The French Revolution - From the Age of Louis XIV to the Coming of Napoleon

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INTRODUCTION WHEN Dickens, in the winter of 1859, essayed the little task of making a picturesque story, he requested Carlyle to lend him same books which the Sage of CheIsea had used in the production of his Fench, revolution. Carlyle, making more noise in his silence-room than the rest of the world put together, replied with grim humour by despatching to Gads Hill two cartloads of authorities. These supplied the novelist with sufficient facts and local colour to enable him to write A tale of Two Cities. Since the time of these famous Victorians the literature of the greatest event in history after the ilformation has been increased by a multitude of volumes. There is now a monthly magazine devoted to the education of the many phases of the epoch. The memoirs of those who played a part, however insignificant, in the maze of happenings which led to the breaking-up of the ancient regime are gradually being given to an interested public, and the French magazines frequently publish valuable sidelights on the personalities of dead and gone monarchists, republicans, and firebrands. This vast accumulation of material is in itseIf a difficulty to those who would arrive at a reasonable understanding of the long series of events-military, political, and social definitely focussed in the eyes of France by the meeting of the States-General in 1789. In the following pages I have attempted to tell the story of the French Revolution in a simple and straightforward way for those readers who do not profess an intimate knowledge of the great upheaval. They will find how the day of reckoning began to get gradually srld sometimes almost imperceptibly nearer from the days when Louis the Great ruled with despotic sway, how the literary work of Voltsire, Rousseau, and other advancd writers and thinkers assisted in the movemerit tovards reform, aided by the cultured chit-chat of the saIores and the reading of democratic ideas by those who had taken part in the star of American Independence. They will see how the question of national finance and the quarrels between Louis SVI and the filnlerzts led to the calling of the three Orders to Versailles and to the momentous step taken by the Commons when they attempted to solve their own particular problems by means of the national Assembly. Local government, mob rule, and civil war followed, and parties having widely diverging ideals came into being, each with Constitutional cure-alls which failed to make a lasting improvernent in the feverish condition of the body-politic. he outbreak of war, the Icings complicity in it, the formation of all-powerful Committees which brought victory to the Iench Ieyond the frontier and tragedy to many at home, to give place in turn to reaction, the miserable uncertainties of the Directory and the beginning of the iron rule of the little Corsican are detailed. There the narrative ends. It was the task of the Conqueror to recolstruct the machinery of the State. Some of his measures withstood the shocks of Leipzig and Waterloo and are part of France to-day. Perhaps it is well to remember that it was largely a question of finance and commerce that led to the fall of the man who watched the storming of the Tuileries and marvelIed at the Kings lack of energy. Napoleons Continental Decrees marked the beginning of the end of the First Empire...