University of Virginia Library

15. CHAP. XV.

IT was one of those temperate and pleasant
evenings which in this climate succeed
the autumnal equinox, that the Marquis
and the Captain walking out together,
the subject of the conversation happened
to be the right of the people of France
to overthrow the monarchy, and establish a
republic. The Captain had read the pamphlets
of Thomas Paine, entitled, “Rights
of Man,” and was a good deal disposed to
sabscribe to the elementary principles of
that work; a leading doctrine of which is,
that at no time can the pact or customs of
ancestors forestall or take away the right
of descendants to frame whatever kind of
government they think proper.

This must be understood, said the Marquis,
like most other general propositions,
with some limitation, or exceptions; or at
least some explanation, before the mind of
all, at least of mine, can acquiesce in the
de-

deductions. It may easily be supposed that
I am not a proper person to canvass this
subject, having been of that class of men,
who had all to lose, and nothing to gain, by
a revolution in the government of the country
where I lived. Nevertheless, if my
feelings do not deceive me, I ought not to
be considered as a person under great prejudices.
For it seems to me, that I am detached
from the world, and never more expecting
to be restored to my country, so as to
live in it with reputation, or even with safety,
I am like a person with all his senses awake,
and within a few seconds of death;
his vanity is asleep, his pride is gone; he
looks back upon his pursuits, and his hopes
with true philosophy, and makes a proper
estimate of all the acquisitions, and all the
enjoyments of life. Or rather, I may be
thought to resemble a disembodied spirit,
who no longer capable of enjoying the false
glories of life, is not liable to be seduced
by the appearance of them. The shades
of departed men in the elysian fields as imagined
by the ancients, and painted by the
poets, cannot be more abstracted from
former impressions, than I feel myself to
be, in this kind of elysian, and posthumous
valley. When I converse with you
who
who have come from the world, and may
return to it, I am in the situation of the
Grecian worthies defunct of life, when visited
by Ulysses. Achilles candidly acknowledged
to him, that he had rather
live as a hired labourer with a poor man,
who had little food, than to rule over all
the ghosts. I will in like manner declare,
that such is my predilection for my country,
and that ravishing delight which I
would take, in breathing my native air,
and feeing my native soil, looking at the
buildings which were accustomed to strike
my eyes in better days, that I would prefer
fishing along the streams for my precarious
and daily food, or digging the soil, and
procuring my subsistence with a peasant,
than to be the President of the United
States, deprived of the countenance of my
countrymen, and the view of that other
heavens, and that other earth. The contempt
that I may have entertained, or at
least the undervaluing insperable from my
situation, which I may have felt, for the
undignifyed with nobility amongst us, is
totally gone: I could lay myself down,
with the meanest plebian, and call him my
brother. Descent, title, and fortune,
have disappeared from the eyes, and I
fee
see nothing but man, in his rude and original
excellence, as a conversing and sociable
animal. Nevertheless, even in this
state of mind, I cannot wholly subscribe
to the analysis of Paine. Let us examine
his position.

The new born infant has a right to a
support from its ancestor, until it shall be
of years to provide for itself; but has it a
right to his estate after it shall have been
of a mature age? surely not a natural
right; nor a right sanctioned in all cases even
by the municipal law; for the ancestor
may alien, or devise away from the
heir. But if he claims as heir, or takes by
devise, is it not under the artificial establishment
of society, that he makes this
claim, or takes this gift? shall he not then
take this estate subject to that government
in the principle and form of it, under which
this estate was acquired, and by which it is
preserved to him? The civil relations that
exist from the aggregate to him, are a law,
as well as the relations that exist from individuals.
Suppose all minors of age at
one hour, and all ancestors just departed
at the same moment, there might be
some reason then in supposing that the
descendants were not bound by the former
er

establishments, but were at liberty to
introduce others; or the descendants
emigrating, and occupying a new soil,
are certainly at liberty to frame new structures:
But not while a single ancestor exists,
who has an interest in the old mansion
house, and is attached to the building,
however Gothic; because the ancestor had
this right before the minor was born, and
his birth could not take it away. I say,
then, contrary to the principle of Paine,
that our ancestors having established an hereditary
monarchy, it is not in the power
of the descendants to change it. They
may remove from under it, if they will,
but not pull the house down about our
heads.

The early feudalist, whose acquisitions,
and possession of them, depended on that
military subordination and tenure which
gave rise to the system, when he took his
place in it either as a chestain, or a vassal,
submitted to it; he had his voice in this
social compact; and shall his descendant be
allowed to unhinge the tenure, and change
the fabric which was not of his building?
shall he claim the advantages of that species
of government to which he has been introduced,
and not submit to the inequalities
qual-

of it? or shall it be changed but
by universal consent? shall even a majority
change it? No: because each individual
is, in the language of the law, a joint
tenant, and has a right, per my & per tant,
in the part, and in the whole. It can no
more take away the right an individual
has in the system of government, than the
right he has in his estate, held by a prior
law. Upon investigation, it will be found
a question more of power than of right;
just as in these woods, I take the racoons
and rabbits, not that I conceive mysself to
have any right to have come from the
banks of the Loire to make these depredations,
but that having come, I have the
skill to do it.

