ation which they make, deftroys their theory. We never rife from any of his biographers who does not leffen him in our esteem, and leave him the object of ridicule. It is happy, however, for the London bookfellers, that the diminution of an author's character does not always detract from the fale of his works.

As Sir John Hawkins has fat in judgment on wits and critics, he need not be surprised that wits and critics fhould fit in judgment on him.

ART. IV. Inquiries concerning Lettres de Cachet; the Confe quences of arbitrary Imprisonment; and a History of the Inconveniences, Diftreffes, ond Sufferings of State Prifoners. Written in the Dungeon of the Caftle of Vincennes, by the Count de Mirabeau. With a Preface by the Tranflator. 8vo. 2 vols. 10s. Robinfons. London, 1787.

THE publication of this work, if we be rightly informed,

has been prohibited in France; and, indeed, the liberty of the prefs never can be exercised in a manner more dangerous to the principles of monarchical government than by productions of this kind, which boldly affert the rights of fubjects against the violence of defpotifm. Arbitrary imprifonment has been, in all ages, the moft common engine of tyranny, and is the laft which abfolute power will ever be induced to relinquifh. In the work now before us, the unfortunate but fpirited author examines into the foundation of this affumed prerogative of the French king; evincing, by historical evidence, that arbitrary imprisonment was unknown to the ancient conftitution of the country, and has been introduced, in modern times, by the illegal encroachments of the fovereign on the liberties of the people. With fuch jealoufy did the conftitution of France regard perfonal freedom, that her princes have fucceffively engaged, by formal laws, not to detain any of their fubjects as prifoners longer than twenty-four hours, without bringing them to trial; but the rigour of this ancient ordinance was relaxed in the minority of Louis XIV. and, fince that

time, the obfervance of it depends entirely on the pl

of the crown.

In the investigation of this fubject, the Count de Mirabeau appeals not only to the hiftorical and legal documents. of the nation, but to the fuperior authority of the general laws of reafon, upon the principles of natural right, and the indifpenfable conditions of every human affociation.

He

He traces the origin of the right of punishment, and fhews that the exercife of juftice is abfolutely incompatible with the practice of arbitrary imprisonment. It would be unne ceffary for us to recapitulate the arguments adduced in the profecution of the inquiry: they are in general founded in a juft conception of politics, and difcover no lefs an extent of philofophical obfervation, than a generous and almost enthufiaftic ardour in favour of public liberty. By this noble principle, it is probable, our author is actuated when he totally diffents from the opinion of M. Montefquieu, 66 that "there are certain cafes where it may be neceffary to put "a momentary veil on liberty, as it liberty, as it was a custom to con"ceal the ftatues of the gods.' The Count de Mirabeau infifts that this celebrated writer has embellished a very falte maxim by an impofing image. This decifion is, perhaps, not entirely conformable to the fuggeftions of unbiaffed and deliberate fentiment. Salus populi juprema lex, is a maxim which cannot be called in queftion; and which, indeed, has been adopted, in great emergencies, by governments the moft remote from defpotic; yet, according to our author's principle, it cannot, however much indicated, be admitted in any poffible cafe. The Count de Mirabeau fupports his opinion by condemning the policy of the Athenian oftracifm, which he feems to think that M, de Montefquicu had particularly in view. But there is no reason for confining the allufion of that author to the government of Athens; it is equally applicable to violent refources in other ftates, and may even be extended to the creation of the dictatorial power at Rome. There can, however, be no fimilarity between the oftracifm at Athens, and the lettres de cachet of a French monarch: the former, though generally refult of faction or caprice, was the act of a number of citizens; but the latter that of one man, peculiarly expofed to artifice and mifrepresentation; himfelf, likewife, not a cafual and temporary demagogue, but the hereditary tyrant of his country.

the

The most interefting part of this work is the curfory view of the French history, from Philip le Bel to the prefent time; during which period it is certain that France has been fubjected, with few interruptions, to a deplorable feries of bad kings; among whom our author fcruples not to affign a very eminent rank, in barbarilin and depravity, fo the celebrated Lewis XIV. We fhall prefent our readers with fome detached extracts from this chapter.

