1 66 THOMAS JEFFERSON 



The experience of these four years, aided by the 

 general soundness of his political philosophy, enabled 

 Jefferson to take a much more just view of the French 

 Revolution than was taken by Englishmen of nearly 

 all parties and by the Federalists in America. In its 

 earlier stages the Whigs in England and almost every- 

 body in America viewed the French Revolution with 

 earnest sympathy ; but when its fierce excesses came 

 there was a violent reaction. Every one remembers 

 how Burke, in his " Letters on a Regicide Peace," 

 quite lost his head and raved. He could think of no 

 better name for France than " cannibal castle," and 

 wanted the revolutionary party summarily annihilated 

 by an unrelenting policy of blood and iron. Such a 

 reaction of feeling was natural enough. It seized 

 upon the Federalists in America, and led such men as 

 Hamilton to entertain absurd fears of the wild orgies 

 of spoliation likely to ensue upon the victory of de- 

 mocracy in our country. The Federalists' view has 

 survived down to our own time. In talking about the 

 French Revolution people are apt to think only of 

 the guillotine and its innocent victims, the saintlike 

 Princess Elizabeth, the sprightly Madame Roland, 

 Vergniaud, the brilliant orator, Malesherbes, the 

 noble statesman, Lavoisier, the great chemist, Andre 

 Chenier, the sweet poet, and so many others. In 

 contemplating such sad cases it is too easy to forget 

 the ineffable horrors, the pestilent foulness, of the old 

 regime that was forever swept away, the enlightened 

 and wholesome legislation that began in 1789, and 

 the rapid and powerful inoculation of the peoples of 

 Europe with ideas that have since borne fruit in a 

 restored Hungary, a renovated Germany and Italy, 



