French rule

“ The principle of Royalty is so powerful in France that during the space of fourteen centuries the French nation has had but three Races of Kings. France should have remained and should again be "the Christian Monarchy." ”

“ But the principle which actuated the French nobility, at the time alluded to, is an inherent one in the human mind, and would be likely to repeat itself in some shape or another, not so violently perhaps, but still to repeat itself, were it not kept in check by the known laws of society. ”

“ Within the Empire itself the Code Napoléon, conferring upon the subjects of France the benefits which the French had already won for themselves, had superseded a society resting on class-privilege, on feudal service, and on the despotism of custom, by a society resting on equality before the law, on freedom of contract, and on the unshackled ownership and enjoyment of land, whether the holder possessed an acre or a league. ”

“ Considering what France was under her Kings, what she now is, and how many troubles she has had to endure at the hands of intriguers, the conclusion in its substance, in its nudity, in its complete entirety, accepted by all men able to read French History, is surely that France always was, is at heart, and should remain what Great Britain is, and rightly wishes to remain, i.e., a Constitutional Monarchy. ”

“ It is evident, my lords, that the French are far from imagining that there is now any power which can be put in the balance against their own, and therefore distribute kingdoms by caprice, and exalt emperours upon their own terms. ”

“ The French seem so delighted and dazzled with the lustre of Monarchy, that they cannot bear the thoughts of any qualifying mixture, which might abate its violence, and render its ardour more benign. They chuse to give the splendid machine full play, though it often scorches and threatens to consume themselves and their effects. ”

“ Let us rest firm in the assurance that, despite these eclipses, the star of the Republic will yet rise over France, over the world, and our children will yet greet the appearance of the United States of Europe, the Universal Republic. ”

“ Citizens: The French people, in order to be free, had kings to combat. To obtain a constitution founded on reason it had the prejudices of eighteen centuries to overcome. Priestcraft, feudalism, despotism, have successively, for two thousand years, governed Europe. ”

“ The French governmental structure, which was previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on Enlightenment principles of nationalism, citizenship, and inalienable rights. ”

“ It is you especially who can appreciate the French nation, In the council of sovereigns united to fix the destinies of Europe, your influence and your credit cannot be less than your glory. Your law of nations has always been justice, and your conscience has always been the guide of your policy. The French nation wishes to live under a monarch, but it wishes that that monarch live under the empire of laws. ”

“ It is said that you are discontented—but why? France has not conquered, but adopted, you: you are excluded from no benefits which are enjoyed by the French; you are a portion of the same family, and participate in all its advantages. ”

“ So predominating is the power of an example we have once admired, and set up as a standard of imitation, and so fascinating has been the ascendency of the Convention over the minds of those whose approbation of French politics commenced in the earlier periods of the Revolution, that it extends to the most trivial circumstances. ”

“ The establishment of any other government, whether in the person of——, or in a regency in the name of young Napoleon, or in any other individual, or in a republic, must lead to the maintenance of large military establishments, to the ruin of all the governments of Europe, till it shall suit the convenience of the French government to commence a contest which can be directed only against you, or others for whom we are interested. ”

“ Faith in the invincibility of the republic was rooted as an indisputable dogma in the hearts of the French people. The victories and the commanding position of France from 1792 to 1799 were regarded as so entirely the necessary result of the Revolution, that a conviction prevailed that the formation of a republic, with a national army for its defence, would have an especial effect on the rest of Europe. ”

“ Without a clear view of society in the olden time, of its laws, its faults, its prejudices, its sufferings, its greatness, it is impossible to understand the conduct of the French during the sixty years which have followed its fall. ”

“ The French Revolution, in the truest sense of the term, was a great and permanent reform, which did away with many absurd and vexatious laws and customs, and with abuses of which the whole nation was heartily tired, from the king down to the humblest peasant. Whenever a Frenchman, in the eighteenth century, seriously considered the condition of his country, most of the institutions in the midst of which he lived appeared to him to be abuses, contrary to reason and humanity. ”

“ Whilst the Constitution for them was a means of regulating and restraining the national will, it was an instrument for accomplishing the popular will for their rivals rising to power on the crest of the wave. ”

“ The French compose one body with one head. They have all the same interest, and agree to pursue it by the same means. They are subject to a governour, commissioned by an absolute monarch, and participating the authority of his master. ”

“ The most complicated and varied of these great movements is the French Revolution, on which thousands of volumes have been written, so that it is impossible even to classify the leading events and the ever-changing features of that rapid and exciting movement. The first act of that great drama was the attempt of reformers and patriots to destroy feudalism,--with its privileges and distinctions and injustices,--by unscrupulous and wild legislation, and to give a new constitution to the State. ”

“ France presented the imposing spectacle of upwards of thirty millions of inhabitants, circumscribed within their natural limits, and composing only a single class of citizens, governed by one law, one rule, and one order. ”

“ I have heard an Englishman enumerate the advantages of the British constitution to a circle of French Bourgeois, and explain to them in what manner the people of their rank of life were protected from the insolence of the courtiers and nobility ”

“ England in conscious superiority smiles at a nation which has had seven political revolutions in a hundred years. Republic, then Empire, then a return to the Bourbons, then a limited Monarchy under Louis Philippe, then Republic, followed by Empire again, and now for the third time a Republic!
But France, complex, mobile, changeful as the sea, in riotous enjoyment of her newfound liberties, casts off a form of government as she would an ill-fitting garment. She knows the value of tranquillity — she had it for one thousand years! ”

