210 Reason and Its Rivals (ca. 1550– 1815)In all events, Martens and Ward need not have been unduly worried
about Grégoire’s project. It was not adopted. Th e worthy prelate showed
some per sis tence, however, presenting it a second time in 1795. On this oc-
casion, too, it bore no fruit. According to Grégoire’s memory, the members
of the Committee for Public Safety feared that the project would “irritate
the despots with whom it was intended to enter into negotiations.”
Th e fate of Grégoire’s codifi cation proposal was symptomatic of the im-
pact of the French Revolution on international law. Early hopes (or fears)
that it might portend radical changes went largely unrealized— a point that
Martens noted with evident relief in the 1801 edition of his treatise. As
attractive as the idea of a continent- wide alliance against royalty and aris-
tocracy was to some, it failed to bear signifi cant fruit. Antiroyalist procla-
mations and appeals might make for eff ective propaganda (though even that
wore off over time), but they did not provide a basis for replacing the rival-
ries of states with clashes of ideologies. Th e wars of the French Revolution
era were, for the most part, further installments of po liti cal clashes of the
familiar sort. Napoleon Bonaparte, at the head of the French armies, cut a
dazzling fi gure whose fascination still endures. But at the end of the pro cess,
France was reduced to virtually its pre- Revolution position, as one Eu ro-
pe an power among many.
It should not be thought, though, that the French Revolution era was of
no great signifi cance to the history of international law. On the contrary,
there were some important developments. But they came not at the hands of
frantic revolutionaries in Paris, but instead from a much more staid group
of persons on the other side of the En glish Channel.
Across the Channel
In one rather quiet respect, the year 1789 was a notable one for the science of
international law. No Bastille was stormed, or “Marseillaise” sung. But the
subject did acquire its modern English- language name, compliments of the
British reformer and social critic Jeremy Bentham. In his Introduction to
the Principles of Morals and Legislation, he employed the adjective “interna-
tional” to the body of law that governed “the mutual transactions between
sovereigns, as such.” Th e term was, admittedly, not altogether new. Zouche
had employed a Latin version of it, ius inter gentes. Bentham’s own source