MR. SYMES ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.*
THIS little volume is one of a number published by Messrs. Methuen, under the title of " University Extension Series," dealing with historical, literary, and scientific subjects. We are told, in a prefatory note, that they are " suitable for Ex- tension students and home-reading circles. The volumes are intended to assist the lecturer, and not to usurp his place." It appears to us that the author, Mr. Symes, has not entered fully into the view of the publishers, and that he has given us in this book a lecture rather than a handbook. His own aims in the work are described in the preface, and his words. are worth quoting :— "The French Revolution may be studied from many different sides. It may be viewed as a succession of thrilling incidents, or as the attempt to realise certain ideals, or as a portion of the International History of Europe, or as the destruction of mediaeval institutions, or as a series of political and social experiments. I have tried in this book to combine these points of view so• far as seemed practicable in the space at my disposal. This. has, of course, necess.tated a rigorous exclusion of all minor incidents, and even of many that were by no means unim- portant. My object has been not so much to record facts as to arrange them in such a way as shall bring out their significance, and especially their relation to the problems of our own time. I have even ventured in a brief concluding chapter to point out what seem to me the chief lessons taught by the Revolution."
This, surely, is the description of a lecture, and would, indeed, • The French Revolution, 1789-1795. By J. E. Symes, M.A. "University; Extens:on Series." London : Methuen and O. 1892.
be an ample menu for a whole course of lectures. And when we consider how much Mr. Symes has added to the task of telling the story of the Revolution, and that the space at his disposal is one hundred and fifty small pages in good print, we shall not be surprised to find that both facts and theories have suffered from compression. Though the narrative is kept extremely distinct, and gives a remarkably clear account of the course of events, it is painfully contracted ; and it gives quite insufficient data to enable us to appre- ciate our author's frequent judgments on men and things. He is obliged to select his facts : and he cannot lay more than a small part of the evidence before us. Why, therefore, does he attempt to use the narrative as an object-lesson to enforce his own views on some of the most controverted questions in history P As it is, there is no point of view, social, philo- sophical, moral, or religious, from which he does not regard the French Revolution in these hundred and fifty pages on prin- ciples which he does not defend or even explain, and drawing his inferences from facts many of which he is unable even to mention. For example, his description of the aims and motives of the leading Terrorists seems to be little more than their own account of themselves. Having acknowledged that Robespierre had not made the slightest effort to prevent the September massacres, Mr. Symes tells us that he suffered agonies at the thought that some innocent persons might suffer by mistake.
Again, we are told that it was in all honesty that Danton asserted that he had rather be guillotined than guillotine as soon as Terrorism had done its work. Marat's thirst for the blood of the rich came from his passionate love of the poor. The disinterestedness of Robespierre and Marat is con- tinually dwelt upon as if ambition, revenge, love of power, could have had no part in them.
But it is in the chapter on Regicide that the method of brief narrative and unsupported judgments is carried furthest. To the ordinary mind, for which this book is intended, the follow- ing summing-up on the execution of Louis will present a large number of problems :—
" If we compare his execution with that of our own Charles I., we shall notice that, while the latter was the act of a determined minority, who, by military force, were able to purge Parliament of most of its members, the former was a national act, carried through, after long discussion, by the representatives of the nation, elected by universal suffrage. It had, therefore, whatever justification legality could give it. It is likely enough that, if the Girondists had carried their appeal to the people, the decision might have been different. But the absence of a plebiscite could not deprive the execution of a national character. Those who bad abstained from voting for members of the National Con- vention had only themselves to blame, if the Assembly did not properly reflect French opinion. But an act does not become right because it is sanctioned by the delegates of universal suffrage ; and the execution of Louis, like that of Charles, is blameworthy, not only because it was dispro- portioned to the moral guilt of the deposed Sovereign and because it involved a breach of existing laws, but especially because its tendency was to strengthen reactionary forces and many of the evils from which the two countries were suffering. It is right to set against this, the undoubted advantage of bringing home to rulers, in a lurid fashion, the fact of their responsibility to man as well as to God for the use they make of their powers. Nevertheless, on the whole, the wiser course would have been to banish the deposed King. Later experience has shown that the danger to a nation from exiled Sovereigns is not very great, unless the Sovereign be a man of unusual ability, energy, and craft. Nothing that Louis could have done in exile would have strength- ened the enemies of France as did bis death. In particular, it was the main cause of the declaration of war between England and France."
