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When I describe the real study of the Revolution as beginning with Tocqueville and Ternaux, I mean the study of it in the genuine and official sources. Memoirs, of course, abounded. There are more than a hundred. But memoirs do not supply the certainty of history. Certainty comes with the means of control, and there is no controlling or testing memoirs without the contemporary document. Down to the middle of the century, private letters and official documents were rare. Then, in the early summer of 1851, two important collections appeared within a few weeks of each other.
First came the Memoirs of Mallet du Pan, a liberal, independent, and discerning observer, whom, apart from the gift of style, Taine compares to Burke, and who, like Burke, went over to the other side.
This was followed by Mirabeau's Secret Correspondence with the Court. His prevarication and double-dealing as a popular leader in the pay of the king had long been known. At least twenty persons were in the secret. One man, leaving Paris hurriedly, left one paper, the most important of all, lying about in his room. Unmistakable allusions were found among the contents of the Iron Chest. One of the ministers told the story in his Memoirs, and a letter belonging to the series was printed in 1827. La Marck, just before his death, showed the papers to Montigny, who gave an account of them in his work on Mirabeau, and Droz moreover knew the main facts from Malouet when he wrote in 1842. For us the interest of the publication lies not in the exposure of what was already known, but in the details of his tortuous and ingenious policy during his last year of life, and of his schemes to save the king and the constitution. For the revolutionary party, the posthumous avowal of so much treachery was like the story of the monk who, dying with the fame of a saint, rose under the shroud during the funeral service, and confessed before his brethren that he had lived and died an unrepentant hypocrite.
Still, no private papers could make up for the silence of the public archives; and the true secrets of government, diplomacy and war, remained almost intact until 1865. The manner in which they came to be exhumed is the most curious transaction in the progress of revolutionary history. It was a consequence of the passion for autographs and the collector's craze. Seventy thousand autographs were sold by auction in Paris in the twenty-eight years from 1822 to 1850. From the days of the Restoration no letters were more eagerly sought and prized than those of the queen. Royalist society regarded her as an august, heroic, and innocent victim, and attributed the ruin of the monarchy to the neglect of her high-minded counsels. It became a lucrative occupation to steal letters that bore her signature, in order to sell them to wealthy purchasers. Prices rose steadily. A letter of the year 1784, which fetched fifty-two francs in 1850, was sold for one hundred and seven in 1857, and for one hundred and fifty in 1861. In 1844 one was bought for two hundred francs, and another for three hundred and thirty. A letter to the Princess de Lamballe, which fetched seven hundred francs in 1860, went up to seven hundred and sixty in 1865, when suspicion was beginning to stir. In all, forty-one letters from the queen to Mme. de Lamballe have been in the market, and not one of them was genuine. When it became worth while to steal, it was still more profitable to forge, for then there was no limit to the supply.
In her lifetime the queen was aware that hostile emigres imitated her hand. Three such letters were published in 1801 in a worthless book called Madame de Lamballe's Memoirs. Such forgeries came into the market from the year 1822. The art was carried to the point that it defied detection, and the credulity of the public was insatiable. In Germany a man imitated Schiller's writing so perfectly that Schiller's daughter bought his letters as fast as they could be produced. At Paris the nefarious trade became active about 1839.
On March 15, 1861, a facsimilist, Betbeder, issued a challenge, undertaking to execute autographs that it would be impossible to detect, by paper, ink, handwriting, or text. The trial came off in the presence of experts, and in April 1864 they pronounced that his imitations could not be distinguished from originals. In those days there was a famous mathematician whose name was Chasles. He was interested in the history of geometry, and also in the glory of France, and a clever genealogist saw his opportunity. He produced letters from which it appeared that some of Newton's discoveries had been anticipated by Frenchmen who had been robbed of their due fame. M. Chasles bought them, with a patriotic disregard for money; and he continued to buy, from time to time, all that the impostor, Vrain Lucas, offered him. He laid his documents before the Institute, and the Institute declared them genuine. There were autograph letters from Alexander to Aristotle, from Caesar to Vercingetorix, from Lazarus to St. Peter, from Mary Magdalen to Lazarus. The fabricator's imagination ran riot, and he produced a fragment in the handwriting of Pythagoras, showing that Pythagoras wrote in bad French. At last other learned men, who did not love Chasles, tried to make him understand that he had been befooled. When the iniquity came to light, and the culprit was sent to prison, he had flourished for seven years, had made several thousand pounds, and had found a market for 27,000 unblushing forgeries.
About the time when this mysterious manufacture was thriving, Count Hunolstein bought one hundred and forty-eight letters from Marie Antoinette, of a Paris dealer, for L3400, and he published them in June 1864. Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugenie, whose policy it was to conciliate legitimists whom the Italian Revolution offended, exhibited a cultivated interest in the memory of the unhappy queen; and it happened that a high official of their Court, M. Feuillet de Conches, was zealous in the same cause. He began his purchases as early as 1830, and had obtained much from the Thermidorean, Courtois, who had had Robespierre's papers in his hands. Wachsmuth, who went to Paris in 1840 to prepare his historical work, reported in German reviews on the value of Feuillet's collection; and in 1843 he was described as the first of French autographophiles—the term is not of my coining. It was known that he meditated a publication on the royal family. He travelled all over Europe, and was admitted to make transcripts and facsimiles in many places that were jealously guarded against intruders. His first volume appeared two months later than Hunolstein's, and his second in September. During that summer and autumn royalism was the fashion, and enjoyed a season of triumph. Twenty-four letters were common to both collections; and as they did not literally agree, troublesome people began to ask questions.
