Category: History - Other
The magnitude of an event is too apt to lie with its reporter, and the reporter often fails in his sense of historical proportion. The nearer he is to the event the more authority he has as a witness, but the less authority as a judge. It is time alone can establish the relati...
The magnitude of an event is too apt to lie with its reporter, and the reporter often fails in his sense of historical proportion. The nearer he is to the event the more authori...
2. Chapter 2At the close of the 18th century France had more nearly reached her growth than any of her great European rivals; she was far more like the France of to-day, than might at first...
3. Chapter 3Even under such conditions the Bourbon monarchy might have survived much longer had it not failed badly at one specific point. Napoleon himself declared that it was in its finan...
4. Chapter 4Louis XVI, grandson of Louis XV, came to the throne in 1774. He showed some, but not all, of the characteristics of his family. He was of sluggish intelligence, and extremely sl...
5. Chapter 5At the beginning of May, twelve hundred and fourteen representatives of France reached Versailles. Of these, six hundred and twenty-one, more than half, belonged to the Third Es...
6. Chapter 6The effect of the insurrection of Paris was immediate. Besenval, lacking instructions and intimidated by the violence of the rising, held his troops back; while Louis, shrinking...
7. Chapter 7In the preceding chapter, stress has been laid on the economic causes that had led to the rooting up of the Bourbons from Versailles; in this one the political significance of t...
8. Chapter 8On the 14th of July 1790 was held the first great festival of the Revolution, the federation of the national guards at the Champ de Mars in Paris. Federation was the name that h...
9. Chapter 9From the 25th of June to the 17th of July the conflict between the middle class and the democratic party continued with great intensity. Louis was, in reality, less the object t...
10. Chapter 10The event of the 20th of June was like lightning flashing in darkness. Instantly people saw where they were. Moderate, loyal, reasonable men, startled at the danger of the King,...
11. Chapter 11Brunswick, pushing on from Verdun into the defiles of the Argonne, had two armies operating against him, trying to stop his march; the one under Dumouriez, the other under Kelle...
12. Chapter 12The disappearance of Louis XVI from the scene left the Mountain and the Gironde face to face, to wage their faction fight, a fight to the knife; while France in her armies more...
13. Chapter 13For six weeks after the fall of the Gironde, until the 13th of July, the course of events in France, both in Paris and in the provinces, reflected the bitterness of the two fact...
14. Chapter 14Danton had fallen fast in popularity and influence since the moment when, after the fall of the Gironde, he had appeared to dominate the situation. On the 12th of October, weary...
15. Chapter 15It is hard when considering the extraordinary features of the reign of terror, to realize that in some directions it was accomplishing a useful purpose. If the Revolution had be...
16. Chapter 16With the Directoire the Revolution enters its last phase, and with that phase all readers of history connect certain well-marked external characteristics, extravagance of dress,...
17. Chapter 17French literature has great names before 1789, and after 1815. Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, to mention only the giants, wrote before the Revolution; and, Chateaubriand, Thiers,...