The Ancien Regime | Page 3

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THE ANCIEN REGIME
by Charles Kingsley

PREFACE

The rules of the Royal Institution forbid (and wisely) religious or
political controversy. It was therefore impossible for me in these
Lectures, to say much which had to be said, in drawing a just and
complete picture of the Ancien Regime in France. The passages
inserted between brackets, which bear on religious matters, were

accordingly not spoken at the Royal Institution.
But more. It was impossible for me in these Lectures, to bring forward
as fully as I could have wished, the contrast between the continental
nations and England, whether now, or during the eighteenth century.
But that contrast cannot be too carefully studied at the present moment.
In proportion as it is seen and understood, will the fear of revolution (if
such exists) die out among the wealthier classes; and the wish for it (if
such exists) among the poorer; and a large extension of the suffrage
will be looked on as--what it actually is--a safe and harmless
concession to the wishes--and, as I hold, to the just rights--of large
portion of the British nation.
There exists in Britain now, as far as I can see, no one of those evils
which brought about the French Revolution. There is no widespread
misery, and therefore no widespread discontent, among the classes who
live by hand-labour. The legislation of the last generation has been
steadily in favour of the poor, as against the rich; and it is even more
true now than it was in 1789, that--as Arthur Young told the French
mob which stopped his carriage--the rich pay many taxes (over and
above the poor-rates, a direct tax on the capitalist in favour of the
labourer) more than are paid by the poor. "In England" (says M. de
Tocqueville of even the eighteenth century) "the poor man enjoyed the
privilege of exemption from taxation; in France, the rich." Equality
before the law is as well- nigh complete as it can be, where some are
rich and others poor; and the only privileged class, it sometimes seems
to me, is the pauper, who has neither the responsibility of
self-government, nor the toil of self-support.
A minority of malcontents, some justly, some unjustly, angry with the
present state of things, will always exist in this world. But a majority of
malcontents we shall never have, as long as the workmen are allowed
to keep untouched and unthreatened their rights of free speech, free
public meeting, free combination for all purposes which do not provoke
a breach of the peace. There may be (and probably are) to be found in
London and the large towns, some of those revolutionary propagandists
who have terrified and tormented continental statesmen since the year

1815. But they are far fewer in number than in 1848; far fewer still (I
believe) than in 1831; and their habits, notions, temper, whole mental
organisation, is so utterly alien to that of the average Englishman, that
it is only the sense of wrong which can make him take counsel with
them, or make common cause with them. Meanwhile, every man who
is admitted to a vote, is one more person withdrawn from the
temptation to disloyalty, and enlisted in maintaining the powers that
be--when they are in the wrong, as well as when they are in the right.
For every Englishman is by his nature conservative; slow to form an
opinion; cautious in putting it into effect; patient under evils which
seem irremediable; persevering in abolishing such as seem remediable;
and then only too ready to acquiesce in the earliest practical result; to
"rest and be thankful." His faults, as well as his virtues, make him
anti-revolutionary. He is generally too dull to take in a great idea; and if
he does take it