Judging, then, only from notorious facts, the
French Government must be considered as exhibiting nothing fixed,
neither in respect to men or to things.'
Here, then, is the picture, down to the period of the last revolution,
of the state of France under all its successive Governments!
Having taken a view of what it was, let us now examine what it is. In
the first place, we see, as has been truly stated, a change in the
description and form of the sovereign authority; a supreme power is
placed at the head of this nominal republic, with a more open avowal
of military despotism than at any former period; with a more open and
undisguised abandonment of the names and pretences under which
that despotism long attempted to conceal itself. The different
institutions, republican in their form and appearance, which were
before the instruments of that despotism, are now annihilated; they
have given way to the absolute power of one man, concentrating in
himself all the authority of the State, and differing from other
monarchs only in this, that, as my honourable friend[7] truly stated
it, he wields a sword instead of a sceptre. What, then, is the
confidence we are to derive either from the frame of the Government
or from the character and past conduct of the person who is now
the absolute ruler of France? Had we seen a man, of whom we had no
previous knowledge, suddenly invested with the sovereign authority of
the country; invested with the power of taxation, with the power
of the sword, the power of war and peace, the unlimited power of
commanding the resources, of disposing of the lives and fortunes of
every man in France; if we had seen, at the same moment, all the
inferior machinery of the revolution, which, under the variety of
successive shocks, had kept the system in motion, still remaining
entire, all that, by requisition and plunder, had given activity to
the revolutionary system of finance, and had furnished the means of
creating an army, by converting every man, who was of age to bear
arms, into a soldier, not for the defence of his own country, but for
the sake of carrying unprovoked war into surrounding countries; if we
had seen all the subordinate instruments of Jacobin power subsisting
in their full force, and retaining (to use the French phrase) all
their original organization; and had then observed this single change
in the conduct of their affairs, that there was now one man, with no
rival to thwart his measures, no colleague to divide his powers, no
council to control his operations, no liberty of speaking or writing,
no expression of public opinion to check or influence his conduct;
under such circumstances, should we be wrong to pause, or wait for the
evidence of facts and experience, before we consented to trust our
safety to the forbearance of a single man, in such a situation, and to
relinquish those means of defence which have hitherto carried us safe
through all the storms of the revolution? if we were to ask what are
the principles and character of this stranger, to whom Fortune has
suddenly committed the concerns of a great and powerful nation?
But is this the actual state of the present question? Are we talking
of a stranger of whom we have heard nothing? No, Sir; we have heard
of him; we, and Europe, and the world, have heard both of him and the
satellites by whom he is surrounded; and it is impossible to discuss
fairly the propriety of any answer which could be returned to his
overtures of negotiation, without taking into consideration the
inferences to be drawn from his personal character and conduct.
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