The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 06 (of 12). Edmund Burke
Читать онлайн книгу.
was willing to indulge myself in an hope that this second appearance of ambassadors was only an insolent mummery of the same kind; but, alas! Anacharsis himself, all fanatic as he was, could not have imagined that his opera procession should have been the prototype of the real appearance of the representatives of all the sovereigns of Europe themselves, to make the same prostration that was made by those who dared to represent their people in a complaint against them. But in this the French Republic has followed, as they always affect to do, and have hitherto done with success, the example of the ancient Romans, who shook all governments by listening to the complaints of their subjects, and soon after brought the kings themselves to answer at their bar. At this last ceremony the ambassadors had not Clootz for their Cotterel. Pity that Clootz had not had a reprieve from the guillotine till he had completed his work! But that engine fell before the curtain had fallen upon all the dignity of the earth.
On this their gaudy day the new Regicide Directory sent for that diplomatic rabble, as bad as themselves in principle, but infinitely worse in degradation. They called them out by a sort of roll of their nations, one after another, much in the manner in which they called wretches out of their prison to the guillotine. When these ambassadors of infamy appeared before them, the chief Director, in the name of the rest, treated each of them with a short, affected, pedantic, insolent, theatric laconium,—a sort of epigram of contempt. When they had thus insulted them in a style and language which never before was heard, and which no sovereign would for a moment endure from another, supposing any of them frantic enough to use it, to finish their outrage, they drummed and trumpeted the wretches out of their hall of audience.
Among the objects of this insolent buffoonery was a person supposed to represent the King of Prussia. To this worthy representative they did not so much as condescend to mention his master; they did not seem to know that he had one; they addressed themselves solely to Prussia in the abstract, notwithstanding the infinite obligation they owed to their early protector for their first recognition and alliance, and for the part of his territory he gave into their hands for the first-fruits of his homage. None but dead monarchs are so much as mentioned by them, and those only to insult the living by an invidious comparison. They told the Prussians they ought to learn, after the example of Frederick the Great, a love for France. What a pity it is, that he, who loved France so well as to chastise it, was not now alive, by an unsparing use of the rod (which, indeed, he would have spared little) to give them another instance of his paternal affection! But the Directory were mistaken. These are not days in which monarchs value themselves upon the title of great: they are grown philosophic: they are satisfied to be good.
Your Lordship will pardon me for this no very long reflection on the short, but excellent speech of the plumed Director to the ambassador of Cappadocia. The Imperial ambassador was not in waiting, but they found for Austria a good Judean representation. With great judgment, his Highness, the Grand Duke, had sent the most atheistic coxcomb to be found in Florence, to represent at the bar of impiety the House of Apostolic Majesty, and the descendants of the pious, though high-minded, Maria Theresa. He was sent to humble the whole race of Austria before those grim assassins, reeking with the blood of the daughter of Maria Theresa, whom they sent half dead, in a dung-cart, to a cruel execution; and this true-born son of apostasy and infidelity, this renegado from the faith and from all honor and all humanity, drove an Austrian coach over the stones which were yet wet with her blood,—with that blood which dropped every step through her tumbrel, all the way she was drawn from the horrid prison, in which they had finished all the cruelty and horrors not executed in the face of the sun. The Hungarian subjects of Maria Theresa, when they drew their swords to defend her rights against France, called her, with correctness of truth, though not with the same correctness, perhaps, of grammar, a king: "Moriamur pro rege nostro, Maria Theresa." SHE lived and died a king; and others will have subjects ready to make the same vow, when, in either sex, they show themselves real kings.
When the Directory came to this miserable fop, they bestowed a compliment on his matriculation into their philosophy; but as to his master, they made to him, as was reasonable, a reprimand, not without a pardon, and an oblique hint at the whole family. What indignities have been offered through this wretch to his master, and how well borne, it is not necessary that I should dwell on at present. I hope that those who yet wear royal, imperial, and ducal crowns will learn to feel as men and as kings: if not, I predict to them, they will not long exist as kings or as men.
Great Britain was not there. Almost in despair, I hope she will never, in any rags and coversluts of infamy, be seen at such an exhibition. The hour of her final degradation is not yet come; she did not herself appear in the Regicide presence, to be the sport and mockery of those bloody buffoons, who, in the merriment of their pride, were insulting with every species of contumely the fallen dignity of the rest of Europe. But Britain, though not personally appearing to bear her part in this monstrous tragi-comedy, was very far from being forgotten. The new-robed regicides found a representative for her. And who was this representative? Without a previous knowledge, any one would have given a thousand guesses before he could arrive at a tolerable divination of their rancorous insolence. They chose to address what they had to say concerning this nation to the ambassador of America. They did not apply to this ambassador for a mediation: that, indeed, would have indicated a want of every kind of decency; but it would have indicated nothing more. But in this their American apostrophe, your Lordship will observe, they did not so much as pretend to hold out to us directly, or through any mediator, though in the most humiliating manner, any idea whatsoever of peace, or the smallest desire of reconciliation. To the States of America themselves they paid no compliment. They paid their compliment to Washington solely: and on what ground? This most respectable commander and magistrate might deserve commendation on very many of those qualities which they who most disapprove some part of his proceedings, not more justly than freely, attribute to him; but they found nothing to commend in him "but the hatred he bore to Great Britain." I verily believe, that, in the whole history of our European wars, there never was such a compliment paid from the sovereign of one state to a great chief of another. Not one ambassador from any one of those powers who pretend to live in amity with this kingdom took the least notice of that unheard-of declaration; nor will Great Britain, till she is known with certainty to be true to her own dignity, find any one disposed to feel for the indignities that are offered to her. To say the truth, those miserable creatures were all silent under the insults that were offered to themselves. They pocketed their epigrams, as ambassadors formerly took the gold boxes and miniature pictures set in diamonds presented them by sovereigns at whose courts they had resided. It is to be presumed that by the next post they faithfully and promptly transmitted to their masters the honors they had received. I can easily conceive the epigram which will be presented to Lord Auckland, or to the Duke of Bedford, as hereafter, according to circumstances, they may happen to represent this kingdom. Few can have so little imagination as not readily to conceive the nature of the boxes of epigrammatic lozenges that will be presented to them.
But hæ nugæ seria ducunt in mala. The conduct of the Regicide faction is perfectly systematic in every particular, and it appears absurd only as it is strange and uncouth, not as it has an application to the ends and objects of their policy. When by insult after insult they have rendered the character of sovereigns vile in the eyes of their subjects, they know there is but one step more to their utter destruction. All authority, in a great degree, exists in opinion: royal authority most of all. The supreme majesty of a monarch cannot be allied with contempt. Men would reason, not unplausibly, that it would be better to get rid of the monarchy at once than to suffer that which was instituted, and well instituted, to support the glory of the nation, to become the instrument of its degradation and disgrace.
A good many reflections will arise in your Lordship's mind upon the time and circumstances of that most insulting and atrocious declaration of hostility against this kingdom. The declaration was made subsequent to the noble lord's encomium on the new Regicide Constitution,—after the pamphlet had made something more than advances towards a reconciliation with that ungracious race, and had directly disowned all those who adhered to the original declaration in favor of monarchy. It was even subsequent to the unfortunate declaration in the speech from the throne (which this pamphlet but too truly announced) of the readiness of our government to enter into connections of friendship with that faction. Here was the answer from the throne of Regicide to the speech from the throne of Great Britain.