"In the interior of the republic I faw many emigrants who had returned in 1793, and who, through fear of being guillotined, took refuge in the republican regiments. I gave many of them commiffions myfelf, and fome of thefe have fince rifen to be fuperior, and even general officers. I could point out among them men, who are, at this moment, zealous fervants of the Directory, and employed in the overthrow of Monarchies. I could mention feveral of this defcription. If you reproach them with their conduct, they answer, with fome fhew of reafon, that, having been abandoned by Kings, expelled from, and perfecuted in, foreign countries, they have been forced to enter into the fervice of their tyrants, in order to avoid death, either by famine or the axe. It is from the fame motive, that many emigrants, formerly violent in the extreme, are now on their knees to the Directory, in order to obtain the erafure of their names from the fatal lift. What a cruel neceffity is that, which compels a man to beg pardon of the monfter who killed his father or his friend!"

The author predicts, that if the Directory fhould be hard pushed by the allies, and experience any ferious disasters, they would have recourfe to the old ftratagem of rouzing the people, by proclaiming the intention of the emigrants to aflift their enemies in difmembering France. And he maintains, that, in the event of a formidable coalition against them, they will even have recourfe to the defperate expedient of recalling all the emigrants:

"They would flatter those whom they now deftroy; and, while they held out the difmemberment of France as a motive to union, they would recruit their battalions by ridding themfelves of an enemy, whom circumstances would render formidable. Nothing but this is wanting to complete the atrocious fingularity of the French Revolution." P. 146.

The following paffage, the laft we fhall extract, contains fome falutary and pertinent remarks :—

"The regular governments have committed a ferious fault in not has ing inceffantly placed before the eyes of the people the numberlefs horrors which have been produced by the revolution. So far from this having been done, it is fcarcely allowed, in a foreign court, to analyze the crimes of a Marat and a Robespierre; it would feem as if, by fpeaking of thefe two moniters, a writer failed in respect to the refpectable government of France, and to the founders of liberty and equality. If a victim of revolutionary wickedness attempt a defcription of them in any public place, filence is prefcribed to him; and he is told that, in risking his own fafety, he risks that of the country. This is a certain token of the future fubjugation of the world. All foreign writers, inftead of obferving a mean and cowardly circumfpection, ought, on the contrary, to point out to

their countrymen, one third of Europe defolated and stained with blood by the revolutionists."

General Danican reduces, to their juft value, the fervices of all the revolutionary heroes, whofe exploits he defcribes; and thofe of Buonaparte among the reft: he gives a very just character of the hero, whom he more properly denominates the robber, of Italy. He fays, that before he entered Italy, the revolution of that country was completely effected by the Jacobin emillaries; that "the hero's boots, tied to his horfe, would have completed the bufinefs as effectually as the hero himfelf," who, when he was about to begin his expedition, animated his followers by the following perfuafive addrefs:"Brave foldiers of liberty-behind thofe mountains is Lombardy, a country peopled with Ariftocrats, and filled with immenfe riches.-You are all naked-march, and you will have bread, gold, and clothes in abundance. With the aid of fuch logic, the fans-cullottes might be perfuaded to march to hell!" We are told that, in 1795, Buonaparte was imprifoned as a defperate Jacobin.

This work is lefs diffufive and eccentric than the former productions of the author, and, from the facts which it exhibits, and the appofite remarks which frequently occur, is worthy of perufal.

ART. VI. The Abbé Du Voifin's Defence of Sacial Order.

THE

(Continued from VOL. I. P. 773-)

HE Author, after having confidered (in his feven firft chapters) civil fociety as an inftitution merely human, and as connected with reafon, confiders it, in the three following chapters, as a divine inftitution, and as connected with religion.

"God," he fays, "gives to nations the right of establishing fuch a government as they think beft calculated to render them happy; and every government fo eftablifhed, when it has nothing in it repugnant to the laws of nature and religion, is placed under the protection of the Deity. Thus fovereignty may be termed a human right, fince it is the immediate confequence of focial conventions; but it is alfo a divine right, because found reafon, which is nothing more than the divine will imprefs on the heart of man, has demon ftrated he neceffity of fuch conventions. The people choose the depofitory of the fovereign power; but God confers it on their prefen tation. The Author, protector, and fupreme chief of fociety, he puts

the

the fword in the hand of the prince, renders his perfon facred, and referves to himself the right of judging him. A witness to, and guarantee of, the focial pact, it is in his prefence, and in his name, that the fovereign fwears to protect the people, and that the people fwear to obey the fovereign. By this reciprocal oath, the prince and his fubjects are pledged to the Creator ftill more ftrongly than to each other. Their reciprocal rights and duties acquire a more august character. The intereft of the public, and the eternal intereft of the chief, and of all the members of the ftate, become infeparably united. Rebellion and tyranny ceafe to be mere crimes of leze-majefty, or leze-nation, that affect only men; they are acts of facrilege, properly fo called; rebellion, because it attacks God in the perfon of his reprefentative; and tyranny, becaufe it renders that power inftrumental to the production of evil which comes from the author of all good."