We will only touch upon a few of the difficulties which this passage will present to the ordinary student who is endeavouring to form his views of the history of the time from Mr. Symes's. volume. To a perhaps not very brilliant youth it would appear, firstly, that the act is
defended as legal and attacked as illegal. To pass on. Does Mr. Symes mean, queries the student, that the execution was more blameworthy because it was in- expedient, than because it was unjust ? Again, is an unjust execution a useful lesson to Sovereigns ? The lesson learnt by the next ruler in France was to set himself above any danger of having to answer to the people for the use he made of his powers.
Leaving our puzzled student, we would say that our chief objection to this and many other like passages is a tendency to measure the moral character of an act by its results. The same tendency is evident in his judgments of character. Mr. Symes cannot heartily hate evil, if good comes out of it. We have tried to enter into Mr. Symes's mind on this subject. He looks upon the old regime—rightly, as we think—as an extreme evil for humanity ; he considers that its destruction involved great crimes, great mis- takes, and that such violent remedies brought about dangerous reactions, bat were, in the main, productive of good. Looking back on the time as a whole, he cannot bring himself to condemn the men who were the authors of so much good. The source must be as the stream. Robes- pierre, Danton, and Marat are to be judged, on the whole, for the best, because their actions, nay, their very crimes, proved, on the whole, to work for good :-
" But men must be judged not so much by what they do as by what they aim at ; and this last is not discoverable by any process of sneering. We cannot prove that there was any sincerity in those who stained their hands in blood while they were professing the loftiest sentiments. But I am satisfied that an honest study of the facts will justify the belief that a genuinely increased sense of human brotherhood was a real and important factor in the history of the Revolution. Let us, then, frankly acknowledge this. But let us not, therefore, shut our eyes to the fact that the Revolu- tionists violated the most elementary moral laws, and especially the law that men should love one another as brethren."
What are we to frankly acknowledge P Something which satis- fies Mr. Symes, though he cannot prove it ? And does he mean that it was the men who "especially violated the law of love," who were the means of increasing the sense of human brother- hood ? Or was it the course of events P or, perhaps, the noble examples of their victims ? It is the same implication,—we are not to be hard on the men if their actions told for the good cause.
So strong is this underlying judgment, that we find him re- marking in another passage that we can " take comfort " from the knowledge of that sincerity which, in our last quotation, he told us it was impossible to prove :—
" We do well to speak with horror of the Reign of Terror, and of the Revolutionary Tribunal which sent about three thousand persona to death. Yet even here we may remind ourselves that this terribly large number shrinks into insignificance when com- pared with the innocent persons hurried to a more painful death in needless wars, by the ambition of rulers whom the world delights to honour. Let us clear our minds of cant, and neither extenuate nor exaggerate the horrors ; and take what comfort we can front the knowledge that the chief actors honestly believed they were promoting the good of France and humanity ; that the victims almost all met their deaths with courage and dignity; that the dim millions of Frenchmen gained greatly by the Revo- lution as a whole, and suffered little from the Reign of Terror."
We have not space to dwell upon this passage, but we must add, in conclusion, that those who undertake to train unformed minds in such habits of thought and judgment as these must face a very grave responsibility. To condone crimes in a good cause by contrasting them with crimes in a bad one, to use strong words of indignation at sin, and then insinuate a " but," a " remember," an " admit " that it was useful, is a method of speaking and writing that we should dread for the coming generation. Neither is it new to condone judicial murder on the ground that it is expedient. At the beginning of our era, the greatest crime that has ever been committed by human beings was proposed to a grave responsible council of elders, and was agreed upon, because it was " expedient " for the people.
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