326 CAUSES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. A. D. CHAPTER XXVII. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. Ch.27 It is impossible to describe, in a few pages, the many great and varied events which are connected with the French Revo1789 lution, or even to allude to all the prominent ones. The to causes of this great movement are even more interesting than 1795. the developments. mulated The question has often been asked, Could Louis XIV. have prevented the catastrophe which overturned his throne ? We reply, he might, perhaps, have delayed it; but as it was an inevitable event, it would have happened sooner or later. Accu- There were evils in the government of France, and in the evils. condition of the people, so overwhelming and melancholy, that they must eventually have produced an outbreak. Had Richelieu never been minister; had the Fronde never taken place; had Louis XIV. and XV. never reigned; had there been no such women as disgraced the Court of France in the eighteenth century; had there been no tyrannical kings, no oppressive aristocracy, no grievous taxes, no national embarrassments, no infidel writings, and no discontented people,-then Louis XVI. might have reigned at Versailles, as Louis XV. had done. before him. But the accumulated grievances of two centuries called imperatively for redress, and nothing short of a revolution could have removed them. Now, what were those evils and those circumstances which, of necessity, produced the most violent revolutionary storm Causes in the annals of the world? of the Revolution. The causes of the French Revolution may be classed under five heads: First, the influence of the writings of infidel WRITINGS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS. 327 philosophers; second, the diffusion of ideas of popular rights; Ch. 27 third, the burdens of the people, which made these abstract A. D. ideas of right a mockery; fourth, the absurd infatuation of 1715 the Court and the nobles; fifth, the derangement of the finances, to 1774. which clogged the wheels of government, and led to the assembling of the States General. There were also other causes, but the above-mentioned are the most prominent. Of the philosophers whose writings contributed to produce Writthis revolution, there were four who exerted a remarkable ings of philosoinfluence. These were Helvetius, Voltaire, Rousseau, and phers. Diderot. Helvetius was a man of station and wealth, who published, in 1758, a book, in which he carried out the principles of Condillac and of other philosophers of the sensational, or, as it is sometimes called, the sensuous school. He boldly advocated a system of undisguised selfishness. He maintained that man owed his superiority over the lower animals simply to the higher organization of his body. Proceeding from this point, he asserted, further, that every faculty and emotion are derived from sensation; that all minds are originally equal; that pleasure is the only good, and self-interest the only ground of morality. The materialism of Helvetius was the mere revival of Pagan Epicureanism; but it was popular, and his work, Matericalled De l'Esprit, made a great sensation. It was congenial alism of with the taste of a Court and a generation that tolerated Ma- tius. dame de Pompadour. But the Parliament of Paris condemned it, and pronounced it derogatory to human nature, inasmuch as it confined our faculties to animal sensibility, and destroyed the distinction between virtue and vice. But the fame of Helvetius was eclipsed by the brilliant career of Voltaire, who exercised a more powerful influence on his age than any other man. He is the apostle of French infidelity, and was the great oracle of the superficial thinkers of his nation and time. He was born in 1694, and early appeared upon the stage. He was a favorite at Versailles, and a companion of Frederic the Great-as great an egotist as he, Helve 328 A. D. to 1774. Genius VOLTAIRE AND ROUSSEAU. Ch. 27 though his egotism was displayed in a different way. He was originally made for Courts, and not for the people, with whom 1715 he had no sympathy, although the tendency of his writings was democratic. In all his satirical sallies, he professed to respect authority. But he was never in earnest, was sceptical, insincere, and superficial. It would not be rendering him justice to deny that he had great genius. But his genius was and de exercised only in amusing a vainglorious people, or turning fects of everything into ridicule; pulling down, but substituting nothing instead. He was a modern Lucian, and his satirical mockery destroyed reverence both for God and truth. He despised and defied the future, and that future has already rendered a verdict on him which can never be reversed, —that he was vain, selfish, shallow, and cold. Vol taire. of all ple. But, with all his superficial criticism, he had a keen perception of what was false, a quick eye for what are now called shams; and it cannot be denied that, in a certain sense, he had a love of truth, yet not of truth in its highest development, as positive or real. Negation and denial suited him better, and suited the age in which he lived better; hence he was a " reAbsence presentative man,” was an exponent