ons stronger than the old Bastile, and its tribunals more
obsequious than the old parliaments. Hence the restoration of the
Bourbons and of the Jesuits, the Chamber of 1815 with its categories of
proscription, the revival of the feudal spirit, the encroachments of
the clergy, the persecution of the Protestants, the appearance of a new
breed of De Montforts and Dominics in the full light of the nineteenth
century. Hence the admission of France into the Holy Alliance, and the
war waged by the old soldiers of the tricolor against the liberties of
Spain. Hence, too, the apprehensions with which, even at the present
day, the most temperate plans for widening the narrow basis of
the French representation are regarded by those who are especially
interested in the security of property and maintenance of order. Half
a century has not sufficed to obliterate the stain which one year of
depravity and madness has left on the noblest of causes.

Nothing is more ridiculous than the manner in which writers like M.
Hippolyte Carnot defend or excuse the Jacobin administration, while
they declaim against the reaction which followed. That the reaction has
produced and is still producing much evil, is perfectly true. But what
produced the reaction? The spring flies up with a force proportioned to
that with which it has been pressed down. The pendulum which is drawn
far in one direction swings as far in the other. The joyous madness of
intoxication in the evening is followed by languor and nausea on the
morrow. And so, in politics, it is the sure law that every excess shall
generate its opposite; nor does he deserve the name of a statesman
who strikes a great blow without fully calculating the effect of the
rebound. But such calculation was infinitely beyond the reach of the
authors of the Reign of Terror. Violence, and more violence, blood,
and more blood, made up their whole policy. In a few months these poor
creatures succeeded in bringing about a reaction, of which none of them
saw, and of which none of us may see the close; and, having brought it
about, they marvelled at it; they bewailed it; they execrated it; they
ascribed it to everything but the real cause--their own immortality and
their own profound incapacity for the conduct of great affairs.

These, however, are considerations to which, on the present occasion, it
is hardly necessary for us to advert; for, be the defence which has been
set up for the Jacobin policy good or bad,