M. du Voifin proceeds to prove, that a power founded exclufively on the will of man, would be an endless fource of factions; that there can be no fyftem of policy without morals, and no morality without religion; and that if God be not the guarantee of the focial pact, the people and the fovereign are united by no other tie than temporary convenience. Hence he infers, that the will of God, as made known by reafon and by revelation, is the firft focial law; that, uniting alone, in all poffible cafes, and by indiffoluble bonds, general and perfonal intereft, it folves the grand political problem, which confifts in making the happinefs of each individual depend on the happinefs of the whole. It is thus that religion, by confecrating all civil laws, by incorporating them with her own code, places all focial conventions under the protection of the fupreme Being, and becomes the cement of fociety; whereas irreligion infulates mankind, gives them feparate interefts, and diffolves the ties which unite the people to each other, and to their fovereign.

In this part of his work the author explains, with confiderable ability, the powerful motives which religion fupplies for the obfervance of the rules of morality; the fupport which it gives to civil legiflation; the infufficiency of a pretended fyftem of facial morality, as diftinct from religious morality; the vain refources of philofophy, which affects to restrain the paffions by the paffions themfelves; and, laftly, the neceflity of giving the people a religious education, the only education of which they are fufceptible, becaufe, in the minds of the vulgar, religion is a fubftitute for all authority, and for all reafon. Thefe important truths are fupported by the authority of the ancient philofophers and legislators, who conftantly took religion as the basis of morality and legiflation, by that

of

of modern philofophers and priests, the least prejudiced in that refpect, who do justice to the happy effects which chriftianity has produced on fyftems of government, on public laws, on the minds of fovereigns, and on the morals of the people.

In applying this doctrine to the French revolution, M. du Voifin developes the cause of that inveteracy with which the revolutionary legiflators have perfecuted chriftianity: he fhews that, accommodating itfelf to every form of government; being a certain pledge of public tranquillity and focial subordination; diftinguifhing what is due to God and what is due to Cæfar; it never can become the affociate of rebellion ; and that, in order to make a fuccefsful attack on the throne, it was necessary first to overthrow the altar by which it was fupported.

The ninth chapter treats of the abolition of the Roman Catholic religion in France; and, arguing upon the neceflity of adopting fome religion or other, the author difcuffes the different forms which might be fubftituted in its ftead. Deifm, he maintains, admitting the poffibility of establishing it, would be deftitute of that influence on the people which is effential for the prefervation of focial order; it being neceffary, for political purposes, to have a pofitive and divine religion which regulates the duties of the multitude, by motives the beft calculated for impofing a reftraint on their paffions. As the laws of nature were, of themselves, infufficient for the maintenance of public order, it became neceffary to frame positive laws to make them more generally known and better refpected: fo is it neceffary that the precepts and dogmas of natural religion fhould be fixed, promulgated, and confecrated by a politive religion; for if there were neither pofitive religion, nor civil laws, the people would acknowledge no law and no religion of any kind.

Every other philofophical religion, fuch, for instance, as that of the theophilanthropists, would be attended with the fame inconveniencies, and even greater. Without any determinate principles, without any external forms of worship, without the fupport of divine authority, it never could become popular. As it is religion which incites the people to be moral, fo is it external rites which incite them to be religious, --a religion without fuch rites, then, would have no influence either upon public manners, or focial order; not being fanctioned by the Divinity, it would prefent nothing more than a vain ceremony inftituted by men without a mission; a mere regulation of police, which, deriving its authority from the civil power, would be incapable of fupporting it. After making fome excellent reflections on the effential connection

of morality with religion, the author obferves that they apply, with particular force, to democratic France, because many of her laws have a manifeft tendency to corrupt the morals of the public, and their fatal influence can only be corrected by the fevere laws of the Chriftian religion. The author then takes a curfory view of the different forms of religion eftablished in Europe, and affigns his reafons for giving a preference to his own. Into the validity of thefe reafons it is foreign from our prefent purpofe to enter. He makes, however, a juft diftinction between the proteftant reformers and the modern French :

"The latter have not only declared war against the catholic religion, but against Christianity itfelf; and have thus paved the way for the utter deftruction of all religious and moral principles. For Christianity may eafily fucceed any other religion, but no other religion can fucceed Chriftianity, because no other religion exhibits more folid proofs, more ftriking characteristics, of divinity.”

Calvinifm, he obferves, inclines more to republicanifın than to monarchy; and, in fupport of his pofition, he cites the conftitution of the reformed churches, and the attempts of the Calvinifts at Geneva, in Holland, England, and France. The example of Switzerland, where democracy prevailed in the catholic cantons, and aristocracy in the evangelical or calviniftical cantons, does not deftroy the force of his obfervation; because the influence of religious principles was counteracted by more powerful caufes, fuch as extent of territory, wealth, and population, which are greater in the evangelical cantons, and are lefs fuitable to a democratic form of government.*

The 10th chapter is appropriated to the fubject of toleration, which the author divides into ecclefiaftical toleration, and civil toleration; the former relating to matters of confcience and faith, the latter to focial order and public intereft. As proteftants, we cannot, of courfe, accede to the juftice of arguments adduced in fupport of the catholic doctrine of exclufion

*

"Are you aware," faid a man of fenfe to the famous Robert de St. Etienne, "that your maxims for the deftruction of Catholicifm will ultimately deftroy Calvinifm alfo?”- "I know it full well," replied this patriarch of the French Calvinifts; "in ten years the French will be all Calvinifts, and in fifteen all Socinians.-It is our wish that it should be fo." He might have added, that, in a less fpace of time, the French would be all atheists.-REVIEWER,

APPENDIX, VOL. II.

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