BOOKS.

MALLET DU PAN'S MEMOIRS AND CORRESPONDENCE..

THE Memoirs of Mallet du Pan differ essentially from any work of the same class that has yet appeared professing to, throw light on the hidden sources and secret springs of the French Revolution. The subject of these memoirs was less an actor in the revolution than its contemporary historian. He was editor of the Mercure de France from 1784 to 1792. That journal, established under the ancien regime, was not, like the journals set on foot by Mirabeau and others, a mere organ of personal ambition or sectarian propagand- ism, but preserved during those eight years an uniformly historical character. When obliged to fly from France, in 1792, Mallet du Pan was intrusted by Louis the Sixteenth with a delicate mission to the Allied Sovereigns and the Emigration at Coblenz ; but the wrongheadedness of the Princes and their advisers paralyzed his efforts : he continued from that period till his death, in 1800, to be the Cassandra of the Royalist party. Throughout the sixteen years that he was mixed up with French politics, his function was simply to chronicle events, to comment upon them, and to offer advice. In consequence of this his peculiar position, he appears to us, in his literary remains, as an abstract intelligence sitting in judg- ment upon what was passing under his eyes, not as a participator in the struggle. His personality is the more completely kept in the background because the recollection of few of his characteristic traits or adventures has been preserved ; the fifty years which have elapsed since his death have removed almost all who were on habits of intimacy with him from this sublunary scene.

In the literature of the French Revolution, the reminiscences of Dumont approach most nearly to those of Mallet du Pan; but Dumont's judgments were formed after the event, those of Mallet du Pan were formed on the pressure of the moment. There is more of freshness and reality in his historical sketches ; they are casts from the living features, not busts modelled from recollection. Dumont's reminiscences, moreover, are in the main aneedotical ; the reliques of Mallet du Pan have the comprehensive grasp of the historian.

It is not to be inferred from these remarks that the Memoirs of Mallet du Pan convey no notion of the man himself. They do leave a very distinct impression of his intellectual and moral cha- racteristics. But of this impression the reader is scarcely aware till he comes to ask himself, on closing the volumes, what kind of being must this have been, who took such a comprehensive view of the events of his age, and estimated their nature and consequences with so much of prophetic shrewdness ? It is then that he for the first time distinctly recognizes in their full extent the sagacity and moral greatness of Mallet du Pan. Even then, it is only the gene- ral outlines of the man's character that are discerned ; the minor peculiarities, which in all men are most prominent to contempora- ries and intimate associates, are effaced by distance. The intellectual and moral features by which Mallet du Pan was characterized throughout, were sound and dispassionate judgment, strict veracity, and indomitable independence. During the earlier part of his French career, may be traced a strong family resemblance to the Neckars, the Dumonts, and other actors in or close observers of the French Revolution, who were trained, like himself, in the Genevan school. Like them, he had read much and reflected much ; his opinions and principles, like theirs, were derived more from books and reflection than imme- diate intercourse with men : he participated in their moral purity, in the correctness of their abstract opinions, in their moderation, in their fatal power of imparting plausibility to projects of compro- mise between the most irreconcileable principles and persons, in that somewhat feminine character which rendered their fastidious and cultivated minds so incompetent to contend with less intelli- gent but more robust and unscrupulous rivals or antagonists. His position as an observing bystander exempted Mallet du Pan from the risk of displaying any latent weakness of character, in the manner that Neckar and others of the school engaged in active business did. But up to the time of his flying from France, he evinced the same tendency to see persons and events through the medium of his own preconceived opinions. Subsequently, the close contact into which he was brought with the French Princes and the Royalist Emigration disabused him of many of his preju- dices ; and he then displayed a capacity of entertaining new, more comprehensive and just views far above any of his countrymen. With every year of his life his estimate of contemporary events and the actors in them approached more closely to the truth, and were expressed with more fervent eloquence and more uneom- promising exactness. Most of the judgments he pronounced at the time have been confirmed by subsequent revelations ; and his predictions respecting the future career of some of his most dis- tinguished contemporaries were inspired by the divination of com- mon sense. His writings may be said to contain the history of his age as it now appears with all the reflected lights that have been cast upon it since his death, narrated with all the freshness of immediate observation.

