by Edmund Burke
If we wish to make an impression on the minds of any persons in France, or to persuade them to join our standard, it is impossible that they should not be more easily led, and more readily formed and disciplined, (civilly and martially disciplined) by those who speak their language, who are acquainted with their manners, who are conversant with their usages and habits of thinking, and who have a local knowledge of their country, and some remains of antient credit and consideration, than with a body congregated from all tongues and tribes. Where none of the respectable native interests are seen in the transaction, it is impossible that any declarations can convince those that are within, or those that are without, that any thing else than some sort of hostility in the style of a conqueror is meant. At best it will appear to such wavering persons, (if such there are) whom we mean to fix with us, at best a choice whether they are to continue a prey to domestick banditti, or to be fought for as a carrion carcass, and picked to the bone by all the crows and vultures of the sky. They may take protection, (and they would I doubt not) but they can have neither alacrity nor zeal in such a cause. When they see nothing but bands of English, Spaniards, Neapolitans, Sardinians, Prussians, Austrians, Hungarians, Bohemians, Sclavonians, Croatians, acting as principals, it is impossible they should think we come with a beneficent design. Many of those fierce and barbarous people have already given proofs how little they regard any French party whatsoever. Some of these nations the people of France are jealous of; such are the English, and the Spaniards — others they despise; such are the Italians — others they hate and dread; such are the German and Danubian powers. At best such interposition of antient enemies excites apprehension; but in this case, how can they suppose that we come to maintain their legitimate Monarchy in a truly paternal French Government, to protect their privileges, their laws, their religion, and their property, when they see us make use of no one person who has any interest in them, any knowledge of them, or any the least zeal for them? On the contrary, they see, that we do not suffer any of those who have shewn a zeal in that cause, which we seem to make our own, to come freely into any place in which the Allies obtain any footing.
If we wish to gain upon any people, it is right to see what it is they expect. We have had a proposal from the Royalists of Poitou. They are well intitled, after a bloody war maintained for eight months against all the powers of anarchy, to speak the sentiments of the Royalists of France. Do they desire us to exclude their Princes, their Clergy, their Nobility? The direct contrary. They earnestly solicit that men of every one of these descriptions should be sent to them. They do not call for English, Austrian, or Prussian officers. They call for French emigrant officers. They call for the exiled priests. They have demanded the Comte d’Artois to appear at their head. These are the demands, (quite natural demands) of those who are ready to follow the standard of Monarchy.
The great means therefore of restoring the Monarchy which we have made the main object of the war, is to assist the dignity, the religion, and the property of France, to repossess themselves of the means of their natural influence. This ought to be the primary object of all our politicks, and all our military operations. Otherwise every thing will move in a preposterous order, and nothing but confusion and destruction will follow.
I know that misfortune is not made to win respect from ordinary minds. I know that there is a leaning to prosperity however obtained, and a prejudice in its favour; I know there is a disposition to hope something from the variety and inconstancy of villany, rather than from the tiresome uniformity of fixed principle. There have been, I admit, situations in which a guiding person or party might be gained over, and through him or them, the whole body of a nation. For the hope of such a conversion, and of deriving advantage from enemies, it might be politick for a while to throw your friends into the shade. But examples drawn from history in occasions like the present will be found dangerously to mislead us. France has no resemblance to other countries which have undergone troubles and been purified by them. If France, jacobinised as it has been for four full years, did contain any bodies of authority and disposition to treat with you, (most assuredly she does not) such is the levity of those who have expelled every thing respectable in their country, such their ferocity, their arrogance, their mutinous spirit, their habits of defying every thing human and divine, that no engagement would hold with them for three months; nor indeed could they cohere together for any purpose of civilized society, if left as now they are. There must be a means not only of breaking their strength within themselves, but of civilizing them; and these two things must go together, before we can possibly treat with them, not only as a nation, but with any division of them. Descriptions of men of their own race, but better in rank, superiour in property and decorum, of honourable, decent and orderly habits, are absolutely necessary to bring them to such a frame as to qualify them so much as to come into contact with a civilized nation. A set of those ferocious savages with arms in their hands, left to themselves in one part of the country, whilst you proceed to another, would break forth into outrages at least as bad as their former. They must, as fast as gained (if ever they are gained) be put under the guide, direction and government of better Frenchmen than themselves, or they will instantly relapse into a sever of aggravated Jacobinism.
We must not judge of other parts of France by the temporary submission of Toulon, with two vast fleets in its harbour, and a garrison far more numerous than all the inhabitants able to bear arms. If they were left to themselves I am quite sure they would not retain their attachment to Monarchy of any name, for a single week.
