Religion and the Reign of Terror; Or, the Church During the French Revolution - Livres de poche

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: RELIGION REIGN OF TERROR. BOOK FIEST. THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. CHAPTER L LEGISLATIVE PRELIMINARIES FIRST DEBATE ON THE LIBERTY OF WORSHIP. A Unique hour in our history had arrived. France, in seeing herself honored with a worthy national representation, felt the throbs of a new life. She saw the future in the brilliant colors of that May sun which saluted the opening of the so long and so earnestly desired States-General. " Despise not your youth," said a great poet. Let us likewise respect this season of genuine enthusiasm for the public good. It had sprung up in a race which had seemed in dotage. Let us not deride this readiness to hope for every thing; this unlimited confidence in the future. If the harvest answers not to the spring, that does not say that the spring was ' deficient in vigorous sap. Had it not been for thesebrilliant illusions, nothing at all would have been accomplished, nothing even undertaken. If there exists to-day earnest opposition to the general abasement, generous aspirations for improvement, it is because something remains of the illusions of 1789. They remain, after all, the ideal of our history; and the moment they are lost sight of by the public, that moment the condition of the nation will be similar to that of falling Rome. The clergy partook largely of the universal enthusiasm. The Bishop of Nancy, in preaching the inauguration sermon of the States-General in a church at Versailles, so touched the chord of patriotism as to be interrupted by cheers, notwithstanding the sacrcdness of the place. However, from the very first day it was easy to observe profound differences of sentiment. On several weighty points, however, there was general harmony, such as the equal distribution of taxes, the regular assembling of the States-G...