and a crown only remained to the cultivator. In England, Mr. A. Young used to reckon that the cultivator enjoyed three-fourths of the produce, while in France he had but a twelfth part; placing him in a situation nine times less advantageous. The grievances arising from the feudal system, and which were felt far more severely in France than in any other feudal kingdom, completed the distress of the people, affecting them both in their subsistence, in their comforts, and in their pride. Nor can it be doubted that, upon a high-spirited people like the French, with minds peculiarly susceptible of affront, the mental degradation which these. feudal distinctions inflicted was more galling than any actual suffering which in their material comforts they had to endure. It is highly probable that the peasant felt more vexed at seeing the lord's pigeons trespassing on his crops, without the power of destroying them, knowing that the lord might not possess an acre of land,* than he did from paying a tithe of that crop to the church and a third to the landlord; and the statute labour (corvée) which he always had to perform, must have harassed him incalculably more than a much heavier burden shared with the feudal lord. Accordingly, of all the changes effected by the Revolution, there was none which went more home to every Frenchman's bosom than the famous decree, sweeping away all feudal privileges. The vote of the Assembly on the 4th of August diffused joy over all France, such as perhaps no other act of legislative power ever excited. It may be said, without a figure of speech, to have raised one universal shout of exultation through the whole expanse of that vast and populous country. The language applied by Mr. Burke to the memorable proceedings of that night, and which termed it the "St. Bartholomew of the privileged ordess," was employed by but a very few, and did not express the sentiments prevailing even among the members of those orders themselves, from whom indeed the proposition mainly had proceeded.

Just half a century after these events, I happened to be travelling in a remote district of Provence, when, reposing in the heat of the day under a porch, my eye was attracted

*The droit de Colombier was wholly dependent on the seignory, and might belong to a lord who had no property in land: the actual owner had it only in a very limited extent.-Political Philosophy, part. I, chap. xiii.

by some placards, whose letters were preserved by the great dryness of that fine climate, though they had been there for fifty years. Those papers were the official promulgation of the several decrees for secularizing the clergy, abolishing the monastic orders, and abrogating all feudal privileges, signed by the several presidents of the Assembly, Bureau de Pusey,* Camus, and Siéyes. The incident is exceedingly trivial in itself; but I shall not easily forget its effect in carrying me back to the great scenes of the Revolution, ere yet its path had been stained with blood, while virtuous men might honestly exult in its success, and the friends of their species could venture to hope for the unsullied triumphs of the sacred warfare waged with long-established abuses. The past seemed connected with the present, and the mighty consequences visible all around which had flowed from the changes recorded in those few lines, appeared to arise, as it were, before the sight out of their causes. Nor must it be forgotten that the perils of the tempest having happily passed away, the atmosphere which it had cleared was breathed in a pleasing reflection that the region over which its fury had swept was now flourishing in unprecedented prosperity, for which the price paid had assuredly been heavy, but not too heavy compared with the blessings it had purchased.

Hitherto we have only considered the proceedings of the National Assembly itself; but that memorable body was not the only organ of public opinion and popular feeling, nor were its deliberations entirely free and uncontrolled. As soon as parties began to form themselves within its circle, appeals to the people out of doors were the natural consequence, each seeking to gain the weight arising in revolutionary times from popular support. At first the press alone was the channel through which the party leaders sought to influence public opinion. The religious feelings of the people were next appealed to; but the tendency of the clergy to support the ancient institutions, and the course of hostility to the church so early pursued by almost all parties in the Assembly, soon brought such feeble and roundabout appeals to a close; and a more summary and effectual mode of agitating was discovered. Clubs were formed, at which men not belonging to the Assembly, as well as deputies, met to discuss the topics of the day, and especially the pro

* Afterwards confined at Olmutz with La Fayette.

ceedings of their representatives. These meetings were at first private and not numerous; soon they became better attended and were much frequented by the deputies themselves; then their doors were flung open to the people. The earliest association of this kind was formed by the deputies from Brittany. When the National Assembly was removed. from Versailles to the capital, the club, becoming more numerous, held its meetings at the Jacobin Convent, in the Rue St. Honoré, and admitted as members many persons not belonging to the National Assembly. Perceiving that its influence upon the Assembly was considerable, the club now endeavoured to rule the municipality or Town-Council of Paris, a body always possessed of great influence from the large revenues at its disposal, and the great number of persons in its constant employ for the management of those revenues, as well as of the Metropolitan Police. The Jacobin Club, as it was now termed, extended its influence to the provinces, and formed every where affiliated societies or clubs which corresponded with it, took their tone from its debates, and exercised in each town an influence like its

own.

