VON SYBEL'S FRENCH REVOLUTION.* HERR vox SYBRL has not added

very much in this extremely valuable book to our direct knowledge of the French Revolution.

He describes the economic causes of that great movement, the physical misery of the French people, the injustice and imbecility of the fiscal system, the crushing weight of privileges and exemp- tions with great force and careful accuracy, but he hates the movement itself too keenly to be either pictorial or judicial. No one who does not sympathize at least in some degree with the passion for equality, with the hatred of privilege aroused by centuries of unpunished insolence, with the feeling, absurd as it may have been, which made a costume appear a crime, can thoroughly understand or fittingly describe that political cyclone, can feel how completely it called a new heaven and a new earth into existence, how it changed the mental

attitude as well as the social position of every human being within its range. Herr von Sybel, though to himself he seems probably only too coldly impartial, neither likes France nor Frenchmen, and his judgment of their greatest and most characteristic outburst is tainted, to speak plainly, with something of vulgarity. He believes in the crimes of Philip of Orleans, for example, like an English citizen of the period, evidently thinks that his gold was the great moving spring of tumult, considers that he had a definite plan for getting rid of Louis XVI., and himself mounting the throne. He may be right, but lie does not devote either space enough or learn- ing enough to a point upon which almost all French and English

historians are against him, does not seem to see that a direct accusation of hiring assassins wants more proof and better proof than an almost impossible letter from the Duke of Orleans to his

* History of the French Revolution. By Heinrich von Syhel, Professor of History in the University of Bonn. Translated from the Third Edition of the original German Work by Walter C. Perry, Esq. In 4 volt:. Vols.I. and II. London : John Murray. 1857.;

banker, directing him to refuse the pay of his mercenaries because they have not killed "Le Marmot," as they undertook to do.

The notion, too, that Denton was mainly influenced by a thirst for plunder is inconsistent with all we know of the great Jacobin's

character. Like hundreds of other Frenchmen of his time, he was corrupt, loved money and pleasure, and perhaps regarded all he took as booty from an enemy, but the thirst of gain was not an operating motive in his career. Herr von Sybel interprets the celebrated sentence, "If the counter revolution arrives, what heat thou done to be hanged?" as an acknowledgment of conscious crime, whereas it was only a party test, an expression of a thought the belief in which had much to do with the crimes of the Revolution, that if the reaction came the aristocracy would

be horribly cruel. The "White Terror" subsequently showed how accurate that belief had been. Herr von Sybel assigns too large a part to Lafayette and the bourgeoisie, and does not recog-

nize sufficiently the utter selfishness of that armed middle class which was quite content with the Revolution when it had scarcely begun, when it had done everything for them and nothing what- ever for the mass of the population of France. His description, however, of the night's work in that hot August, when feudalism perished, when centuries of crime were punished and, so to speak, expiated by one colossal robbery, is one of singular force and minuteness, and will add to the knowledge even of those who have really studied the Revolution. The grand merit of his book, how- ever, that which makes it a great contribution to the literature of the Revolution, is its account of the attitude assumed by the German dynasties, his revelation often anticipated, but hitherto never fully supplied, of the imbecile selfishness and wickedness of the Powers who attempted in vain to restrain France, and who, by their weak violence, changed a democratic and internal into a military and propagandist movement. Herr von Sy bel has had access to masses' of documents hitherto jealously secluded from the public gaze. He has been permitted to read the letters of the Duke of Brunswick to the German Ministers, to search the French Depot de in Guerre, the Staats Archive of Berlin, the latter hitherto almost inaccessible, and the most secret records of the • Austrian Government in Belgium, and has consulted all the works hitherto published by the Russian Government. The result is a narrative of the highest interest for the student of history, in which we see the policy and secret motives of the German Courts as clearly as they were seen by their kings, the ideas with which they went to war, the reasons for their many failures, the justifi- cations for their few successes, the causes-not only of their action against France, but of the still greater synchronous movement, the absorption of Poland.

