Alphonse de Lamartine

“ Frenchmen, heroes of the 14th of July, who, without guide or leader, yet acquired your liberty, come forth, and let us form that army which you tell us is destined to conquer the universe. But where is the general, who, imperturbable defender of the rights of the people, and born with a hatred to tyrants, has never breathed the poisonous air of the courts, and whose virtue is attested by the hatred and disgrace of the court; this general, whose hands, guiltless of our blood, are worthy to bear before us the banner of freedom; where is he, this new Cato, this third Brutus, this unknown hero? ”

“ Its work was prodigious, its means a nullity; all that enthusiasm can inspire, the Assembly undertook and perfected, without a king, without a military leader, without a dictator, without an army, without any other strength than deep conviction. Alone, in the midst of an amazed people, with a disbanded army, an emigrating aristocracy, a despoiled clergy, a conspiring court, a seditious city, hostile Europe—it did what it designed. Such is the will, such the real power of a people—and such is truth, the irresistible auxiliary of the men who agitate themselves for God. ”

“ France for a second genius has its heart, and is prodigal in its thoughts, in its writings, as well as in its national acts. When Providence wills that one desire shall fire the world, it is first kindled in a Frenchman's soul. This communicative quality of the character of this race—this French attraction, as yet unaltered by the ambition of conquest,—was then the precursory mark of the age. It seems that a providential instinct turned all the attraction of Europe towards this point, as if motion and light could only emanate thence. The only real echoing point of the Continent was Paris. ”

“ Your majesty no longer desires in vain the happiness of Frenchmen. The National Assembly has nothing more to wish, now that on this day in its presence you consummate the constitution by accepting it. The attachment of Frenchmen decrees to you the crown, and what assures it to you is the need that so great a nation must always have of an hereditary power. How sublime, sire, will be in the annals of history this regeneration, which gives citizens to France, to Frenchmen a country, to the king a fresh title of greatness and glory, and a new source of happiness! ”

“ The populace can never resist the sight of children, there are so many mothers in every crowd; the dauphin, a lovely child, seated on the lap of his mother, and absorbed in the play, repeated the gestures of the actors to his mother as though to explain the piece to her. This careless tranquillity of innocence between the two storms—this childish sport at the foot of a throne, so soon to become a scaffold—this expansion of the heart of the queen, that had been so long closed to joy and security, filled every eye with tears, not excepting the king himself. ”

“ Genius was as hateful to him as aristocracy. Wherever he saw any thing elevated or striking he hunted it down as though it were a deadly enemy. He would have levelled creation. Equality was his mania, because superiority was his martyrdom; he loved the Revolution because it brought down all to his level; he loved it even to blood, because blood washed out the stain of his long-during obscurity; he made himself a public denouncer by the popular title; he knew that denouncement is flattery to all who tremble, and the people are always trembling. ”

“ You have stirred up the clubs with your language; the incense burnt in your honour has intoxicated you. The God of patriotism hath become a man. The apogee of your glory was on the 17th July, 1791. From that day your star declined. Robespierre, the patriots do not like that you should present such a spectacle to them. When the people press around the tribune to which you ascend, it is not to hear your self-eulogies, but to hear you enlighten popular opinion. You are incorruptible—true; but yet there are better citizens than you: there are those who are as good, and do not boast of it. ”

“ The monarchy is to them the counter-revolution. The monarchy is the nobility; the counter-revolution—that is taxation, the feudal system, the Bastille, chains, and executions, to punish the sublime impulses of liberty. Foreign satellites in the interior of the state—bankruptcy, engulphing with your assignats your private fortunes and the national wealth—the fury of fanaticism, of vengeance, murder, rapine, conflagration, despotism, and slaughter, contending, in rivers of blood and over the heaps of dead, for the mastery of your unhappy country. ”

“ Intoxicated with philosophy, passionately devoted to the ideal of humanity, an adorer of antique liberty, she became on fire at the first spark of this focus of new ideas;—she believed with all her faith, that this revolution, like a child born without a mother's sufferings, must regenerate the human race, destroy the misery of the working classes, for whom she felt the deepest sympathy, and renew the face of the earth. Even the piety of great souls has its imagination. The generous illusion of France at this epoch was equal to the work which France had to accomplish. ”

“ The lovers, happy for some months, took refuge in Holland; they were seized there, separated and shut up, the one in a convent and the other in the dungeon of Vincennes. Love, which, like fire in the veins of the earth, is always detected in some crevice of man's destiny, lighted up in a single and ardent blaze all Mirabeau's passions. In his vengeance it was outraged love that he appeased; in liberty, it was love which he sought and which delivered him; in study, it was love which still illustrated his path. ”

“ The people has sworn to maintain the constitution, because in that lies its honour and its liberty; but if you suffer it to remain in a state of troubled immobility, that weakens its force and exhausts all our resources, will not the day of this exhaustion be the last of the constitution? The state in which we are kept is one of annihilation that may lead us to disgrace or to death. (Applause.) To arms, citizens! to arms, freemen! defend your liberty! assure the hope of that liberty to the whole human race, or you will not deserve even pity in your misfortunes. ”