The newspaper having become, and being likely to continue se long as the European civilization endures, a necessary of social ex- istence and a powerful political engine, it is not uninteresting to contemplate Mallet du Pan in his capacity ofjournalist. He dis- played in that character the same unaffected, unobtrusive inde-

• M6moires et Correspondence de Mallet du Pan. Pour servir Ilistoire de Is Revolution Francaise. Recueillis et mis en ordre par A. Bayous, Aocien Professeur 1' AcadOmie de Geneve. In two volumes. Published by Amyot, Paris.

pendence of judgment, strict truthfhiness, and severe morality, which marked his conduct in all other relations of life. The self- respect which forbade him to colour a statement or compromise an opinion, influenced him alike when his writings were regularly submitted to a government censor, and when, emancipated from such control, he was alternately flattered and bullied by the dema- gogues of the day. His independence of clique, coterie, or party, was not less remarkable than the absence of that vanity which more frequently than any .other cause prevents men from acknow- ledging any change of opinion. In proportion as the number of men resembling him in the ranks of journalists increases, so will the respectability and influence of newspapers for good. His his- tory may serve to show the public, what the newspaper may be made—the journalist, what he ought to exert himself to become. Mallet du Pan is one of the heroes of journalism—an intelligent,

honest, and brave man. • To the general reader, however, these remains are chiefly in-

teresting on account of the light they throw on the history of the period. In this respect, though valuable throughout, some por- tions of them have more value than others. The first three chap- ters of the first volume are devoted to a sketch of the prepara- tory training which Mallet du Pan underwent, from his birth in 1749 till his acceptance of the political editorship of the Mercure de France, in 1784. Daring this period, his connexion with politics was principally literary. At a very early age, he took part in the discussions which then agitated his native city, Geneva, by the publication of a pamphlet. But he was too in- dependent to cooperate long with any of the petty factions. which

the tiny republic. By birth member of the politically

powerful class, he advocated the claims of the persona to whom political privileges were denied. The violence of his clients soon deprived them of his sympathy ; but in shaking himself loose from their alliance, he did not seek to reconcile himself with his heredi- tary party. His position in Geneva was one of which we have had a few examples even in our own country—that of a member of a dominant and conservative class alienated from his natural allies by a generous sentiment, repelled by their adversaries through their sectarian dogmatism, and elaborating for him- self a peculiar system of opinions, at first sufficiently. con- tradictory and incoherent, but becoming more exact and logical as his judgment becomes more mature. For a time he was led astray by admiration of the specious talents of Linguet, a turbulent pleader of talent in the Parliament of Paris—a kind of legal Cob- bett : his naturally well-balanced disposition, however, enabled Mallet du Pan to soar above the region of mere personalities in which that person lived and moved, retaining only his uncompro- mising assertion of his own opinions. The reputation which Mal- let du Pan obtained by his first pamphlet drew upon him the no- tice of Voltaire. Their intercourse was intimate ; but the inde- pendent character of the young man enabled him to retain the principles instilled into him by his native Puritan church, amid all the fascinations of Ferney. This part of Mallet du Pan's career is chiefly valuable for the additional light it throws upon the rela- tions of Voltaire in his old age to the Encyclopedists, and the politics of Geneva. The political events in that town were a re- hearsal on a small scale of the portentous drama of the French Re- volution : the example of Geneva did more to precipitate the revolution than the example of the -United States.

From the fourth to the eleventh chapter of the first volume are

devoted to the career of Mallet du Pan as editor of the Mercure de France. Thatjournal had a short time before his connexion with it been purchased by a wealthy bookseller, M. Panekouck; who, having enjoyed an excellent education, carried into the trans- actions of trade the liberal views of a gentleman and scholar and the extensive combinations of a large capitalist. M. Panekouck perfected the arrangements of the Mercure with a view to render it, as a political, literary, and artistical chronicle and review, su- perior to anything that had previously appeared in France. The political department was conducted under the immediate superin- tendence and control of Ministers, but at the sole expense and risk and for the sole pecuniary benefit of the proprietor. This was a trying position for Mallet du Pan. He had to avoid collisions with the Government ; he had to study the interest of his pub- lisher; he had to assert his own independence and honour. He was singularly successful in all respects. He wrote simply and in good faith what he knew and thought; he bore with good temper the excisions of the censor, but never consented to write what he did not believe ; and, by adhering to this line of con- duct, he obtained a reputation for the journal that made it a most profitable speculation for the proprietor. A re- markable example of the intrepidity with which he asserted Lis convictions is preserved in the volumes of M. Bayous, in the notes of a conversation he had with his censor re- specting the support afforded by the French Government to the

mocratio faction in Holland which repelled the Staatholder. In after days, that functionary must have looked back on Mallet du Tim's warning, of the dangerous consequences that might ensue from a monarchical government's underhand support of extreme democrats in a neighbour state to promote its own ambitious ends,