Dissension, however, broke out in the mother society itself. The more moderate men, with Lafayette and Siéyes at their head, retired to form an association of their own, which they termed the club of '89, while Lameth and Barnave directed the proceedings of the Jacobins. The new Club chiefly influenced the Assembly; the Jacobins always made their appeal to the people. The Royalist party soon attempted a similar policy, first forming a Club called the Impartiaux," which had no success; then one termed the "Monarchique," which was so much better attended, that it excited the jealousy of the Parisian mob, gave rise to tumults, and was shut up at the beginning of the year 1791 on that account by the police, which thought it just and reasonable to punish the party assailed, because those who attacked it had been guilty of some violence.

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The Jacobins now underwent another change; the Lameths and Barnaves, unwilling to push matters to extremity, formed a new club, called the Feuillans, from the convent at which they met; and the direction of the Jacobins fell into the hands of Pétion and of Robespierre. But there were some who deemed these men and their followers not sufficiently favourable to extreme courses. Danton, Camille

Desmoulins, and Fabre d'Eglantine, seceded to form a more violent club; which met at the Convent of the Vieux Cordeliers, and took from thence their name. Among these different clubs, the Jacobins exercised the greatest influence both over the Assembly, the municipality, and the people at large; but all of them, by their unceasing agitation, kept the people in a constant ferment of disquiet; all of them, by their overbearing conduct, kept the deliberations of the Assembly under a control as indecent as it was pernicious; all of them prepared the materials of a combustible train, which a spark might at any time fire into a general explosion. Unhappily the Assembly did not present from the first a firm and determined aspect of resistance, so as to secure for itself the unbiassed freedom of discussion and of decision. But the first Assembly had far less to suffer from the interruption of the multitude than the second and the Convention afterwards had to endure.

It was to be remarked that the total number of those who frequented and composed the clubs was really far from being formidable. Thus 1500 was the whole body which usually composed the Jacobin meetings-a number quite inefficient to overcome either the constituted authorities of the capital, or the mass of its inhabitants, though truly formidable as a band of active agitators; for it must be remembered that all those men were demagogues and intriguers-men heated with enthusiasm, or agitated by the love of change, or prompted by mere desire of mischief; and as for their debates, the meetings were far too numerous for any thing like discussion; so that when they made the proceedings of the legislature the subject of their deliberation, every night, as soon as the Assembly had adjourned, nothing could be heard but violent invective against some members, and exaggerated praise of others, ending in a resolution, carried by acclamation of the assembled mob, to excite some tumult among the multitude, in order either to further or to obstruct the course of the national councils. The more sober-minded and respectable classes of the community held aloof from all such proceedings. The great majority of the trades-people, the shopkeepers, the artisans, even the bettermost labourers, and almost all the proprietors, or persons of fixed means, took no part in what was going on, but regarded the acts of the legislature with interest, and the violence of the clubs with silent dread; while the mere rabble, which

had nothing to lose, and never reflected on questions which they were too ignorant to understand, were either from love of confusion and its sister, plunder, or from mere heat of uninformed but easily-excited fancy and feeling-the ready tools of the clubmen, as often as a demonstration of mob force was wanted, in order to overawe the Government or determine the conduct of individuals. It became thus clear that a small minority was enabled to rule the multitude, and influence the people of the capital. A similar force was exerted by the provincial clubs upon the people of the towns; and the influence exerted on the deliberations of the Assembly was the power of a small but active body who had thrown off all regard to order or moderation, and who were devoted to whatever most worked for great changes, with an audacity to which fear was as much a stranger as principle, or prudence, or discretion.

When the National Assembly had destroyed the greater evils of which the people complained, and had formed a constitution upon the principles of a mixed or limited monarchy, they voluntarily stripped themselves of their functions, abdicated their power, and resigned into the hands of the people the high trust which had been delegated to them. Such a course was quite fitting, and indeed was the inevitable consequence of a new constitution being established. But there was coupled with the dissolution of the Assembly a provision unexampled in the history of human folly, and which nevertheless was adopted almost without discussion, and by general acclamation. It was declared that no one of the members of the first Assembly should be capable of being elected to the second; and the consequence was that every man of weight and experience, all those whose capacity and integrity had most recommended them to the confidence of their fellow-citizens, whose trustworthiness had been brought to the test of experience, and whose opinions had become known to the world, were excluded from the body which was called to work the new constitution, and to make a code of municipal laws for France. Unknown, inexperienced, untried men were alone suffered to execute the most important functions that mortals can perform, and in circumstances of the greatest difficulty. The result answered to the expectation which all reasonable men had formed. The conduct of the legislative body was that of an inexperienced multitude, wholly under the control of the