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MARIE ANTOINETTE.
THE
FRENCH REVOLUTION
OF 1789
AS VIEWED IN THE LIGHT OF REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS.
BY
JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
With One Hundred Engravings.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1859.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred
and fifty-nine, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.
PREFACE.
For some years the author of this work has been collecting materialsfor writing the history of the French Revolution. With this object inview he has visited Paris, wishing also to become familiar with thelocalities rendered immortal by the varied acts of this drama—themost memorable tragedy, perhaps, which has as yet been enacted uponthe theatre of time. In addition to the aids which he has thus derivedfrom a brief sojourn in Paris, he has also found the library of BowdoinCollege peculiarly rich in all those works of religious and politicalphilosophizings which preceded and ushered in these events, and in thenarratives of those contemporary historians who recorded the scenes asthey occurred, or which they themselves witnessed. Governor Bowdoin,whose library was the nucleus of the present college library, seems tohave taken a special interest in collecting all the writings of theFrench philosophers and all the works of contemporary authors bearingupon the French Revolution, including—the most important of all—fullfiles of the Moniteur.
The writer would not take up his pen merely to repeat the storywhich has so often and so graphically been told before. But it isexpecting too much of human nature to imagine that the struggles of anoppressed people to emancipate themselves from feudal despotism canbe impartially narrated in the castles of nobles or in the courts ofkings. It is inevitable that the judgment which is pronounced upon theevents which such a struggle involves will be biased by the politicalprinciples of the observer. Precisely the same transaction will by onebe condemned and by another applauded. He who believes in the divineright of kings t