TIE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—Mr. P. E. Roberts in his letter in your issue of August 30th is in error in stating that the defenders of the Bastille were massacred. The garrison consisted of one com- pany of French Invalids and one company from the Swiss regiment of Salis-Samade, and, as far as I remember, only two men of the latter were murdered by their captors. The excesses of the Revolution cannot be excused or palliated, but they were the natural revulsion against the system of repres- sion in force under the ancien regime. The French 'Revolution was due to the same causes as the Russian Revolution of to-day—viz., the political despotism and religious intolerance sf the existing system of government. But a people suddenly =franchised, and unaccustomed to liberty, cannot govern themselves, and only succumb to a fresh tyranny. It took the French nation a century of revolution and counter-revolution to establish a stable government, and Russia will most probably undergo a similar experience. The French Revolution was a milestone on the highway of human progress. It dealt a mortal blow to the old feudal system of society in Europe, and inaugurated an era of nationality and democracy. Among all the peoples the Tricolor flag and the "Marseillaise" hymn have ever since stood for the symbol and the expression of Freedom.
I cannot agree with Mr. Roberts that the late Tsar was a " constitutionally minded ruler." I believe that he was both by birth and education despotically and fanatically minded, and that the Constitutional forms which were intro- duced during his reign were only imposed upon him by the force of circumstances which he was too weak to control. Like poor Louis XVI., the unfortunate Tsar Nicholas paid the price of the ill deeds of his ancestors and of the systems which they
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