These evils were so apparent that now and then they prompted the governing authorities to attempt reform. Several rulers in various countries made earnest efforts to improve conditions. These were the 'benevolent despots' of the eighteenth century who tried reform from above before the French tried it from below. On the whole they had no great or permanent success, and the need of thoroughgoing changes remained to trouble the future.
Not only were the governments of Europe generally inefficient in all that concerned the full, symmetrical development of the economic, intellectual, and moral resources of the people, not only were they generally repressive and oppressive, allowing little scope to the principle of liberty, but they were, in their relations to each other, unprincipled, unscrupulous. The state was conceived as force, not at all as a moral being, subject to moral obligations and restraints. The glory of rulers consisted in extending the boundaries of their states, regardless of the rights of other peoples, regardless even of the rights of other rulers. The code that governed their relations with each other was primitive indeed. Any means were legitimate, success was the only standard of right or wrong. "He who gains nothing, loses," wrote Catherine of Russia, one of the 'enlightened' despots. The dominant idea in all government circles was that the greatness of the state was in proportion to its territorial extent, not in proportion to the freedom, the prosperity, the education of its people. The prevalence of this idea brought it about that every nation sought to be ready to take advantage of any weakness or distress that might appear in the situation of its neighbors. Armies must be constantly at hand and diplomacy must be ready for any scurvy trick or infamous crime that might promise hope of gain. It followed that treaties were to be broken whenever there was any advantage in breaking them. "It is a mistake to break your word without reason," said Frederick II, "for thus you gain the reputation of being light and fickle." To keep faith with each other was no duty of rulers. There was consequently no certainty in international agreements.
This indifference to solemn promises was nothing new. The eighteenth century was full of flagrant violations of most explicit international agreements. There was no honor among nations. No state had any rights which any other state was bound to respect. These monarchs, 'enlightened' and 'benevolent' or not, as the case might be, all agreed that they ruled by divine right, by the will of God. Yet this decidedly imposing origin of their authority gave them no sense of security in their relations with each other, nor did it give to their reigns any exceptional purity or unworldly character. The maxims of statecraft which they followed were of the earth, earthy. While bent upon increasing their own power they did not neglect the study of the art of undermining each other's power, however divinely buttressed in theory it might be. Monarchs were dethroned, states were extinguished, boundaries were changed and changed again, as the result of aggressive wars, during the eighteenth century. Moreover, the wars of that time were famous for the exactions of the victors and for the scandalous fortunes made by some of the commanders. It was not the French Revolutionists nor was it Napoleon who introduced these customs into Europe. They could not, had they tried, have lowered the tone of war or statecraft in Europe. At the worst they might only imitate their predecessors.
The Old Regime in Europe was to be brought tumbling down in unutterable confusion as a result of the storm which was brewing in Old France and which we are now to study. But that regime had been undermined, the props that supported it had been everywhere destroyed, by its own official beneficiaries and defenders.
The Old Regime was disloyal to the very principles on which it rested, respect for the established order, for what was old and traditional, for what had come down from the past, regard for legality, for engagements, loyalty to those in authority. How little regard the monarchs of Europe themselves had for principles which they were accustomed to pronounce sacred, for principles in which alone lay their own safety, was shown by the part they played in the great events of the eighteenth century already alluded to, the war of the Austrian Succession, and the Partition of Poland. By the first the ruler of Austria, Maria Theresa, was robbed of the large and valuable province of Silesia by Prussia, aided by France, both of which states had recently signed a peculiarly solemn treaty called the Pragmatic Sanction, by which her rights had been explicitly and emphatically recognized. Frederick II, however, wanted the province, took it, and kept it. This case shows how lightly monarchs regarded legal obligations, when they conflicted with their ambitions.
The other case, the Partition of Poland, was the most iniquitous act of the century. Poland was in geographical extent the largest state in Europe, next to Russia. Its history ran far back. But its government was utterly weak.
Therefore in 1772 Prussia, Austria, and Russia attacked it for no cause save their own cupidity, and tore great fragments away, annexing Poland them to their own territories. Twenty years later they completed the process in two additional partitions, in 1793 and 1795, thus entirely annihilating an ancient state. This shows how much regard the monarchs of Europe had for established institutions, for established authorities.
Two things only counted in Old Europe - force and will, the will of the sovereign. But force and will may be used quite as easily for revolution, for the overthrow of what is old and sacred, as for its preservation. There need be no surprise at anything that we may find Napoleon doing. He had a sufficient pattern and exemplar in Frederick the Great and in Catherine of Russia, only recently deceased when his meteoric career began.
The eighteenth century attained its legitimate climax in its closing decade, a memorable period in the history of the world. The Old Regime in Europe was rudely shattered by the overthrow of the Old Regime in France, which country, by its astonishing actions, was to dominate the next quarter of a century.
Chapter II
The Old Regime in France
The French Revolution brought with it a new conception of the state, new principles of politics and of society, a new outlook upon life, a new faith which seized the imagination of multitudes, inspiring them with intense enthusiasm, arousing boundless hopes, and precipitating a long and passionate struggle with all those who feared or hated innovation, who were satisfied with things as they were, who found their own conditions of life comfortable and did not wish to be disturbed. Soon France and Europe were divided into two camps, the reformers and the conservatives, those believing in radical changes along many lines and those who believed in preserving what was old and tried, either because they profited by it or because they felt that men were happier and more prosperous in living under conditions and with institutions to which they were accustomed than under those that might be ideally more perfect but would at any rate be strange and novel and uncertain.
In order to understand the French Revolution it is necessary to examine the conditions and institutions of France out of which it grew; in other words, the Old Regime. Only thus can we get our sense of perspective, our standard of values and of criticism.
The Revolution accomplished a sweeping transformation to the life of France. Putting it in a single phrase it accomplished the transition from the feudal system of the preceding centuries to the democratic system of the modern world. The entire structure of the French state and of French society was remodeled and planted on new and far-reaching principles.
The essence of the feudal system was class divisions and acknowledged privileges for all classes above the lowest. The essence of the new system is the removal of class distinctions, the abolition of privileges, the introduction of the principle of the equality of men, wherever possible.
What strikes one most in contemplating the Old Regime is the prevalence and the oppressiveness of the privileges that various classes enjoyed. Society was simply honeycombed with them. They affected life constantly and at every point.
It is not an easy society to describe in a few words, for the variations were almost endless. But, broadly speaking, and leaving