from falvation of all who are without the pale of the catholic church, even with the qualifications annexed by M. du V. which evidently tend to diminish the evil effects which fuch doctrine is calculated to produce on the minds of men. We fully agree with him, however, in his reafoning on the neceffity of an established religion in every civilized ftate, acknowledged and protected by the law, because a state cannot fubfift without a common religion to ferve as a bafis for public morality; because focial atheifm might lead to the rapid propagation of individual atheism; and because religion demands a folemn form of worship which connects it with public order. Hence refults the duty of a fovereign to repress the spirit of innovation, to punish thofe who impede the discharge of religious duties, or who refufe to conform to the regulations of police eftablished by law in favour of religion; hence, too, proceeds the right of withholding, in certain circumftances, from fucks do not profefs the religion of the country, particular political advantages, but not of invading, in the fmalleft degree, the rights of property and civil liberty, which the law fecures to all the members of the community.

The open protection which is due from the fovereign to the eftablished religion of the country, is not incompatible with a wife toleration which refpects the freedom of confcience, in regard of erroneous opinions which do not affect public order, because a spirit of perfecution is not lefs repugnant to the maxims of Christianity, than to the principles of policy and the rights of confcience, as the author demonftrates from the conftant doctrines of the church in early times. But how far do the rights of an erroneous confcience extend? and what are the limits of civil toleration in refpect of it? The answer is plain.

"Confcience is a fanctuary which no human power has the right to invade; God is the fole judge of thoughts. But if an erroneous confcience manifeft itfelf by external figns, by fpeeches, by writings, or dangerous acts, the law may, without any infringement of the inviolability of thought, reprefs it by penalties proportioned to the offence. Hence it follows, that the free communication of opinions ought, like all other rights, to be limited by the laws of natural and civil juftice. Prudent reftrictions, on this point, do not impede the progress of the fciences, because there always would remain a field fufficiently capacious for the full difplay of genius and of reafon, even were all attacks on religion and government prohibited. The fyftems of impiety and anarchy have not enlarged the fphere of human know. ledge, and it is an obfervation highly confolatory to humanity, and honourable to the world of letters, that the most mafterly productions of ancient, and of modern times, which now fill the libraries of all

nations,

hations, are not indebted, for the estimation in which they are holden, to any licentiousness of opinion, but are diftinguished for their refpect to religion, morals, and the laws."

The author makes a diftinction between new fects that feek to establish themselves in the ftate, and those which are already eftablished. In refpect of the first, he contends, that the fovereign fhould ufe his utmost exertion to stifle them at their birth, because they cannot poffibly propagate their tenets, without fowing diffentions between his fubjects, which is, at all times, a great political evil; as to the laft, he ought to tolerate them, and to fecure to them the enjoyment of all the advantages which they may have derived from time, treaties, or legal conceffions, because they form a part of the public order. The only exception to the first cafe, is the Chriftian religion, which bears the evident ftamp of divinity; for when God fpeaks, all human power muft give way. But fuch a religion, far from disturbing the public peace, fupports it on the contrary, by all the influence which it has over the minds, the hearts, and the confciences of its difciples.

At the clofe of this chapter the French legislature is cenfured for having broken the alliance which, in all nations and in all ages, has fubfifted between the church and the state; for having begun by putting religion out of the protection of the law, and finished by attacking it in the name of the law ; for having, in fhort, rendered the indefinite encouragement of all religions a pretext for the most atrocious perfecution of the national religion.

The three fucceeding chapters are devoted to an examination of the three conftitutions of 1791, 1793, 1795. The author affirms, that the first of thefe ftill finds partifans and admirers, not only among that defcription of perfons in France who availed themfelves of its provifions to profit by the rich fpoils of the nobility and clergy, but also in foreign countries where it is but little understood. This circumftance has induced him to analyze it, in order to prove, that, confidered in its origin, it was criminal, as being the offspring of revolt; in its founders it was null, as being the work of men without. miffion, without character, and without authority; and, in its principles and its nature, it was doomed to certain destruction, as being radically defective in its formation.

All these queftions having been amply difcuffed in different works, we shall not here enter upon them, although the way in which they are treated by M. Du Voifin gives them an air of novelty, and imparts to them a particular intereft. We refer our readers to the eleventh chapter, where he shews

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that

that the powers delegated to the deputies to the States General were limited to a denunciation of abuses, an application for reform, and propofals for improvements;* that they confecrated all the principles of the French monarchy; that the deputies became faithlefs and perjured mandatories the moment they proclaimed themfelves legiflators; that they ceafed to have a public character the day on which they transformed themselves into a national affembly; and, laftly, that it was the factious majority of that affembly which, having eftablished the fyftem of terror, extorted a fanction of its decrees from the ignorant majority of the nation.

That code of fedition and anarchy, independently of its radical defect, contained in the declaration of the rights of man, bore within itself the germs of a speedy and inevitable diffolution; because the king and the legislative body formed two rival powers, which, not being balanced by any intermediate power, muft neceffarily maintain a struggle against each other, until the total deftruction of one of them led to the establishment of democracy or defpotifin. Thus it was that, by the triumph of the former, the republic of 1792 fprang from the conftitution of 1791; that it was nourished by its fpirit, defended by its maxims, and confolidated by its means. Hence it follows, that that conftitution was guilty, not only of the crimes by which it was eftablished, but of thofe by which it was overthrown, and of that complication of horrors of which no example is to be found in the hiltory of the most calamitous times of the most barbarous nations; because all the enormities committed from that fatal moment when the conftitu t affembly feized the reins of power, were only the imitation of its manoeuvres, the application of its maxims, the developement of the germs of anarchy, irreligion, and immorality, which it had fown in its conftitution.

