ical disaffection.
Romilly, mentioning to a friend that the _Reflections_ had got into a
fourteenth edition, wondered whether Burke was not rather ashamed of
his success. It is when we come to the rank and file of reaction, that
we find it hard to forgive the man of genius who made himself the
organ of their selfishness, their timidity, and their blindness. We
know, alas, that the parts of his writings on French affairs to which
they would fly, were not likely to be the parts which calm men now
read with sympathy, but the scoldings, the screamings, the unworthy
vituperation with which, especially in the latest of them, he attacked
everybody who took part in the Revolution, from Condorcet and
Lafayette down to Marat and Couthon. It was the feet of clay that they
adored in their image, and not the head of fine gold and the breasts
and the arms of silver.

On the continent of Europe the excitement was as great among the
ruling classes as it was at home. Mirabeau, who had made Burke's
acquaintance some years before in England, and even been his guest at
Beaconsfield, now made the _Reflections_ the text of more than one
tremendous philippic. Louis XVI. is said to have translated the book
into French with his own hand. Catherine of Russia, Voltaire's adored
Semiramis of the North, the benefactress of Diderot, the ready helper
of the philosophic party, pressed her congratulations on the great
pontiff of the old order, who now thundered anathema against the
philosophers and all their works.

It is important to remember the stage which the Revolution had
reached, when Burke was composing his attack upon it. The year 1790
was precisely the time when the hopes of the best men in France shone
most brightly, and seemed most reasonable. There had been disorders,
and Paris still had ferocity in her mien. But Robespierre was an
obscure figure on the back benches of the Assembly. Nobody had ever
heard of Danton. The name of Republic had never been so much as
whispered. The king still believed that constitutional monarchy would
leave him as much power as he desired. He had voluntarily gone to the
National Assembly, and in simple language had exhorted them all to
imitate his example by professing the single opinion, the single
interest, the single wish--attachment to the new constitution, and
ardent desire for the peace and happiness of France. The clergy, it is
true, were violently irritated by the spoliation of their goods, and
the n