they rejoiced in its destruction, and fell into the natural error of confounding the use of an executive with its abuse; from having felt it tyrannical, to believing it unnecessary.

"The Gardes du Corps are as warm adherents in general to the Tiers as any body else, strange as that may seem; so that, in effect, the sword has slipped out of the Monarch's hands without his perceiving a tittle of the matter. All these things in a nation not yet fitted by education and habit for the enjoyment of freedom, give me frequently suspicions, that they will greatly overshoot their mark, if indeed they have not already done it. Already some people talk of limiting the king's negative upon the laws. And as they have hitherto felt severely the authority exercised in the name of their princes, every limitation of that authority seems to them desirable. Never having felt the evils of too weak an executive, the disorders to be apprehended from anarchy make as yet no impression.-vol. ii. pp. 70, 71.

In this same letter it is stated that "the king acts from terror only." Louis XVI. was a moral coward; they who had the king's person had his will; his weakness was greater than has ever been suspected. Mr. Morris was not likely to exaggerate it; on the contrary, much as he despised his want of decision and condemned him for his culpable pliancy, he sympathised strongly in his fortunes, suggested and took part in some schemes for his relief and escape, and at the same time became a depositary of his money.

Mr. Morris's opinion of Necker was far from being high, and in spite of Madame de Staël's flattery he could not join in her vain and almost wild adulation of her father. Under the date of July 1st, Necker's position is thus defined, and it is as just as if a historian, on a full survey of minute facts, unhappily not always accessible to the historical student, had drawn it up.

Mr. Morris is speaking of the Comte d'Artois and the

courtiers.

"In their anguish they curse Necker, who is in fact less the cause than the instrument of their sufferings. His popularity depends now more on the opposition he meets with from one party, than any serious regard of the other. It is the attempt to throw him down, which saves him from falling. He has no longer the preponderating weight in counsel, which a fortnight ago decided every thing. If they were not afraid of consequences, he would be dismissed; and on the same princi. ple the King has refused to accept his resignation. If his abilities were

equal to his genius, and he were as much supported by firmness as he is swayed by ambition, he would have had the exalted honour of giving a free constitution to above twenty millions of his fellow creatures, and would have reigned long in their hearts, and received the unanimous applause of posterity. But as it is, he must soon fall; whether his exit will be physical or moral, must depend on events which I cannot foresee."-vol. ii. pp. 71, 72.

The doubt between his physical and moral exit we deem to have been profound; circumstances of a very slight kind decided between them. Had Necker remained a few months longer in office, his exit would probably have been physical; it was only moral. But the character of the Swiss minister was one which Mr. Morris was peculiarly qualified to fathom, from the mastery he had himself obtained of the science of finance. Space will not admit our quoting his examination of Necker's various schemes, the hollowness of which he clearly demonstrates; but we may add a characteristic paragraph.

"As to M. Necker, he is one of those people, who has obtained a much greater reputation than he had any right to. His enemies say, that as a banker, he acquired his fortune by means, which, to say the least, were indelicate, and they mention instances. But in this country,

every thing is so much exaggerated, that nothing is more useful than a little scepticism. M. Necker, in his public administration, has always been honest and disinterested, which proves well, I think, for his former private conduct, or else it proves that he has more vanity than cupidity. Be that as it may, an unspotted integrity as minister, and serving at his own expense in an office which others seek for the purpose of enriching themselves, have acquired for him very deservedly much confidence. Add to this, that his writings on finance teem with that sort of sensibility, which makes the fortune of modern romances, and which is exactly suited to this lively nation, who love to read, but hate to think. Hence his reputation. He is a man of genius, and his wife is a woman of sense; but neither of them have talents, or rather the talents of a great minister. His education as a banker bas taught him to make tight bargains, and put him upon his guard against projects. But though he understands man as a covetous creature, he does not understand mankind; a defect which is remediless. He is utterly ignorant of politics, by which I mean politics in the great sense, or that sublime science, which embraces for its object the happiness of mankind. Consequently, he neither knows what constitution to form, nor how to obtain the consent of others to such as he wishes. From the moment of convening the States-General, he has been afloat upon the wide ocean of incidents."-vol. ii. pp. 93, 94.

In a letter dated July 4th, to Mr. Carmichael, Mr. Morris makes a report of the state of things after the victory of the Tiers in the assembly, which he considered as the crisis of the revolution, and speaks of it as having passed without being recognized as such. After this, he considered a free constitution sure, if they would have the good sense to give the nobles some share of the national authority. "Otherwise," says he," it will degenerate into a pure monarchy, or become a vast republic-a democracy can that last? I think not, I am sure not, unless the whole people are changed."-vol. ii. p. 78.

The National Assembly had already secured their existence by

decreeing that taxes should cease when they dispersed. Mr. Morris observes, as was lately held out in a great English political movement, that no army can move against a general resolution to this effect.

Under the head of July 31st, the position of the king is thus accurately appreciated. It was very early for that monarch to think of deserting his throne, and the scheme clearly indicates how very unworthy Louis XVI. was to put himself at the head of a revolution.

"The King has actually formed the design of going off to Spain. Whether the measures set on foot to dissuade him will have, as I hope, the desired effect, time only can discover. His fears govern him absolutely, and they have of late been most strongly excited. He is a well meaning man, but extremely weak, and probably these circumstances will in every event secure him from personal injury. An able man would not have fallen into his situation, but I think that no ability can now extricate him. He must float along the current of events, being absolutely and entirely a cypher. If, however, he should fly, it would not be easy to predict the consequences, for this country is at present as near to anarchy as society can approach without dissolution. There are some able men in the National Assembly, yet the best heads among them would not be injured by experience, and unfortunately there are great numbers who, with much imagination, have little knowledge, judgment, or reflection. You may consider the revolution as complete, that is to say the authority of the king and of the nobility is completely subdued; yet I tremble for the constitution. They have all that romantic spirit, and all those romantic ideas of government, which, happily for America, we were cured of before it was too late. They are advancing rapidly. But I must check myself, or my reflections will occupy too much space both for you and for me.”—vol. ii. p. 79.