of his age, and led the age. He hated the Jesuits, chiefly because they advocated a blind princiauthority; and he strove to crush Christianity, because its professors were so often a disgrace to it, while its best members were martyrs and victims. Voltaire did not, like Helvetius, propose any new system of philosophy, but he strove to make all systems absurd. He set the ball of Atheism in motion, and others followed in a bolder track; pushing, not his principles, for he had none, but his spirit, into the extreme of mockery and negation. Such a course unsettled the popular faith both in religion and laws, and made men at once indifferent to the future, and careless as to their present moral obligations. Rous seau. A very different man was Rousseau. He was not a mocker, or a leveller, or a satirist, or an Atheist. He resembled Voltaire only in one respect-in egotism. He was not so learned INFLUENCE OF ROUSSEAU. 329 Charac writ as Voltaire, did not write so much, was not so highly honored Ch. 27 or esteemed. But he had more genius, and exercised a greater A. D. influence on posterity. He was more subtle and more dan- 1715 gerous; for he led astray people of generous impulses and to enthusiastic dispositions, who had but little intelligence or 1774. experience. He abounded in extravagant admiration of what he called unsophisticated nature; professed to love the simple ter of and earnest; affected extraordinary friendship and sympathy; his and was most enthusiastic in his sentimental rhapsodies. ings. Voltaire had no cant; Rousseau was full of it. Voltaire was the father of Danton; Rousseau of Robespierre, that sentimental murderer who, as a judge, was too conscientious to hang a criminal, but sufficiently unscrupulous to destroy a king. The absurdities of Rousseau can be detected in the ravings of ultra Transcendentalists, in the extravagance of Fourrierism, and in the mock philanthropy of some modern apostles of light. wicked The whole mental and physical constitution of the man was diseased, and his actions were consequently inconsistent with his sentiments. He gave the kiss of friendship, and it proved the token of treachery; he expatiated on simplicity and earnestness in most bewitching language, but His hypowas himself a hypocrite, a seducer, and a liar. He was crisy always breathing raptures of affection, yet never succeeded in and keeping a friend; he was constantly denouncing the selfishness ness. and vanity of the world, and yet was miserable without its rewards and praises. No man was more dependent on society, yet no man ever professed to hold it in deeper contempt. No man ever had a prouder spirit, yet no man ever affected a more abject humility. He dilated with apparent rapture on disinterested love, and yet left his own children to neglect and poverty. He poisoned the weak and susceptible by pouring out streams of unholy passion in eloquent and exciting language, under the pretence of unburdening his own soul and revealing his own sorrows. He was always talking about philanthropy and generosity, and yet seldom bestowed a 330 A. D. DIDEROT AND THE ENCYCLOPÆDISTS. Ch.27 charity. No man was ever more eloquent in paradox, or sublime in absurdity. He spent his life in gilding what is 1715 corrupt, and in glossing over what is impure. The great to moral effect of his writings was to make men commit crimes 1774. under the name of patriotism, and lead them to indulge in selfish passion under the name of love. ism of Diderot. But more powerful than either of these false prophets, in immediate influence, at least, was Diderot; the distinguished leader of a school of bold and avowed infidels, who united open Atheism with a fierce democracy. The Encyclopædists, of whom Diderot was the representative, professed to know everything, to explain everything, and to teach everything. Athe- They discovered that there was no God, and taught that truth was a delusion, and virtue but a name. They were learned in mathematical, statistical, and physical science, but threw contempt on elevated moral wisdom, on the lessons of experience, and on the eternal truths of divine revelation. They advocated all kinds of changes, experiments, and impracticable reiorms. They preached a gospel of social rights, inflamed the people with a disgust of their condition, and filled them with the belief that wisdom and virtue resided in congregated masses. Folly of the dists. They incessantly boasted of the greatness of philosophy, and the obsolete character of Christianity. They believed that Encyclopæ- successive developments of human nature, without the aid of influences foreign to itself, would gradually raise society to a state of perfection. What they could not explain by their logical formularies, they utterly discarded. They denied the reality of a God in heaven, and talked about the divinity of man on earth. They made truth to reside with passionate majorities; and virtue with felons and vagabonds, if affiliated into great associations. They flattered the people that they were wiser and better than any class above them; that rulers were tyrants; that clergy were hypocrites; that the great moral oracles of former days were fools and liars. To sum up the French Encyclopædists in a few words, "they made |