Prev | Current Page 285 | Next

Taine, Hippolyte, 1828-1893

"The French Revolution - Volume 3"

Follow the example of your implacable enemies! Keep always
armed, so that they may not escape through the delays of the law! Stab
them on the spot or blow their brains out! " - " Twenty-four millions
of men shout in unison: If the black, gangrened, archi-gangrened
officials dare pass a bill reducing and reorganizing the army,
citizens, then you build eight hundred scaffolds in the Tuileries
garden and hang on them every traitor to his country - that infamous
Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, at the head of them - and, at the same
time, erect in the middle of the fountain basin a big pile of logs to
roast the ministers and their tools!"[36] - Could "the Friend of the
People" rally around him two thousand men determined "to save the
country, he would go and tear the heart out of that infernal Motti? in
the very midst of his battalions of slaves; he would go and burn the
monarch and his imps in his palace, impale the deputies on their
benches, and bury them beneath the flaming ruins of their den."[37]-
On the first cannon shot being fired on the frontier,
"it is indispensable that the people should close the gates of the
towns and unhesitatingly make way with every priest, public
functionary and anti-revolutionary, known instigators and their
accomplices.


Pages:
273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297