The Portland daily press., 1880-11-17
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
Lecture Of Parker Pillsbury at Mechan-
les Hall.

Parker Pillsbury delivered an eloquent lee
ture at Mechanics Hall Library Room, last
evening, on the French Revolution, to large
audience. Mr.. Pillsbury said:
come to you with lesson from history; the
voice OF hundred years ago. might be called
the dying shrek of the eighteenth century.
Happy would it have been for our country had
1t learned the lesson long ago, Tor we may yet
close the nineteenth century with tragedy far
more terrible. Nations, like individuals, have
birth and growth, decay and death. Nor is
there any assurance that our democracy or re-
publieanlsm, sanctifed by century of Protes-
tant Christianity, will escape the same mortal
lty which fences into one vast cemetery the un-
known as well as unnumbered ages of the past.
There can be no surer sign of the speedy, as
well as inevitable decay of a government than
the rapid accumulation of wealth in the hands
OF the hundreds, at the cost of the millions,
whose toll must create or produce it. Revolu-
tons are comparatively bloodless when the
more intelligent and wealthy control and con-
duct them. Oui own revolution furnishes an
linent illustration. France hal no Wash
ington. Jefferson, Adams. nor still less
Franklin, to direct the sanguinary but una
voidable revolutionary storm. Revolutions are
fearful when property is arrayed on one side
and the people, who have mainly produced it,
but have it not, and so have nothing to lose,
are massed on the other side. The condition
OF France for century preceding the revolu-
ton cannot be too attentively studied, for it
furnishes explanation both of the causes and
character of that stupendous event. 1t closed
the eighteenth century as with frightful sui
eide, and well enough does Carlyle pronounce
II the mightiest phenomenon of the ages"
That there was much in the revolution to de-
plore, is not to be denied. Twenty-Five mil.
lions of human beings suddenly flaming up
into furies, maddened maniacs from long and
lntolerable expressions, broke loose at last,
running, foaming, unregulated and unrestrain-
ed-such were the kindling-wood of the dread
confagration at hand. Scarce one in fifty
knew an alphabet, and still less primer, on
the rights of man or the responsibility of citi-
zenship. The nation was dis
tinguished into three classes, wide as races
Next to the sovereign, the first two classes
were the clergy and mobiles. The sovereign
was despot, the clergy and mobiles something
as much worse as possible. The mobiles, myri-
ads III number. were whelps to be sucked, or,
If soldiers, jackalls pursuing their prey and
the lion his meat. At the opening
OF the revolution the clergy were a 10000.
Multltudes were scandal to their high call
ing, hiving in Paris and Versailles to revel in
the intrignes of corrupted and al-corrupting
court. As body they possessed an annual
revenue, independent of all tthes of hun
dred and twenty-five millions francs, or twen-
ty-fve million American dollars; and they
were exempt from almost all the burdens of
taAation. Inc second oruef was the MOBILES;
swarms of them wholly dependent on the
court and the royal favor. Everything honor
able or useful in literature, science or art. was
beneath their pompous notice. And the no.
bles. too shirked most of the burdens OF taxa
tion.
The remaining order was the commons, or
third estate, TIE % ,000, 900 of the rude, wild
masses, in long battalions of beggary, came
screaming from garrets, hoveis, burrows and
1ens under ground, every one living, con-
'cious unit, with heart and sorrows and vested
rights, dying daily of want and taxes and all
governmental burdens, impelled by irresisti-
Die consciousness of wrongs, they came to
equality and power seeking redress. They had
appealed to law, but the law only Knocked
heir mlserieS; TO religion, but that, instead of
relieving them, only robbed them more and
more, till on them rose no era of hope, no star
of promise. The vices of protligate priest
lood, as well as their capacities, had so wreck
I'd the religious faith as to make the future as
iaik as the present was dismal and dreary.