Herr von Sybel considers that he has established, and as far as we can perceive, he has established by evidence, the following points :—The three great Powers of the Continent at that day,— powers, we may remark, very much feebler for war than they are now,—were not at first heartily opposed to the Revolution. They thought it a phase of the great war which had been raging throughout the Continent for years between the sovereigns and feudalism ; and entertained a polite, ceremonious, but profound contempt for the Esnigr6.s, their cause, and their advice. They were not in the least degree prepared to go to war for an idea, unless the idea meant provinces, and their real interest in the Revolution was to make make out of it all they could. The Czarina Catharine, for example, cared first of all for her suzerainty over Poland, which she thought menaced by Germany, and her first object, expressed with cynical frankness to her agents, was to induce the German Powers, by promises, and protests, and exhibitions of anti-French feeling, to involve themselves in a ruinous war with France, during which she would have strengthened her hold over her great dependency. The author's remarks upon this point are full of keen historic insight marvellous in a man who evidently believes that England would sacrifice all principle for a com- mercial treaty, and that she really demanded compensation for her exertions against France. He says : —

"The rule of Russia operated more effectually when Roland became a Russian province ; but that rule had more extensive bounds while Poland was a separate but dependent State. Russia was not yet strong enough to undertake the conquest of that country for herself alone, and was therefore obliged to allow the neighbouring German Powers to share in the booty. We shall have an opportunity of observing how deeply Catharine felt this disadvantage ; and it is certain that in the various partitions of Poland, she was always the last to snake up her mind; and that she could"truly say, that she never would have carried out the measure but for the pressure of the German Powers. A partition of Poland, we must remember, appeared to her in a different light from that which it assumed in the eyes of the other nations of Europe, who were not concerned in it. While the latter only saw in this act, the plunder and oppression of an independent people, Catharine looked upon it as the curtailment of a Russian fief, and the cutting off of a Russian province. She consented to it because she was obliged to do so, and she consoled herself by looking to the future, and by the increase it brought to Russian power in Europe. We may here make use of the words which one of the best informed of the Russian Ministers addressed to the Emperor Alexander in 1814; the destruction of Poland, he said, was almost the exclusive subject of modern Russian history ; it was under- taken for the purpose of bringing Russia into immediate intercourse with the other nations of Europe, and opening to her a more extended theatre for the employment of her power and her talents, for the grati- fication of her pride and her passions, and for the advancement of her interests ; to frustrate the consequences of this successful plan, would be to attack the unity of the government."

Catharine was ready, it is true, if there was no other way, to surrender part of Poland to Germany ; but she thought in sur-

rendering it she was making sacrifices, was withdrawing outposts otherwise deeply planted in Central Europe. On the other hand, Leopold of Austria, the able, politic, and sensible heir of the great Hapsburg power, a man vicious as any noble of his dissolute- Court, but calm, patient, and sagacious, had two separate ends. The first was to snake Poland an appanage of the Electorate of Saxony by a treaty settling crown and hat on the same person, and thus throw a powerful and, as he hoped, a compact State between Russia and Germany,—a State sure to be allied with himself,—and thus to lend him invaluable aid in resisting the Hohenzollerns, whoni then, as now, the Hapsburgs regarded as their first and most dangerous foes. His second was to exchange Belgium, then an appanage of his House, but from its compara- tive independence of little value, for Bavaria. He thought it possible, if Bavaria could be seduced, or menaced, or coerced into.

compliance, to transfer the Wittelsbachs to Belgium, and thus extend his frontier to the Lake of Constance, acquiring four- millions of German Catholic and well disciplined subjects, in- stead of four million stiffnecked, half French foreigners. Ts these two ends he directed his whole energies ; but so completely did the latter take possession of his mind that to secure. Bavaria lie expressed himself willing that Prussia should acquire a great increase of territorial power. On his side William, King of Prussia, was no less self-absorbed. He was, indeed, actuated in a measure by a chivalric hostility to the Revolution, by care for the Bourbons, and a feeling for the griefs of the noblesse ; but he demanded, nevertheless, a just "compensation," namely, the Polish provinces now included under the general name of Posen, which demand was, we may add, conceded. The fate of Poland, in fact, turned upon that of Belgium, for it was not until, Dumouriez had occupied that country that Joseph's successor, seeing his own project futile, claimed part of Poland, and threatened if it were not conceded to ask English assistance-. This claim forced Catharine either to defend Poland against Ger- many, or to incorporate the greater portion, and aware of the- profound dislike with which her Government was regarded by the Polish nobles, she with great reluctance but decisively accepted the second course. The ferment produced by this decision was. excessive :—