Mr. Morris does not raise our ideas of the members of the National Asembly; they have too often been appreciated by persons who were dazzled by their eloquence, or too ignorant of affairs to form a just conception of their merits. We have seen what is said of them above; frequent mention of them is made in the course of the correspondence, but always in the same tone. "They are admirable fellows upon paper; but as it happens, somewhat unfortunately, that the men who live in the world are very different from those who dwell in the heads of philosophers, it is not to be wondered at if the systems taken out of books are fit for nothing but to be put into books again.

"Marmontel is the only man I have met with, among their literati, who seems truly to understand the subject. For the rest, they discuss nothing in their assembly. One large half of the time is spent in hallooing and bawling. The manner of speaking to a question is as follows. Such as intend to hold forth write their names on a tablet kept

for that purpose, and are heard in the order that their names are written down, if the others will hear them, which very often they refuse to do, but keep up a continual uproar till the orator leaves the pulpit. Each man permitted to speak delivers the result of his lucubrations, so that the opposing parties fire off their cartridges, and it is a million to one if their missile arguments happen to meet."-vol. ii. p. 89.

In the same letter the King is spoken of with as little respect for his abilities as the members for their knowledge of business.

"If the reigning prince were not the small beer character that he is, there can be but little doubt, that watching events, and making a tolerable use of them, he would regain his authority; but what will you have from a creature who, situated as he is, eats, and drinks, and sleeps well, and laughs, and is as merry a grig as lives? The idea that they will give him some money, which he can economize, and that he will have no trouble in governing, contents him entirely. Poor man! he little thinks how unstable is his situation. He is beloved, but it is not with the sort of love which a monarch should inspire. It is that kind of good natured pity which one feels for a led captive. There is, besides, no possibility of serving him; for at the slightest show of opposition, he gives up every thing and every person."-vol. ii. p. 92.

To the inaptness of the assembly Mr. Morris often turns with some bitterness. On one occasion he says: "They have taken genius instead of reason for their guide, adopted experiment instead of experience, and wander in the dark because they prefer lightning to light."

In a subsequent letter, dated November 22d, 1790, he again refers to the Assembly and thus registers their progress. They had gone on dissolving and destroying, and in the mean time secured no guarantee for a steady obedience in the people, or a regular course of action on the part of the government: they had broken all the ancient idols to pieces, and in their zeal were pulling down the edifice upon themselves: the noise, the eagerness, the confusion of all parties concerned rendered it impossible for a person of the sharpest vision to detect a ray of light through the obscurity. The following passage has a solemn sound, and let it be observed that it proceeded from the author before the events it seems to count upon.

"This unhappy country, bewildered in the pursuit of metaphysical whimsies, presents to our moral view a mighty ruin. Like the remuants of ancient magnificence, we admire the architecture of the temple, while we detest the false god to whom it was dedicated. Daws and ravens, and the birds of night, now build their nests in its nitches. The sovereign, humbled to the level of the beggar's pity, without resources, without authority, without a friend. The assembly, at once a master and a slave, new in power, wild in theory, raw in practice. It engrosses

all functions, though incapable of exercising any, and has taken from this fierce ferocious people every restraint of religion and of respect. Sole executors of the law, and therefore supreme judges of its propriety, each district measures out its obedience by its wishes, and the great interests of the whole, split up into fractional morsels, depend on momentary impulse and ignorant caprice. Such a state of things cannot last.

"But how will it end? Here conjecture may wander through unbounded space. What sum of misery may be requisite to change popular will, calculation cannot determine. What circumstances may arise in the order of Divine Providence to give direction to that will, our sharpest vision cannot discover. What talents may be found to seize those circumstances, to influence that will, and above all to moderate the power which it must confer, we are equally ignorant of. One thing only seems to be tolerably ascertained, that the glorious opportunity is lost, and (for this time at least) the revolution has failed. In the consequences of it we may however find some foundation of future prosperity."-vol. ii. pp. 118, 119.

The letter to his friend and partner, Robert Morris, of the date of July 16th, 1791, alludes to the king's attempt at escape from the Tuileries and his recapture at Varennes. We mention it as confirming Dumont in his "Recollections of Mirabeau," who dates this as the epoch at which the idea of dispensing with a king altogether first occurred to the nation. The step alluded to is the flight of the king.

"This step was a very foolish one. Public affairs were in such a situation, that, if he had been quiet, he would have soon been master, because the anarchy which prevails would have shown the necessity of conferring more authority, and because it is not possible so to balance a single assembly against a prince, but that one must prove too heavy for the other, or too light for the business. The assembly also, very strongly suspected of corrupt practices, was falling fast in the public estimation. His departure changed everything; and now the general wish seems to be for a republic, which is quite in the natural order of things."—vol. ii. pp. 136, 137.

This species of mal-apropos attended every proceeding of the unfortunate monarch: if the scheme was good in itself, it was adopted at the wrong time, and often a firm adherence to even a bad course would have secured both the good of the nation and himself. Here we see he took an opportunity of leaving all behind him when men were getting tired of opposing each other, and drove them to republicanism at the instant they were reverting to the monarchy.

In the autumn of 1791, the king accepted the constitution, which none condemned more than the makers, and which nearly all pronounced inexecutable. The king however accepted it, and swore to maintain it, maintainable or not, and the sittings closed