the clearing away of whole bushels of chaff, was frequently not rewarded by a fingle feed of wholefome grain, we have endeavoured to comprefs within the narLow compafs of our prescribed limits, such an abftract of the Hiftory of the French Revolution, as we truft will not prove unacceptable or unfatisfactory to the Public: requesting our Readers to bear in mind, that it would require an ample folio vo.. lume to do full juftice to all the parts of which we have here traced the outline. The time and room taken up by this momentous fubject, has of neceffity precluded our entering into the detail of other foreign transactions, which, in the usual ftate of things, would have been deemed The objects of principal importance. conclufion of that ferocious and bloody war between the great powers of the North and Eaft (of the opening, and progress of which, through the two firft campaigns, we gave fo particular an account in our preceding volumes) fhall, with the death of the Emperor Jofeph, and fome other matters, form a retrospective article in our enfuing volume. THE THE ANNUAL REGISTER, For the YEAR 1790. THE HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHA P. I. Retrospective view of the affairs of France towards the clofe of the year 1789. State of Paris. Sudden and frequent revolutions in the government and conftitution of that metropolis. Body of electors appointed for the prefent, to fupply the place of the former regal and municipal authorities. Laudable conduct of the electors, and great benefits derived from it, in preferving Jome degree of order and peace in that city. Incidents which led to their being expofed to imminent danger, through the caprice and the fufpicious difpofition of the people. Seemingly apprehenfive of this change of temper, they had the fortune previously to fecure a retreat, by inducing the people to elect 120 deputies, who were to be their temporary fucceffors. The divifion of Paris into fixty diftricts, for the better conducting of the late elections for deputies to the ftates, productive of many confequences favourable to the revolution, as well as to the establishment of form and order. In each of thefe diftricts general affemblies were held, whofe refolutions carried the effect of laws, and the moft fovereign acts of authority for the govern ment of the district, were difpenfed by its own adminiftration. Thus, Paris was rather to be confidered as a confederacy, compofed of fixty independent democratical republics, than as one commonwealth. A few demagogues affume the lead in all thefe diftricts, and being supported by the lower orders, foon oblige people of character to abfent themselves from thefe affemblies. Inftances of the noise, diforder, and tumult, which prevailed at thefe meetings. New republican clubs, who have their appendant focieties in every town of France, foon become rulers of the mobs and demagogues of Paris, and at the fame time dictators to the nation assembly. Inftances from a VOL. XXXII, [4] writer writer of credit, that falsehoods and forgeries were the great and conftant refources of the cabals in Paris. Parifians noted for credulity, and at the fame time for the extreme fufpiciousness of their nature. Similar inftances of credulity in the provinces. The exceffive liberty and unbounded licentioufness of the prefs, a powerful inftrument of the revolution. The literati of Paris eftimated at 20,000, and thefe dictated to the rest of the nation. Unaccountable and indefenfible fupineness of the minifters, with refpe&t to the prefs. Strange and fatal blindness of the two first orders of the state. Famine, as a carfe of general difcontent, another powerful inftrument of the revolution. Real or imputed conduct of the duke of Orleans. National affembly feriously alarmed at the conflagrations and massacres which were Spreading defolation and ruin through many parts of the kingdom, the nobility being hunted down like wild beasts in feveral of the provinces. This impreffion of terror, produces the extraordinary events of the 4th of Auguft. The vifcount Noailles, and the duke d'Aiguillon, make Speeches in the afs fembly, in which they propofe fubftantial redress and relief to the peasantry, by relinquishing and abolishing those parts of the feudal rights and duties, which lay the heaviest on, or were the most complained of by, that order of men. A fudden fit of enthufiafm spreads at once through the two first orders, and the only conteft after feemed to be, who should facrifice the most, and who fhould be the first to offer; while the commons feemed loft in aftonishment and applause. It was in an inftant decreed, that all impofts fhould be equally and equitably laid on; that all the feudal fervices should be redeemable at an equitable price; and that perfonal fervitude fhould be abolished for ever, without any purchase. These are followed by a facrifice of the exclufive rights of the chace, of fishing, of warren, and of dove-cotes. The parish priests make an offering of all their parochial perquifites, and the beneficiaries bind themselves never to hold a plurality. Various other refolutions paffed on the fame night, each of which was from that moment confidered as an irrevocable decree, and afterwards made the foundation of a formal law. Affembly decree a medal to be firuck, to commemorate the acts of this glorious night. They likewife confer on the king the title of Refiorer of the Liberties of France. Solemn Te Deum celebrated, at which the king and the national affembly affift. Aftonishment and dismay of the clergy, after the great facrifices which they had voluntarily made, upon a motion for the fequeftration of their tithes. Debates renewed with great violence on the following day. Cause of the clergy eloquently and ably defended by the Abbe Sieyes. In general they stand firmly in fupport of their rights. Debate, after much tumult, adjourned late at night. Means ufed during the remainder of the night, and the morning, to bring over the heads of the clergy to a confent. Archbishop of Paris, in the name of his brethren, furrenders all the tithes of the church into the bands of the nation. His fhort Speech on that occafion. The old provincial names, distinctions, peculiar rights, and privileges, determined to be abolished, and the whole nation confolidated into one compact body, and under one equal form of government. Deputies of privileged towns and diftritts make a furrender of their charters and municipal documents. Provinces. which poffeffed a right of taging themselves, renounced that right and their