The Jacobins, after they had fubje&ted France to the yoke of the national affembly, again fubjugated her themselves, by taking poffeffion of the fprings of the revolution. Strenuous promoters of the conftitution of 1791, fo long as they deemed it neceflary to complete the deftruction of the monarchy, they afterwards threw down that whimfical feaffolding, in order to erect oligarchy in the place of royalty, and to proclaim the conftitution of 1793, which was to refign into their hands all the power and all the riches of the nation.

*For an ample difcuffion of this point, we refer our readers to the firft publication of M. de Calonne, on the State of France."

REVIEWER.

In

In the 12th chapter the author proves, that the republic, which received its firft ftamp from that conftitution, is a moniter in politics, in fuch a country as France; on account of her vaft extent; her immenfe population; the general character of the nation; the particular character of her different inhabitants; the manners and cuftoms of her different provinces, which were always refpected by her monarchs; and which, though the revolutionary level, moved by the arın of terror, may cause them to disappear for a time, will certainly be restored whenever tyranny thall fuffer her flaves and her victims to breathe again.

Many differtations have been written on the causes of the Revolution, but M. du Voifin goes immediately to the root of the evil:

"We were," he fays, "the most civilized, and, for that reafon, perhaps, the moft corrupted, people in Europe. It is in our vices, in our luxury, in the licentioufnefs of our opinions, and, above all, in a philofophical egotifm--that cold poifon which kills the focial affections-that an attentive obferver will defery the true caufes of our revolution. The nation was too vicious to fupport even that form of government which requires the fmalleft portion of virtue and yet people perfuade themselves that it can be governed by a democracy, that form of government which demands, for its fupport, more virtue than any other! What a people, and what a time did the philofophers, turned legiflators, choofe for making an experiment of their theory! France was a body exhaufted by an abufe of its powers, but which still had fome remains of its primitive vigour, and might have been reftored by prudent management. Quacks undertook to regenerate it, and they only imitated the conduct of thofe fabulous daughters who, in order to make their father young again, maflacred him, and tore his body into pieces. Prefumptuous and inexperienced politicians introduced into a nation, which had reached the very fummit of civilization, a code which could fcarcely be adapted to hordes of favages juft emerged from their native forefts: they eradicated from the minds of the French what moral principles till remained in them, in order to fubject them to a form of government which requires the moft rigid aufterity of manners; they converted a people of Sybarites into a nation of cannibals, and they propagated corruption, and reduced' it into a regular fyftem, for the purpofe of preparing this people for a degree of liberty, which all the virtue of the Spartans could fcarcely have fupported.”

It is not poflible for us to follow the author through all his excellent obfervations on this fubject; nor yet through his difcuffion of many of the republican laws. For these we must refer our readers to the work itself, where they will allo find an explanation of the circumstances which, after the death

of Robefpierre, led the Convention, for its own intereft, without any views of juftice, or any fentiment of huma nity, to affume lefs atrocious forms of proceeding. His confiderations on the republican government, which is fubject to greater exceffes than any other form of government, lead him to examine the conftitution of 1795, lefs anarchical than that of 1793, but, nevertheless, deftined to perpetuate the reign of the regicide Convention, by imperiously commanding the free and fovereign people to felect from that affembly two thirds of their reprefentatives, under pain of being compelled to obey, by the troops which were encamped under the walls of the capital, and by the armies on the frontiers, who had just proclaimed it by the found of cannon.

The difcuffion of this third Conftitution, which occupies the 13th chapter, is confined to thofe articles in which it differs from the two preceding Conftitutions. The declaration of the duties of man, which is there added to the decla ration of his rights, affords but a weak and tardy remedy for the licentiousness and inevitable abuse of the erroneous principles which are inherent in this new code. It is virtue preached by atheism. The new declaration of rights is, indeed, lefs vicious, and lefs anarchical, than the former edition, fince it limits the poffeffion of political rights to proprietors, and modifies, in a small degree, the principle of the fovereignty of the people. But these modifications are in evident contradiction with the conftitution itself, while they belie the fundamental maxims of the revolution, and demonftrate its illegality.*

On the one hand, it fays, that the law is the general will, as expreffed by a majority of the citizens, or of the reprefentatives; on the other, it gives the privilege of a veto to a majority of the Council of Elders: fo that 126 representatives may annul the general will of 574! Befides, it is neither democratic nor republican; it establishes a mixed government, which unites all the inconveniencies, and is expofed to all the abuses, of a fimple form of government. The executive power is fo conftituted as ultimately to acquire a fuperiority over the legislative power, and to deftroy the unity which ought ever to fubfift in the body politic; for it has no share

The following infcription was fufpended over the head of the Prefident of the Council of Five Hundred, in the fitting of the 21ft of January, 1799:-"The Sovereignty is effentially vefted in the TOTALITY of the Citizens." Thus, it is evident, that they have returned to their firft revolutionary principles.-REVIEWER.

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