was but a year old, and was as yet unstained by the worst
excesses of the Terror, when Burke launched his bolt, shouted his
battle-cry, and animated Europe to arms. It must be admitted that many
of the evils which Burke prophesied in his review of the nascent
revolution were the stigmas of its prime. From the premises he beheld he
drew clear and definite conclusions, which were only too unhappily
verified as the tide of revolution flowed. But it must also be
remembered that Burke was himself in no small measure the cause of the
realization of his own dark and tragic prognostications. Burke's
arguments, Burke's eloquence, Burke's splendid ability were among the
most potent factors in animating the hopes of the refugee princes, of
inspiriting their allies, and of forming that ill-advised and disastrous
coalition of the Powers against France which Danton answered with the
head of a king. It was the genius of Burke that stemmed the sympathy
between England and a nation struggling to be free; it was the genius of
Burke that fostered the spirit of animosity to France which began with
the march upon Paris, and which ended after the disastrous defeats of the
invaders, the deaths of the King and Queen, and all the agonies of the
Terror, in {298} creating for England, in common with Europe at large,
the most formidable enemy that she had ever known.

In spite of Burke and Burke's melancholy vaticinations the course of the
Revolution in France seemed at first to most liberal-minded Englishmen to
move along reasonable lines and to confine itself within the bounds of
moderation. The excesses and outrages that followed immediately upon the
first upheaval, the murders of Foulon and Berthier in Paris, the peasant
war upon the castles, were regarded as the unavoidable, deplorable
ebullitions of a long dormant force which, under the guidance of capable
and honorable men, would be directed henceforward solely to the
establishment of a stable and popular system of government. The men who
were, or who seemed to be, at the head of affairs in France had names
that for the most part commended themselves to such Englishmen as had
anything more than a superficial knowledge of the country. The fame of
Lafayette, the hero of the American war, seemed to answer for the conduct
of the army. In Bailly, the astronomer whom unhappy chance had made
Mayor of Paris, constitutionalism recognized a man after its own heart.
The majority of the member