the most judicious and complete equipment of their army

in every possible respect:-those undoubtedly might have ensured victory; but intent solely on one object, they did not hesitate to employ bribery and treachery where ever they found they would be useful and unfortunately, besides the other defects of the system of the coalesced powers, they were induced by interest and intrigue, or compelled by necessity, to trust men who were not proof against bribery.

Such are the general causes which produced the triumphs and conquests of the French arms: but besides these, particular causes operated in some countries: the inhabitants of a great part of Germany, for instance, divided as it was into numberless petty states, could have but a small portion of that feeling of national independence which incites even the slaves of the most tyrannical government to repel the attacks of a foreign invader. In other parts of Germany, the infatuation respecting the French revolution, and respecting the objects of the French in their conquests, continued long after the character of that revolution, and the real nature of these objects, had been apparent to all who are not wilfully blind. Hence the spirit of national independence in those parts of Germany was kept down by the hope of obtaining civil and political liberty; and the people were indifferent to the conquest of their country by the French, or perhaps actually rejoiced at it, because, by this conquest, they either hoped to have their condition meliorated by their new masters; or still more blindly imagined that the French, after freeing them from their slavery, would give up the country to their own regulation and government. Nor was the infatuation confined to the

people: even monarchs, who cera tainly never had any reason to sup pose that the French revolution portended any thing but their destruction, were more jealous of each other than apprehensive of_the common enemy; and, with most infatuated apathy, or even satisfaction, stood by while that common enemy rendered their own destruction more easy and certain, by the destruction of the other legitimate monarchs. In some cases they even leagued themselves with the spoiler, and, with a much greater want of principle than he displayed, consented to partake of the spoil.

Thus all causes, both those which existed among the French and those which existed in the cabinets and armies of the different powers on the continent, contributing to one great end, it is not surprising that the former made themselves masters of the greatest portion of the latter; or that they organized the most numerous and thoroughbred army which the world ever witnessed. France, indeed, was become entirely military: the ideas, the feelings, and the expectations of the nation were of that character, less mixed perhaps than it existed even among the Romans. Towards the more complete and systematic formation of this charac ter Bonaparte contributed largely and most zealously; so that with him at the head of the French nation, with the military character and feelings of the people so general, strong and influential, and with an actual army of half a million of men, even after by far the largest portion of Europe had been subdued, the friends of liberty and independence seemed to have little reason to look forward to any happy and beneficial change.

Not