Frontier Fortresses-Alarm of the Spanish Court-Tumults at Arranguez Madrid-Buonaparte decoys the whole of the Family to Bayonne-Transactions ¥ % ®! Ya"" *w*** HISTORY, &c. INTRODUCTION. Sketch of the State of France immediately previous to the Commencement of the Revolution. 'N tracing the annals of Europe during the eventful period of the last twentyfive years, the first attention of the historian is naturally directed to the origin and progress of that momentous revolution, which in its immediate effects, and in its remoter consequences, has so materially contributed to decide the fate of nations, and to influence the happiness of mankind. It will be necessary therefore at the commencement of the present work, to enter into a preliminary examination of the internal situation of France immediately previous to the actual commencement of revolutionary measures: to detail the grievances and oppressions by which the dissatisfaction of the people was excited, and to expatiate as fully as is consistent with the limits of an Introduction, on the moral influence of the manners of the court, and the writings of pretended philosophers. The immediate and most effective causes of the revolution must be referred to the distresses of the people, and the embarassments of the government, occasioned by the enormous expences of the war in which France supported the independence of the American colonies. The profligacy of the court; the dissentions of the clergy;. the gradual progress of general intelligence; the dissemination of revolutionary princi VOL. I. B. ples occasioned by the American contest, and the long-established oppressions to which the mass of the people were subjected; all contributed to the same effect, but in a subordinate degree. It was not till the court and the ministers were reduced to the most desperate expedients of finance, and compelled to court the favour, while they insulted the distresses of the nation, that the latent dissatisfaction of the people was excited to activity, and terminated in the fury of revolutionary enthusiasm. When the unhappy contest occurred between Great Britain and her colonies, it was conceived by the court of France, that a favourable occasion was now presented of avenging the late inglorious war, and destroying the effects of the peace of 1763. The capture of Burgoyne was accordingly regarded as a propitious opportunity for the declaration of hostilities; and the descendant of so many absolute monarchs did not regard it as impolitic, or unjust, to acknowledge and assist the exertions of a people struggling for inde-pendence. M. de Vergennes directed the department of foreign affairs with acknowledged ability. M. de Sartine restored the navy; while Neckar, a foreigner, a protestant, and a banker, in whose favour so many prejudices were resigned, and of whose talents the most exalted expectations had been formed, regulated the revenues as comptroller-general. A skilful financier rather than an able minister, he raised loans on the annual savings obtained by a reduction of the public expenses, and attempted the brilliant, but impossible paradox of conducting an expensive war, without oppressing the people by additional taxes. The present was the only conflict with England during more than three centuries, that did not prove inglorious to France; for, although England displayed her antient valour and superiority on the sea, yet she failed in the object of the contest: while the alliance of the American States, the temporary humiliation of her antient rival, and the triumph attendant on success, gratified the vanity of the French people, and the ambition of the court. But it was not difficult to conceive that a free intercourse and intimate connection between individuals, who had been hitherto in a great measure strangers to each other, should produce a mutual communication of sentiments; and as prejudice and error subsided an exchange of opinions. It was scarcely possible that many thousand Frenchmen should live for several years in America, under all the vicissitudes of a common and dangerous war, and in all the ease and festivity of an unexpected peace, without becoming, in a consider able degree, American. On the other hand, the rigid sectaries of Boston, forgetting their former aversion to popery, were so much gratified by the society of their new friends and guests, that they not only permitted, but attended their solemn service for the dead, which they had before considered as an abomination, scarcely inferior to idolatry. It was to the honour of the French gentlemen who served by sea and land, that they were disposed to examine, and to apply the new objects which came within their immediate observation. Many were employed in civil, diplomatic, and mercantile affairs; curiosity, pleasure, and private connectious influenced the habits of others; and some who were professedly philosophers, went thither with the inten tion to speculate upon, and to explore a new world and new orders of mankind. It was impossible that these individuals should not have been impressed with the excellence of that original constitution, of which the emanations diffused at so great a distance, so many examples of equality, security, and prosperity. The intercourse which for several years had been continually increasing between France and England; the frequent visits paid by individuals of the first rank and talents from the former to the latter; and more than both, the passion for reading the works of the first English writers, upon the great subjects of government and philosophy; and on those of a lighter nature, combined to produce a singular revolution, not only among men of learning and the lovers of speculation, but in the tide of popular opinion. The predominance of England in the affairs of Europe, the former success of our arms, and extension of our dominion, by fixing the attention and exciting the admiration of other nations, gave rise to a spirit of imitation, which led them to copy us in all things, but principally in that by which we were most distinguished, the form of our government. In France subjects were openly and eagerly discussed which were before regarded as too dangerous for inquiry; or, which it was imagined, a people so vain and frivolous, would not take the trouble to investigate. The principles upon which governments were originally founded, the ultimate objects of their institution, the relative rights and duties. of the governors and the governed, became the subjects of common conversation among common men. But above all, the personal security afforded by the English constitution, and the right which every man possessed of appealing publicly to the laws and to the world, in all cases of injury, or oppression by power, were generally admired and envied, while lettres de cachet, and every other mode of punishment, without legal trial and legal condemnation, were universally execrated. This disposition of the people might have been easily repressed in its infancy, had not the American war effectually provided for its nurture and advancement. The minds of men became attached to those principles which the cause they had espoused required them to maintain; and as the necessity of referring to the rights of government during the American contest, may, in some degree, have enfeebled the spirit of liberty in England, the French nation having more frequent occasion to appeal to provisions and principles by which the abuses of power are corrected, than to those by which its energy is maintained, imbibed a love of freedom, scarcely compatible with loyalty. But it was owing to a still more important