BOOKS.
THE ABBE SIEYES.*
MR. CLAPHAM'S book is an essay on the politics of the French Revolution. He deals with the political writings of Sieyes and their effect on France from the Revolution of 1789 to the coup d'itat of Brumaire in 1799. He brings to the task a wide and accurate knowledge of that moat difficult period, and a careful and impartial judgment. In addition, Mr. Clapham writes a polished, easy style, and is never afraid to allow his imagination to select a telling phrase to describe a situation or to sum up personal characteristics. We recom- mend the book to all students of the revolutionary era.
Sieyes as a man was unattractive. He was "hard, bitter, unloving, egotistical, and self-righteous." Born at Frejus in 1748, he was destined for the Church, and educated by the Jesuits. He early distinguished himself by the originality and astuteness of his ideas. The faith of the Church was speedily departed from. Before he was ordained, as he boasted afterwards, he "had succeeded in dismissing from Ilia own mind every notion or sentiment of a superstitious nature." In the States General of 1789 he acquired renown for oracular wisdom, owing to the brevity and wit of his remarks. But the course of the Revolution soon showed the timidity of his character, and he failed to exercise any lasting influence upon events. A man of cold reason, the excesses of the Revolution filled him with bitter contempt, but he had neither the courage nor the power to quell the riot. He was the "mole of the Revolution," and in the Terror his insignificance was his refuge. His reply to an inquiry bow he then fared—" J'ai vecu "—sufficiently characterizes the man. "His own excuse," as Mr. Clapham says, "was that, in so dark a night, one could do nothing but wait for the day "; but by waiting he took his share of responsibility for the deeds of the night. And he suffered for it. His career was split in two; his character was the worse from that time forward. Not even his set and rigid personality could cower through that night and remain alto- gether the same. He publicly denied his faith at the installa- tion of reason at Notre Dame in 1793. On the overthrow of the Jacobins he overcame his fears, and publicly lauded the memory of those guillotined Girondists, in whose defence he Lad two years before never lifted his voice. In the Directorial period he displayed more activity. He was sent as French Ambassador to Berlin, and persuaded that Court to a neutrality favourable to France. Through force of circum- stances he became a Bonapartist, and during the Consulate and the Empire he "remained on the stage, robed and titled and silent, discontented with his part, distrusted by the lead- ing actor, and ageing fast." He spent the last twenty years of his life in obscurity, and died in 1836.
"An enemy of all old faiths and old allegiances, a man of 'eighty-nine, yet without the youth and generosity which ennobled the revolutionary dawn ; a man of 'ninety-three who did not share the murky glory of the national defence, and a Bonapartist in spite of himself—there is little in his career to stir party loyalty."
Sieyes entered on the career of a revolutionary leader pro- vided.with a clear and definite scheme of political reconstruc- tion. An excellent opportunity was provided for the inculcation of his views by the invitation which Necker addressed to all French thinkers to publish their opinion of the mode of convening the States General. &eyes' most famous pamphlet —probably the most famous ever printed—was a treatise on the Third Estate, "Qu'est-ce que le Tiers Etat ? " with its celebrated opening lines :— " We must put to ourselves three questions.
First: What is the Third Estate ? Everything. Second: What has it been hitherto in our political system ? Nothing. Third; What does it ask ? To become something."
• The ,4trbf S,esios. By J. H. Clapham. London' P. S. King and Son. [2.5. Gd.1 He attacked unsparingly the privileged classes, and constructed single-handed a programme for the Revolution. He soon acquired the reputation of a profound doctor in politics, and, although his adversaries professed to treat him as a mere academic politician, he was gifted with long and sure sight, and had a genius, as has been said, for finding the key to a given political situation. He worked steadily from 1789 to 1799, sometimes in the open, more often under cover, explain- ing in elaborate detail the principles of "the social art," and his labours were not in vain. His reforming zeal, it is true, was not stimulated in any great degree by sympathy for individuals or indignation at the oppression of the poor, but his doctrinaire sense of the essential harmony of things was offended by the anomalies and injustice in society—" unreason in high places, and reason made tongue-tied by authority." The social machine had to be re-created after a fresh model, and Sieyes conceived himself as the wise mechanician fitted to superintend the work.
As a thinker, he had the defects of his time and of his own qualities. His cold reason failed to enable him to grasp the place of ignorance, passion, and, above all, tradition in political affairs. These evil growths, he considered, would be rapidly overcome in a properly constituted society, but his theory was quite unable to help him to deal with the generation which had grown up under their influence. And he became cynical, for he knew he was right, but his truth could not prevail. In his commonplace book we find entries made during the Terror, records of his misery. " Jusque datum sceleri." "Ruit irrevocabile vulgus." Yet he is recognized as the most acute and most original of the revolutionary thinkers. Both Talleyrand and Carnot agreed that Sieyes was "le veritable homme du siecle."
Sieyes boasted that his thought bad gone beyond that of his contemporaries. It is true. "His doctrine of monarchy," says Mr. Clapham, "has already justified itself ; and his method for securing the advantages of two-chamber govern- ment without senatorial or royal veto may well do so in the future." That peculiar form of single-chamber government which he advocated has never been tested. But it was an ingenious scheme, with adequate safeguards in indirect elec- tions, representation of "interests," partial renewals yearly, and large permanent committees to ensure thorough and sober discussion. The "Grand Elector" in his constitutional scheme of 1799 has amused the world. It was certainly not a suitable appointment for Bonaparte. "How can you fancy," he exclaimed, "that a man with some talent and a little honour would be content with the rdle of a pig fattened on a few millions F" "Do you want to be a king F" was Sieyes' cold response. But in point of fact the office differs little in essentials from the Presidency of the Third French Republic, and, as Mr. Clapham says, if Sieyes could have induced a Bourbon prince to accept constitutional monarchy, not as understood by George IIL, but as practised by George V., there can be little doubt he would have pocketed his objections to heredity.
Sieyes hated direct democracy as much as hereditary despotism, and his theory of representative legislation has proved the most durable part of his system. And the general doctrine of elective control over local administration which he shared with some of his French contemporaries, although derided in England, has since been applied there to municipal, county, and parish government, and also to education.
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