At length these maddened masses began to
descend in avalanches of woe to the very gates
,f the royal palace, as the rigors of winter
drive the wild beasts nearer and
nearer the habitations of men. They had
sent deputies and delegations, committees and
i'll vain; now they came them
selves, an awful petition in hieroglyphics, de-
handing pity and redress Their wants and
woes are read to the king-read less from the
JdpoI, tiidl lrOu tu6 WluuercQ, WrlnkleQ
parchment of'their own begrimmed faces
Thus and there they confronted royalty, face
% face and claimed the right to eat that they
night live, and to be clothed that they perish
lot Mark now the answer Mr.. Carlyle
quoting two French authors, says: "For ans
yer, two OF them are hung on new gallows
orty feet high, and the rest are driven back to
heir dens." 1 have heard that cloud of
misery called mob We are told too that
women led that mob! Be it SO, then 1 believe
If such mobs is the kingdom of heaven. Back
vent the rest, two only hung, to their cheer
ess homes 1t was but for time. Frosts
ioen the already whitening corn, which in its
earlier growth would have nipped it to death.
This was mob, not for what it did, for it did
nothing; it only prayed. 1t was called a mob
because 1t failed, its prayer was only answered
With "a new gallows forty feet high" two
laters, and two human victims hanged. 1t
asked only for bread, it was answered with
harder than stones. Seeking by unarmed
7iolence what no cries, no tears, no eutreaties
% men, nor prayers to gods could procure; and
ailing in this also, the attempt W as pronoun-
ed 3nSuTrecti0n-a mob! And thus infa NOUS
y surnamed, 1t passed into what men call his
DRY, scourged with the indignation of man
Kind.
At the beginning of the revolution the
clergy owned nearly half the lands of France,
which, with their revenue of 25,000,000 francs
rom titheS, swelled their annual income to
horo Iiiah @oo,oVo,Voo. tne clergy ana noDles
ogether owned two-thirdS of the best estates
n the Kingdom, and so excessive was the bur-
len thus imposed on agricultural labor that if
he income of one acre of land amount
I'd to three pounds, two shillings and seven
pence, one pound, eighteen shillings and four
pence went to the government, eighteen shil-
ings to the landholder, while to the producer
If the whole went only the remaining six shil-
ings. The indirect taxation was still more
The article of salt furnishes an IL
ustration. For the salt trade and tariff the
whole kingdom was divided into six revenue
districts, and the tariff was levied when salt
was taken across district line, as when inn
ported into the kingdom. And sometimes the
price of salt was not less than $3.50 per 100
weight. OF course "a large contraband trade
was the inevitable result, and the prisons were
5hronged with criminals for this offence. and
dreadful were the penalties sometimes paid.
Townsend, an English traveller in France in
1856. says that Whenever any of the numer-
1uS SmugglerS were taken, some are hung,
some are broken ON the wheel and some are
even burned alive" But no punishment could
arrest the business, for it was found that man
scudding across district line with one pint
Of struggled salt in his pocket was saving mole
money in single hour than he could earn by
agricultural labor in all the orking hours of
a day. The peasant was frequently called
from his heavily burdened bit OF land to work
gratis for some neghboring noble, who gave
portion of his grain as he preserved for his
own use, after paying for its grinding in the
MILL and for having baked it in his
oven. And the exactions of the church were
still more merciessly enforced. Even manu-
facturers We're hampered by almost incredible
restrictions, government deciding on the per-
sons to be employed, the articles to be made,
the materials to be used, the processes to be
followed, and the qualities of the products.
State officers broke the looms and burned the
goods which were not made according to law
Inventors We're fined aud improvements were
made illegal. No redress was attainable for
any injury to property or person, when inhict-
ed by people of rank, or of court influence.
With the local tyrannies and abuses there had
gone on at the governing centres nlal-adminis-
tration, corruption and extravaganza; treas
ures were spent in building vast palaces, and
great armies were sacrificed in inexcusable
wars. and then, as Herbert Spencer SAYS, "To
make more conspicuous the worthlessness of
the government there was a corrupt life led by
the court, from the king downward, France
actually lying with the foot of iarlot on its
neck"
This evening Mr.. Pillsbury will continue his
subject in the same place. Students and pu-
pills in the public schools will find this lecture
highly instructive.
Personal.
Gen. II. NJ. Plaisted is at the United States
Hotel
Mr.. Frank Morgan is improving rapidly and