History of the Girondists: Or, Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution, from Unpublished Sources, Volume 1

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Henry G. Bohn, 1847 - France

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Page 15 - ... in full sunlight — the extreme loveliness which the ideal conveys, and which, by giving it life, increases its attraction. With all these charms, a soul yearning to attach itself, a heart easily moved, but yet earnest in desire to fix itself; a pensive and intelligent smile, with nothing of vacuity in it, because it felt itself worthy of friendships. Such was Maria Antoinette as a woman.
Page 369 - I seek to unite them, and it is for you to aid me. If I am an obstacle to your designs, and if you persist in them, tell me instantly, and I will retire, and mourn in obscurity the fate of my country and your own.
Page 102 - Revolution of Paris, edited by Loustalot ; a weekly paper, with a circulation of 200,000 copies ; the feeling of the man may be seen in the motto of his paper : " The great appear great to us only because we are on our knees — let us rise...
Page 431 - Frenchwoman by all the feelings of my heart as a wife and mother. I shall never again see my own country. I can only be happy or unhappy in France. I was happy when you loved me.
Page 218 - will not be the mayor of Paris in order that he may the sooner become the maire du Palais. Petion is a Jacobin, a republican ; but he is a fool, incapable of ever becoming the leader of a party : he would be a nullity as maire, and, besides, the very interest he knows we should take in his nomination might bind him to the king.
Page v - God, makes the world in its own image. Thought was revived by a philosophical age. It had to transform the social world. The French Revolution was therefore in its essence a sublime and impassioned spirituality. It had a divine and universal ideal. This is the reason why its passion spread beyond the frontiers of France. Those who limit, mutilate it. It was the accession of three moral sovereignties : — The sovereignty of right over force ; The sovereignty of intelligence over prejudices ; The...
Page 436 - Grand Dieu! par des mains enchaînées Nos fronts sous le joug se ploieraient ! De vils despotes deviendraient Les maîtres de nos destinées! Aux armes, citoyens!
Page 137 - ... to hate Voltaire, not to deny his genius. If we judge of men by what they have done, then Voltaire is incontestably the greatest writer of modern Europe. No one has caused, through the powerful influence of his genius alone, and the perseverance of his will, so great a commotion in the minds of men ; his pen aroused a world, and has shaken a far mightier empire than that of Charlemagne, the European...
Page 377 - that my credit with the people does not depend on my ideas, but on my audacity, the daring impetuosity of my mind, my cries of rage, despair, and fury against the wretches who impede the action of the Revolution. I know the anger, the just anger of the people, and that is why it listens to, and believes, in me.
Page 321 - ... to assume quietly towards the prince the tone of a dictator, and to pronounce against him an arbitrary exile under the appearance of a mission freely accepted. He sent to request of the Due d'Orleans a meeting at the Marquise de Coigny's, a noble intelligent lady attached to La Fayette, and in whose salon the Due d'Orleans occasionally met him. After a conversation heard by the walls alone, but the result of which showed its tenor, and which Mirabeau, to whom it was communicated, termed very...

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