22} 
thrownby theassignats,and the rude- 
ness and fury of democracy. The 
monarchy had in fact been subvert- 
ed in October, 1789: it could not 
be rebuilt with the small fragments 
that remained, conjoined with amass 
of heterogeneous materials. The fa- 
bric attempted to be composed, ill- 
cemented and battered on every 
side, had begun to shake and totter; 
and events now happened which 
precipitated its fall and utter ruin. 
The people of France, particular- 
ly the inhabitants of Paris and other 
cities and towns, subsisted chiefly on 
the employment they found from 
the great proprietors of estates, 
whose revenues were circulated for 
their benefit in various channels. 
By the emigrations, those channels 
were in a great measure dried up, 
and great numbers were reduced to 
idleness, poverty, and extreme want. 
Still, however, during the period 
in which the States General, and 
afterwards as they constituted them- 
selves, the National Assembly, were 
employed in the formation of a new 
constitution, their spirits were kept 
up by the expectation of the great 
comfort and happiness that were to 
arise out of the new order of affairs 
to be arranged according to the will, 
and of course for the good of the so- 
vereign people. The new order, 
however, had been actually esta- 
blished, and still satisfaction and 
happiness appeared to be at a great- 
er distance thanever. In such cir- 
cumstances, the minds of men who 
were under no restraints from reli- 
gion or honour, and who had been 
flattered without difficulty into a 
conceit of their own importance, 
were ready instruments for the ex- 
ecution of any purpose, however 
criminal. In this state of affairs, 
the supreme power was vested in 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1702. 
the Jacobin club:—they swayed 
the people of Paris, and thus held 
in their hands the same engine of 
terror that had effected both the 
first and the late revolution. They 
still possessed the same arms by 
which they had pulled down the 
nobility,—the people, who had no- 
thing to lose, and who were very 
ready to avenge on all persons of 
property the inequalities of fortune. 
Their system of government was 
simple and obvious;—namely, to 
overawe and over-rule the Legisla- 
tive Assembly by «the national 
guards, and the mob of Paris: nor 
did they seem to have any greater 
or more fixed object in the exercise 
of their power, than the subversion 
of all order, and the confusion of all 
property. But still, in the midst of 
all their popularity and violence, 
there was one thing that gave them 
uneasiness. They had found, from 
experience, that the proprietors 
who had not emigrated, and also the 
merchants, the master tradesmen, 
and manufacturers of all kinds who 
had not emigrated, were enemies to 
all new commotions. These, in the 
present order of things, had become 
the first class of society; and now 
desired nothing so much as to re- 
main in quiet possession of their 
property, and of the consideration 
and influence in the state to which 
the new constitution had raised 
them. To cultivate peace and pre- 
servation of order, was held, ac- 
cording to the French acceptation of 
the word, an aristocrat: so that the 
democrats of 1789 (the same men 
who had pulled down their own su- 
periors) were become the aristocrats 
of 1792, and laboured in their turn 
to preserve order against the attacks 
of their inferiors. It was hinted to 
the populace, that passive ne 
ha 
