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STATE OF DIFFERENT CLASSES.

dissension had ceased: there was no longer either nobility, citizens, or people. The future was present... That is to say, time itself was no more. It was a flash of eternity.

There was nothing, one would think, to prevent the social and religious age of the Revolution, which is still receding before us, from being realized. If the heroic goodness of that moment had been able to maintain itself, mankind had gained a century or more, and had found that it had, at one spring, leaped over a world of sorrows.

But is such a position lasting? Was it very possible that the social barriers, on that day levelled, should be left on the ground, and that confidence should subsist between men of different classes, interests, and opinions?

It was certainly difficult; and yet less difficult than at any other period in the history of the world.

Magnanimous instincts had burst forth in every class, which simplified everything. Difficulties, insoluble before and afterwards, were then resolved of themselves.

Many a suspicion, reasonable perhaps in the commencement of the Revolution, was less so at such a moment. What had been impossible in October became possible in July. For instance, in October 1789, there had been reason to fear that the bulk of the rural electors might serve the aristocracy; but this fear could not subsist in July 1790; for the peasant was obeying in almost every locality, the impulse of the Revolution, with as much zeal as the town populations.

The proletary classes in towns, which constitute the enormous difficulty at the present day, then scarcely existed, except at Paris and in a few large towns, where the starving flocked together. We must not allot to that period, nor behold thirty years before their birth, the millions of workmen who have sprung up since 1815.

Therefore, in reality, the obstacle between the citizen-class and the people was very slight. The former was able, and ought fearlessly to have cast itself into the arms of the other.

That citizen-class, imbued with the ideas of Voltaire and Rousseau was more the friend of humanity, and more disinterested and generous than that which has been formed by industrialism, but it was timid; for the manners and characters, formed by the deplorable ancient system, were

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necessarily weak. The citizen-class trembled in presence of the Revolution that it had made, and recoiled at its own work. It was led astray and ruined by fear far more than by self-interest.

It ought not to have allowed itself to be foolishly scared by an idle panic, nor to have recoiled in alarm from the ocean it had roused from its slumber. It ought to have plunged into its bosom. Then the illusion of dread would have disappeared. What had appeared to you afar an ocean with dangerous roaring waves, would, on a nearer view, have proved to be men and friends,-brethren stretching forth their arms to embrace you.

Nobody knows to what a degree old habits of deference, faith, and easy confidence in the educated classes, subsisted at that period among the people. At that moment, they saw among them their orators, their advocates, and all the champions of their cause; and they advanced towards them with a noble heart; but the others drew back.

However, let us not generalise inconsiderately. An extremely numerous portion of the citizen-class, far from recoiling like the rest, far from causing an obstacle to the Revolution by a malevolent inertness, devoted themselves to it, and entered it with the same transport as the people. Our patriotic Legislative Assembly, and that of the Convention (Montagnards or Girondists, no matter, without any distinction of parties), belonged entirely to the citizen-class. Add, moreover, the patriotic assemblies, such as they were in the beginning, especially the Jacobins; those of Paris, whose lists we possess, do not appear to have admitted a single man of the uneducated classes before 1793. This bulk of revolutionary citizens, men of letters, journalists, artists, lawyers, physicians, priests, and others, was immensely increased by the citizens who had acquired national estates.

But, although so considerable a portion of the citizen-class entered into the Revolution, by devotion or interest, the primitive revolutionary inspiration was sensibly modified within them by the necessities of the great struggle they had to sustain, by the furious bitterness of the contest, and by the exasperation and venomous spleen proceeding from opposition and animosity. So that, whilst one portion of the citizen-class was corrupted

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STATE OF THE CITIZEN-CLASS.

by egotism and fear, the other was made fierce by hatred, and as though changed in nature, and transported out of all human sentiment. Whereas the people, doubtless violent and furious, but not being systematically hateful, deviated much less from

nature.

We have here two sources of weakness: hatred and fear. It was necessary to remain strong in order to remain good: an uncommon and difficult task, and perhaps impossible to perform under those terrible circumstances.

All had certainly loved on the 14th of July; they ought also to have loved on the morrow.

It would have been necessary for the timid portion of the citizen-class to have borne more carefully in mind its humane ideas and philanthropical wishes; to have persisted in them on the day of danger, and, whether frightened or not, to have done as people do at sea, trusted in God, and sworn to follow the new faith through the different kinds of sacrifices it might impose to save the people.

