human
We, too, have conquered our liberty. We have not to learn from Americans how to conquer it, but how to preserve it. This secret consists especially in morality.... What is liberty? It is the most perfect state of society, a state in which man depends only upon the laws made by himself;[191] and to make good ones, he must improve his reason; and to apply them he must again have recourse to his reason.... Morals are but reason applied to all the acts of life.... They are among free men what irons, whipping-posts, and gibbets are among peoples in slavery.... This journey will show you the wondrous effects of liberty on morals, on industry, and on the amelioration of men.... My desire has been to depict to my compatriots a people with whom it behooves, from every point of view, that they become intimately united.
gpt
The young French nobility enrolled for the cause of [American] independence, wrote Talleyrand in his memoirs,
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Pontgibaud, who remained a royalist, who hated the Revolution and became an _émigré_, observes the same fact, although deploring what occurred:
gpt
The officers of Count de Rochambeau had nothing better to do [after Yorktown], I believe, than to visit the country. When one thinks of the false ideas of government and philanthropy with the virus of which these youths were infected in America, and which they were to enthusiastically propagate in France, with such lamentable success--since that mania for imitation has powerfully helped toward the Revolution, without being its unique cause--people will agree that all those red-heeled young philosophers had much better, for their sake and ours, have stayed at court.... Each of them fancied he would be called upon to play the part of Washington. Asked to join Lafayette and
human
he refused:
gpt
It has been justly said that in a revolution the difficulty lies not in doing one's duty, but in knowing where it is. I did mine because I knew where it was,
human
I am glad to hear, he wrote to Jefferson,
gpt
A spirit for political improvements seems to be rapidly and extensively spreading through the European countries, he wrote to La Luzerne.
human
I shall rejoice in seeing the condition of the human race happier than ever it has been. But let the people at the helm be careful not to make
gpt
one:
human
If I were to advise, I should say that great moderation should be used on both sides.... Such a spirit seems to be awakened in the kingdom as, if managed with extreme prudence, may produce a gradual and tacit revolution, much in favor of the subjects.
gpt
It is a tribute, he wrote,
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Washington placed the key at Mount Vernon, where it is still, and returned thanks for this
gpt
The Revolution which has been effected in France is of so wonderful a nature that the mind can hardly realize the fact. If it ends as our last accounts to the 1st of August predict, that nation will be the most powerful and happy in Europe; but I fear, though it has gone triumphantly through the first paroxysm, it is not the last it has to encounter before matters are finally settled. In a word, the Revolution is of too great a magnitude to be effected in so short a space, and with the loss of so little blood. The mortification of the King, the intrigues of the Queen, and the discontent of the princes and the noblesse will foment divisions, if possible, in the National Assembly. The
human
is not less to be feared.
gpt
To forbear running from one extreme to the other is no easy matter; and should this be the case, rocks and shoals, not visible at present, may wreck the vessel.
human
Indeed, the whole business is so extraordinary in its commencement, so wonderful in its progress, and may be so stupendous in its consequences that I am almost lost in the contemplation. Of one thing, however, you may rest perfectly assured, that nobody is more anxious for the happy issue of that business than I am, as nobody can wish more sincerely for the prosperity of the French nation than I do. To another correspondent, Mrs. Graham, he described
gpt
as
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So late as the 20th of October, 1792, he was writing to Gouverneur Morris:
gpt
We can only repeat the sincere wish that much happiness may arise to the French nation and to mankind in general out of the severe evils which are inseparable from so important a revolution.
human
[199] Maybe the States General will provide an adequate remedy, by devising a constitution:
gpt
I hope very much of this General States to restore our finances and to consolidate a good constitution. [200] But he has doubts as to what
human
The vote being, in accordance with law and custom, taken per estate or order, the two privileged ones always vote in the same way and can ever prevail. Rochambeau informs Washington that, as for himself, he
gpt
Do you remember, my dear general, he writes,
human
Frederick II, who, considering what France was, what misfortunes and dangers she had encountered, and what concealed sources of strength were in her, once said to the French minister accredited to him:
gpt
I have been brought up in the middle of the unhappiness of France; my cradle was surrounded with refugee Protestants that, about the end of the reign of Louis XIV and the beginning of the regency of the Duc d'Orleans, told me that France was at the agony and could not exist three years. I [have] known in the course of my reign that France has such a temper that there [is] no bad minister nor bad generals [who] be able to kill it, and that constitution has made it rise again of all its crises, with strength and vigor. It wants no other remedy but time and keep a strict course of diet.
human
President Washington, the French minister informed his chief,
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[204] Tom Paine, though an American, or rather because an American, was elected by several departments a member of the Convention, took his seat, but, as he knew no French, had his speeches translated and read for him; he played an important part in the drafting of our second Constitution, the republican one of 1793. As a sacred emblem of liberty, the American flag was displayed in the hall where the Convention held its sittings. A quite extraordinary decree was rendered by this body in the second year of the Republic,
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deciding, and this at a time when everybody was liable to arrest, that
gpt
It affords me great satisfaction to inform you that, in spite of the news received the day before of the bad success of our first military operations, the Americans have given, on the occasion of this anniversary, touching signs of their attachment for France and proof of the interest they take in the success of our arms. You will see by the bulletins and newspapers accompanying this letter that the same sentiments have been manifested in almost all the cities which count in the Union, and that the 14th has been celebrated with the same ardor as the 4th, which is the anniversary of American independence.