Parisian mob, and the ascendency of the Jacobins at
the Common Hall; the fierce day of the 20th of June (1792), when the mob
flooded the Tuileries, and the bloodier day of the 10th of August, when the
Swiss guard was massacred and the royal family flung into prison; the
murders in the prisons in September; the trial and execution of the king in
January (1793); the proscription of the Girondins in June, the execution of
the queen in October--if we realize the impression likely to be made upon
the sober and homely English imagination by such a heightening of horror by
horror, we may easily understand how people came to listen to Burke's voice
as the voice of inspiration, and to look on his burning anger as the holy
fervour of a prophet of the Lord.

Fox still held to his old opinions as stoutly as he could, and condemned
and opposed the war which England had declared against the French republic.
Burke, who was profoundly incapable of the meanness of letting personal
estrangement blind his eyes to what was best for the commonwealth, kept
hoping against hope that each new trait of excess in France would at length
bring the great Whig leader to a better mind. He used to declaim by the
hour in the conclaves at Burlington House upon the necessity of securing
Fox; upon the strength which his genius would lend to the administration in
its task of grappling with the sanguinary giant; upon the impossibility, at
least, of doing either with him or without him. Fox's most important
political friends who had long wavered, at length, to Burke's great
satisfaction, went over to the side of the government. In July 1794 the
duke of Portland, Lord Fitzwilliam, Windham and Grenville took office under
Pitt. Fox was left with a minority which was satirically said not to have
been more than enough to fill a hackney coach. "That is a calumny," said
one of the party, "we should have filled two." The war was prosecuted with
the aid of both the great parliamentary parties of the country, and with
the approval of the great bulk of the nation. Perhaps the one man in
England who in his heart approved of it less than any other was William
Pitt. The difference between Pitt and Burke was nearly as great as that
between Burke and Fox. Burke would be content with nothing short of a
crusade against France, and war to the death with her rulers. "I cannot
persuade myself," he said, "that this war bears any the least resemblance
to any that has ever existed in