The one man able to answer them was Arneth, then deputy keeper of the archives at Vienna, who was employed laying down the great history of Maria Theresa that has made him famous. For the letters written by Marie Antoinette to her mother and her family had been religiously preserved, and were in his custody. Before the end of the year Arneth produced the very words of the letters, as the Empress received them; and then it was discovered that they were quite different from those which had been printed at Paris.
An angry controversy ensued, and in the end it became certain that most of Hunolstein's edition, and part of Feuillet's, was fabricated by an impostor. It was whispered that the supposed originals sold by Charavay, the dealer, to Hunolstein came to him from Feuillet de Conches. Sainte Beuve, who had been taken in at first, and had applauded, thereupon indignantly broke off his acquaintance, and published the letter in which he did it. Feuillet became more wary. His four later volumes are filled with matter of the utmost value; and his large collection of the illegible autographs of Napoleon were sold for L1250 and are now at The Durdans.
It is in this way that the roguery of a very dexterous thief resulted in the opening of the imperial archives, in which the authentic records of the Revolution are deposited. For the emperors, Joseph and Leopold, were the queen's brothers; her sister was regent in the Low Countries, the family ambassador was in her confidence, and the events that brought on the great war, and the war itself, under Clerfayt, Coburg, and the Archduke Charles, can be known there and there only. Once opened, Arneth never afterwards allowed the door to be closed on students. He published many documents himself, he encouraged his countrymen to examine his treasures, and he welcomed, and continues to welcome, the scholars of Berlin. Thirty or forty volumes of Austrian documents, which were brought to light by the act of the felonious Frenchman, constitute our best authority for the inner and outer history of the Revolution and of the time that preceded it. The French Foreign Office is less communicative. The papers of their two ablest diplomatists, Barthelemy and Talleyrand, have been made public, besides those of Fersen, Maury, Vaudreuil, and many emigres; and the letters of several deputies to their constituents are now coming out.
Next to the Austrian, the most valuable of the diplomatists are the Americans, the Venetians, and the Swede, for he was the husband of Necker's illustrious daughter. This change in the centre of gravity which went on between 1865 and 1885 or 1890, besides directing renewed attention to international affairs, considerably reduced the value of the memoirs on which the current view of our history was founded. For memoirs are written afterwards for the world, and are clever, apologetic, designing and deceitful. Letters are written at the moment, and are confidential, and therefore they enable us to test the truth of the memoirs. In the first place, we find that many of them are not authentic, or are not by the reputed author. What purports to be the memoirs of Prince Hardenberg is the composition of two well-informed men of letters, Beauchamp and d'Allouville. Beauchamp also wrote the book known as the Memoirs of Fouche. Those of Robespierre are by Reybaud, and those of Barras by Rousselin. Roche wrote the memoirs of Levasseur de la Sarthe, and Lafitte those of Fleury. Clery, the king's confidential valet, left a diary which met with such success that somebody composed his pretended memoirs. Six volumes attributed to Sanson, the executioner, are of course spurious.
When Weber's Memoirs were republished in the long collection of Baudoin, Weber protested and brought an action. The defendant denied his claim, and produced evidence to prove that the three first chapters are by Lally Tollendal. It does not always follow that the book is worthless because the title-page assigns it to a man who is not the author. The real author very often is not to be trusted. Malouet is one of those men, very rare in history, whose reputation rises the more we know him; and Dumont of Geneva was a sage observer, the confidant, and often the prompter, of Mirabeau. Both are misleading, for they wrote long after, and their memory is constantly at fault. Dumouriez wrote to excuse his defection, and Talleyrand to cast a decent veil over actions which were injurious to him at the Restoration. The Necker family are exasperating, because they are generally wrong in their dates. Madame Campan wished to recover her position, which the fall of the Empire had ruined. Therefore some who had seen her manuscript have affirmed that the suppressed passages were adverse to the queen; for the same reason that, in the Fersen correspondence, certain expressions are omitted and replaced by suspicious asterisks. Ferrieres has always been acknowledged as one of the most trustworthy witnesses. It is he who relates that, at the first meeting after the oath, the deputies were excluded from the tennis-court in order that the Count d'Artois might play a match. We now find, from the letters of a deputy recently published, that the story of this piece of insolence is a fable. The clergy had made known that they were coming, and it was thought unworthy of such an occasion to receive a procession of ecclesiastics in a tennis-court; so the deputies adjourned to a neighbouring church.
Montlosier, who was what Burke called a man of honour and a cavalier, tells us that his own colleague from Auvergne was nearly killed in a duel, and kept his bed for three months. Biauzat, the fellow-townsman of the wounded man, writes home that he was absent from the Assembly only ten days. The point of the matter is that the adversary whose hand inflicted the wound was Montlosier himself.
The narrative which Madame Roland drew up in prison, as an appeal to posterity, is not a discreet book, but it does not reveal the secret of her life. It came out in 1863, when three or four letters were put up for sale at auction, and when, shortly after, a miniature, with something written on it, was found amid the refuse of a greengrocer's shop. They were the letters of Madame Roland, which Buzot had sent to a place of safety before he went out and shot himself; and the miniature was her portrait, which he had worn in his flight.
