n the former was administered by
revolutionary tribunals, and the latter was at the disposition of
revolutionary armies.

The error of supposing that the various parties which have usurped the
government of France have differed essentially from each other is pretty
general; and it is common enough to hear the revolutionary tyranny
exclusively associated with the person of ROBESPIERRE, and the
thirty-first of May, 1793, considered as the epoch of its introduction.
Yet whoever examines attentively the situation and politics of France,
from the subversion of the Monarchy, will be convinced that all the
principles of this monstrous government were established during the
administration of the Brissotins, and that the factions which succeeded,
from Danton and Robespierre to Sieyes and Barras, have only developed
them, and reduced them to practice. The revolution of the thirty-first
of May, 1793, was not a contest for system but for power--that of July
the twenty-eighth, 1794, (9th Thermidor,) was merely a struggle which of
two parties should sacrifice the other--that of October the fifth, 1795,
(13th Vendemiaire,) a war of the government against the people. But in
all these convulsions, the primitive doctrines of tyranny and injustice
were watched like the sacred fire, and have never for a moment been
suffered to languish.

It may appear incredible to those who have not personally witnessed this
phoenomenon, that a government detested and despised by an immense
majority of the nation, should have been able not only to resist the
efforts of so many powers combined against it, but even to proceed from
defence to conquest, and to mingle surprize and terror with those
sentiments of contempt and abhorrence which it originally excited.

That wisdom or talents are not the sources of this success, may be
deduced from the situation of France itself. The armies of the republic
have, indeed, invaded the territories of its enemies, but the desolation
of their own country seems to increase with every triumph--the genius of
the French government appears powerful only in destruction, and inventive
only in oppression--and, while it is endowed with the faculty of
spreading universal ruin, it is incapable of promoting the happiness of
the smallest district under its protection. The unrestrained pillage of
the conquered countries has not saved France from multiplied
bankruptcies, nor her state-creditors from dying through want; and
the F