THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.*
THESE lectures were given by Lord Acton, as Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, during the years 1895 to 1899. They are edited and published by Dr. Figgie and Mr. Laurence, to whom the admirers of Lord Acton are so much indebted. There are twenty-two lectures, which appear as they left the author's hands, though the editors are responsible for the titles ; and there is added an appendix, put together from " connected fragments," giving some of the chief authorities for the Revolutionary literature, and examining their value. These notes, fragmentary as they are, show that Lord Acton was a fine critic as well as a profound and extensive student; and the twenty-eight pages of the appendix are perhaps the most useful in the volume, especially to English readers, who may not be so well acquainted as they should be with French historians and Germanic theorisers. As for Carlyle, by whom too many English readers are inflamed and deluded, Lord Acton describes his French Revolution, in one of the many pregnant and happy phrases with which these lectures abound, as " one of those disappointing stormclouds that give out more thunder than lightning." There is an amusing account of how Carlyle " was scared from the Museum by an offender who sneezed in the Reading Room?' He then hurt Panizzi's feelings by describing him as " a respectable official," where- upon that great librarian "declared that he could not allow the library to be pulled about by an unknown man of letters"; and so Carlyle, instead of using the unrivalled wealth of con- temporary pamphlets in the British Museum, fell back on " the usual modest resources of a private collection." " But," as Lord Acton adds, " the mystery of investigation had not been revealed to him when he began his most famous book "; though " the vivid gleam, the mixture of the sublime with the grotesque, make other opponents forget the impatient verdicts and the poverty of settled fact in the volumes that delivered our fathers from thraldom to Burke." Yes ! but only to fall into a worse delusion ; because if any one desires to have the eighteenth century misunderstood and undervalued, and its great personages misrepresented, he may be satisfied abundantly by Carlyle.
Lord Acton's volume might be described best, perhaps, as an account of the mechanism which produced and worked the Revolution. It is not so much a history as an explanation of causes, an exposition of motives, and an examination of consequences. In all these respects it is a sound and satisfy- ing piece of work. The first lecture is named "The Heralds of the Revolution," and Lord Acton derives its chief principles from the Canon Law. Clerical and Ultramontane extremists might remember this with advantage, though they have quite forgotten the connexion of the Revolution with the New Testament. " Maultrot, the beat ecclesiastical lawyer of the
day explained [in 1790] how the Canon Law approves the principles of 1688 and rejects the modern invention of divine right." Lord Acton shows the catena of liberal opinion from Aquinas through Jnrieu and Domat to the eve of the Revolution. His list contains the unexpected name of Fenelon, " the Platonic founder of revolutionary thinking." He "struck it [the Monarchy]" at the zenith, and treated Louis XIV. in all his grandeur more severely than • Lectures on the French Revolution. By Lord Acton. London; Macmillan and Co. [10a. net.]
the disciples of Voltaire treated Louis XV. in all his degrada- tion. Pp. 34 give a just account of that great thinker and writer, which has been wanting for too long, and is well worth pondering. Lord Acton then passes to "The Influence of America," and this lecture contains many valuable references to authorities which are full of a sound political wisdom that is very much wanted among ourselves at present.
During the past twelve months there have been in the Spectator several articles dealing with books on the French Revolution, and we would recall especially two of them, because Lord Acton's judgments agree so fully with their verdicts that readers of those books will be able to understand his point of view. Quite recently attention was drawn in these columns to M. Aulard's great Histoire Politique de is Revolution Francaiss in a review of the English translation. Now Lord Acton pays the highest tribute to M. Aulard, of whom he says : " Nobody has ever known the printed material better than he, and nobody knows the unpublished material so well." He adds, it is trite, that " the cloven hoof of party preference appears in a few places " ; but it must be remembered that Lord Acton is referring only to the few pages of summary by M. Aulard in Rambaud and Lavisse's Histoire Generale, and no one can guard or explain himself in a summary. Lord Acton did not know M. Aulard's Histoire Politique, which contains the full result of his labours. It is all the more satisfactory, therefore, that their independent conclusions agree so generally, especially since their private beliefs and their points of view are so entirely different. We will only say that Lord Acton does not bring out, as M. Aulard does, the immense and pathetic faith which the whole body of the nation, and especially the peasants, had in the power and benevolence of the Crown, and in the good intentions of Louis XVI. The failure, and worse than failure, of the King is therefore even more tragic and criminal than Lord Acton shows it to be. As for the characters of the King and Queen, and the real causes of the Terror, Lord Acton agrees substantially with the conclusions of Mr. Hilaire Belloc, as set forth in his eloquent biography of Marie Antoinette. Neither writer perhaps lays sufficient stress on the aggressive and provocative actions of Pius VI., who not only condemned the French Liberals, but the whole prin- ciple and system of the Revolution, before there had been any attack from the other side. It seems to us incontestable that the Papacy is very largely responsible for the attitude of the emigres, more especially of the Bishops, for much internal trouble, and for many of those devious proceedings of the King during his last few months which led him directly to the scaffold.
