MALLET DU PAN.* Tam biographical study of the distinguished journalist,
Mallet du Pan, written by his great-grandson, is in every way one of the best and most interesting books that have been published this year.
Every educated person knows the name of Mallet du Pan; few, we are ashamed to think, know much more of him than his name. The ignorance still exists which astonished Sainte- Beuve in 1851, when an incomplete memoir by M. Sayous, now long out of print, drew from him the two delightful essays on Mallet du Pan to be found in Vol. IV. of the Causeries du Lundi. These, with Taine's high tribute in his history, where he quotes him as "the most competent, the most judicious, the most profound observer of the Revolution," and speaks of his work on the Mercure de Franc" as containing "analyses always exact, predictions almost always true," are the chief sources of information in French about Mallet du Pan. In English his fame has till now depended on two articles in the Edinburgh Review. This seems the more curious when we consider his high admiration for England and English institutions, and the fact that when exiled from his native Switzerland through the enmity of Napoleon, he spent his last years here, his high character and distinguished talents reverenced by all who were worthy to appreciate them, although, as it too often happens, poverty and disappointment were permitted to cloud his last days.
The reasons for this neglect and forgetfulness, then and
• Mallet du Pan and the /hunch Revolution. By Bernard Menet With Frontispiece. London: Longman,: and Co. [12.. 6d. net.]
now, of one of the finest spirits of the time, are in great part to be found in this very fact, that he was in advance of his generation. The Revolution was a matter of extremes ; on neither side would the partisans bear any kind of moderation. Mallet du Pan's position was that of a Liberal or Constitutional Royalist. If it had been possible for such views as his to be carried into effect, France might have become a Liberal State with free institutions without passing from the tyranny of the annien regime through the worse tyranny of the Terror. And LOIlifi XVI., an honest and kind-hearted man, would have been in his right place as a Constitutional Monarch. He esteemed and trusted Mallet du Pan. When the editor of the Mercure de France—who in 1791 dared to write of the King as "a Prince whose only fault it was to have judged others as virtuous as himself; who alone perhaps in the kingdom had himself desired the alliance of liberty with the Monarchy; who had done more for the rights of the people than all the Sovereigns and demagogues of ancient and modern times put together "—when Mallet du Pan was forced by the persecuting spirit of the Revolution to resign his post and to leave Paris, Louis XVL entrusted him with a mission to his brothers and the foreign Powers, to make known to them the King's own views and the real state of things in France. For several years his time was spent in unavailing efforts to bring the Princes to reason, to rouse the consciences of the Powers, to point out, a voice crying in the wilderness, how France was to be won, not by threats and not by preparations for the return of a state of things quite passed away, but by convincing the people that the Revolutionary spirit, with its "torrent of ignorant fanaticism," only benefited a turbulent minority and opened the way for new despotism, present and future. His doctrines were unwelcome, both to the emigrants, who regarded him as a kind of traitor, and to the Revolution- ists, who understood his ever-growing enmity to the doctrines by which they lived. By the consent of both sides in the long struggle, as Mr. Mallet points out, the wise counsels and warnings, the clear perceptions and true prophecies, of Mallet du Pan were left buried in the newspapers, the pamphlets, the letters, where they were originally written ; and it is only now that people in general are beginning to perceive how unjust has been the neglect of this wise politician and truly liberal spirit.
Mallet du Pan had all the qualities which go to make a great journalist, whose object is to supply materials for history. He had the clear sight, the judgment never warped by passing enthusiasms, the faculty of standing aside and watching events not only in themselves, but with regard to their causes and their consequences. His position as a native of Geneva gave him no doubt a certain advantage, an independent view which would at that time have been harder to gain for a Frenchman. But his personal character, on which his great-grandson dwells with an insistence that is not surprising, also accounts for a good deal. He was a man of open and independent mind, absolutely incorruptible by any bribe of personal ad- vantage, frank, courageous, morally strong. Mr. Bernard Mallet does not say too much, and has distinguished witnesses on his side, when he claims for Mallet du Pan a high place as a politician and a statesman. Such a mind in happier times might have led a State gloriously. The history of Europe would have been different at the close of the eighteenth and the opening of the nineteenth century if Kings and people had been capable of listening to this voice and the few that echoed it. The influence of Mallet du Pan, however, was not thrown away. His views on the Revolution will more and more,as time goes on, become those of all sensible people. Constant progress, with the maintenance of Constitutional authority, was the ideal that he sought. Mr. Mallet quotes Burke- " The only liberty I mean is the liberty connected with order " —as giving the keynote of Mallet du Pan's opinions.
It would need much more space than a review can give to sketch the life of Mallet du Pan, and this chiefly because its events are so inextricably mixed up with the politics, first of Geneva, then of Paris, then of Europe. Though he escaped both from the Terror and from the wrath of Napoleon, roused by his attack on the Directory in 1797, his life was not with- out its element of tragedy. It was a struggle, and a hopeless one ; an example of brave endurance of exile and poverty for the sake of strong moral and political convictions. We would specially refer our readers to the two short sketches by Madame
Colladon, Mallet du Pan's daughter, which are to be found at pp. 121 and 330 of Mr. Bernard Mallet's book. To him we venture to recommend the following out as soon as possible of his own suggestion to put together from his great- grandfather's writings, now scattered in newspapers, pamphlets, and diplomatic Reports, "a volume which would form a most valuable historical commentary on the whole course of the Revolution." Such a volume would be certain of success at the present time.
We must add that the book before us is, as far as it goes, a valuable, clear, and instructive view of the last ten years of the eighteenth century. First-rate from a literary point of view, full of facts and ideas, every page of the book is interesting, suggestive, and thoughtful. It is a healthy, strong, original book, with that life of its own, apart from its subject, which biographies seldom possess. It takes, as we have said, a very high rank among the biographical literature of the year; we will venture to add, of the century.
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