" Lord Whitworth in St. Petersburg and Murray at the Prussian head- quarters launched forth into the loudest protests, and the Cabinet of St. James became daily more zealous in their endeavours to preserve peace- with France for themselves, and to restore it between German/ and France. For it now appeared evident that the longer the revolutionary war lasted, and the more widely it extended, the freer scope would the- Russians gain for their aggressive policy in Eastern Europe. Pitt— whom an inveterate delusion has falsely represented as the real torch of the European conflagration—left no stone unturned at the very last moment to avert the danger from our quarter of the globe. He sent repeated declarations in every direction, that the French ought to be allowed to manage their own internal affairs, and that the Republic ought to be acknowledged, as soon as it gave up all efforts on its part to. revolutionize the neighbouring States and to extend its frontiers. He- aven consented, in order to gain over Austria to his views, to give up an old principle of English policy, that Belgium must always be in the hands of a great military power as a bulwark against France. He pro- mised Austria his consent to the Bavarian-Belgian Exchange, if she would make peace with the French Republic through the mediation of England, and then on her part support the English protest against ths partition of Poland."

It seems probable that Pitt would have saved Poland, Russia dreading a maritime war, when the execution of Louis XVI. aroused a storm of indignation in England which made peace with. France impossible, and, therefore, rendered the partition easy. A treaty, settling the share of each power almost as it now exists,. was signed on 23rd January, 1793, seventy-five years ago, Poland disappeared, and England was pacified, according to Herr von Sybel, by the adoption of her maritime code, which Catharine had set herself to destroy, but really by her recognition of the impos- sibility of fighting France and Eastern Europe at one and the same- time. The frightful condition of Poland where the population were the personal slaves of the noble class, who treated them with,

brutal oppressiveness, aided the design, and the occupations passed off without the slightest resistance, the people being unin- terested, and the nobles coerced. Herr von Sybel as a patriot completely exonerates Prussia from guilt in the transaction, alleging that she could not help herself, that unless the King had assented to the Partition Russian military governors would have been fixed in Posen ; but he reveals enough to show that terri- torial ambition was the guiding motive of all three Powers, whose action resulted in bringing French armies to their capitals.

Upon every point connected with this great intrigue Herr von Sybel is clear, explanatory, and so full that he sometimes forgets the French Revolution altogether. The completeness of his knowledge makes his somewhat heavy narrative full of interest and even of excitement, and it will be read even by those who contemn his account of events in Paris with that real delight which the student of history feels when obscure passages are made plain. We shall wait with impatience for the translation of the next two volumes, and trust Herr von Sybel will add to them a note or two for his English readers justifying more completely his account of British policy. It is probable that England did at one time hope to set up a barrier against France by extending Belgium, but we need something more than a confidential report to Berlin to justify this astounding statement, made, it is stated, to the Antwerp Congress. The Duke of York had refused to -occupy the country between Ostend and Menin :—

" The limitation implied in these words was more fully explained by Lord Auckland, who said that the Duke was empowered to operate in common with the Imperial Army only where sieges were concerned ; since it was the object of his Court to procure for Belgium a defensive Line of fortresses on the frontier. 'I will not conceal the fact,' he added, 'that England too contemplates a very considerable compensa- tion for herself.' The Prince of Orange then threw out the remark, that if all the world was looking for compensation, he hoped that Holland would not be excluded, and that her Ambassadors would be admitted to any Congress that might take place."

If that is true, the world had really conspired to partition France, and the Committee of Public Safety were so far in the right.