Bertrand, the Minister of Marine, relates that the queen sent to the emperor to learn what he would do for their deliverance, and he publishes the text of the reply which came back. For a hundred years that document has been accepted as the authentic statement of Leopold's intentions. It was the document which the messenger brought back, but not the reply which the emperor gave. That reply, very different from the one that has misled every historian, was discovered by Arneth, and was published two years ago by Professor Lenz, who lectures on the Revolution to the fortunate students of Berlin. Sybel inserted it in his review, and rewrote Lenz's article, which upset an essential part of his own structure.
The Marquis de Bouille wrote his recollections in 1797, to clear himself from responsibility for the catastrophe of Varennes. The correspondence, preserved among Fersen's papers, shows that the statements in his Memoirs are untrue. He says that he wished the king to depart openly, as Mirabeau had advised; that he recommended the route by Rheims, which the king rejected; and that he opposed the line of military posts, which led to disaster. The letters prove that he advised secret departure, the route of Varennes, and the cavalry escort.
* * * * *
The general characteristic of the period I am describing has been the breakdown of the Memoirs, and our emancipation from the authority of the writers who depended on them. That phase is represented by the three historians, Sybel, Taine, and Sorel. They distanced their predecessors, because they were able to consult much personal, and much diplomatic, correspondence. They fell short of those who were to come, because they were wanting in official information.
Sybel was Ranke's pupil, and he had learnt in the study of the Middle Ages, which he disliked, to root out the legend and the fable and the lie, and to bring history within the limits of evidence. In early life he exploded the story of Peter the Hermit and his influence on the Crusades, and in the same capacity it was he who exposed the fabrication of the queen's letters. Indeed he was so sturdy a critic that he scorned to read the fictitious Hardenberg, although the work contains good material. He more than shared the unspiritual temper of the school, and fearing alike the materialistic and the religious basis of history, he insisted on confining it to affairs of state. Having a better eye for institutions than his master, and an intellect adapted to affairs, he was one of the first to turn from the study of texts to modern times and burning questions. In erudition and remote research he fully equalled those who were scholars and critics, and nothing else; but his tastes called him to a different career. He said of himself that he was three parts a politician, so that only the miserable remnant composed the professor. Sybel approached the Revolution through Burke, with essays on his French and Irish policy. He stood firmly to the doctrine that men are governed by descent, that the historic nation prevails invincibly over the actual nation, that we cannot cast off our pedigree. Therefore the growth of things in Prussia seemed to him to be almost normal, and acceptable in contrast with the condition of a people which attempted to constitute itself according to its own ideas. Political theory as well as national antagonism allowed him no sympathy with the French, and no wonder he is generally under-estimated in France. He stands aloof from the meridian of Paris, and meditates high up in Central Europe on the conflagration of 1789, and the trouble it gave to the world in general. The distribution of power in France moves him less than the distribution of power in Europe, and he thinks forms of government less important than expansion of frontier. He describes the fall of Robespierre as an episode in the partition of Poland. His endeavour is to assign to the Revolution its place in international history.
Once it was said, in disparagement of Niebuhr and other historians, that when you ask a German for a black coat he offers you a white sheep, and leaves you to effect the transformation yourself. Sybel belongs to a later age, and can write well, but heavily, and without much light or air. His introduction, published in 1853, several years before the volume of Tocqueville, has so much in common with it, that it was suggested that he might have read the earlier article by Tocqueville, which John Mill translated for the Westminster Review. But Sybel assured me that he had not seen it. He had obtained access to important papers, and when he became a great public personage, everything was laid open before him. In diplomatic matters he is very far ahead of all other writers, except Sorel. Having been an opposition leader, and what in Prussia is called a Liberal, he went over to Bismarck, and wrote the history of the new German Empire under his inspiration, until the Emperor excluded him from the archives, of which, for many active years, he had been the head. His five volumes, not counting various essays written in amplification or defence, stand, in the succession of histories, by dint of constant revision, at a date near the year 1880. For a time they occupied the first place. In successive editions errors were weeded out as fast as they could be found; and yet, even in the fourth, Mounier, who, as everybody knows, was elected for Dauphine, is called the deputy from Provence. Inasmuch as he loves neither Thiers nor Sieyes, Sybel declares it absurd to compare, as Thiers has done, the Constitution of 1799 to the British Constitution. In the page alluded to, one of the most thoughtful in the Consulate and Empire, Thiers is so far from putting the work of Sieyes on the British level, that his one purpose is to display the superiority of a government which is the product of much experiment and incessant adaptation to the artificial outcome of political logic.
Sybel's view is that the Revolution went wrong quite naturally, that the new order was no better than the old, because it proceeded from the old, rose from an exhausted soil, and was worked by men nurtured in the corruption of the old regime. He uses the Revolution to exhibit the superiority of conservative and enlightened Germany. And as there is little to say in favour of Prussia, which crowned an inglorious war by an inglorious peace, he produced his effect by piling up to the utmost the mass of French folly and iniquity. And with all its defects, it is a most instructive work. A countryman, who had listened to Daniel Webster's Bunker Hill oration, described it by saying that every word weighed a pound. Almost the same thing might be said of Sybel's history, not for force of language or depth of thought, but by reason of the immense care with which every passage was considered and all the evidence weighed. The author lived to see himself overtaken and surpassed, for internal history by Taine, and for foreign affairs by Sorel.
