im from that guillotine "which he
grazed." In the beginning of his work he displays "the task of glory,"
as he calls it, which presented itself at the opening of the Convention.
All is summed up in two points: "To create the French Republic; _to
disorganize Europe; perhaps to purge it of its tyrants by the eruption
of the volcanic principles of equality_."[6] The coincidence is exact;
the proof is complete and irresistible.

In a cause like this, and in a time like the present, there is no
neutrality. They who are not actively, and with decision and energy,
against Jacobinism are its partisans. They who do not dread it love it.
It cannot be viewed with indifference. It is a thing made to produce a
powerful impression on the feelings. Such is the nature of Jacobinism,
such is the nature of man, that this system must be regarded either with
enthusiastic admiration, or with the highest degree of detestation,
resentment, and horror.

Another great lesson may be taught by this book, and by the fortune of
the author and his party: I mean a lesson drawn from the consequences of
engaging in daring innovations from an hope that we may be able to limit
their mischievous operation at our pleasure, and by our policy to secure
ourselves against the effect of the evil examples we hold out to the
world. This lesson is taught through almost all the important pages of
history; but never has it been taught so clearly and so awfully as at
this hour. The revolutionists who have just suffered an ignominious
death, under the sentence of the revolutionary tribunal, (a tribunal
composed of those with whom they had triumphed in the total destruction
of the ancient government,) were by no means ordinary men, or without
very considerable talents and resources. But with all their talents and
resources, and the apparent momentary extent of their power, we see the
fate of their projects, their power, and their persons. We see before
our eyes the absurdity of thinking to establish order upon principles of
confusion, or with the materials and instruments of rebellion to build
up a solid and stable government.

Such partisans of a republic amongst us as may not have the worst
intentions will see that the principles, the plans, the manners, the
morals, and the whole system of France is altogether as adverse to the
formation and duration of any rational scheme of a republic as it is to
that of a monarchy, absolute or limited. It is, indeed, a system wh