Even before the situation in France became obvious to more people, he urged moderation on the factions, in these words from 1790:
France, by the perfidy of her leaders, has utterly disgraced the tone of lenient council in the cabinets of princes and disarmed it of its most potent topics. She has sanctified the dark suspicious maxims of tyrannous distrust—and taught kings to tremble at (what will hereafter be called) the delusive plausibilities of moral politicians. Sovereigns will consider those who advise them to place an unlimited confidence in their people as subverters of their thrones, as traitors who aim at their destruction, by leading their easy good nature, under specious pretenses, to admit combinations of bold and faithless men into a participation of their power. This alone (if there were nothing else) is an irreparable calamity to you and to mankind. Remember that your parliament of Paris told your king that in calling the states together, he had nothing to fear but the prodigal excess of their zeal in providing for the support of the throne. It is right that these men should hide their heads. It is right that they should bear their part in the ruin which their counsel has brought on their sovereign and their country.
The above quote illustrates the delicacy and insightfulness of Burke's thought. He had a knowledge of people, and we see this in another comment of his (from 1792 letter) which points to the difference between people on different sides of an argument. In this case, Burke, an Irishman, urges moderation regarding the division between Protestants and Catholics, which at that time was a wide and bitter gulf.
Pray, as far as in you lies, keep the Terms of common society with those, with whom you can keep no other. All of the possible Chariites of Life ought to be cultivated; and where we can neither be brethren nor friends, let us be kind neighbors and pleasant acquaintance. The Protestants of Ireland are just like the Catholicks - the Cat looking out of the Window and the Cat looking in at the Window - the difference of being in or out of power is the only difference between them; and power is a very corrupting thing; especially low and jobbish power -- This makes the Protestants a trifle worse -- as servility makes the Catholicks a little worse on the other hand.
We are indebted for this last quote to David Bromwich, who uses it in his 2014 book, The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke
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