He it
was who, if narrowing the concept of liberty, had broadened the
significance of equality by the very lesson of his own rise to power
and had deepened the meaning of fraternity by lavishing affection and
devotion upon that machine of democracy--the national army--the "nation
in arms." And he it was who, true to the revolutionary tradition of
striking terror into the hearts of the divine-right monarchs of Europe,
had with a mighty noise shaken the whole Continent and brought down the
political and social institutions of the "old regime" tumbling in ruins
throughout central and southern Europe. He had made revolutionary
reform too solid and too widespread to admit of its total extinction by
the allied despots of Europe. The dream which a Leopold and a Frederick
William had cherished in 1791 of turning back the hands on the clock of
human progress and of restoring conditions in France as they had been
prior to 1789, was happily dispelled. But in the meantime the despots
were to have their innings.
Pages:
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163