Taine was trained in the systems of Hegel and Comte, and his fundamental dogma was the denial of free will and the absolute dominion of physical causes over the life of mankind. A violent effort to shape the future by intention and design, and not by causes that are in the past, seemed to him the height of folly. The idea of starting fresh, from the morrow of creation, of emancipating the individual from the mass, the living from the dead, was a defiance of the laws of nature. Man is civilised and trained by his surroundings, his ancestry, his nationality, and must be adapted to them. The natural man, whom the Revolution discovered and brought to the surface, is, according to Taine, a vicious and destructive brute, not to be tolerated unless caught young, and perseveringly disciplined and controlled.
Taine is not a historian, but a pathologist, and his work, the most scientific we possess, and in part the most exhaustive, is not history. By his energy in extracting formulas and accumulating knowledge, by the crushing force with which he masses it to sustain conclusions, he is the strongest Frenchman of his time, and his indictment is the weightiest that was ever drawn up. For he is no defender of the Monarchy or of the Empire, and his cruel judgments are not dictated by party. His book is one of the ablest that this generation has produced. It is no substitute for history. The consummate demonstrator, concentrated on the anatomy of French brains, renounces much that we need to be told, and is incompetent as to the literature and the general affairs of Europe. Where Taine failed Sorel has magnificently succeeded, and he has occupied the vacant place both at the Academy and in his undisputed primacy among writers on the Revolution. He is secretary to the Senate, and is not an abstract philosopher, but a politician, curious about things that get into newspapers and attract the public gaze. Instead of investigating the human interior, he is on the look-out across the Alps and beyond the Rhine, writing, as it were, from the point of view of the Foreign Office. He is at his best when his pawns are diplomatists. In the process of home politics, and the development of political ideas, he does not surpass those who went before him. Coming after Sybel, he is somewhat ahead of him in documentary resource. He is more friendly to the principles of the Revolution, without being an apologist, and is more cheerful, more sanguine, and pleasanter to read. A year ago I said that, Sybel and Taine being dead, Sorel is our highest living authority. To-day I can no longer use those words.
On Ranke's ninetieth birthday, Mommsen paid him this compliment: "You are probably the last of the universal historians. Undoubtedly you are the first." This fine saying was double-edged, and intended to disparage general histories; but it is with a general history that I am going to conclude what I have to say on the literature of the Revolution. In the eighth volume of the General History, now appearing in France, Aulard gives the political outline of the Revolution. It may be called the characteristic product of the year 1889. When the anniversary came round, for the hundredth time, and found the Republic securely established, and wielding a power never dreamed of by the founders, men began to study its history in a new spirit. Vast pains and vast sums were expended in collecting, arranging, printing, the most authentic and exact information; and there was less violence and partiality, more moderation and sincerity, as became the unresisted victor. In this new school the central figure was M. Aulard. He occupies the chair of revolutionary history at Paris; he is the head of the society for promoting it; the editor of the review, La Revolution, now in its thirty-first volume; and he has published the voluminous acts of the Jacobin Club and of the Committee of Public Safety. Nobody has ever known the printed material better than he, and nobody knows the unpublished material so well. The cloven hoof of party preference appears in a few places. He says that the people wrought vengeance after the manner of their kings; and he denies the complicity of Danton in the crimes of September. As Danton himself admitted his guilt to no less a witness than the future king of the French, this is a defiance of a main rule of criticism that a man shall be condemned out of his own mouth. Aulard's narrative is not complete, and lacks detail; but it is intelligent and instructive beyond all others, and shows the standard that has been reached by a century of study.
Where then do we now stand, and what is the elevation that enables us to look down on men who, the other day, were high authorities? We are at the end, or near the end, of the supply of Memoirs; few are known to exist in manuscript. Apart from Spain, we are advanced in respect of diplomatic and international correspondence; and there is abundant private correspondence, from Fersen downwards. But we are only a little way in the movement for the production of the very acts of the government of revolutionary France.
To give you an idea of what that means. Thirty years ago the Cahiers, or Instructions, of 1789 were published in six large volumes. The editors lamented that they had not found everything, and that a dozen cahiers were missing in four provinces. The new editor, in his two volumes of introduction, knows of 120 instructions that were overlooked by his predecessors in those four regions alone; and he says that there were 50,000 in the whole of France. One collection is coming out on the Elections for Paris, another on the Paris Electors, that is, the body entrusted with the choice of deputies, who thereupon took over the municipal government of the city and made themselves permanent. Then there is the series of the acts of the Commune, of the several governing committees, of the Jacobins, of the war department, and seven volumes on Vendee alone.
In a few years all these publications will be completed, and all will be known that ever can be known. Perhaps some one will then compose a history as far beyond the latest that we possess as Sorel, Aulard, Rambaud, Flammermont are in advance of Taine and Sybel, or Taine and Sybel of Michelet and Louis Blanc; or of the best that we have in English, the three chapters in the second volume of Buckle, or the two chapters in the fifth volume of Lecky. In that golden age our historians will be sincere, and our history certain. The worst will be known, and then sentence need not be deferred. With the fulness of knowledge the pleader's occupation is gone, and the apologist is deprived of his bread. Mendacity depended on concealment of evidence. When that is at an end, fable departs with it, and the margin of legitimate divergence is narrowed.