Moreover, it would have been necessary for the bold and revolutionary portion of the citizen-class, in the midst of danger, and in open warfare, to have kept their heart at a higher standard; not to have allowed themselves to be deterred and cast from their sublime enthusiasm into the gulf of hatred.

Alas! how difficult it is, for even the strongest combatants, to govern their energies with a firm and serene heart, to fight with the arm, and still preserve within themselves the heroism of peace. The Revolution did much; but what would it not have done, had it been able to remain, at least for a moment, in its lofty position?

First, it would have lasted. It would not have suffered the sad downfall of 1800, whereby the souls of men, sterilised by fear or hatred, became for a long time unfruitful.

Next, it would have been not written only, but also put in practice; from political abstractions it would have descended to social realities. The sentiment of courageous kindness, its starting-point and first impulse, would not have remained wavering in a state of vague sentiment-of generalities. It would have gone on extending itself and becoming more exact at the same time, wishing to enter everywhere, penetrating into the ramifications of the laws, and extending even to the

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most free actions, and circulating in the most distant parts of the social system.

Having sprung from the mind, and returning to it after having traversed the sphere of action, this sympathetic sentiment of love of mankind would have naturally brought about a religious renovation.

When the human soul thus follows its nature, and remains benevolent, when, free from egotism, it seeks seriously a remedy for the sufferings of men, then beyond the region of the law and manners, at a point where every power ends, imagination and sympathy still continue; the soul follows them still, and still pants for good; and meditating in self-communion, becomes profound.

This is a very different thing from profundity of the mind and scientific invention. It is a profundity of tenderness and will of a very different fecundity, producing a living fruit. A strange incubation, the more divine as it is more natural! From a divine warmth, without either art or effort, sometimes from the heart of the simple, bursts forth the new genius, the new comfort for the expectant world. What is its form? It varies according to time and place; but whether this tender but powerful soul reside in one individual, or extend throughout a whole people, whether it be a man, a living word, a book, a written sentence, no matter, it is ever God.

CHAPTER II.

CONTINUATION.-EXTERIOR OBSTACLES.-TWO SORTS OF HYPOCRISY: THE HYPOCRISY OF AUTHORITY, AND THE PRIEST.

The Priest employs the Confessional and the Press against the Revolution.— Pamphlets of the Catholics in 1790.-Having been barren for several ages, they were unable to stifle the Revolution.-Their Impotency since 1800.-The Revolution must give Religious Food to the Soul.

I HAVE said what was the interior obstacle-fear and hatred; but the exterior obstacle precedes the other; and perhaps without it the other would not have existed.

No, the interior obstacle was neither the primary nor the

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THE POWER OF THE PRESS.

principal one; it would have been powerless, annulled, and neutralised in the immensity of the heroic movement which was then producing the new life.

A hostile fatality existed abroad, which checked the delivery of France.

Whom must we accuse? Who are to be charged with the crime of this miscarriage? Who are those who, beholding France in labour, devised the wicked charm to cause abortion; who are the reprobates who dared to lay a hand on her, compelled her to action, and forced her to gird on her sword and march to the fight?

Oh! is not every being sacred at such a moment? Has not a woman or a nation in labour a right to the respect and prayers of mankind.

Accursed be he, who surprising a Newton in the delivery of genius, stifles an idea in its birth! Accursed be he who, finding a woman at the painful moment when all nature conspires with her, praying and weeping for her, retards the birth of man! But three-fold, a thousand-fold accursed be he who, beholding the prodigious spectacle of a people in the heroic, magnanimous, and disinterested state, endeavours to impede, to stifle this miracle, which was bringing forth a world!

How came nations to agree and arm against the interest of nations? This is a dark and dismal mystery!

A similar miracle of the devil had been seen in our wars of religion; I mean the great Jesuit business which, in less than half a century, turned day into night, that horrid night of murders termed the Thirty Years' War. But at all events this required half a century, and education conducted by Jesuits; it was necessary to form and educate a generation on purpose, and train up a new world in error and falsehood. Those who then passed from black to white, who after seeing light swore it was darkness, were not the same men.

But in the present case the trick was more clever: it required only a few years.

This rapid success was owing to two causes:

1. A clever and enormous use of the great modern machine, the Press, the instrument of liberty turned against liberty. The terrible acceleration which this machine acquired in the eighteenth century, that surprising rapidity, which sends forth