The French Revolution (Vol.1-3). Taine Hippolyte
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Название: The French Revolution (Vol.1-3)

Автор: Taine Hippolyte

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Документальная литература

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isbn: 4064066060053

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СКАЧАТЬ , your turn will come before long." M. de Repaire, "retires within the sentry-box without saying a word to this man, considering the orders that have been issued not to act."]

      1443 (return) [ "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 82, 170—Madame Campan. II. 87.—De Lavalette, I.33.—Cf. Bertrand de Molleville, Mémoires.]

      1444 (return) [ Duval, "Souvenirs de la Terreur," I. 78. (Doubtful in almost everything, but here he is an eye-witness. He dined opposite the hair-dresser's, near the railing of the Park of Saint-Cloud.)—M. de Lally-Tollendal's second letter to a friend. "At the moment the King entered his capital with two bishops of his council with him in the carriage, the cry was heard, 'Off to the lamp post with the bishops!'"]

      1445 (return) [ De Montlosier, I. 303.—Moniteur, sessions of the 8th, 9th, and 10th of October.—Malouet, II. 9, 10, 20.—Mounier, Recherches sur les Causes, etc., and "Addresse aux Dauphinois."]

      1446 (return) [ De Ferrières, I. 346. (On the 9th of October, 300 members have already taken their passports.) Mercure de France, No. of the 17th October. Correspondence of Mirabeau and M. de la Marck, I. 116, 126, 364.]

      1447 (return) [ Correspondence of Mirabeau and M. de la Marck, I.175. (The words of Monsieur to M. de la Marck.)]

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      Among the most difficult undertakings in this world is the formulation of a national constitution, especially if this is to be a complete and comprehensive work. To replace the old structures inside which a great people has lived by a new, different, appropriate and durable set of laws, to apply a mold of one hundred thousand compartments on to the life of twenty-six million people, to construct it so harmoniously, adapt it so well, so closely, with such an exact appreciation of their needs and their faculties, that they enter it of themselves and move about it without collisions, and that their spontaneous activity should at once find the ease of familiar routine—is an extraordinary undertaking and probably beyond the powers of the human mind. In any event, the mind requires all its powers to carry the undertaking out, and it cannot protect itself carefully enough against all sources of disturbance and error. An Assembly, especially a Constituent Assembly, requires, outwardly, security and independence, inwardly, silence and order, and generally, calmness, good sense, practical ability and discipline under competent and recognized leaders. Do we find anything of all this in the Constituent Assembly?

       Table of Contents

      Causes of disorder and irrationality—The place of meeting

      —The large number of deputies—Interference of the galleries

      —Rules of procedure wanting, defective, or disregarded.—The

       parliamentary leaders—Susceptibility and over-excitement of

       the Assembly—Its paroxysms of enthusiasm.—Its tendency to

       emotion.—It encourages theatrical display—Changes which

       these displays introduce in its good intentions.

      "In the British Parliament," writes Mallet du Pan, "I saw the galleries cleared in a trice because the Duchess of Gordon happened unintentionally to laugh too loud."