Some weeks later, at the opening of Parliament, Burke allowed himself to be carried away by his prejudices to a gloomy and severe review of the beginning of the French Revolution. "Since the house has been prorogued," said he, "there has been much work done in France. The French have shown themselves the ablest architects of ruin that have appeared in the world: in one short summer they have completely pulled down their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their army and their revenue. They have done their business for us as rivals in a way in which twenty Ramillies and Blenheims could never have done. Were we absolute conquerors, with France prostrate at our feet, we should blush to impose on them terms so destructive to their national consequence as the durance they have imposed on themselves."
Pitt did not join in the joyous enthusiasm of Fox, regarding the first and tumultuous efforts of the National Assembly and the French people; still less did he abandon himself to the gloomy forebodings of Burke. "The convulsions which now agitate France," said he, "will lead one day or another to general harmony and regular order; and although this situation will render France more formidable, it will perhaps render her less dangerous as a neighbor. I desire the re-establishment of tranquillity in that country, although it seems to me as yet far removed. When her system shall be re-established, and that system proclaims liberty, well defined, the liberty proceeding from order and good government, France will become one of the most brilliant powers of the world. I am unable to regard with distrust, those tendencies in neighboring states that so closely resemble the sentiments which characterize the English people."
The excesses and disorders of revolutionary passions, which were soon to threaten Europe with a vast conflagration, turned Mr. Pitt from his benevolent views. He was reproached, when subsequently he was compelled to struggle against the revolution, both at home and abroad, for not being inclined to the violences of Burke. It was his glory always to choose that difficult path, alone worthy of men called by God to govern their fellow creatures, that path which remains equally distant from either extreme, and which resists the excesses of liberty as well as the arbitrary tendencies of absolutism. In England, Mr. Pitt repressed both the revolutionary passions and the tendencies to despotism; upon the Continent, in his efforts against the contagious violence of France, he branded as infamous the frenzy of the Reign of Terror, and he protected the threatened European governments, as he subsequently defended the national liberties, against the encroachments and ambitions of absolute power.