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The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]». Краткое содержание книги:
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 01
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 02 / (From the Rise of Greece to the Christian Era)
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 04
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 05 / (From Charlemagne to Frederick Barbarossa)
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 06 / (From Barbarossa to Dante)
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 08 / The Later Renaissance: from Gutenberg to the Reformation
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 09
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 10
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 13
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 14
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 17
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 21 / The Recent Days (1910-1914)
It would be difficult to estimate the full value of Mr. Whitney's labors, without going into a minuteness of detail inconsistent with our limits. Every cotton garment bears the impress of his genius, and the ships that transported it across the waters were the heralds of his fame, and the cities that have risen to opulence by the cotton trade must attribute no small share of their prosperity to the inventor of the cotton-gin. We have before us the declaration of the late Mr. Fulton, that Arkwright, Watt, and Whitney—we would add Fulton to the number—were the three men who did most for mankind, of any of their contemporaries; and in the sense in which he intended it, the remark is probably true.
EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI
MURDER OF MARAT: CIVIL WAR IN FRANCE
a.d. 1793
THOMAS CARLYLE
In the early days of the French Revolution many moderates who favored reform of the monarchy, but not its abolition, were wholly alienated by the condemnation and execution of Louis XVI, after what has been regarded as a mock trial by the National Convention. It was a still graver effect of this tragedy that it impelled the leading European powers to join in the great coalition against France contemplated in the Convention of Pillnitz (August, 1791).
Scarcely less was the influence upon the internal affairs of France from the murder of Marat by Charlotte Corday.
Jean Paul Marat, sometimes called, from the name of a paper which he published, the "Friend of the People," was one of the most ultra-revolutionary of the Jacobin leaders in the National Convention. By his murder the "Red Republicans"—the extreme radical party in the Convention, called the "Mountain" because they occupied the higher seats in the hall—were confirmed in their determination to destroy their opponents, the moderate republicans, called Girondists or Girondins. Many of the Girondist leaders, among them some of the most distinguished men in France, were soon sent to the guillotine, and the Reign of Terror was fully inaugurated. Carlyle calls Marat "atrocious," and so most writers regard him, but there are not wanting some to vindicate his character and purposes.
These tragic scenes, and the opening of the civil war which followed, known as the War of La Vendée, are depicted by Carlyle in that manner, all his own, which invests his history of the French Revolution at once with the element of realism and an air of romance.
Louis XVI was first deposed by the National Convention, and then brought to trial for conspiring with foreign enemies of France, for aiming to subvert French liberties, and for being the cause of the massacre of the Swiss Guards who defended the Tuileries (August 10, 1792) against a mob seeking the King's life. Louis was found "guilty," and, after a long wrangle in the Convention over the question of punishment, a small majority was given (January 20, 1793) for the decree of death. It was voted that there should be no delay of the execution.
To this conclusion, then, hast thou come, O hapless Louis! The Son of Sixty Kings is to die on the Scaffold by form of Law. Under Sixty Kings this same form of Law, form of Society, has been fashioning itself together these thousand years; and has become, one way and other, a most strange Machine. Surely, if needful, it is also frightful, this Machine; dead, blind; not what it should be; which, with swift stroke, or by cold slow torture, has wasted the lives and souls of innumerable men. And behold now a King himself, or say rather Kinghood in his person, is to expire here in cruel tortures; like a Phalaris shut in the belly of his own red-heated Brazen Bull! It is ever so; and thou shouldst know it, O haughty tyrannous man: injustice breeds injustice; curses and falsehoods do verily return "always home," wide as they may wander. Innocent Louis bears the sins of many generations: he too experiences that man's tribunal is not in this Earth; that if he had no Higher one, it were not well with him.
A King dying by such violence appeals impressively to the imagination; as the like must do, and ought to do. And yet at bottom it is not the King dying, but the man! Kingship is a coat: the grand loss is of the skin. The man from whom you take his Life, to him can the whole combined world do more? Lally went on his hurdle; his mouth filled with a gag. Miserablest mortals, doomed for picking pockets, have a whole five-act Tragedy in them, in that dumb pain, as they go to the gallows, unregarded; they consume the cup of trembling down to the lees. For Kings and for Beggars, for the justly doomed and the unjustly, it is a hard thing to die. Pity them alclass="underline" thy utmost pity, with all aids and appliances and throne-and-scaffold contrasts, how far short is it of the thing pitied!
A Confessor has come; Abbé Edgeworth, of Irish extraction, whom the King knew by good report, has come promptly on this solemn mission. Leave the Earth alone, then, thou hapless King; it with its malice will go its way, thou also canst go thine. A hard scene yet remains: the parting with our loved ones. Kind hearts environed in the same grim peril with us; to be left here! Let the Reader look with the eyes of Valet Cléry through these glass doors, where also the Municipality watches, and see the cruelest of scenes:
"At half-past eight, the door of the anteroom opened: the Queen appeared first, leading her Son by the hand; then Madame Royale and Madame Elizabeth: they all flung themselves into the arms of the King. Silence reigned for some minutes; interrupted only by sobs. The Queen made a movement to lead his Majesty towards the inner room where M. Edgeworth was waiting unknown to them: 'No,' said the King, 'let us go into the dining-room; it is there only that I can see you.' They entered there; I shut the door of it, which was of glass. The King sat down, the Queen on his left hand, Madame Elizabeth on his right, Madame Royale almost in front; the young Prince remained standing between his Father's legs. They all leaned toward him, and often held him embraced. This scene of woe lasted an hour and three-quarters; during which we could hear nothing; we could see only that always when the King spoke, the sobbings of the Princesses redoubled, continued for some minutes; and that then the King began again to speak."
And so our meetings and our partings do now end! The sorrows we gave each other; the poor joys we faithfully shared, and all our lovings and our sufferings, and confused toilings under the earthly Sun, are over. Thou good soul, I shall never, never through all ages of Time, see thee any more!
Never! O Reader, knowest thou that hard word?
For nearly two hours this agony lasts; then they tear themselves asunder. "Promise that you will see us on the morrow." He promises: Ah yes, yes; yet once; and go now, ye loved ones; cry to God for yourselves and me! It was a hard scene, but it is over. He will not see them on the morrow. The Queen, in passing through the anteroom, glanced at the Cerberus Municipals; and, with woman's vehemence, said through her tears, "Vous êtes tous des scélérats!" ("You are all scoundrels!")
King Louis slept sound, till five in the morning, when Cléry, as he had been ordered, awoke him. Cléry dressed his hair. While this went forward, Louis took a ring from his watch, and kept trying it on his finger: it was his wedding-ring, which he is now to return to the Queen as a mute farewell. At half-past six, he took the Sacrament; and continued in devotion, and conference with Abbé Edgeworth. He will not see his Family: it were too hard to bear.