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Terror it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the lives and property of every man in France lay absolutely at the mercy of the Great Committee, and the means by which it wielded this despotism was terror. France submitted to it because the great majority of Frenchmen realized that only a government which wielded the entire resources of the country could cope with the enemies which surrounded her on every side.* So much it has seemed necessary to say that the influence of the French Revolution in American politics may be more clearly understood.

QUESTIONS.

1. What did the States-General represent?

2. When were they convoked and for what purpose?

3. Give some details that illustrate the oppression of the peasantry.

4. State and describe the three classes into which the French people were divided in 1789.

5. Describe the struggle that took place in the StatesGeneral and state its results.

6. Contrast the action of the States-General with that of the Federal Convention.

7. Mention some characteristics of the constitution adopted in 1789.

1791.

8. In what did the French Revolution of 1789 consist?
9. Why is it called a revolution?

10.

Explain the various causes that led to the Revolution of

11. Why is it called a revolution?

12. Why did Austria and Prussia enter into an alliance against France?

This theory is ably advocated by H. Morse Stephens, to whose volumes on the French Revolution I am greatly indebted.

13.

What was the manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick and

to what result did it lead?

14. What body was summoned to rule France when the King was deposed?

15. How do you account for its conduct in offering to assist any people in Europe that wished to recover their liberties? 16. In what did it result, and why?

17. How did Robespierre purpose to make the wealthier classes in Paris acquiesce in the course of the Revolution?

18. Explain the phrase "Terror was decreed to be the order of the day."

19. What was the Revolutionary Tribunal and how was its activity increased in September 22, and October 29?

20. What caused the men to be thrown into prison who were brought before this tribunal?

21. Describe the relation between the Revolutionary Committees and the Committee of General Security, and the Committee of Public Safety.

22. Who were the deputies on mission?

23. What power did they have during the period of the terror and how did they use it?

24. Why did Frenchmen submit to the despotism of the Committee of Public Safety?

CHAPTER XI.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN AMERICAN POLITICS.

OU remember how keen was the sympathy of good

γου

Maclay on

Revolution.

Senator Maclay with France. France is struggling to be free. *** God grant that she may be successful. And you remember the issue which seemed to him at stake in the strug- the French gle. "Royalty, nobility, and the vile pageantry by which a few of the human race lorded it over their fellow mortals seems likely to be demolished with their kindred Bastile."

With such a conception of the issue, it is easy to see how men of different temperaments in this country would regard it. Men of Hamiltonian temper, in whom the love of stability and order was the pre

dominant passion, who regarded anarchy Hamilton. as the most dangerous enemy of society

and who wished to have a strong central government to prevent it, would be sure to see in the French Revolution an illustration of the natural tendency of democracies. Hamilton said to Edmund Randolph in the fall of 1793: "Sir, if all the people in America were now assembled and were to call on me to say whether I am a friend to the French Revolution, I would declare that I hold it in abhorrence." As Lodge puts it: "He

beheld in France the embodiment of the two forces hateful to him above all others, anarchy and tyranny. He believed the French Revolution to be little less than a crusade against religion, property, organized society and the ordered liberty which he prized more than life itself, while in the foe of France, he saw a kindred people, a strongly governed State, and the sternly temperate freedom in whose principles he had been nurtured.”*

But men of the temperament of Jefferson would be too sure to see it in an entirely different light. The man who said of the wretched government of the Confedera

Jefferson.

tion that to compare it with the governments on the continent of Europe, was like comparing heaven with hell, would be sure to concentrate his attention on one great fact, it was a struggle between institutions in which the tyranny and oppressions of centuries had intrenched themselves and the right of self government, the right which he believed to be essential to the progress of the human race. "God send," he wrote in 1792, "that all the nations who join in attacking the liberties of France, may end in the attainment of their own." And in speaking of the September massacre, he wrote: "In the struggle which was necessary many guilty persons fell without the form of a trial, and with them, some innocent. These I deplore as much as anybody, and shall deplore some of them to the day of my death. But I deplore them as I should have done

*Studies in American History, p. 182.

had they fallen in battle. It was necessary to use the arm of the people, a machine not so blind as balls and bombs, but blind to a certain degree. * * * The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood? My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause, but rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated; were there but an Adam and Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than it is now."

And Gallatin writing to an intimate friend February 1, 1794, when the Reign of Terror was at its height, said: "France at present offers a spectacle unheard of at any other period. Enthusiasm there produces an energy equally terrible and sublime. All those virtues which depend upon social or fam

ily affections, all those amiable weaknesses, Gallatin. which our natural feelings teach us to

love or respect, have disappeared before the stronger, the only, at present, powerful passion, the amor patriæ. I must confess my soul is not enough steeled, not sometimes to shrink at the dreadful executions which have restored at least apparent internal tranquility to that republic. Yet, upon the whole, as long as the combined despots press upon every frontier and employ every engine to destroy and distress the interior parts, I think they, and they alone, are answerable for every

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