HISTORY OF EUROPE.

CHAPTER I.

COMPARATIVE PROGRESS OF FREEDOM IN FRANCE
AND ENGLAND.

ARGUMENT.

Parallel of the French and English Revolution-Superior moderation and humanity of the latter-It arises from the extent of the freedom previously acquired by the English-Effects of the conquest of the Anglo-Saxons and Danes on the character of the people-Great results of the Norman Conquest-It produced the class of yeomanry, and the early struggles for liberty in the Island—Power of the Crown under the Norman Princes-Insular situation-Anglo-Saxon institutionsDecline of the feudal liberty-Revived by the spirit of Religious freedom and the Reformation-Cruelty of the Scotch and Irish civil wars, and of the English in wars of the Roses Causes of the moderation and clemency of the Great Rebellion -Early situation of the French nation-The Champs de Mai-Deplorable situation of the native Gauls-Their courage first restored by the civil wars of the nobles -Origin of the boroughs-Great vassals of the Crown-Their sovereign privileges -Fatal effect of the want of a class of yeomanry-Consequences of the English wars-Insurrection of the Jacquerie-Extinction of the spirit of freedom by the military power of the Crown-The residence of the nobility at Paris, and power of the great feudatories-Effects of the standing army, and the military spirit and achievements of the country-Exclusive privileges of the nobility-Small progress of the Reformation-Extrication of the power of thought and the spirit of freedom by the influence of literature and philosophy-Causes of the savage character of the French Revolution-Beneficial effects of periods of suffering on national character, exemplified by the history of France and England.

No events in history are more commonly consider- CHAP. I. ed parallel than the Great Rebellion in England and the French Revolution. None, with certain striking points of resemblance, are in reality more dissimilar to each other.

CHAP. I. In both, the crown was engaged in a contest with

the people, which terminated fatally for the royal family. In both, the reigning monarch was brought to the scaffold, and the legislative authority overturned by military force. In both, the leader of the army mounted the throne, and a brief period of military despotism was succeeded by the restoration of the legitimate monarchs. So far the parallel holds good-in every other particular it fails.

In England the contest was carried on for many Parallel of years, and with various success, between the crown the French and a large portion of the gentry on the one hand, and English Revolutions, and the cities and popular party on the other.

In

the single troop of dragoons commanded by Lord Barnard Stuart, were to be found a greater body of landed proprietors than in the whole members of the republican party, in both Houses of Parliament, who voted at the commencement of the war. In France the monarch yielded, almost without a struggle, to the encroachments of the people; and the only blood which was shed in civil war arose from the enthusiasm of the peasants in La Vendée, or the loyalty of the towns in the south of France, after the leaders of the royal party had withdrawn from the struggle. The great landholders and privileged classes, to the number of 70,000, abandoned the country; and the crown was ultimately overturned, and the monarch brought to the scaffold, by a faction in Paris, which a few thousand resolute men could at first have easily overcome, and who subsequently became irresistible Hist. i. 246. only from their having been permitted to excite, France, ix. through revolutionary measures, the cupidity of the 230. Hume, lower orders over the whole country.1

Lac. Pr.

ld. Hist. de

vi. 505.

In proportion to the magnitude of the resistance opposed in England to the encroachments of the peo

ple by the crown, the nobility, and the higher classes CHAP. I. of the landed proprietors, was the moderation displayed by both sides in the use of victory, and the small quantity of blood which was shed upon the scaffold. With the exception of the monarch and a few of the leading characters in the aristocratic party, no individual during the great rebellion perished by the hands of the executioner; no proscriptions or massacres took place; the victors and the vanquished, after the termination of their strife, lived peaceably together under the republican governIn France no resistance whatever was offered by the government to the popular party. The sovereign was more pacifically inclined than any man in his dominions, and entertained a superstitious dread for the shedding of blood; the democrats triumph- 1 Lac. vi. ed, without the loss of a single life, over the throne, 18. Hume, the church, and the landed proprietors; and yet Lingard, xi. their successes, from the very first, were stained by 145. Th. i. a degree of cruelty of which the previous history of 30. the world affords no example.'

ment.

RELIGION, in the English Revolution, was the great instrument for moving mankind: Even in the reign of James I. the Puritans were the only sect who were zealously attached to freedom; and in every commotion which followed, the civil contests between the contending parties, were considered as altogether subordinate to their religious differences, not only by the actors on the scene, but the historians who recorded their proceedings. The pulpit was the fulcrum on which the whole efforts of the popular leaders rested, and the once venerable fabric of the English monarchy, to which so large a portion of its influential classes have in every age of its history been attached, yielded at last to the force of

vii. 76.

8. Toul. i.

CHAP. I. fanatical frenzy. In France, the influence of religion was all exerted on the other side: The peasants of La Vendée followed their pastors to battle, and deemed themselves secure of salvation when combating for the cross; while the Jacobins of Paris founded their influence on the ridicule of every species of devotion, and erected the altar of Reason on the ruins of the Christian faith. Nor was this irreligious fanaticism confined to the citizens of the metropolis it pervaded equally every department of France where the republican principles were emLarocheja- braced, and every class of men who were attached Scott's to its fortunes. Every where the churches, during Napoleon, ii. the Reign of Terror, were closed; the professors of Carnot's religion dispossessed, and their rights overturned: And the first steps towards the restoration of a regular vol. xxxvii. government, were the restoration of the temples which the whirlwind of anarchy had destroyed, and the revival of the faith which its fury had extinguished.'

qulein, 47.

241.

Mémoires,

200.

Rev. Mem.

Lac. Pr.

Hist. i. 467.

civil wars.

The civil war in England was a contest between Moderation one portion of the community and the other; but a displayed in the English large part of the adherents of the Republican party were drawn from the higher classes of society, and the sons of the yeomanry filled the ranks of the iron and disciplined bands of Cromwell. No massacres or proscriptions took place; not a single manor house was burnt by the populace; none of the odious. features of a servile war were to be seen. Notwithstanding the dangers run and the hardships suffered on both sides, the moderation of the victorious party was such as to call forth the commendation of the royal historian; and, with the exceptions of the death of the King, of Strafford, and Laud, few acts of unnecessary cruelty stained the triumph of the republican arms. In France, the storming of the Bastile was