failures one and all; why Pombal failed in Portugal, Aranda in Spain,
Joseph II. in Austria, Ferdinand and Caroline in Naples--for these last,
be it always remembered, began as humane and enlightened sovereigns,
patronising liberal opinions, and labouring to ameliorate the condition
of the poor, till they were driven by the murder of Marie Antoinette into
a paroxysm of rage and terror--why, above all, Louis XVI., who attempted
deeper and wiser reforms than any other sovereign, failed more
disastrously than any--is not the answer this, that all these reforms
would but have cleansed the outside of the cup and the platter, while
they left the inside full of extortion and excess? It was not merely
institutions which required to be reformed, but men and women. The
spirit of "Gil Blas" had to be cast out. The deadness, selfishness,
isolation of men's souls; their unbelief in great duties, great common
causes, great self-sacrifices--in a word, their unbelief in God, and
themselves, and mankind--all that had to be reformed; and till that was
done all outward reform would but have left them, at best, in brute ease
and peace, to that soulless degradation, which (as in the Byzantine
empire of old, and seeming in the Chinese empire of to-day) hides the
reality of barbarism under a varnish of civilisation. Men had to be
awakened; to be taught to think for themselves, act for themselves, to
dare and suffer side by side for their country and for their children; in
a word, to arise and become men once more.

And, what is more, men had to punish--to avenge. Those are fearful
words. But there is, in this God-guided universe, a law of retribution,
which will find men out, whether men choose to find it out or not; a law
of retribution; of vengeance inflicted justly, though not necessarily by
just men. The public executioner was seldom a very estimable personage,
at least under the old Regime; and those who have been the scourges of
God have been, in general, mere scourges, and nothing better; smiting