ftates fates together; and the parliaments were annihilated as well as the provincial ftates. All fees and taxes to the court of Rome for ever abolished. Some obfervations on the precipitancy, with which fixteen laws of the utmost moment were hurried through in one night; as well as on the bad effect of paffing laws by acclamation. Nobility and clergy in the provinces highly difcontented with the conduct of their delegates on the 4th of Auguft, in making fuch vaft facrifices without their confent. Several members of the affembly like wife repent their own conceffions, and become equally diffatisfied. Landed proprietaries at length take up arms in their own defence, and reprefs the barbarous ravages of the peafantry. King appoints a new minif try, with the approbation of the affembly. Diftreffed fate of the public, through the failure of the taxes. Loans attempted and fail. Scheme of pa triotic contributions adopted. A S the city of Paris already poffeffed, or was fast advancing to the poffeffion of the real power and authority of the nation, without a direct nominal affumption of its government, and the exercife of that power was rendered lefs diftafteful and invidious to the provinces and to the people at large, by its paffing through the medium of the national affembly, which was apparently refponfible for meafures in which it acted little more than a fecondary part; it may not perhaps be unneceffary to make fome inquiry, how that authority, which was thus paramount to all others in fo great and extenfive an empire, ac fo immenfe a population, was itself constructed, regulated, and directed. We shall likewife take notice of fome correfponding circumftances and caufes, which were ei ther overlooked in our laft volume, or did not at the time come within our knowledge, but which tended in a lefs or greater degree to facilitate the accomplishment of a revolution, which, taken in all its parts, is without example in the history of cultivated nations, and of long-eftablished governments. In the course of about three weeks, that vaft and turbulent metropolis, which was deftined to give the law to a whole empire, had undergone no less than three revolutions in its own constitution of government. Having in the firft inftance thrown off all eftablished authority, whether derived from the fovereign or from their own municipal inftitutions, the capital feemed expofed a prey to every fpecies of diforder, violence, and of the most unbounded anarchy. In this alarming and dangerous ftate, it happened moft fortunately for that city, and probably faved it from continual fcenes of plunder and maffacre, that the better order of citizens perceived within their reach the means of establishing, at least, a temporary authority, which might tend to preferve order and to afford fecurity. The body of conitituent electors, who returned the deputies from Paris to the fate, were of courfe compofed of the principa citizens in their refpective districts; they amounted to about three hundred, and luckily for the capital, poffeffed in a high degree the good opinion and confidence of the people. On thefe the opulent and better part of the citizens immediately caft their eyes, as capable of forming a central, effective, and what, with any other people to manage, [4] 2 might might well have proved a perma-portance of their fervices were uninent body of magiftracy. There verfally acknowledged; nor did were fufficient caufes on which to their fubfequent conduct afford any found this expectation of perma- fair ground of cenfure. nence; for the electors were in fact, in their feveral diftricts, the direct reprefentatives of the people, being elected by them, which the deputies at Versailles were not, they being created by the three hundred, and holding a very remote connection with the people at large, to whom they were but little known, and to whom they were not bound by any obligation. It was however happy, that these confiderations operated powerfully upon the bulk of the people in the first inftance, thro' which the government of the capital was for fome days carried on fmoothly enough, and the authority of the new magiftracy would have feemed complete, if it had not been for thofe occafions of murder or maffacre which called forth the ferocity of the rabble, when all laws, government, and authority, and all refpect to perfons, were trampled under foot. The electors were too fenfible of the critical fituation of affairs, and too well acquainted with the dispofition of the people for whom they were to act, to be at all folicitous for the pre-eminence to which they were called; on the contrary, it was at the earnest folicitation and repeated entreaties of the moft valuable part of their fellow-citizens, that they ventured upon the arduous talk of governing the capital. Their conduct was fuch, during the fhort continuance of their power, as to gain the approbation of all the fober part of the citizens; and for a few days, the applaufe which they received even from the rabble was boundlefs, and the merit and im But the natural levity and inconftancy of the Parifians, their grofs ignorance, their mortal abhorrence of fubordination, and above all, that horrid fufpiciousness of temper, which induces them to imagine treachery or villainy in the most indifferent, the most innocent, or the moft praife-worthy actions, rendered it impoffible for any man or fet of men long to preferve their favour, or to conduct their business in any manner which could afford fatisfaction, and which would not even in the conclufion be attended with imminent danger. We have fhewn in our last volume the narrow escape which the electors had from the fufpicious rage of the multitude, when, on account of the impreffion made on their humanity by Neckar's eloquence in favour of Bezenval, and of a fimilar difpofition operating on themfelves to endeavour to heal the bleeding wounds of the nation by a general amnefty, the rabble conceived these acts of wifdom and virtue to be fo flagrant an invafion of their new fovereignty, and like other defpots not enduring any partners in power, that they were on the point of carrying their refentment to the extremity of punishment. Indeed, it seemed clear, that nothing less than the fortunate and inftantaneous perception of their danger, which ftruck the electors, and the confequent immediate dereliction of their feats and authority, was likely to preferve their perfons from the fummary execution of the lanthorn, or their houses and property from destruction. It feemed, however, as if the |