FRENCH REVOLUTION.

opinions, as in other things, the ambition of the lower sort has been, to follow the example of the higher; in the next place, they had the instruments of noise, to a great degree, in their own hands; the means of filling the ears of the nation so constantly with the din of their own opinions, as almost to exclude the hearing of any other. 'Give me,' says Addison, in one of the Spectators, the power of stating every day without contradiction, to a man at his breakfast, any opinion for a sufficient length of time, and I shall make sure of having his belief in the long run.' The contagion of the passions is another power of which the aristocracy availed themselves on that occasion to an astonishing degree. How naturally one man becomes inflamed by another, needs no illustration. How much more naturally and strongly we catch the passions of those to whom we look up, than of those upon whom we look down, is also matter of certain experience. The aristocratical class, on that occasion, were agitated with real fears; they used every sort of artifice, many theatrical, many far less justifiable, to act still more tragic fears than they felt. The great players found in the people a sympathetic, far too sympathetic audience.

With a

"Wielding all the powers of government, having all the punishments and all the rewards of the state at command, they were able, after they had gotten the passions of the people a little on their side, to silence all contradiction. Of the men who addressed, or were capable of addressing, the public, by far the greater number were on their side, part from sympathy, part because they saw it greatly for their interest. Against those who would have opened the eyes of the people, they had the instrument of punishment in tremendous power. law such as ours, persecution itself, tormenting, harassing, ruinous by the expense whatever the result, and the result itself almost always uncertain whatever the case, is despotism in the hands of the aristocracy, or the ministry, its organ. Every artifice of delusion employed on the one side, the means of exposing the delusion denied on the other, what wonder is it that the people were dragged, if not willing, yet unresisting, victims to the sacrifice, passing through the fire to Moloch, and feeding the fire which burned them with their substance?"

ANECDOTES

CONNECTED WITH THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

I HAD Occasion, in the foregoing article, to advert to the excessive prejudice which the old governments of Europe had contrived to excite against the revolutionists of France. As one proof among a thousand of the force of that prejudice, I may adduce the following anecdote, related to me by the individual who is the subject of it.

A French gentleman arrived at the island of Martinique, in the year 1802. He was the first Frenchman who had entered the island since the revolutionary struggle; and it was with no little surprise he perceived, that the inhabitants of all ranks and classes, from the rich planter to the poorest slave, shrunk from him, with a degree of astonishment apparently not unmixed with terror, for which he could not account. A day or two afterwards, he ventured to ask an acquaintance if there was any thing so very strange or remarkable in his appearance, that might have caused so marked and so disagreeable a sensation. "Oh no,” rejoined his friend; "but you are a Frenchman; the first we have seen since the horrors of your revolution; and our people have somehow or other imbibed the idea, that France is now a nation of monsters. I doubt not but

that some of them looked for the cloven foot." And yet these colonists were themselves, with a few exceptions, French; and had been under British influence only a few years; long enough, however, it would seem, to persuade them that their own countrymen had been changed, by the revolution, from men into demons.

Some months afterwards a detachment of the French troops of Moreau's army entered the island. All was consternation; the men avoided every intercourse with the strangers; the women shut themselves up for several days in their houses, scarcely venturing to appear at their windows, much less to walk the streets. And it was not till after many weeks that the inhabitants began to doubt whether, after all, these republican soldiers were not more quiet, more humane, and more polished, than any troops which had ever visited their colony. I stated that emissaries had been sent from England, and em

ployed by other European courts, to push republican principles to extravagance and cruelty, and thus to bring them into contempt and horror. I may illustrate the assertion by a particular instance of this system of inhuman hypocrisy, which has come to my knowledge. The celebrated Pinel, of Paris, was called, in his capacity of physician, to attend a member of one of the principal revolutionary committees; a man who had distinguished himself as the abettor and perpetrator of some of the worst atrocities that stained the annals of that eventful period. The patient eagerly enquired what Pinel thought of his case; requesting, as an act of friendship, that danger, if there were any, might not be concealed from him. Pinel replied by advising him, if he had yet business to arrange, not to delay an hour in settling it. The dying man appeared to be deeply affected with his situation; and Pinel, who had ever been a true and staunch republican, even from the first attack on the Bastile in which he personally assistedthought the moment favorable to obtain some insight into the motives that had prompted the chief actors in the revolutionary tragedy. "Sir," he said, addressing his patient, "I would fain ask you a question; but it may be a painful one." "Ask it," replied the other; "my time here is short, and I have nothing that I need conceal now." 66 Then," ," resumed Pinel, “I would ask what possible motive you could have had to enact, under the guise of republicanism, the bloody horrors that have ruined our cause." "Your question is easily answered,” returned the "I had a pension of six thousand francs sent to me from England regularly by Louis." R. D. O.

sick man;

NO. 10.

CONTAINING

SITUATIONS,

BY

ROBERT DALE OWEN.

He is immorally situated, whose apparent interest tells him one thing, and his duty another.

NEW-YORK:

PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE OF THE FREE ENQUIRER.

SITUATIONS.

[Extracted from the Free Enquirer.]

OF LAWYERS.

THE situation in which the members of the most influential classes in society find themselves placed, appears to me conducive neither to their own probity and happiness, nor to the welfare of the community. I am convinced that very many of the errors that prevail throughout our country, and very much of the difficulty which exists in removing these errors, may be traced to this source. I should conceive it much more easy to cure men of their credulities, and to establish rational virtue among them, if it were no one's apparent interest to make them credulous or quarrelsome. In like manner, I should expect much less disease among mankind, if physicians were remunerated according to the measure of health, and not according to the measure of disease, that exists around them.

Not that I attribute to lawyers, as a body, the deliberate intention to sow dissentions; nor to the clergy, as a body, an organized plan of attack on our credulity; nor to physicians, as a body, the desire to see disease prevail. But there are degrees of dishonesty; and a strong temptation placed before a whole class of men is seldom without its effects. In illustration of these general observations, let us examine the situation and the temptations of one of these professions, that of the lawyers.

To the professed object of the law and lawyers no one will object. Men act unjustly towards each other, and it is desirable that such injustice should be remedied: men quarrel; and it is desirable that they should be reconciled. The law pro

fesses to remedy injustice and to reconcile quarrels, and if its practice corresponded to its professions, law would be one of the greatest blessings in social life. Is it so? Is law a blessing to this, or to any other country? Are lawyers the promoters of peace, harmony, and kindness? Are they not, even proverbially, the reverse?

I will ask yet more: is it not the positive, pecuniary interest