书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
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第513章

[106] Duvergier, "Collection des lois et décrets," Aug. 11-12. "The natgional Assembly considering that it has not the right to subject sovereignty in the formation of a national Convention to imperative regulations, . . . invites citizens to conform to the following rules."[107] August 11 (article 8)[108] Aug. 10-12 and Aug. 28.

[109] Ibid., Aug. 10, Aug. 13. - Cf. Moniteur, XIII. 399 (session of Aug. 12).

[110] Ibid., Aug. 18.

[111] Aug. 23 and Sep. 3. After the 11th of August the Assembly passes a decree releasing Saint-Huruge and annulling the warrant against Antoine.

[112] Ibid., Aug. 14.

[113] Ibid., Aug. 14. Decree for dividing the property of the émigrés into lots of from two to four arpents, in order to "multiply small proprietors." -- Ibid., Sept. 2. Other decrees against the émigrés and their relations, Aug. 14, 23, 30, and Sept. 5 and 9.

[114] Ibid., Aug. 26. Other decrees against the ecclesiastics or the property of the church, Aug. 17, 18, 19, and Sept. 9 and 19.

[115] Ibid., Sept. 20.

[116] Imagine the impression these last lines may have upon any ardent, ambitious and arrogant young man who, like Lenin in 1907, would have read this between 1893 and 1962, date of the last English reprinting of Taine's once widely know work. They summed up both what had to be done and who would be the primary beneficiaries of the revolution. Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini and countless other young hopeful political men. Read it once more and ask yourself if much of this program has not been more or less surreptitiously carried out in most western countries after the second world war? (SR).

[117] Malouet, II. 241.

[118] Mercure de France, July 21, 1792.

[119] "Révolutions de Paris," XIII. 137.

[120] Mallet du Pan. "Mémoires," I. 322. Letters to Mallet du Pan.

Aug. 4 and following days.

[121] Buchez et Roux, XVI. 446. Pétion's narrative. -- Arnault, "Souvenirs d'un ***agénaire," I. 342. (An eye-witness on the 10th of August.) "The massacre extended but little beyond the Carrousel, and did not cross the Seine. Everywhere else I found a population as quiet as if nothing had happened. Inside the city the people scarcely manifested any surprise; dancing went on in the public gardens. In the Marais, where I lived then, there was only a suspicion of the occurrence, the same as at Saint-Germain; it was said that something was going on in Paris, and the evening newspaper was impatiently looked for to know what it was."[122] Moore, I. 122. -- The same thing is observable at other crises in the Revolution. On the 6th of October, 1789 (Sainte-Beuve, "Causeries du Lundi," XII. 461), Sénac de Meilhan at an evening reception hears the following conversations: "'Did you see the king pass?' asks one. 'No, I was at the theater.' 'Did Molé play?' -- 'As for myself; I was obliged to stay in the Tuileries; there was no way of getting out before 9 o'clock.' 'You saw the king pass then?' 'Icould not see very well; it was dark.' -- Another says: 'It must have taken six hours for him to come from Versailles.' -- Others coolly add a few details. -- To continue: 'Will you take a hand at whist?' 'Iwill play after supper, which is just ready.' Cannon are heard, and then a few whisperings, and a transient moment of depression,. 'The king is leaving the H?tel-de-ville. They must be very tired.' Supper is taken and there are snatches of conversation. They play trente et quarante and while walking about watching the game and their cards they do some talking: 'What a horrid affair!' while some speak together briefly and in a low tone of voice. The clock strikes two and they all leave or go to bed. -- These people seem to you insensible.

Very well; there is not one of them who would not accept death at the king's feet." -- On the 23d of June, 1791, at the news of the king's arrest at Varennes, "the Bois de Boulogne and the Champs Elysées were filled with people talking in a frivolous way about the most serious matters, while young men are seen, pronouncing sentences of death in their frolics with courtesans." (Mercure de France, July 9, 1791. It begins with a little piece entitled Dépit d'un Amant.) - See ch. XI.

for the sentiment of the population in May and June, 1793.

[123] Moniteur, XIII. 290 (July 29) and 278 (July 30).

[124] "Archives Nationales," F7, 145. Letter of Santerre to the Minister of the Interior, Sept. 16, 1792, with the daily list of all the men that have left Paris between the3rd and 15th of September, the total amounting to 18,635, of which 15,504 are volunteers. Other letters from the same, indicating subsequent departures: Sept. 17, 1,071 men; none the following days until Sept. 21, 243; 22nd 150; up to the 26th, 813; on Oct. 1st, 113; 2nd and 3rd, 1,088 ; 4th, 1620;16th, 196, etc. -- I believe that amongst those who leave, some are passing through Paris coming from the provinces; this prevents an exact calculation of the number of Parisian volunteers. M. de Lavalette, himself a volunteer, says 60,000; but he furnishes not proofs of this.

[125] Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 362.

[126] Soulavie, "Vie privée du Maréchal duc de Richelieu," IX. 384. -- "One can scarcely comprehend," says Lafayette, (Mémoires," I. 454), "how the Jacobin minority and a gang of pretended Marseilles men could render themselves masters of Paris, while almost the whole of the 40,000 citizens forming the national guard desired the Constitution."[127] Hua, 169.

[128] Moniteur, XIII. 437. (session of Aug. 16, the applause reiterated and the speech ordered to be printed).

[129] These words should cause society to change resulting in a leveling of incomes through proportional taxation and aids of all kinds throughout the industrialized world. Nobody could ever imagine the immense wealth which was to be produced by the efficient industry of the 20th century. (SR).