Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ... SECTION IX THE FRENCH REVOLUTION STAGE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION STAGE SUDDENLY the storm burst on France, and on the world. The elements of destruction had long been gathering. The skies were already dark. There was a restless heaving of the nations. The throes of a terrible convulsion were felt to be at hand. It came like the bursting of a volcano. Thrones and temples went down in the wreck. France was covered with carnage; Europe thrown into war; the world revolutionized. Never was there anything more terribly majestic in human history--never will there be--till the last judgment day. Viewed in relation to the past and to the future, to all that it destroyed, to all that it inaugurated, the French Revolution stands alone, without a parallel. Viewed in itself as an explosion of infidelity, immorality, massacre and war, there is nothing in the range of the world's history to compare with it. Before the tremendous forces which it unchained, thrones, temples and institutions which had stood for ages were overturned as trees by a tempest, and swept away as straws by a whirlwind. "Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty, Give unto the Lord glory and strength: The voice of the Lord is upon the waters, The God of glory thundereth; The Lord is upon many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful, The voice of the Lord is full of majesty; The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars; Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. The Lord sitteth upon the flood; Yea, the Lord sitteth King forever." The history of the French Revolution is the history of Europe for more than a century; the history of the modern world. Alison, who entitled his voluminous history of the French Revolution, "The history of Europe since the accession of Louis XVI," begins by declaring...