France: an Ode
When Coleridge republished this poem in the Post in 1802 he prefixed
to it the following
Argument
First Stanza. An invocation to those objects in Nature the
contemplation of which had inspired the Poet with a devotional love of
Liberty. Second Stanza. The exultation of the Poet at the commencement
of the French Revolution, and his unqualified abhorrence of the Alliance
against the Republic. Third Stanza. The blasphemies and horrors during
the domination of the Terrorists regarded by the Poet as a transient
storm, and as the natural consequence of the former despotism and of the
foul superstition of Popery. Reason, indeed, began to suggest many
apprehensions; yet still the Poet struggled to retain the hope that
France would make conquests by no other means than by presenting to the
observation of Europe a people more happy and better instructed than
under other forms of Government. Fourth Stanza. Switzerland, and the
Poet's recantation. Fifth Stanza. An address to Liberty, in which the
Poet expresses his conviction that those feelings and that grand ideal
of Freedom which the mind attains by its contemplation of its individual
nature, and of the sublime surrounding objects (see stanza the first) do
not belong to men as a society, nor can possibly be either gratified or
realized under any form, of human government; but belong to the
individual man, so far as he is pure, and inflamed with the love and
adoration of God in Nature.
51, 22—*When France in wrath*, etc. The storming of the Bastile took
place July 14, 1789. On the 4th of August feudal and manorial privileges
were swept away by the National Assembly; and on the 18th of August the
Assembly formally adopted a declaration of "the rights of man." In
September 1792 the National Convention abolished royalty and declared
France a republic.
52, 26-7—*With what a joy my lofty gratulation Unawed I* sang.
Coleridge wrote a poem on the "Destruction of the Bastile," probably in
1789 or soon after (first printed in 1834); and in September, 1792, some
lines "To a Young Lady, with a Poem on the French Revolution" (first
printed in The Watchman in 1796), in which he tells his emotions—
"When slumbering Freedom roused with high disdain
With giant fury burst her triple chain!"
28—*the disenchanted nation*. "Disenchanted" because they found that
freedom, peace, and virtue were not to be secured by mere proclamation;
and that all Europe was not ready at the call of the revolutionists to
abolish prescriptive rights and establish republican forms of society.
In January 1793 Louis XVI was beheaded. The act was followed pretty
promptly by a coalition of England, Holland, Spain, Naples, and the
German states against the Republic.
36—*Yet still my voice*. In "Religious Musings," 1794-6, and more
ardently in the parts that he contributed to Southey's "Joan of Arc,"
1796.
42—*Britain's name*. England was from the beginning the centre of
resistance to the violence and ambition of revolutionary France; and
Pitt, who controlled English policy in these years, was looked upon as a
cold-blooded agent of tyranny by the French republicans and their
English sympathizers.
44—*sweet music of deliverance*. The French were so convinced that
their Revolution marked the beginning of a new era in human affairs that
they determined to have a new chronology. Accordingly a commission of
scientists was appointed to formulate a system, which was adopted in
October 1793. The "Era of the Republic" was to be counted from the
autumnal equinox, 1792. The year was divided into twelve months, as
before, but they were renamed (Thermidor hot month, Fructidor fruit
month, Nivose snow month, &c.), and ran in periods of thirty days each
from the 22d of September. This left five days undistributed, which were
set apart as feast-days in celebration of five virtues or ideals. Each
month consisted of three decades, and each tenth day, or decadis, was
a holiday. The purpose of this was to eradicate the observance of the
Christian Sunday. This chronology was in actual use in France until
Napoleon put an end to it in 1806.
The municipality of Paris in 1793 decreed that on the 10th of November
the worship of Reason should be inaugurated at Notre Dame. "On that day
the venerable cathedral was profaned by a series of sacrilegious
outrages unparalleled in the history of Christendom. A temple dedicated
to 'Philosophy' was erected on a platform in the middle of the choir ...
the Goddess of Reason, impersonated by Mademoiselle Maillard, a well
known figurante of the opera, took her seat upon a grassy throne in
front of the temple; ... and the multitude bowed the knee before her in
profound admiration.... At the close of this grotesque ceremony the
whole cortège proceeded to the hall of the Convention, carrying with
them their 'goddess,' who was borne aloft in a chair of state on the
shoulders of four men. Having deposited her in front of the president,"
Chaumette, the spokesman of the procession, "harangued the Assembly....
He proceeded to demand that the ci-devant metropolitan church should
henceforth be the temple of Reason and Liberty; which proposition was
immediately adopted. The 'goddess' was then conducted to the president,
and he and other officers of the House saluted her with the 'fraternal
kiss,' amid thunders of applause. After this, upon the motion of
Thuriot, the Convention in a body joined the mass of the people, and
marched in their company to the temple of Reason, to witness a
repetition of the impieties above described.... At St. Gervais a ball
was given in the chapel of the Virgin. In other churches theatrical
spectacles took place.... On Sunday, the 17th of November, all the
parish churches of Paris were closed by authority, with three
exceptions.... Religion was proscribed, churches closed, Christian
ordinances interdicted; the dreary gloom of atheistical despotism
overspread the land."—Jervis, "The Gallican Church and the Revolution,"
quoted in Larned's "History for Ready Reference," p. 1300. The next
year, however, Robespierre had a decree passed of which the first
article was: "The French people acknowledge the existence of the Supreme
Being and the immortality of the soul;" and thereupon the inscriptions
To Reason that had been placed upon the French churches were replaced
by others reading To the Supreme Being.
50—*calm and bright*. After the downfall of Robespierre in
France gradually worked back to a less hysterical mood. In October
a new form of government known as the Directory was established, under
which the people enjoyed comparative safety at home and developed a
remarkable military efficiency against their foreign enemies.
Bonaparte's military genius brought him rapidly to the front in the wars
of the Directory. It was he that created the Cisalpine and Ligurine
"republics," and his policy directed the invasions of Rome and of
Switzerland.
53, 66—*Helvetia*. In March, 1798, after having fostered or
compelled the formation of republics under French protection in Holland,
northern Italy, and Rome, the Directory, under pretence of defending the
republican rights of the Vaudois, made a concerted attack upon
Switzerland. Berne, the centre of resistance, was taken, despite the
heroic defence of the mountaineers who for five centuries had maintained
in "bleak Helvetia's icy caverns" a "shrine of liberty" for all Europe.