As prophetic. The sagacity of Mallet du Pan was also strikingly illustrated about this time by the view he took of the impeach- ment of Warren Hastings. So long as the censorship continued, Mallet du Pan, as an official journalist, was an object of distrust and suspicion to the Revolutionary leaders. After the censorship was abolished, his own convictions and the indirect influence of the circles in which he moved kept him steady to the views of government professed by the Ming. There was therefore little change in the tone of the Mercure; it remained conservatively liberal. He was thus isolated on the one hand not only from the Girondists and Jacobins, but also from the Constitutionalists who had no connexion with the Court. On the other hand, the citizen of Geneva had little or nothing in common with the Royalist party Perhaps the only member of that party who really and sincere y thought as he did was the King ; and with him Mallet du Pan does not appear to have had personal intercourse till immediately before his flight from France. Accordingly, he was not admitted into the secret councils of the Royalists. Thus circumstanced, his knowledge of persons and events was necessarily in a great mea- sure obtained at second-hand. He displays great industry in seek- ing for information, great shrewdness in estimating its reliableness, great temper in his judgment of men and parties. But his judg- ments throughout this period bear the impress of a bookish man, who knows the world principally from the report of others. His eyes have not yet been couched ; he has not a distinct perception, a real knowledge of the characters of those by whom perception, is sur- rounded—of the passions and aims which animate and direct their actions.

The remaining five chapters of the first volume and the whole of the second relate to the last eight years of the life of Mallet du Pan—to the years of his exile. This is infinitely the most inter- esting and important portion of the work. Here we have him brought into personal contact with all parties of the successive Emigrations, and maintaining a close correspondence with many who remained in France. The characters and actions of men are placed naked before his eyes. He sees men and events as they really are; his acute perception and strong judgment rapidly emancipate themselves from all preconceptions. His practical turn of mind enables him to detect the futility of the plans of the Emigrants—his tact, to detect their hidden motives ; and inde- pendence and honesty compel him to place them in their true light. He thus incurs enmities and attacks of all kinds ; his honest indignation lends an impassioned eloquence to his expres- sion of opinions and feelings. In vehement uncompromising earnestness, and in subtile analysis of character, his writings at this period are scarcely inferior to Burke's • while his singleness

' of purpose, and his steady judgment, render them far more vera- cious than those of the English orator.

Did our limits permit, it would be easy to select from the vo- lumes of M. Bayous, numerous proofs of this estimate of the writings of Mallet du Pan, at the time when his intellect had been fully developed and matured. Among these, not the least wonder- ful is the promptitude and exactness with which he discovered the character of Napoleon Bonaparte, and foretold his future. But the recent events in France induce us to turn in preference to what relates to the change effected by the Revolution in the con- stitution of French society, and the character of the French people.

In various memoirs and letters, Mallet du Pan labours to im- press upon his correspondents and the public the real character •of the portion of society in which political power had been concen- trated by the Revolution. He shows how the States-General stripped the King of all political influence; how the Convention did the same for the nobles and the priests; and finally, how after the overthrow of the Girondins, all proprietaries were placed in the same category as the privileged classes. In the cities, the prole- tariate were thus wedded to the cause of the Revolution, while in the rural districts, the peasantry, emancipated from feudal exac- tions, and by this and by the sale of the national domains made owners of the fields they tilled, had a still greater interest in re- sisting all recurrence to the ancien regime. Of the political sys- tem and opinions developed and established in such a state of so- ciety, Mallet du Pan wrote to Lord Elgin, in 1793—

" Notliing can hinder the possessor of power to acquire the means of sub- sistence ; equality of rights is only valuable for the indigent as leading to equality of enjoyment. The total dissolution of property, therefore, resisted for some time by the Convention, is a necessary consequence of the exist- ing position of affairs ; and an irresistible movement will bring it about, more or less rapidly according to circumstances. To be convinced of this, it is only required to recall the principles avowed a year ago by the deputation from the department of the Gard to the Assembly, who demanded that an in- demnification of 250 millions should be paid to the cultivators for the grain which they called national property. This startling sum of 250 millions; they added, 'is, in so far as the state is concerned, a merely apparent outlay, which will.place at its disposal an amount of real and purely national wealth, which of right belongs in property to no individual member of society, any more than the precious metals stamped in the mint.'