One of the lectures is entitled " Sieyes and the Civil Constitution." We are glad to know Lord Acton's high estimate of Sieyes as a political thinker, and we hope his praises may lead to a better knowledge of him in England. A complete, or even a selected, translation of him into English would, we think, be exceedingly useful The pages on the Civil Constitution are weak, misleading, unsatisfactory, and sometimes absurdly wrong. It is extraordinary that so careful and impartial a student should be so misinformed. The position towards Rome and its claims which was adopted by the Constitution Civile was a return to antiquity, and not an innovation. As Lord Acton says, it was " in conformity with the opinion of Bossuet." But we cannot under- stand him when he says : ‘: The question now was whether the Church of France was to be an episcopal or a presbyterian Church"; for there was never any such question, and every provision was made for a regular and an efficient episcopate. It is true that Talleyrand said he saved the Constitutional Church from presbyterianism, though he was referring, not to the intentions of the Legis- lature, but to certain practical difficulties in obtaining valid episcopal Orders. These undoubtedly might have been obtained even though Talleyrand himself had not come to the rescue. Lord Acton falls into the usual error of attributing the Constitution Civile to Jansenist and heterodox influences. This is a complete delusion, as names and figures show. The Commission for dealing with the clergy, as finally constituted, had thirty members. Ten of them were clergy. men and eight were Canon lawyers. All of them were Catholics. None of them were Philosopher or Jansenists. They were Gallicans, of course, but so were the vast majority
of the nation. Lord Acton fails also to see that by making ecclesiastical offices elective the Legislature wished to apply liberal, and we may add primitive, institutions to the Church.
It would hardly be possible to devise an ecclesiastical polity more equitable, efficient, and democratic than the Civil Con- stitution of the Clergy. It has the farther merit of being able to adapt iteelf mechanically to the growth and changes of population. At any rate, the vast majority of Frenchmen were Gallicans at the end of the eighteenth century, while a hundred years of the Concordat—that is, of Roman inter- ference—have reduced the Roman Catholics to what is politically an impotent minority.
Lord Acton's summary of Robespierre and the Terror is well worth considering. Many of those who destroyed the tyrant repented long after, he says, of their share in his fall. By many he was thought to have fallen because he tried to bar the progress of unbelief, "the strongest current of the age." "His private life was inoffensive and decent. He had been the equal of emperors and kings ; an army of seven hundred thousand men obeyed his word ; he controlled millions of secret service money, and could have obtained what he liked for pardons, and he lived on a deputy's allowance of eighteen francs a. day, leaving a fortune of less than twenty guineas in depreciated assignats." " He held fast to the doctrine of equality, which means government by the poor and payment by the rich." " The transformation of society as he imagined, if it cost a few thousand heads in a twelvemonth, was less deadly than a single day of Napoleon fighting for no worthier motive than ambition." " Only this is certain, that he remains the most hateful character in the forefront of history since Machiavelli reduced to a code the wickedness of public men." Nevertheless, "the Reign of Terror coin- cided exactly with the season of public danger "; and we cannot "disprove the contention that the Reign of Terror was the salvation of France." And " the remorseless tyranny was not the product of home causes." France was threatened with dismemberment, and the threateners were in arms upon all her frontiers. The Republicans were to be exter- minated, and Paris was to be destroyed. Burke said every foreign Prince must enter France "as into a country of assassins," with whom "the mode of civilised war will not be practised."
No doubt panic always tends to cowardice, and cowardice is always base, bloody, and brutal. But though this may explain the Terror, it can never excuse it. As Englishmen showed in 1649, it is quite possible to abolish a Monarchy and ant off an erring King's head without deluging the land with blood, and killing old men, young girls, and even little children because they were the offspring or relations of suspects. There was an element of maniacal wickedness in the Terror, and indeed in the Revolution as a whole, which cannot be palliated. The excesses were unnecessary, and they made reaction inevitable. The worst deeds of the Terror were no doubt committed by men who believed that if they did not show their patriotism by blind and wholesale blood- thirstiness, they would perish as suspects. Many of them did not want to do what they did, but dared not behave like men of humanity, or even like men possessed of the most elementary sense of pity. But this only makes their crimes all the more despicable and degrading. They have not the excuse of honest fanaticism. They would have served their country far better had they refused to shut the gates of mercy on mankind, and had instead made the world understand that liberty, humanity, decency, and good faith were compatible with revolution.
We cannot commend Lord Acton's volume too highly as a storehouse of political wisdom and impartial judgments. We regret that we cannot quote largely from it, but we will circulate a fine utterance of Sieyea, which might be pondered with advantage by all our Socialistic politicians: " They fancy they can be free, and yet not be just." For many Conservatives we would add: "The earth belongs to those upon it, not to those who are underneath "; and this -is equally true of Churches.
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