The Captain was led to smile at these last
words of the Marquis, as favouring of misanthropy,
equalizing the case of brute
animals with men. I can easily excuse,
said the Captain, this sally of your mind,
and must resolve it into the wounds your
feelings have received from the reverse of
your fortune, and the dreadful outrages
which have taken place, in the course of
the revolution, from the fury of the human
mind. Nor would I call in question wholly
the justness of your position, with regard
to

to the right of changing a mode of government.
Nevertheless, it may admit of some
discussion in the generality, and be so
bounded as to leave some great cases out
of the rule. I grant you that the descendant,
on the principle of natural right, can
claim nothing more of the personal labour
of the ancestor, or of his estate, than support,
until he shall be of an age which gives
strength of mind and body to enable him
to provide for himself. But does he not
possess by his birth, a right to so much of
the soil as is necessary for his subsistence?
you will say he may emigrate. But suppose
all adjoining known lands already
peopled; he cannot emigrate without
committing injustice upon others. He
must therefore remain. How to preclude
him from all right to think, or act in affairs
of government, with a view to improve,
and to improve is to change, is restraining
the mind of man, in a particular
capable of the greatest extent, and upon
which depends, more than on all things
else, the perfection of our species. I
would put it upon this point; is it conducive
to an amelioration of the state of life,
and likely to produce a greater sum of happiness,
to innovate upon established forms,
or
or to let them remain? It is true, indeed,
that when we consider the throws and
convulsions with which a change in government
is usually attended, it ought not
to be lightly attempted; and nothing
but an extreme necessity for a reform can
justify it. It is almost as impossible, comparing
a physical with a moral difficulty,
to change a government from despotism to
liberty, without violence, as to dislodge a
promontory from its base, by any other
means, than mining and gunpowder.

Of that I am convinced, said the Marquis;
for there never was a people more
generally disposed to a degree of reform,
than the people of France, at the commencement
of the revolution. The writings
of philosophers had prevaded the
minds of the highest orders, and it had become
the passion of the times to lean towards
a certain extent of liberty. It had
become the wish of the good, and the humour
of the weak, to advance the condition
of the peasantry. As an instance of
this, I myself had written a book, entitled,
“Sur le bonheur de Campagne,” with the
express view of depicting the depressed situation
of the common people in the country,

and the means of raising them from
that condition.

But a reform once begun, it was found
impossible to arrest it at a middle point.
It may be resolved into a thousand causes,
but the great cause was, the insatiable nature
of the human mind, that will not be
contented with what is moderate. For
though there were doubtless a considerable
portion of the nobility who were opposed
to any diminution of their power and pageantry;
yet, on the other hand, as great
an evil existed in the wish of extreme equality
in others; or rather, a wish to bring all
things to a perfect level, that from thence
they might begin to ascend themselves.
There began to be insincerity on the part
of the court, and licentiousness on the part
of the people; and finally a contest, lurid
and dreadful, like the column of dark clouds
edged with blue, and fraught with lightning.
A contest so terrible, that I have
thought myself happy in escaping from it,
even though I have been obliged to call
upon the rocks and the mountains to cover
me in this valley.

The above is a sample of those conversations
which took place, between the
Marquis and the Captain, during the space
of

of some weeks which the Captain spent in
this rural and obscure recess. In the
mean time, the Count, the son of the Marquis,
had been dispatched occasionally
through the settlement, and to the village
where the late outrage had been perpetrated,
in order to learn what had become of
the revenue officer, as also to ascertain
the slate of the public mind, and when it
might be safe for the Captain to shew himself
in public, and return by the main
road to his habitation.

Nothing had been heard of O'Regan,
but accounts the most unfavourable were
obtained of the disposition of the people.
The flame of opposition had spread generally,
and the whole country appeared to
be involved in a common burning. They
had demolished all inspection houses, far
and near; assembled in committees, and
framed resolves of the utmost violence.
The obnoxious were banished; and even
the lukewarm in the cause were threatened
with the destruction of their goods,
and injury to their persons. They had
begun to frame guillotines, and to talk
of taking off the heads of traitors to the
cause.

The Captain was not a little alarmed at
these

these proceedings; but the Marquis who
had seen the machine of the guillotine in
actual operation, was seized with a horrid
fear; and he almost imagined to himself
that he saw it moving of its own accord
towards him; and his reason told him, that
it was not all improbable but that it might
be brought to approach him very speedily,
as the same sans cullotte anarchy and violence
began to shew itself in these regions,
as had broke out in France.