“ The day has arrived to put an end to such audacity and insolence, and to crush such conspirators. Dread and terror have frequently, in the ancient times, come forth from this palace in the name of despotism: let them return thither to-day in the name of the law (loud applauses) ; let them penetrate all hearts; let all those who inhabit it know that the constitution promises inviolability to the king alone; let them learn that the law will reach all the guilty, and that not one head convicted of criminality can escape its sword. ”

“ Coblentz became the camp of illusion and devotion. This handful of brave men deemed themselves a nation; and prepared, by accustoming themselves to the manœuvres and fatigues of war, to conquer in a few days a whole monarchy. The emigrants of every country and every age have presented this spectacle; for emigration, like the desert, has its mirage. The emigrants believe that they have borne away their country on the soles of their shoes, to employ the language of Danton, but they carry away nought but its shadow, accumulate nothing but its anger, and find nothing but its pity. ”

“ Measures of resistance, bribing the Assembly, an entire surrender of the constitution, attempts by force, an assumption of royal dignity, repentance, weakness, terror, and flight,—all were discussed, planned, decided on, prepared and abandoned, on the same day. Women, so sublime in their devotion, are seldom capable of the continuous firmness of mind—the imperturbability requisite for a political plan. Their politics are in their heart, their passions trench so closely on their reason. Of all the virtues which a throne requires they have but courage; often heroes, they are never statesmen. ”

“ Heroism, when disproportioned to genius and its resources, resembles folly: there was a mixture of heroism and folly in the projects of Gustavus against France; and yet this folly was noble, as its cause—and great, as his own courage. Fortune had accustomed Gustavus to desperate and bold enterprises; and success had taught him to believe nothing impossible. Twice he had made a revolution in his kingdom, twice he had striven single-handed against the gigantic power of Russia, and had he been seconded by Prussia, Austria, and Turkey, Russia would have found a rampart against her in the north. ”

“ Aristocrat by birth, he, like Mirabeau, had passed over to the camp of the people. Hated by the court, he hated it as do all renegades. He had become one of the people, in order to convert the people into the army of philosophy. He wanted of the republic no more than was sufficient to overturn its prejudices. Ideas once become victorious,—he would willingly have confided it to the control of a constitutional monarchy. He was rather a man for dispute than a man of anarchy. Aristocrats always carry with them, into the popular party, the desire of order and command. ”

“ The president Pastoret, a moderate constitutionalist, beloved alike by the king and the people, because, with the doctrines of power, he possessed the acuteness of the diplomatist and the language of the constitution, replied,—"Sire, your presence in this assembly is a fresh oath you take of fidelity to your country: the rights of the people were forgotten and all power confused. A constitution is born, and with it the liberty of France. As a citizen, it is your duty to cherish—as a king, to strengthen and defend it. ”

“ He clearly comprehended two things; the first, that war was a gratuitous crime against the people; the second, that a war, even though successful, would ruin the cause of democracy. Robespierre looked on the Revolution as the rigorous application of the principles of philosophy to society. A passionate and devoted pupil of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the Contrat Social was his gospel; war, made with the blood of the people, was in the eyes of this philosopher—what it must ever be in the eyes of the wise—wholesale slaughter to gratify the ambition of a few, glorious only when it is defensive. ”

“ Nobility; that is, two classes of men, one for greatness, the other for poverty; one for tyranny, the other for slavery. Nobility; ah! the very word is an insult to the human race.
"And yet it is to ensure the success of this conspiracy against you that all Europe is in arms.—You must annihilate these guilty hopes by a solemn declaration. Yes, the representatives of France, free, and deeply attached to the constitution, will be buried beneath her ruins, rather than suffer a capitulation unworthy of them to be wrung from them. Rally yourselves, take courage! ”

“ But let the magistrates of the people—let the Directory of Paris—let the same men, who, four months since, in the Champ-de-Mars, fired upon the citizens who were signing a petition against one decree, inundate the empire with a petition, which is evidently but the first page of a vast register of counter-revolution, a subscription to civil war, sent by them for signature to all the fanatics, all the idiots, all the slaves, all the robbers of the eighty-three departments, at the head of which are the exemplary names of the members of the Directory of Paris—fathers of their country! ”

“ You have been witnesses of the recent outbreaks in Brabant, and do you believe that your Revolution, which has snatched the sceptre from despotism, and from aristocracy its privileges, from nobility its pride, from the clergy its fanaticism—a Revolution which has dried up so many golden sources from the grasp of the priesthood, torn so many frocks, crushed so many theories—do you believe that such a Revolution will absolve you? ”

“ Royalty, honoured in form, whilst in fact it is excluded and powerless, merely presides over these debates, and adds order to victory; it was, in reality, nothing more than a perpetual consulate of this Britannic senate. The voices of the leading orators, who contested the rule of the nation, echoed thence, through and out of Europe. Liberty finds its level in the social world, like the waves in the common bed of the ocean. One nation is not free with impunity—one people is not in bondage with impunity—all finally compares and equalises itself. ”