might be enumerated many ho were animated only by personal jealousy and resentment, and a still greater number whom the probability of a Regency, or of a change of dynasty, flattered with the hope of a near and profitable influence. Be this as it may, however, there exists every reason to believe that the majority were at that time in favour of a Republican Government, although the different parties diverged widely from one another, both in respect of the ideas they had formed of Republicanism, and of the passions which impelled them to desire that form of Government.
All the various systems of politics and of public economy, served as motives or pretexts for the dissensions of the National Convention. Some preached the exclusive influence of the class favoured by fortune and by education; others regarded a participation by all in the sovereign power as an essential condition of the durable tranquillity and well-being of society. The former sighed after the riches, the superfluities, and the display of Athens; the latter desired the frugality, the simplicity, and the modesty of the fine days of Sparta. It is rendering, however, but a very imperfect view of the nature of these demons, to compare them with the political systems of the ancients. To understand it well, we must consider the state of manners, and our acquaintance with natural rights.
What passed in France immediately after the creation of the Republic, is, in my view, only the explosion of that discord, which ever exists between the partizans of opulence and distinctions on the one hand, and the ends of equality, or the numerous class of labourers, on the other.
System of Egoism, or SelfishnessBy tracing the stream higher up, we shall find the source of the discussions which took place at that epoch, in the English doctrine of the economists,[1] on the one side, and in that of Jean Jacques Rousseau, Mably, and other modern philosophers on the other.- ↑ I comprise under this denomination, as well those writers and statesmen who would subject industry and commerce to regulations, as those who would give the most extended freedom to their operations.
