Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/23

Rh A new era hath commenced. An Empire is founded, more populous, more energetic, more warlike, more powerful than ancient Rome at any moment of her existence. The base of this mighty fabric covers France, Holland, Spain, Prussia, Italy, and Germany; embracing, perhaps, an eighth part of the population of the globe.

Though this Empire is commercial in some degree, and in some of its parts, its ruling passion is not commerce, but war. Its genius is conquest, its ambition is fame. With all the immorality, the licentiousness, the prodigality and corruption of declining Rome, it has the enterprise, the courage, the ferocity of Rome in the days of the Consuls. While the French Revolution was acting, it was difficult to speak of France without exciting the rancor of political party. The cause in which her leaders professed to be engaged, was too dear to American hearts to suffer their motives to be questioned, or their excesses censured with just severity. But the Revolutionary drama is now closed, the curtain hath fallen on those tremendous scenes, which for fourteen years held the eyes of the universe, that meteor, which "from its fiery hair shook pestilence and war," hath now passed off into the distant regions of space, and left us to speculate coolly on the causes of its wonderful appearance.

To other nations, however, France stands in the same situation as before. The consequences which flow to them from her neighborhood, are neither increased nor diminished, nor in any way altered by the change in her government. It is the French character alone which is the object of regard. This depends no more on the form of the government, than the strength of Hercules on the fashion of his coat.

There is a spirit of nationality in the French which attaches in equal degree to no other people. Their leading feature is a wonderful promptitude in devoting themselves to their existing government, whatever it may be. No personal pique or dissatisfaction cools a French citizen in the service oi his nation. French generals will fight, French ministers will intrigue, notwithstanding the government of their country may not be in hands that suit them. France is their sole object; its glory their sole ambition. It is, therefore, that in all the changes that have happened at Paris, the foreign agents have taken no part; they pursue their object with zeal at all times equally ardent, and assiduity at all times equally unremitted. Though the form of government should change as often as the moon; though new systems should spring weekly from the brains of philosophers; vaporous and evanescent as the mists of the ocean; yet it would require centuries to change these traits of natural character which centuries have wrought. To eradicate the emulation, to quench the zeal, to subdue the Jesuitism, and purify the literature of the nation, is the work of ages. It is these permanent causes, not the temporary form of government, that shed such an aspect of terror on the nations of the earth. Ambition is the never-dying worm which feeds and fattens in the bosom of the Gaul. To an eagerness for personal distinction is also added a thirst for national glory unheard of since the days of Rome, and unequalled, perhaps, even by the Romans.

The intellectual world is considered a theatre of contests, not less than the natural. The morals and sentiments of the nations which have been added to the French Empire have been as completely subdued as their physical strength. The fire and sword of philosophy have a duty of desolation assigned them, as well as the fire and sword of the army. We repeat, therefore, that these causes exist exclusively in the national character, in the religion and literature of the country, and have no connection with the form of the government. They would have been as powerful, if Louis had occupied his throne till this time, as they now are. They are as powerful now as at any moment of the Revolution.