s of the National Assembly seemed to be
gloriously occupied in evolving out of the chaos of the old order a new
and entirely admirable framework of laws modelled boldly after the
English pattern. Most English observers thought, in opposition to Burke,
what the majority of the members of the National Assembly themselves
thought, that the Revolution was an accomplished fact, a concluded page
of history, brought about not indeed bloodlessly, but still, on the
whole, with comparatively slight shedding of blood, considering the
difficulty and the greatness of the accomplished thing. The practical
imprisonment of the King and Queen within the walls of Paris, within the
walls of the Tuileries, seemed no great hardship in the eyes of the
Englishmen who sympathized with the aims of those of the French
revolutionaries with whom they were acquainted. The French King himself
seemed to be reconciled to his lot, to have joined himself frankly and
{299} freely enough to the party of progress within his dominions, and to
be as loyally eager to accept the new constitution which the National
Assembly was busy framing as the most ardent patriot among its members.
Even the flight of the Royal Family, the attempted flight that began with
such laborious pomp at Paris to end in such pitiful disaster at Varennes,
the flight that condemned the King and Queen to a restraint far more
rigorous than before, did not greatly disturb British equanimity.

[Sidenote: 1791--Burke and the coalition against France]

To the mind of Burke, however, his prophecies were already justifying
themselves. He could see nothing in the Revolution but its errors, and
he hailed the coalition of Europe against France as a league of light
against the powers of darkness. He broke away furiously from his friends
and allies of so many great political battles. He could not understand,
he could not bear to realize that men who had struggled with him to
champion the rights of the American colonists, and to punish the offences
of Warren Hastings, should now be either avowed sympathizers with or
indifferent spectators of the events that were passing in France. He had
loved Charles Fox greatly ever since Fox had shaken off the traditions of
Toryism and become the most conspicuous champion of liberal ideas in
England. But he could not and would not forgive him for his attitude
towards the French Revolution and the French Revolutionists. Burke saw
nothing but evil in, thoug