“ Such families as these formed an upper class among nobles. ... It is not easy, in looking at the French government in the eighteenth century, to decide where the working administration ended, and where the useless court that answered no real purpose began. ”

“ No quality of printing is of more general importance than tone. It has great weight as a purely artistic attribute, and it has a great physiological value. If the tone of a page of print is not right—if it does not conform very closely to the standard set up by the rules of art—it will not be "easy" reading, and will severely try eyes that are not absolutely normal and perfectly strong. Here as elsewhere, and as is the unvarying rule, the art standard is the standard required by hygiene and common sense. ”

“ Exactly what is to be the procedure in every instance cannot be formulated into rules, but it is always possible to explain justifiable infractions of rules by reference to principles of art. When it is found impossible to thus justify departures from rule, precedent or convention, it is evident that art would have gained if the rules had been adhered to. ”

“ France, without a disciplined army; France, ruined, reduced to a paper currency, torn by factions, by the civil war which we priests will let loose in the west and south—France will be unable to resist all Europe. But, in order to exasperate the foreign rulers, to excite their hatred, their fury, they must be made to behold the head of Louis XVI rolling at their feet! ”

“ So, with a Government perplexed by fears, with a local administration paralysed by a variety of recent changes, with signs of disorder multiplying upon every side, with innumerable difficulties requiring settlement, and with the fixed spirit of old traditions vainly attempting to assimilate the new, the monarchy prepared to meet the representatives of the nation, who, already flushed with triumph, and intoxicated with self-confidence and hope, advanced to realise their long-delayed millennium, and with the aid of freedom and philosophy to readjust the destinies of France. ”

“ When the kings of France had brought their long struggle for supremacy to a successful close, an epoch which may be placed roughly at the accession of the branch of Valois-Angoulême to the throne, the situation of the French jurists was peculiar and continued to be so down to the outbreak of the revolution. On the one hand, they formed the best instructed and nearly the most powerful class in the nation. ”

“ When those that were exclusive and unequal were abandoned, it was necessary to define and to insist on those that were equal and the property of all. After destroying, the French had to rebuild, and to base their new structure upon principles unknown to the law, unfamiliar to the people, absolutely opposed to the lesson of their history and to all the experience of the ages in which France had been so great. ”

“ Then, my friends, be sure of it, whatever the allied monarchs of Europe may do, whatever the plots of the royalists and priests, the Republic, the Revolution, France, will be saved without the sovereignty of the people having been violated in the person of a single one of its Representatives in the Commune or the Convention, even of those most opposed to new ideas ”

“ You may call this faction, which has eradicated the monarchy,—expelled the proprietary, persecuted religion, and trampled upon law,—you may call this France if you please: but of the ancient France nothing remains but its central geography; its iron frontier; its spirit of ambition; its audacity of enterprise; its perplexing intrigue. These, and these alone, remain: and they remain heightened in their principle and augmented in their means. All the former correctives, whether of virtue or of weakness, which existed in the old monarchy, are gone. ”

“ Being nearly an hundred to one, they deemed that they were virtually the substance of the nation, and they claimed to govern themselves with a power proportioned to their numbers. They demanded that the State should be reformed, that the ruler should be their agent, not their master. ”

“ These facts, and the harmony with which the inexperienced multitude took this first great step toward national regeneration, excited throughout aristocratic Europe amazement and alarm. Kings and nobles alike trembled. All the states of Europe, like France, were oppressed by feudal despotism. All the people of Europe might, like the French, demand reform. ”

“ So great was the need felt by France for peace, repose, and independence, after these ten years of warfare and hard service, that in spite of her profound aversion for the Bourbons, their return was hailed with joy. The kingdom of 1814, a new usurpation of the sole, indivisible, indefeasable and inalienable sovereignty of the people, consecrated again the iniquitous principle of monarchy, against which the republican minority in vain protested. ”

“ If the conservative elements of French society know how to combine and to form a united body, if the party spirit which prevails among them shall give way to a large and enlightened political spirit, then France, and the democracy of France, are saved. ”

“ If monarchy should ever obtain an entire ascendancy in France, it will probably be... the most completely arbitrary power that has ever appeared on earth. France will be wholly governed by the agitators in corporations, by societies in the towns formed of directors in assignats,... attornies, agents, money-jobbers, speculators, and adventurers, composing an ignoble oligarchy founded on the destruction of the crown, the church, the nobility, and the people. ”

“ The principles from which the constitution and laws of France have been combined are purer, more exact, and deeper than those which governed the Americans: they have more completely escaped the influence of every sort of prejudice, etc. ”

“ What, then, is the confidence we are to derive either from the frame of the Government or from the character and past conduct of the person who is now the absolute ruler of France? Had we seen a man, of whom we had no previous knowledge, suddenly invested with the sovereign authority of the country; invested with the power of taxation, with the power of the sword, the power of war and peace, the unlimited power of commanding the resources, of disposing of the lives and fortunes of every man in France ”

“ Speech by Isnard in the Assembly, Jan. 5, 1792. "The people are now conscious of their dignity. They know, according to the constitution, that every Frenchman's motto is: 'Live free, the equal of all, and one of the common sovereignty.'"—Guillon de Montléon, I. 445. Speech by Chalier, in the Lyons Central Club, March 21, 1793. "Know that you are kings, and more than kings. Do you not feel sovereignty circulating in your veins?" ”