Book VII. Vendémiaire.

Chapter I. Decadent.* How little did any one suppose that here was the end not of Robespierre only, but of the Revolution System itself! Least of all did the mutinying Committee-men suppose it; who had mutinied with no view whatever except to continue...

Book II. Nanci.

Chapter I. Bouillé. Dimly visible, at Metz on the North-Eastern frontier, a certain brave Bouillé, last refuge of Royalty in all straits and meditations of flight, has for many months hovered occasionally in our eye; some name or shadow of a brave Bouillé: let...

Book III. The Parlement of Paris.

Chapter I. Dishonoured Bills. While the unspeakable confusion is every where weltering within, and through so many cracks in the surface sulphur-smoke is issuing, the question arises: Through what crevice will the main Explosion carry itself? Through which of the old craters or chimneys;...

Book VI. Thermidor.

Chapter I. The Gods are Athirst. What then is this Thing, called La Révolution, which, like an Angel of Death, hangs over France, noyading, fusillading, fighting, gun-boring, tanning human skins? La Révolution is but so many Alphabetic Letters; a thing...

Book V.Terror the Order of the Day.

Chapter I. Rushing Down. We are now, therefore, got to that black precipitous Abyss; whither all things have long been tending; where, having now arrived on the giddy verge, they hurl down, in confused ruin; headlong, pellmell, down, down;—till Sansculottism have consummated itself; and...

Book IV. Terror.

Chapter I. Charlotte Corday. In the leafy months of June and July, several French Departments germinate a set of rebellious paper-leaves, named Proclamations, Resolutions, Journals, or Diurnals ‘of the Union for Resistance to Oppression.’ In particular, the Town of Caen, in Calvados,...

Book II. Regicide.

Chapter I. The Deliberative. France therefore has done two things very completely: she has hurled back her Cimmerian Invaders far over the marches; and likewise she has shattered her own internal Social Constitution, even to the minutest fibre of it, into wreck and dissolution....

Book I. The Feast of Pikes.

Chapter I. In the Tuileries. The victim having once got his stroke-of-grace, the catastrophe can be considered as almost come. There is small interest now in watching his long low moans: notable only are his sharper agonies, what convulsive struggles he may make to...

Book IV. Varennes.

Chapter I. Easter at Saint-Cloud. The French Monarchy may now therefore be considered as, in all human probability, lost; as struggling henceforth in blindness as well as weakness, the last light of reasonable guidance having gone out. What remains of resources their poor Majesties...

Book VI. Consolidation.

Chapter I. Make the Constitution.* Here perhaps is the place to fix, a little more precisely, what these two words, French Revolution, shall mean; for, strictly considered, they may have as many meanings as there are speakers of them. All things...