To Burke’s mind, the measures of the revolutionists were all mixed up with impieties, sophistries, absurdities, and blasphemies, to say nothing of cruelties and murders.  What good could grow out of such an evil tree?  Could men who ignored all duties be the expounders of rights?  What structure could last, when its foundation was laid on the sands of hypocrisy, injustice, ignorance, and inexperience?  What sympathy could such a man as Burke have for atheistic theories, or a social progress which scorned the only conditions by which society can be kept together?  The advanced men who inaugurated the Reign of Terror were to him either fools, or fanatics, or assassins.  He did not object to the meeting of the States-General to examine into the intolerable grievances, and, if necessary, to strip the king of tyrannical powers, for such a thing the English parliament had done; but it was quite another thing for one branch of the States-General to constitute itself the nation, and usurp the powers and functions of the other two branches; to sweep away, almost in a single night, the constitution of the realm; to take away all the powers of the king, imprison him, mock him, insult him, and execute him, and then to cut off the heads of the nobles who supported him, and of all people who defended him, even women themselves, and convert the whole land into a Pandemonium!  What contempt must he have had for legislators who killed their king, decimated their nobles, robbed their clergy, swept away all social distinctions, abolished the rites of religion,—­all symbols, honors, and privileges; all that was ancient, all that was venerable, all that was poetic, even to abbey churches; yea, dug up the very bones of ancient monarchs from the consecrated vaults where they had reposed for centuries, and scattered them to the winds; and then amid the mad saturnalia of sacrilege, barbarity, and blasphemy to proclaim the reign of “Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality,” with Marat for their leader, and Danton for their orator, and Robespierre for their high-priest; and, finally, to consummate the infamous farce of reform by openly setting up a wanton woman as the idol of their worship, under the name of the Goddess of Reason!

But while Burke saw only one side of these atrocities, he did not close his eyes to the necessity for reforms.  Had he been a Frenchman, he would strenuously have lifted up his voice to secure them, but in a legal and constitutional manner,—­not by violence, not by disregarding the principles of justice and morality to secure a desirable end.  He was one of the few statesmen then living who would not do evil that good might come.  He was no Jesuit.  There is a class of politicians who would have acted differently; and this class, in his day, was made up of extreme and radical people, with infidel sympathies.  With this class he was no favorite, and never can be.  Conservative people judge him by a higher standard; they shared at the time in his sympathies and prejudices.