Don't let us utter too much evil of party writers, for we owe them much. If not honest, they are helpful, as the advocates aid the judge; and they would not have done so well from the mere inspiration of disinterested veracity. We might wait long if we watched for the man who knows the whole truth and has the courage to speak it, who is careful of other interests besides his own, and labours to satisfy opponents, who can be liberal towards those who have erred, who have sinned, who have failed, and deal evenly with friend and foe—assuming that it would be possible for an honest historian to have a friend.
INDEX
Adams, John, 23
Agra, bishop of, 308-9
Aiguillon, Duc de, 99, 154
Alsace, 206, 208, 211
Amsterdam, 329
Anglas, Boissy d', 293, 337-8
Archives, Austrian, 364
Argenson, d', 8-9
Argenteau, Mercy, 147
Armand, Colonel, the Marquis de la Rouerie, 302-3
Arneth, 364
Artois, Comte d', 59, 69, 178-9, 204, 339
Auckland, Lord, 320
Aulard, 371-2
Baillon, 183, 187, 189
Bailly, 71, 74, 88
Bale, peace of, 327
Barante, 355
Barbaroux, 267
Barentin, 55
Barere, 99, 117, 257, 273, 289, 295, 332, 335
Barnave, 91-3, 109, 191, 195, 200
Barras, 298, 344
Barthelemy, 337, 365
Bastille, 84, 85
Batz, Baron de, 354
Baudot, 280
Bazire, 271
Beaumetz, 128
Becard, 85
Beccaria, 18
Belgium, 330
Bentham, 106
Bernier, 307-9
Bertrand, 246
Besenval, 84
Beurnonville, 217
Billaud-Varennes, 284, 274, 280-2, 294-5, 333-5
Blanc, Louis, 349-50
Bonchamps, Marquis de, 305, 310-312 ff.
Bordeaux, archbishop of, 102
Bouille, Marquis de, 174-5, 181, 367
Bouille, de, the younger, 185
Bourbon, House of, 260, 337, 340
Bourdon, 298
Breteuil, 83, 175, 231
Bridport, Lord, 339
Brissot, 205, 209, 226, 243, 259
Broglie, Marshal de, 80
Brunswick, Duke of, 211, 231
Brussels, 221
Burke, Edmund, 29, 31, 126, 183, 204, 213
Buzot, 249, 267, 334, 367
Cabanis, 268
Calonne, 45, 178-9
Cambaceres, 274, 299, 337, 341
Cambon, 293-4
Campan, Madame, 128
Camus, 105
Carlyle, 358
Carnac, 339
Carnot, 258, 274, 290, 318, 324-6, 334
Carnot the younger, 359
Carrier, 93, 315, 333, 334
Cassagnac, Granier de, 349
Castlereagh, Lord, 324
Cathelineau, 304, 308, 310-11
Cazales, 75, 110, 193
Cerutti, 92
Chabot, 264
Charette, 237, 304, 307, 310-14, 335, 339-40
Charleroi, 328
Charles, Archduke, 328
Chartres, Duc de, 257
Chateaubriand, 115, 348, 353
Chatelet, Duc de, 101
Chatham, 26-7
Chaumette, 272, 276-7, 278, 280
Chauvelin, 318-19
Choiseul, Duc de, 181, 185
Cholet, battle of, 313
Chouans, Chouannerie, 302, 303, 339-340
Clerfayt, 216-17, 221-2
Clermont, Count Tonnerre de, 82, 98, 102, 230
Clermont, 188-90
Cloots, Anacharsis, 277
Coburg, Prince of, 320, 325-6, 328
Coffinhal, 294, 297, 299
Collot, 289, 292
Conde, 325
Condorcet, 261, 267-8
Cook, Captain, 149
Corday, Charlotte, 265-7, 349
Cordeliers, the, 128, 227, 229
Cormatin, 335, 341
Corsica, 322
Cottereau, 302
Courier, Paul Louis, 348
Courmenin, 354
Couthon, 286, 297-8
Croker, 350
Custine, 220, 253
Cuvier, 357
Damas, 188, 189, 191
Danton, 84, 226, 234, 238, 241, 242-4, 257, 261, 273-8, 282-3, 318, 349, 352, 372
Dareste, 359
Daunou, 341
Delauney, 85, 86
Delessart, 202, 208-9
Desaix, 325
Deseze, 252
Desmoulins, Camille, 84, 226, 248, 280, 282
Diderot, 31
Domat, 2
Dreux-Breze, 74
Drouet, 186-8, 191-2
Droz, 346-7, 350
Dumouriez, 209, 215, 221, 222-3, 262, 319, 366
Dunkirk, 320, 326
Dupont de Nemours, 51, 62, 116
Duport, 98, 99, 100, 155
Egalite, Prince, 221
Eglantine, Fabre de, 277
Elbee, de, 303, 305
Elizabeth, Princess, 181, 246
Emigres, the, 129, 178, 201, 240, 260, 313-14, 338-40
Estaing, Count, 127, 136
Favras, Marquis de, 145
Federes, the, 229
Fenelon, 3, 4
Fersen, Count, 176, 182-4, 188, 206, 213, 365-7
Feuillants, 194, 226, 230
Fleurus, battle of, 290, 328
