Page:Lectures on the French Revolution of John Acton.djvu/78

66 against those who gave no hope that anything would be done. Again, when they declined the Government proposals, they isolated themselves, and became an obstruction. They had lost the clergy. They now repulsed the minister. Nothing was left them except their hopes of the king. They ruined him as well as themselves. It did not follow that, because they supported the monarchy, they were sure of the monarch. And it was a graver miscalculation to think that a regular army is stronger than an undisciplined mob, and that the turbulent Parisians, eight miles off, could not protect the deputies against regiments of horse and foot, commanded by the gallant gentlemen of France, accustomed for centuries to pay the tax of blood, and fighting now in their own cause.

There was nothing more to be done. The arts of peace were exhausted. A deliberate breach with legality could alone fulfil the national decree. The country had grown tired of dilatory tactics and prolonged inaction. Conciliation, tried by the Commons, by the clergy, and by the Government, had been vain. The point was reached where it was necessary to choose between compulsion and surrender, and the Commons must either employ the means at their command to overcome resistance, or go away confessing that the great movement had broken down in their hands, and that the people had elected the wrong men. Inaction and delay had not been a policy, but the preliminary of a policy. It was reasonable to say that they would try every possible effort before resorting to aggression; but it would have been unmeaning to say that they would begin by doing nothing, and that afterwards they would continue to do nothing, Their enemy had been beforehand with them in making mistakes. They might hazard something with less danger now. Victory indeed was assured by the defection among the nobles and the clergy. Near fifty of the one, and certainly more than one hundred of the others, were ready to come over. Instead of being equal, the parties were now two to one. Six hundred Commons could not control the same number of the deputies of privilege. But eight