ge to state their opinions on foreign affairs
with Athenian loquacity; and the months of October and November 1792,
when we vainly seek to know the inner feelings of Pitt, are enlivened by
resolutions expressing joy at the downfall of tyrants, and fervent
beliefs in the advent of a fraternal millennium, the first fruits of
which were the election of Paine as deputy for Calais to the National
Convention.

In the dealings of nations, as of individuals, feelings often count for
more than interests. This was the case in the last four months of the
year 1792, when the subjects in dispute bulked small in comparison with
the passions and prejudices which magnified and distorted them. The
psychology of the time therefore demands no less attention than its
diplomacy. Its first weeks were darkened by news of the September
massacres. Even now the details of that cowardly crime arouse horror:
and surely no part of Carlyle's epic sinks so low as that in which he
seeks to compare that loathsome butchery with the bloodshed of a
battlefield.[90] No such special pleading was attempted by leaders of
thought of that period. On 10th September Romilly, a friend of human
progress, wrote to Dumont: "How could we ever be so deceived in the
character of the French nation as to think them capable of liberty?...
One might as well think of establishing a republic of tigers in some
forest of Africa." To which the collaborator of Mirabeau replied: "Let
us burn all our books; let us cease to think and dream of the best
system of legislation, since men make so diabolical a use of every truth
and every principle."[91] These feelings were general among Frenchmen.
Buzot stated that the loss of morality, with all its attendant evils,
dated from the September massacres.

It seems strange that the democratic cause made headway in England after
this fell event. Probably its details were but dimly known to the poor,
who were at this time the victims of a bad harvest and severe dearth.
The months of September and October were marked by heavy and persistent
rains. The Marquis of Buckingham on 23rd September wrote at Stowe to his
brother, Lord Grenville, that he was living amidst a vortex of mud,
clay, and water such as was never known before--the result of six weeks
of unsettled weather, which must impair the harvest and increase the
difficulty of maintaining order.[92] Certainly the stars in their
courses fought against the _ancien regime_. The rains which ma