Fontenoy, Madame de, her note to Tallien, 293
Fouche, 289 ff., 324
Foulon, 90
Fouquier-Tinville, 332, 335
Fox, 259, 320
Francis, king of Hungary, 209
Franklin, 126
Frederic William, 211, 219
Freron, 226
Gabourd, Amedee, 354
Garat, 254
Genoude, 353
George III., 202, 259, 320, 329
Gobel, 171, 277
Godoy, Manuel, 329
Goethe, 218
Goguelat, 189
Gouvion, General, 182-3
Gower, Lord, 155, 318
Gregoire, bishop of Blois, 171, 278
Grenville, 318, 320
Guadeloupe, 322
Guizot, 355
Gustavus III., 178
Guyot, bishop of Agra, 309
Hamilton, Alexander, 34, 36
Hanriot, 295-6, 299
Hauranne, Duvergier de, 357, 359-60
Hayti, island of, 322
Hebert, 272, 276, 281
Herbois, Collot de, 247, 274, 295, 333-335
Hervilly, de, 236, 238, 338
Hoche, 244
Hohenlohe, 329
Holland, 260, 329
Hood, Lord, 315
Howe, Lord, 322
Hunolstein, 363
Isnard, 205, 228, 337
Jansenists, the, 2, 169
Jefferson, 92, 126
Jourdan, 326, 328
Joyeuse, Villaret, 322-3
Jurieu, 2
Kaiserslautern, battle of, 329
Kaunitz, 126, 203, 207-8, 212
Kellermann, 217-28
Kleber, 312-13, 314, 325
Klopstock, 126
Korff, Madame de, 184
Kozsiusko and the Polish insurrection, 328
Laboulaye, 359-360
Lafayette, General, 32, 38, 88, 124, 130, 134, 137, 152, 182, 183, 196, 201, 229-30, 233
Lally Tollendal, 88, 90-91, 101, 110, 143, 230, 346
La Marck, 131, 147, 155
Lamartine, 345, 347-8
Lamballe, Princess de, 245
Lameth, 109, 155
Lanfrey, 360
Langres, bishop of, 111, 118, 133
La Jaunaye, treaty of, 335
Lanjuinais, 103, 144, 252, 261, 264, 337, 340
Lasource, 262
Latour Maubourg, 191
Lavallee, 359
Lavergne, 215
Lavoisier, 91
Lecointre, 333
Legendre, 226, 228, 264, 298, 333
Leonard, 181, 185, 188
Leopold, 177-8, 202-3, 208, 367
Le Quesnoy, 326
Lescure, 305, 308, 311, 313-15
Lewis XIV., 337
Lewis XVI., 40-43, 49, 72, 75, 87, 89, 118, 140, 170, 180-90, 195, 198, 204, 206, 227, 228, 231, 232, 233-5, 236-7, 242, 251-3, 255, 346
Lewis XVII., 338
Lewis XVIII., 313, 339
Liancourt, Duc de Rochefoucauld, 87, 233
Limon, 213
Longwy, 215, 242
Louchet, 332
Louis Philippe, 223
Louvet, 250
Lubbock, Sir John, 352
Lubersac, bishop of Chartres, 100, 159
Luckner, General, 229
Luxemburg, Duke of, 61
Lyons, 315, 327
Machault, 42
Mack, Colonel, 325
Mailhe, 251
Maillane, Durand de, 293, 295
Maillard, 129, 131-2, 244
Malesherbes, 42, 252
Mallet du Pan, 212, 361
Malmesbury, 328
Malouet, 51, 54, 230, 346, 366
Mandat, 235
Mantua, 178, 179
Manuel, 248
Marat, 93, 113, 128, 226, 241, 262, 266, 333-5, 353
Marceau, 312, 325
Maret, 275, 319
Marie Antoinette, 55, 59, 131, 138, 140, 141-2, 177-8, 197, 180, 200, 206-7, 213, 275, 348, 363-4
Marigny, 311
Martin, Henry, 359
Massena, 274, 325
Maulevrier, Count Colbert de, 343
Maultrot, 3
Maurepas, 43
Maury, Cardinal, 110, 147
Mayence, 312
Menou, 343
Mentz, 326
Mercier de la Riviere, 13
Merlin, 288, 341
Michelet, 351, 360
Mirabeau, 37, 62, 63, 64, 82, 105, 110, 125, 131, 148, 151, 153, 154, 156-7, 347, 361
Moellendorf, Marshal, 329
Mons, 328
Montagu, 322, 323
Montalembert, 356
Montciel, Terrier de, 226, 229
Montesquieu, 7, 220
Montlosier, 65, 144, 366
Montmedy, 180
Montmorin, 153
Moreau, 274, 325
Morris, 82, 230
Mounier, 60, 61, 95, 109, 111, 118, 122-3, 132-3, 137, 143
Mousson, 251
Murat, 344
Nantes, 311, 333
Napier, 313
Naples, 321
Napoleon Bonaparte, 61, 115, 216, 236, 259, 274, 316, 325-6, 344
Narbonne de Lara, Count, Minister of War, 201-2, 208
Necker, 43, 46, 47, 49, 56, 64, 70, 73, 75, 83, 88, 101, 124, 135
Neerwinden, 325
Ney, Marshal, 325
Niebuhr, 355, 369
Noailles, 87, 99
Orange, the Prince of, 329
Orleans, the Duke of, 135-6, 253
Orleans, the Duchess of, 349
Paine, Tom, 126, 249
Pamiers, bishop of, 175
Panis, 226, 281
Panizzi, 358
Paris, archbishop of, 81, 167
Penthievre, Duc de, 339