To administer the only cure for the unheard of disorders of that undone country, I think it infinitely happy for us, that God has given into our hands, more effectual remedies than human contrivance could point out. We have in our bosom, and in the bosom of other civilized states, nearer forty than thirty thousand persons, providentially preserved not only from the cruelty and violence, but from the contagion of the horrid practices, sentiments and language of the Jacobins, and even sacredly guarded from the view of such abominable scenes. If we should obtain in any considerable district, a footing in France, we possess an immense body of physicians and magistrates of the mind, whom we now know to be the most discreet, gentle, well tempered, conciliatory, virtuous, and pious persons, who in any order probably existed in the world. You will have a missioner of peace and order in every parish. Never was a wiser national oeconomy than in the charity of the English and of other countries. Never was money better expended than in the maintenance of this body of civil troops for re-establishing order in France, and for thus securing its civilization to Europe. This means, if properly used, is of value inestimable.
Nor is this corps of instruments of civilization confined to the first order of that state, I mean the clergy. The allied powers possess also, an exceedingly numerous, well informed, sensible, ingenious, high principled and spirited body of cavaliers in the expatriated landed interest of France, as well qualified at least, as I, (who have been taught by time and experience to moderate my calculation of the expectancy of human abilities) ever expected to see in the body of any landed gentlemen and soldiers by their birth. France is well winnowed and sifted. Its virtuous men are, I believe, amongst the most virtuous, as its wicked are amongst the most abandoned upon earth. Whatever in the territory of France may be found to be in the middle between these, must be attracted to the better part. This will be compassed, when every gentleman, every where being restored to his landed estate, each on his patrimonial ground, may join the Clergy in reanimating the loyalty, fidelity and religion of the people; that these gentlemen proprietors of land, may sort that people according to the trust they severally merit, that they may arm the honest and well affected, and disarm and disable the factious and ill disposed. No foreigner can make this discrimination nor these arrangements. The antient corporations of Burghers according to their several modes should be restored; and placed, (as they ought to be) in the hands of men of gravity and proper
ty in the cities or baillages, according to the proper constitutions of the commons or third estate of France. They will restrain and regulate the seditious rabble there, as the gentlemen will on their own estates. In this way, and in this way alone, the country (once broken in upon by foreign force well directed) may be gained and settled. It must be gained and settled by itself, and through the medium of its own native dignity and property. It is not honest, it is not decent, still less is it politick, for foreign powers themselves to attempt any thing in this minute, internal, local detail, in which they could shew nothing but ignorance, imbecility, confusion and oppression. As to the Prince who has a just claim to exercise the regency of France, like other men he is not without his faults and his defects. But faults or defects (always supposing them faults of common human infirmity) are not what in any country destroy a legal title to Government. These princes are kept in a poor obscure country town of the King of Prussia’s. Their reputation is entirely at the mercy of every calumniator. They cannot shew themselves, they cannot explain themselves, as princes ought to do. After being well informed, as any man here can be, I do not find, that these blemishes in this eminent person, are at all considerable, or that they at all affect a character, which is full of probity, honour, generosity, and real goodness. In some points he has but too much resemblance to his unfortunate Brother; who with all his weaknesses, had a good understanding and many parts of an excellent man, and a good King. But Monsieur, without supposing the other deficient, (as he was not) excells him in general knowledge and in a sharp and keen observation, with something of a better address, and an happier mode of speaking and of writing. His conversation is open, agreeable and informed, his manners gracious and princely. His brother the Comte’d Artois sustains still better the representation of his place. He is eloquent, lively, engaging in the highest degree, of a decided character, full of energy and activity. In a word he is a brave, honourable, and accomplished cavalier. Their brethren of Royalty, if they were true to their own cause and interest, instead of relegating these illustrious persons to an obscure town, would bring them forward in their courts and camps, and exhibit them to, what they would speedily obtain, the esteem, respect, and affection of mankind.
As to their knocking at every door, (which seems to give offence) can any thing be more natural? Abandoned, despised, rendered in a manner outlaws by all the powers of Europe, who have treated their unfortunate brethren with all the giddy pride, and improvident insolence of blind unfeeling prosperity, who did not even send them a compliment of condolence on the murder of their brother and sister; in such a state is it to be wondered at, or blamed, that they tried every way, likely or unlikely, well or ill chosen, to get out of the horrible pit into which they are fallen, and that in particular they tried whether the Princes of their own blood, might at length be brought to think the cause of Kings, and of Kings of their race, wounded in the murder and exile of the branch of France, of as much importance as the killing of a brace of partridges. If they were absolutely idle, and only eat in sloth their bread of sorrow and dependence, they would be forgotten, or at best thought of as wretches unworthy of their pretensions which they had done nothing to support. If they err from our interests, what care has been taken to keep them in those interests? or what desire has ever been shewn to employ them in any other way than as instruments of their own degradation, shame, and ruin?
The Parliament of Paris, by whom the title of the Regent is to be recognized (not made) according to the laws of the kingdom, is ready to recognize it, and to register it, if a place of meeting was given to them, which might be within their own jurisdiction, supposing that only locality was required for the exercise of their functions: for it is one of the advantages of Monarchy, to have no local seat. It may maintain its rights out of the sphere of its territorial jurisdiction, if other powers will suffer it.