"To the same purport is a speech made by Robespierre about the same time. The primary right, he said, is the right to exist. The primary social law is that which guarantees to every member of society the means of sub-

sistence ; all others are subordinate. Property is tolerated to insure exist- ence ; it is not true that property ought to be upheld at the risk of putting life in peril. All that is required to support existence is the common pro- perty of the whole of society ; it is only the surplus that may be allowed to become private property, and abandoned to the disposal of traders.' "Thus, the dogma of equality of property, which began to germinate under the Revolution, now pushes out its buds : this dogma is recognized in all the decrees of the Assembly for regulating the subsistence of the sans- culottes ; in particular, it is the basis of the famous law of taxation, and the source of the preparatory slanders which designate all proprietors aecapareuns and inuecadins, just as the nobles and priests were nicknamed aristocrates and calotins before them. Such has hitherto been the march of the French Revolution ; this indicates what must be its future career. The old power is subverted; the subversion of property has begun ; its consummation is inevitable, whatever quarrels may take place among the dominant faction."

Here we have a picture of a society prepared for a Communistic government. A second memorial, addressed by Mallet du Pan to Lord Elgin in February 1794, explained the machinery and secret springs of such a government, established under the name of a " Coinith de Saint Public." Ile pointed out the immense Wealth which confiscations of all kinds had placed at the disposal of this government. He showed how it disarmed or banished the intelli- gent and thinking classes by terror, and made the multitude its agents by feeding and flattering them. He explained the machinery by Which the army was raised and recruited, and those by which its enthusiasm was kept at boiling-point. The picture is that of a nation of debauched Spartans ; the great mass of which was kept loyal to the existing government, as dogs are, by being fed, and ready to be hounded as soldiers upon their neighbours (also as dogs are) by not being over-fed, and by having wealth and luxury pre- sented to them in the countries destined to invasion. This, he shows in various writings, was the secret of the successes of the French armies ; of the eagerness with which fresh soldiers rushed on to occupy the places of those who fell, till their enemies were worn out, driven back, trampled under foot. Now for the application of these views to the present time. The Emigrant nobility and clergy have been unable to regain their powers and property. The Royal Family is almost worn out. The new nobility, created by Napoleon, were almost as odious to the peasantry and the sans-culottes of the towns as the old. Under the despotism of Napoleon, under Louis the Eighteenth, Charles the Tenth, and Louis Philippe, individuals have acquired considerable properties by trade, manufactures, or banking, and speculations in the funds. But these owners of chattel property are, like the millowners in our own manufacturing districts, a few unorganized individuals, lost amid an ocean of labourers. Exten- sive landowners there are none; the land is in the possession of the peasantry, and the law of inheritance causes the holdings to diminish instead of augmenting. Few landowners have more than enables them to live : the rural population consists of those who possess the bare means of subsistence, and a constantly grow- ing surplus, for whose sustenance there is no poor-law. The rural population of France hate and fear tithes and rents as inveterately as the Irish peasants, and will fight against them to the death. Among this population, recruits for the army are found in plenty : the army is the poor-law, the barracks are the union workhouses of France. With the exception of the rich manufacturers, merchants, and bankers, French society has scarcely changed since the time of Mallet du Pan. Now Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is the nucleus of a centralized bureaucracy, which is in effect a Comite de Salut Public. He governs by the army, recruited from the peasantry and the proletariate class, and to those classes a necessary of existence as their only substitute for a poor-law. This new Comae de Salut Public must govern on the same principles as the old one if it will maintain its position and power. France under Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, like France under Robespierre, must be governed internally by compulsory equalization of property, by communistic administration of pro- perty, and by systematic forays upon all neighbouring states. To many readers the name of Mallet du Pan, notwithstanding the celebrity it once enjoyed, will be entirely new. But the in- fluence of his writings has been more lasting than his fame. He was the first to occupy that neutral ground upon which rational Royalists and rational Revolutionists have since met and formed a vublic of practical politicians conforming to the altered re- lations of society. In his writings are to be found the germs of those opinions which were so powerfully advocated by Von Stein, Arndt, and others, when the nations rose and combined to de- throne Napoleon.