Petion, 201, 226, 235, 249, 267
Pichegru, 329, 337
Pilnitz, declaration of, 202
Pitt, 210, 216, 254, 314, 318, 321, 329, 338, 346
Pius VI. and the Civil Constitution of the clergy, 170, 172-3
Plain, the deputies of the, 291
Poland, 320
Polignac, the Duchess of, 65, 83, 88
Pontecoulant, 349
Portugal, 321
Precy, 269
Priestly, 248
Prieur, 274
Provence, the Count of, 48, 50, 145-6, 181, 337
Prussia, 329
Puisaye, Count de, 265, 313, 338
Quiberon, battle of, 340
Quinet, 360
Ranke, 371
Raynal, Abbe, 18
Rebecqui, 251
Reinhard, 200
Reynier, 325
Richelieu, Duc de, 135
Rigby, Dr., 86
Robespierre, 117, 226, 270, 273, 275, 278, 280, 284, 285, 294, 298, 299-300, 330, 332, 351
Rochefoucauld, La, Duke de Liancourt, 87, 233
Rochejaquelein, Henri de la, 305, 309, 314
Roederer, 225, 236-7
Roland, 228, 238, 243, 249, 251, 264
Roland, Madame, 225, 267, 367
Romeuf, 183, 188
Romilly, Sir Samuel, 94
Romme, 277, 336
Rouerie, Marquis de la, 302-3
Rousseau, 14-17, 285, 333, 348
Royer Collard, 122
Saint Victor, 348
Sainte Marie, Miomandre de, 138
Santerre, 226-8, 235
Sardinia, the king of, 220
Sauce, 189
Saumur, 308
Savenay, 315
Scheldt, opening of the, 318
Sechelles, Herault de, 269, 271, 281
Semonville, 275
Sergent, 226
Serre, De, 114
Sieyes, 67, 101-2, 110, 119, 121, 159-62, 163, 249, 261, 340-41
Simolin, 208
Smith, Adam, 22
Sombreuil, 246, 338-40
Sorel, 367, 371
Spain, 260, 321, 329, 337
Spencer, Lord, 329
St. Cyr, 325
St. Just, 251, 273, 280-81, 290, 295, 297
St. Menehould, 186-7
St. Priest, 130, 135-6, 355
Stael, Madame de, 137, 201
Stofflet, 305, 310-11, 314-15, 335, 339
Swiss Guard, 238
Sybel, Heinrich von, 356, 360-70
Taine, 93, 353, 360, 367, 370-71
Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, 69, 75, 79, 110, 156, 167, 171, 319, 347, 365-6
Tallien, 243, 281, 292, 295, 332, 337, 340
Tallien, Madame, 331
Talmond, Prince de, 314
Target, 116
Ternaux, Mortimer, 360
Thibaudeau, 341
Thierry, 353
Thiers, 357, 369
Thouret, 119, 123
Tocqueville, 157, 350, 356, 359-60
Torfou, 312
Torquemada, 352
Toulon, 315, 321
Toulouse, archbishop of, 46, 148
Tourzel, Madame de, 245
Tronchet, 252
Turgot, 10, 11, 14, 42
Tuscany, 337
Ushant, 290
Vadier, 295
Valenciennes, 312, 325
Valmy, 216, 218
Vancouver Island, 149, 150
Varennes, 120, 179, 189
Vendee, La, 260, 303-4, 334, 337
Verdun, 215, 244
Vergniaud, 209, 225, 223, 231, 238, 249, 253, 261, 267
Versailles, the march to, 129-30
Villaret-Joyeuse, 290
Villiaume, 353
Vincent, 273, 276
Virieu, 99
Volney, 123
Voulland, 297, 298
Washington, 126
Wattignies, 326
Weber, 246, 365
Webster, Daniel, 25
Weissenburg, 327
Westermann, 226, 238, 281
Wilson, James, 35, 36
Windward Islands, 322
Wurmser, 327
York, the Duke of, 325-6, 328-9, 339
THE END
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THE HISTORY OF FREEDOM AND OTHER ESSAYS
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JOHN NEVILLE FIGGIS, Litt.D. SOMETIME LECTURER IN ST. CATHARINE'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
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HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND STUDIES
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SOME PRESS OPINIONS.
GUARDIAN.—"The publication of the literary remains of Lord Acton is gradually showing the world his true greatness as an historian, and for this we owe our warmest thanks to Mr. Figgis and Mr. Laurence. The two volumes before us reveal better than anything that has yet been published the extent of Lord Acton's knowledge and the force of his mind.... Powerful and closely reasoned essays and lectures, which bear on every page the stamp of learning and judgment and righteousness, which are worthy of a great scholar and a good man."