I am well apprised, that the little intrigners, and whisperers, and self-conceited thoughtless babblers, worse than either, run about to depreciate the fallen virtue of a great nation. But whilst they talk, we must make our choice — they or the Jacobins. We have no other option. As to those, who in the pride of a prosperity, not obtained by their wisdom, valour, or industry, think so well of themselves and of their own abilities and virtues, and so ill of other men; truth obliges me to say, that they are not founded in their presumption concerning themselves, nor in their contempt of the French Princes, Magistrates, Nobility, and Clergy. Instead of inspiring me with dislike and distrust of the unfortunate, engaged with us in a common cause against our jacobin enemy, they take away all my esteem for their own characters, and all my deference to their judgment.
There are some few French gentlemen indeed who talk a language not wholly different from this jargon. Those whom I have in my eye, I respect as gallant soldiers, as much as any one can do, but on their political judgment, and prudence, I have not the slightest reliance, nor on their knowledge of their own country, or of its laws and constitution. They are, if not enemies, at least not friends to the orders of their own state; not to the Princes, the Clergy, or the Nobility; they possess only an attachment to the Monarchy, or rather to the persons of the late King and Queen. In all other respects their conversation is Jacobin. I am afraid they or some of them, go into the closets of Ministers, and tell them that the affairs of France will be better arranged by the allied Powers than by the landed proprietors of the kingdom, or by the Princes who have a right to govern; and that if any French are at all to be employed in the settlement of their country, it ought to be only those who have never declared any decided opinion or taken any active part in the Revolution.
I suspect that the authors of this opinion are mere soldiers of fortune, who, though men of integrity and honour, would as gladly receive military rank from Russia, or Austria, or Prussia, as from the Regent of France. Perhaps their not having as much importance at his court as they could wish, may incline them to this strange imagination. Perhaps having no property in old France, they are more indifferent about its restoration. Their language is certainly flattering to all Ministers in all courts. We all are men; we all love to be told of the extent of our own power and our own faculties. If we love glory, we are jealous of partners, and afraid even of our own instruments. It is of all modes of flattery the most effectual to be told, that you can regulate the affairs of another kingdom better than its hereditary proprietors. It is formed to flatter the principle of conquest so natural to all men. It is this principle which is now making the partition of Poland. The powers concerned have been told by some perfidious Poles, and perhaps they believe, that their usurpation is a great benefit to the people, especially to the common people. However this may turn out with regard to Poland, I am quite sure that France could not be so well under a foreign direction as under that of the representatives of its own King, and its own antient Estates.
I think I have myself studied France, as much as most of those whom the allied courts are likely to employ in such a work. I have likewise of myself as partial and as vain an opinion as men commonly have of themselves. But if I could command the whole military arm of Europe, I am sure, that a bribe of the best province in that kingdom, would not tempt me to intermeddle in their affairs, except in perfect concurrence and concert with the natural legal interests of the country, composed of the Ecclesiastical, the Military, the several Corporate Bodies of Justice, and of Burghership, making under a Monarch (I repeat it again and again) the French Nation, according to its fundamental Constitution. No considerate Statesmen would undertake to meddle with it upon any other condition.
The Government of that kingdom is fundamentally Monarchical. The publick law of Europe has never recognized in it any other form of Government. The Potentates of Europe have by that law, a right, an interest, and a duty to know with what government they are to treat, and what they are to admit into the federative Society, or in other words into the diplomatick Republick of Europe. This Right is clear and indisputable.
What other and further in
terference they have a right to in the interior of the concerns of another people, is a matter on which, as on every political subject, no very definite or positive rule can well be laid down. Our neighbours are men; and who will attempt to dictate the laws, under which it is allowable or forbidden to take a part in the concerns of men, whether they are considered individually or in a collective capacity, whenever charity to them, or a care of my own safety, calls forth my activity. Circumstances perpetually variable, directing a moral prudence and discretion, the general principles of which never vary, must alone prescribe a conduct fitting on such occasions. The latest casuists of public law are rather of a Republican cast, and in my mind, by no means so averse as they ought to be to a Right in the people (a word which ill defined is of the most dangerous use) to make changes at their pleasure in the fundamental laws of their country. These writers, however, when a country is divided, leave abundant liberty for a neighbour to support any of the parties according to his choice. This interference must indeed always be a Right, whilst the privilege of doing good to others, and of averting from them every sort of evil, is a Right: Circumstances may render that Right a Duty. It depends wholly on this, whether it be a bona fide charity to a party, and a prudent precaution with regard to yourself, or whether under the pretence of aiding one of the parties in a nation, you act in such a manner as to aggravate its calamities, and accomplish its final destruction. In truth it is not the interfering or keeping aloof, but iniquitous intermeddling, or treacherous inaction which is praised or blamed by the decision of an equitable judge.
