. The days of the Directoire . ,a kind of weathercock has been placed, surmountedby the Cap of Liberty. On the principal door, incapital letters, are displayed the following words :— Le Peuple Francais reconnoit lExistence de lEtreSupreme et llmmortalite de lAme,—a declarationmade in the time of Robespierre, and by which thissanguinary tyrant did the Deity the favour of pro-curing him to be acknowledged by the ******The fact is, no matter how terrific the fury of Revo-lution, no matter how fierce the rage for reform, nomatter how momentous the changes actually effected,the maj
. The days of the Directoire . ,a kind of weathercock has been placed, surmountedby the Cap of Liberty. On the principal door, incapital letters, are displayed the following words :— Le Peuple Francais reconnoit lExistence de lEtreSupreme et llmmortalite de lAme,—a declarationmade in the time of Robespierre, and by which thissanguinary tyrant did the Deity the favour of pro-curing him to be acknowledged by the ******The fact is, no matter how terrific the fury of Revo-lution, no matter how fierce the rage for reform, nomatter how momentous the changes actually effected,the majority of the population remains mainly in-different, the mass is neutral and callous except wherethe immediate interests of each individual are ideals and social aspirations are for statesmenand philosophers ; the labouring population, and to a 1 Thibaudeau, Memoires, ii., — Directoire, ch. 12, p. no. 2 Sketch of Modem France; by a Lady, (1798), pp. 51, 52. (Extractfrom a letter dated Montreuil, 1796.). IMPRESSIONS OF RURAL FRANCE 211 large extent the comfortable classes too, never shake off their stolidity. What I have most frequently met with on myroad, without taking any pains to seek it, is an air ofmalaise, anxiety, fatigue, discontent combined withmuch indifference as to the success or non-success ofthe new order of things. Although this revolutionhas had the especial merit of interesting and eveninteresting passionately a prodigious number ofmankind, surely more than any other, it is neverthe-less true that the great majority of the nation has re-mained neutral, and would have been more so still hadthe imperious necessity of circumstances, the appall-ing violence of the revolutionary despotism, allowedthis. The multitude is always more or less like theass in the Fable and always will be. Sure of goingon for ever carrying its load and pack-saddle, Whatis it to me, it says, whose beast I am? In thismultitude we must not only reckon those men whosei
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