TIMES.—"These volumes must be regarded, not as the support of an existing reputation, or as a bid for the establishment of posthumous renown, but as the record and memorial of a rare and attractive personality. The accurate, insatiable, and broad-minded student is revealed; the generous champion of a noble cause which has suffered temporary defeat is seen on the field of his eager endeavour in controversy with Popes and Cardinals for the sake of freedom and truth; and the principles which he brought to the study of history or elicited from his observation of men and affairs throughout the centuries are set forth for all to read. The resulting picture of the great student, the partisan striving for impartiality, is admirably put together in a sympathetic and lucid introduction supplied by the editors."
ATHENAEUM.—"We have said enough to indicate the varied attractions of this volume. It shows us, indeed, the great scholar at his best, in his wide knowledge, sound judgment, and intense but restrained moral fervour. It is a book which does more than add to our information: it strengthens and inspires."
SPECTATOR.—"These thirty-seven lectures, essays, and reviews are but a small part, the editors tell us, of Lord Acton's literary 'output.' Let us say at once that they are sufficient to convince us, if we had needed conviction, of the prodigious learning, the consummate literary ability, and the unfailing candour of the writer."
Mr. Oscar Browning in the CAMBRIDGE REVIEW.—"The perusal of the volumes before us will confirm the opinion already formed by those who are best acquainted with Lord Acton, that he was one of the most distinguished men of his age, and that he claims to be placed in the first rank of English historians."
ACADEMY.—"We can imagine no better mental training for any reader of history than a study of Lord Acton's methods of inquiry and criticisms as exemplified in these learned treatises. The teacher of history will find that these two volumes have a value as books of reference, which will aid his judgment on many constantly recurring historical problems—a reference made easy by the admirable indexes, which in themselves are a testimony to the immense range of Lord Acton's erudition."
DAILY NEWS.—"The present volumes, prefaced by an admirable editorial essay, contain a large number of the writings by which Acton won the reputation of the most learned Englishman of his time, together with addresses and unsigned articles that are little known.... The articles and reviews which he contributed to the pages of the English Historical Review are reprinted in these volumes, and contain the ripest and most valuable work of his life. There is, indeed, nothing like them in English historical literature."
NATION.—"It is no exaggeration to say that Lord Acton's Essays are the book of the season, and that their publication is an event. Their author stood in the first rank of Gelehrte. His reading was immense, his memory unfailing. He added to his learning a considerable knowledge of affairs and an almost passionate moral energy. The former kept him in touch with life, the latter with principle; he lived in the world of men without descending to its level; he raised and inspired. The works of such a man are of public, it is not too much to say of European, interest."
MORNING POST.—"Nobody can read these two volumes, so massive in their learning, so moving in their grave and eloquent appeal, without feeling the moral grandeur of the life of which they form the most adequate commemoration. Only one of the papers printed in this collection, an address upon the causes of the Franco-Prussian War, positively sees the light for the first time, but we question whether any one of the other essays was known to the general reading public, or whether there are ten historical experts in the country who had tracked Lord Acton through the many devious periodicals in which he deposited the results of his genius and industry. These volumes, then, to all intents and purposes form a new book. It is to them, and not to the 'Cambridge Lectures,' that we should look for Lord Acton's most finished literary work, for the expression of his deepest convictions upon the most profound problems of faith and morals, and for the most convincing proofs of the wide span of his interests and the inexhaustible arsenal of his knowledge. They enable us to understand the animating conception which guided his life of arduous toil, and indicate the lines of a historical apologetic for the Catholic Church more just, original, and profound than any which the writers of the Ultramontane School have offered."
DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"There is so much of fine thought and brilliant expression in these volumes, and so diverse a variety of themes, that it is difficult to do more than indicate the treasures which they offer to intelligent readers."
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SOME PRESS OPINIONS.
TIMES.—"The treatment is personal, fresh, and original throughout. Lucidity is unfailing. Learning is marshalled behind every paragraph, and almost behind every sentence, and yet is never obtrusive. The lectures are equally adapted to illuminate the scholar and to introduce the novice to the study of the mighty scheme of human affairs in its dynamic flow. The selection of detail is governed by consummate judgment; and frequently information drawn from sources alien to the matter in hand is dropped into its place with a sureness and precision which astonishes; controversial questions, when introduced, are legitimately brought forward as an illustration of historical method, and not as the diversions and digressions of an overstocked mind."
ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW.—"Three hundred years of European history are covered in these nineteen lectures, masterpieces of lucid statement, of suggestive and stimulating criticism. Everywhere, whether the lecturer be sketching the salient features of the sixteenth century or of the eighteenth, whether he be dealing with Italy or America, we feel the sureness of touch of one who is familiar with every detail. Although we may often not agree with his trenchant judgments, with his paradoxes, or even with his interpretation of the teaching of history, we are made to feel that his ample knowledge would never have been at a loss for weighty arguments in answer to every objection."
TRIBUNE.—"The pages abound in indispensable corrections of popular and pedagogic errors, and in revelations of new facts. No one could do this so well as Acton, because no historical scholar who ever lived kept himself so well abreast of Continental research or so completely in touch with the world of scholars. All archives were open to him, and all archivists put their knowledge at his disposal; wealth, social position, and leisure gave him advantages denied to almost every other scholar."
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