cause, that the American war became instrumental to the revolution. It involved the crown in such difficulties and distresses, as compelled it to cast itself on the indulgence and support of the people; affording them an opportunity of thinking, acting, and speaking, which they had not enjoyed since the conclusion of the civil wars. The public debts of the kingdom had been insupportably oppressive; and its finances involved in the utmost embarassment. The intolerable burdens to which war and ambition had subjected the nation, were continually encreased by the enormous expenses of the crown, and the profusion that prevailed during the unequalled length of the two last reigns. But the weight and amount of the public debts were only part of the national misfortune. The whole system of finances was to the last degree faulty and ruinous: the taxes were injudiciously imposed, and arbitrarily levied. The farmers of the revenues who made immense fortunes, were almost the only untitled members of the community who lived in splendor; while the greater and more valuable part of the nation was groaning beneath the pressure of hopeless poverty. The American war commenced in this situation of affairs, and the people in their zeal to support their sovereign, forgot their debts and their taxes. The ostensible causes, and the private motives of the war, as far as they were understood, were highly alluring and cap B2 tivating to the imaginations of a generous, brave, and commercial nation. It appeared great and heroic to rescue an oppressed people who were gallantly contending for their rights, from inevitable ruin : it bore the impressions of skilful policy to reduce the power and humble the pride of a great and haughty rival; the disasters sustained in the preceding war with England, could not be forgotten; and, notwithstanding, the wounds inflicted were par-. tially healed by a favourable peace, they still rankled in the breast of every Frenchman. Nothing, therefore, could be more flattering to the national pride, than to seize the opportunity now arrived, of erasing the disgrace attached to that unfortunate period. As it was universally supposed that the loss of America would prove an incurable, if not a mortal wound to England; it was equally expected, that the power of the Gallic throne would be established by that event, on foundations so permanent, as never to be shaken by the vicissitudes of fortune. To complete the prospect of glory and advantage, commercial benefits before unknown, and an accession of naval strength that should command the seas, were to be derived from the new alliance and connection with America. These speculations ended only in surprize and disappointment; but the nation entered into the war with unexampled eagerness, and a common hand, directed by a common heart, appeared in its execution. Though the American war failed in producing the desired and expected results in favour of France, it left behind it consequences of a less pleasing nature. Through various causes, particularly from the novel manner in which it was conducted; its operations being chiefly naval, and extended to the remotest quarters of the world; from the extreme poverty and urgent necessity of the Americans, and the prevailing spirit of the time, which led to the most unbounded supplies, under the persuasion that the money so laid out would be amply repaid: the American war became the most expensive in proportion to the time of its continuance, of any in which France had been engaged. This expense was the more ruinous in its effect, from the circumstance that a great part of the money expended, was sunk at a distance from home, or laid out in commodities so perishable, that there was little hope of its recovery. From this war therefore, a new debt, of immense amount, was superadded to the old; and the accumulation became so vast, as to swell beyond the common bounds of examination and inquiry. It is the misfortune of every hereditary sovereign, in a despotic government, that he cannot indulge the natural benevolence of his disposition, nor endeavour to ameliorate, even at the expense of his own convenience, the political situation of his people, without endangering the existence of his crown, and hazarding the occurrence of a long and lamentable series of turbulence and bloodshed. In proportion to the rigour by which the energies of the public mind are repressed, will be the elasticity of their revulsion, when the hand of power relaxes its pressure. The eagerness of the people to take advantage of every concession from the sovereign, will be in proportion to the severity of the humiliations and privations to which they have been formerly subjected; and who shall limit the excesses of a nation intoxicated by the possession of unexpected freedom, and the prospect of blessings in which it had not hoped to participate? Whoever compares the bloodless and tranquil revolutions of England, when those revolutions were rational in their object, and patriotic in their formation, with the miseries attendant upon resistance to the French monarchy a resistance creditable to the people at large, and to its principal agents, will regard it as one of the strongest arguments against the establishment of a despotic government, that it not only entails upon the people the misfortunes and privations of its own existence and exercise, but exposes them in its future downfall to all the horrors of sanguinary turbulence. They become the prey of those atrocious individuals, who, in every state, endeavour to convert the errors and in fatuation of the people, to the exaltation of their desperate fortunes, or the gratifica tion of their ferocious and unprincipled ambition. The depravation of the public mind, immediately previous to the assembling of the states-general, on the 5th of May, 1789, had been completed by the tendency of a variety of causes, of which the ultimate effect was as decisive as the progress was conspicuous. The advancement of Marie Antoinette in impolicy and indiscretion had been open and regular. Continuing, with equal folly and weakness, to brood over an affront received from the duchesses at the court ball upon the occasion of her marriage, she removed those ladies from her household who were distinguished by their rank, the reputation of their families, and their attachment to the antient usages of the house of Bourbon. The French ceremonial, one of the sources of the majesty of the throne, became the object of her constant raillery. She entrusted the education of her children to a woman of no character or consideration at court, and consequently excited the discontent of those respectable families who usually aspired at such employments. The more state and authority she assumed, the more the aunts of the king and her two sistersin-law contrived to oppose her, and to procure her the hatred of the courtly circle. The sisters of the late Dauphin, warmly attached to the memory of that prince, considered her as the protector of the party of the duke de Choiseul, who had deprived them by poison, of a brother so lately beloved. From the castle of Belle vue and of Mendon, the retreat of the malcontent princes since the period of the gloomy and discontented demeanours of the only son of Lewis the XV. the sarcasm was propagated, that an Austrian occupied the place of the queen of France. The royal family accused her of a desire to assume a superiority over the house of Bourbon, and place the princes of Lorraine on a level with the princes of the blood. They charged her with an intention to degrade the great persons of the state, and to raise from the dust, at the |