书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
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第465章

[75] Moniteur, XII. 776 (session of June 28). Speech by M. Lamarque, in a district court: "The incivism of the district courts in general is well known."[76] Bertand de Molleville, "Mémoires," VI. 22. -- After having received the above instructions from the King, Bertrand calls on the Queen, who makes the same remark: "Do you not think that fidelity to one's oath is the only plan to pursue?" "Yes, Madame, certainly.""Very well; rest assured that we shall not waver. Come, M. Bertrand, take courage; I hope that with firmness, patience, and what comes of that, all is not yet lost."[77] M. de Lavalette, "Mémoires," I. 100. -- Lavalette, in the beginning of September, 1792, enlists as a volunteer and sets out, along with two friends, carrying his knapsack on his back, dressed in a short and wearing a forage cap. The following shows the sentiments of the peasantry: In a village of makers of wooden shoes, near Vermanton (in the vicinity of Autun), "two days before our arrival a bishop and two vicars, who were escaping in a carriage, were stopped by them. They rummaged the vehicle and found some hundreds of francs, and, to avoid returning these, they thought it best to massacre their unfortunate owners. This sort of occupation seeming more lucrative to these good people than the other one, they were on the look-out for all wayfarers." The three volunteers are stopped by a little hump-backed official and conducted to the municipality, a sort of market, where their passports are read and their knapsacks are about to be examined. "We were lost, when d'Aubonnes, who was very tall jumped on the table. . . and began with a volley of imprecations and market slang which took his hearers by surprise. Soon raising his style, he launched out in patriotic terms, liberty, sovereignty of the people, with such vehemence and in so loud a voice, as to suddenly effect a great change and bring down thunders of applause. But the crazy fellow did not stop there. Ordering Leclerc de la Ronde imperiously to mount on the table, he addressed the assemblage: "You shall see whether we are not Paris republicans. Now, sir, say your republican catechism - 'What is God? what are the People? and what is a King?'

His friend, with an air of contrition and in a nasal tone of voice, twisting himself about like a harlequin, replies: 'God is matter, the People are the poor, and the King is a lion, a tiger, an elephant who tears to pieces, devours, and crushes the people down.'" -- "They could no longer restrain themselves. The shouts, cries, and enthusiasm were unbounded. They embraced the actors, hugged them, and bore them away. Each strove to carry us home with him, and we had to drink all round"[78] The reader will meet the French expression sans-culottes again and again in Taine's or any other book about the French revolution.

The nobles wore a kind of breeches terminating under the knee while tight long stockings, fastened to the trousers, exposed their calves.

The male leg was as important an adornment for the nobles as it was to be for the women in the 20th Century. The poor, on the other hand, wore crude long trousers, mostly without a crease, often without socks or shoes, barefoot in the summer and wooden shoed in the winter. (SR).

[79] The song of "Veillons au salut de l'empire" belongs to the end of 1791. The "Marseillaise" was composed in April, 1792.

[80] Mercure de France, Nov. 23, 1791.

[81] Philippe de Ségur, "Mémoires," I. (at Fresnes, a village situated about seven leagues from Paris, a few days after Sep. 2, 1792). "Aband of these demagogues pursued a large farmer of this place, suspected of royalism and denounced as a monopoliser because he was rich. These madmen had seized him, and, without any other form of trial, were about to put an end to him, when my father ran up to them.

He addressed them, and so successfully as to change their rage into a no less exaggerated enthusiasm for humanity. Animated by their new transports, they obliged the poor farmer, still pale and trembling, and whom they were just going to hang on its branches, to drink and dance along with them around the tree of liberty."[82] Lacretelle, "Dix ans d'Epreuves," 78. "The Girondists wanted to fashion a Roman people out of the dregs of Romulus, and, what is worse, out of the brigands of the 5th of October."[83] These pages must have made a strong impression upon Lenin when he read them in the National Library in Paris around 1907. (SR).

[84] Lafayette, I. 442. "The Girondists sought in the war an opportunity for attacking with advantage, the constitutionalists of 1791 and their institutions." -- Brissot (Address to my constituents).

"We sought in the war an opportunity to set traps for the king, to expose his bad faith and his relationship with the emigrant princes."- Moniteur, (session of April 3, 1793). Speech by Brissot: "'I had told the Jacobins what my opinion was, and had proved to them that war was the sole means of unveiling the perfidy of Louis XVI. The event has justified my opinion." -- Buchez et Roux, VIII. 60, 216, 217. The decree of the Legislative Assembly is dated Jan. 25, the first money voted by a club for the making of pikes is on Jan. 31, and the first article by Brissot, on the red cap, is on Feb. 6.

[85] Buchez et Roux, XIII. 217 (proposal of a woman, member of the club of l'Evêché, Jan. 31, 1792). -- Articles in the Gazette Universelle, Feb.11, and in the Patriote Fran?ais, Feb. 13. -Moniteur, XI. 576 (session of March 6). - Buchez et Roux, XV.

(session of June 10). Petition of 8,000 national guards in Paris:

"This faction which stirs up popular vengeance . . . which seeks to put the caps of labor in conflict with the military casques, the pike with the gun, the rustic's dress with the uniform."[86] Mallet du Pan, "Mémoires," II 429 (note of July, 1792). - Mercure de France, March 10, 1792, article by Mallet du Pan.