I find, in the firft place, the exceffive diffipations, the atrocious exactions, the inflexible rigour, of Philip le Bel; a prince devoid of

2

faith,

faith, infatiable of power and money, cruel and vindictive; who vio lated all the rights of the nation and of individuals; who forced, to almoft general revolt, every order, and all parties of the flate; and, whom a premature death alone could fave from that abyfs of misfortunes and humiliations that his faults and his crimes had hollowed under his throne.

His fon, during a momentary reign, fhewed himself the heir of his avarice. Wholly taken up in gratifying that vile paffion, he fa crificed to it engagements, promifes, rights, honour, juftice; and flattered his wretched people with a falfe and delufive liberty.

Philip le Long, more able and better intentioned, did not however abandon the arbitrary fyftems of his predeceffors. He proflitutes the magistracy by continuing the fhameful commerce of the venality, of employments; he attempts to establish impofitions on his own authority; relinquishes his project only from the dread of a general defection; and lives too short a time to alleviate the evils under which France was labouring. That country, fays Bolingbroke, which requires only a fupportable government to be rich and happy, fo much has nature done for her.

Charles le Bel tramples his people under foot as much as his father and his brothers; and perifhes, after a reign of four years, which merits very little regret. Providence, fays Mezerai, did not permit the pofterity of him who had plundered France by exactions and vio lences, unheard-of before his reign, to reach the age of man hood.

In the obdurate, and grafping, and violent, and defpotic Phi lip VI. were united all the bafeft vices of the Valois. A false coiner, an infatiable publican, he let loofe upon his fubjects all the innumerable, calamities engendered of the new born hydra of the exchequer. I remark, under his reign, the difaftrous murder of fourteen gentlemen of Britanny and Normandy, come to Paris, on the invitation of the king under the public faith, and beheaded without any form of justice.

The punishment of the Compte d'Eu, executed without trial judgment; the confifcation of his eftates, divided among his favourites; the perfidious detention of the King of Navarre, and the malfacre of his friends; have fixed an indelible ftain on the reign of John, the most paffionate, the molt arbitrary, the most imprudent of mea, who overwhelmed France with evils, and covered her with dif grace.

Madness, ftupidity, ambition, ferocioufnefs, in a few moments deftroy what the wisdom and perfeverance of Charles V. had been able to effect. The kingdom is, for forty years, a prey to the mol dreadful sufferings; from thence dates the horrid practice of judging by commiffioners, hateful fatellites of defpotifm, who never found any man innocent who was accused by the minifter: then liberty is oppreffed, even in the fanctuary of justice, by manoeuvres of authority till then unknown, but fince fo multiplied: then Charles VI. didinerits his fon in favour of the enemy of the French; and, had, they forefeen the paffive obedience required from them at this day, the blood of the royal houfe would have been for ever excluded from the throne.,

A:

As the reward of the fidelity of this generous nation, that Charles VII. whofe memory we revere as if it were for us, and without us that he conquered the kingdom, Charles VII. under the pretext of the turbulent circumstances by which it was agitated, strikes a mortal blow at our liberties: the national right of taxing itself is now only an illufion; regular and standing troops paid in money, which is fufficient to render them the partifans of the moft terrible defpotifm ; ftanding troops, I fay, menace and enflave a people, whofe chiefs were corrupted, that they might be burthened at discretion.

• Thus was the way paved for the tyranny of Louis XI. an unnatural fon, a bad father, a barbarous brother, an ungrateful mafter, a dangerous friend, an implacable and perfidious enemy; a prince fulf of artifice, cruel, devoid of fenfibility, a ftranger to every principle of justice, without any idea of decency; who difdained all thofe reftraints which the fentiment of honour, or the defire of glory, impofe even on the ambitious; who took a delight in inventing new and lingering punishments, the better to torment thofe he hated, and above all the nobles; who made of the executioner Tristan his dearest favourite, his most trusty satellite, informer, witness, judge, and murdererTM of his victims.

• Charles VIII, without talents, and without virtues, immolates his fubjects with all the prefumption, the precipitation, and the wantonnefs of ignorance, to the pretenfions he had on the kingdom of Naples from the house of Anjou, Under his reign commence those unfortunate wars of Italy, which have given the most fatal blow to Frenchliberty, and even to the liberty of all Europe, by rendering neceffary the practice of regular troops, the various expedients of finance, and the illegal and unbounded augmentation of the royal revenues.

