David Hume: Prophet of the Counter-Revolution

3. Cromwell in the Convention: The Judgement of Posterity

Prophet_151-200.indd 156 3/2/12 10:30 PM THE TRIAL OF "LE STUART FRANc;:AIS" revolutions had run along on exactly parallel courses, that Louis XVI would never even have been brought to trial if one hundred and forty-three years earlier, the English 'jacobins" had not executed Charles I. One last eleventh-hour defence of Louis XVI which repeats this sentiment is worth quoting from: "The course followed by the English seditionaries and that followed by their counterparts who have been devastating for such a long time our unhappy country are absolutely the same; if there is any difference at all, it is that the present revolutionaries have surpassed in hypocrisy, in viciousness, and in tyranny those who murdered the unfortunate Stuart." 25 3 CROMWELL IN THE CONVENTION: THE jUDGEMENT OF POSTERITY The scores of published opinions emanating from the Convention during Louis XVI's trial and dealing with such questions as whether the King could be judged, how he should be judged, and what should be his punishment are all quite heterogeneous in their various tendencies and difficult to group in a significant manner. One common element becomes apparent, however, to anyone who has taken the trouble ofgoing through these opinions: the parallel between the English trial of Charles and the Convention trial ofLouis haunted the minds of all but a minority of those who were destined to judge the French king. Significantly even Mailhe's Rapport etProjet deDeaet,26 the Convention 's official pre-trial report which formulated so many of the members' reactions in subsequent debates, could not avoid going into the legality of Charles l's parliamentary hearing. Mailhe's re25 . A.:J. Dugour, Memoirejustificatifpour Louis XVI, ci-devant Roi desFrancais, Paris, 1793, p. 123. (First published in parts, December 1792-january 1793.) 26. . .. presentes d la Convention Nationale, au nom du Comite de Legislation, 7 November 1792. Prophet_151-200.indd 157 3/2/12 10:30 PM CROMWELL IN THE CONVENTION port was to conclude that Louis XVI could be judged by the Convention . The troublesome question of what legal forms to follow nevertheless remained. The English condemnation of Charles I was an obvious precedent; obvious too seemed the fact that history reproached the English for having violated legal forms: Charles Stuart was inviolable like Louis XVI; but like Louis XVI, he had betrayed the nation that had placed him on the throne. Being independent of all the bodies established by the English constitution , he could not be charged orjudged by any of them; only the nation could do this. When he was arrested, the H ouse of Lords was totally in his camp. It wished only to save the king and monarchical despotism. The House of Commons seized unto itself the exercise of all parliamentary authority; and no doubt it had the right to do so given its circumstances. But Parliament itself was no more than a constituted body. It did not represent the nation's full and entire sovereignty; it represented the nation's sovereignty only in respect of those functions that were determined by the constitution. It could thus neither judge the king nor delegate the right to judge him.27 Although this interpretation of Charles I's trial is far from being Hume's, it is no less certain that Mailhe's inability to avoid dealing with the question altogether is something of a tribute to the widespread success of the History ofthe Stuarts in France before 1789 and especially to the use made of Hume's work by the many defenders of the king and the ancien regime after that date. Mailhe's report goes on to show that if the English had taken the same precautions as the French, their republic would have survived . The English Commons should have invited the nation to form a convention parliament: Unfortunately, the House of Commons was controlled by the genius ofCromwell, and Cromwell, who wished to become king under the title of protector, would have found in a National Convention only a tomb for his ambitions. It was therefore not any violation of the prescribed formalities for criminal prosecutions in England, but rather the lack of a na27 . Jean Mailhe, op. cit., p. 20. 1 57 Prophet_151-200.indd 158 3/2/12 10:30 PM THE TRIAL OF "LE STUART FRAN~AIS" tiona! mandate, it was the protectorate of Cromwell, in short, that attached to the...