The ruinous prodigalities of Francis I. his unfkilfulness, his arbitrary, and fometimes barbarous, tranfports, brings France upon the brink of ruin; and, to expiate fo many faults, he only governs it with the more feverity. He firft ftraightened the liberty of the prefs, the commerce of human thoughts, fo precious a resource for every upright adminiftrator; he restrains that public cenfure, fo useful, that Louis XII. permitted it to extend even to his perfon: he arrogates to him-⠀⠀ felf the right of difpofing of the facerdotal dignities; a liberty not unheard of, but always criminal, and tending rapidly to defpotifm, he negociates this traffic with the Bifhop of Rome, who, though himfelf elected by his brethren, ravifhed the rights of election of prelates from those who held it by the decrees of the church; and, betraying it by this unworthy prevarication, dared to barter a right which he never had. This inconfiderate prince, in fhort, opens up that frightful scene of atrocities, by which fanaticifm has inceffantly imbrued our country with blood for a whole century.

• Charles IX. came to the throne; and this infernal monfter executes, at his entrance into manhood, what Caligula only had defired; he meditates, with the most profound wickedness, the moft abomin... able perfidy; he fullies France with an eternal crime; he extermin ates, at one blow, one hundred thousand of his fubjects, in the num• † ber of whom fell one of our greatest men, the only man, perhaps, who

bas

has ever laboured in earneft to give us a free constitution; and Charles XI. has been praised during his life, and after his death !'

Lewis XIV. in the courfe of too long a reign, by outrages of every kind, puts the laft hand to the work of defpotifm. A haughty fultan, who never knew any other rule than his will, and dared to erect it into law; who ruled his people by lettres de cachet, and made them fly beyond the feas; who combined with the follies of arbitrary power the furies of intolerance, and forbade, under pain of the galleys, and of confifcation, his subjects, Frenchmen; men, in fhort, to leave the kingdom, whilft he was torturing a million of them with the sword of fanaticifm; (a new Saint Bartholomew, almost as odious, and a hundred times more fatal than the former, which delivered over three millions more of fectaries to the outrages of his janiffaries); who wished to compel a free people to take back a tyrant; who facrificed twenty millions of men to what they do not blush to call HIS GLORY, and took this fenfelefs motto, feul contre tous, alone against all. Unpity ing extortioner, who devoted his nation to all the fifcal horrors occafioned by fifty years battles; who crushed it with his oftentation, and involved it for ever, ftill lefs from the enormous quantity of impofts, than from their pernicious form, and the unskilfulness of his adminiftration; who the first established by authority direct impositions, and loaded the ftate, in twenty years, with fifteen hundred millions of annuities (rentes); who gave the example of these money-edicts, fince multiplied under fo many forms, and collected a crowd of insatiable farmers, become neceffary from their very robberies, and who can give the law to the defpot; foolish administrator, who facrificed the natural, and almost incalculable, riches of his country to the ruinous illufions of mercantile interefts, totally forgetting the true employ of commerce and of money, and the fimpleft notions of natural order; who encouraged the most deftructive luxury, that of decoration, and the traffic of money, which ruins agriculture, corrupts the manners, and cfcapes taxation; who had conftantly recourfe to ufury, to changes in the coin, to forced reductions of interest, to alienations of the domain, to every imaginable extortion, to engagements impoffible to be obferved, to the most violent and the most ruinous expedients. Blind diffipater! who created, for two millions of employments, a terrible impoft, under a ridiculous difguife, and who left upwards of four millions of debt; a king, who knew fo little of men, whatever may be faid of him, that when he would form them, as he called it, he reaped nothing from his prefumption and his efforts but misfortunes and difgrace; who knew fo little of true grandeur as to provoke the meanest, the moft difgufting, and most foolish flatteries: who carried his egotism fo far as that one of the counfels, which, in his profound wisdom, he gave to one of his grand children, was, to attach himself to nobody; who was fo infolently vain, who so openly despised the nation, at that period illuftrious from fo many great men, that, after corrupting it by the scandal of his court, and his own personal example, he dared to nominate for its masters the fruits of his debauches; a man, in fhort, in whom every thing marked mediocrity, except his character, which was more fingular than great, if, however, there did S ENG. REV. Vol. IX. April 1787.

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