THE TIGER
When a political leader in the course of some fifteen years of
Parlamentary life has upset, or has helped to upset, no fewer than
eighteen administrations and has always refused to take office himself,
that leader is likely to have created a few enemies. When, in addition
to these feats of destruction, he has during the same period secured
the nomination and election of three Presidents of the Republic and
has thus proved an insuperable obstacle to the realisation of the
legitimate ambitions of the most important public men in France who
were not elected, it is clear that personal popularity was not the
object he had in view. It is impossible for the ordinary politician
or journalist to judge fairly a man of this sort. Politics in modern
Europe is an interesting game and, quite frequently, a remunerative
profession. Party interests sap all principle and the attainment of
personal aims and ambitions in and out of Parliament is, as a rule,
quite incompatible with common honesty. Instead of Court intrigues and
backstair cabals there are nowadays lobby "transactions" and convenient
sales of titles and positions arranged, for value received, at private
meetings. That is as far as democracy has got yet. It is all an
understood business, often complicated with more flagitious pecuniary
dealings outside.
Republican Government, or Constitutional Government, means, therefore,
the success or failure of vote-catching and advantage-grabbing schemes,
quite irrespective, from the public point of view, of the merits of the
proposals which are put forward. Honest enthusiasts, who really wish
to get something done for the benefit of the present or the coming
generation, are only useful in so far as they act as stokers-up of
public opinion for the profit of the political promoter of this or that
faction. Steam is needed to drive the machine of State. Men of real
convictions furnish that steam. But they are fools for their pains, all
the same. Half the amount of energy used in the right direction would
gain for them place, pelf, and possibly power, which is all that any
man of common sense goes into politics for. Anybody who carries high
principle and serious endeavour into political life is not playing the
game. Everybody around him wants to know what on earth he is driving
at. The only conceivable object of turning a Ministry out is to get
in. To turn a Government out in order to keep out yourself is an
unintelligible and therefore dangerous form of political mania, or a
persistent manifestation of original sin.
Clemenceau was found guilty on both counts. But he was the ablest
public man in all France. Moreover, he was successful in the diabolical
combinations he set on foot. The thing was uncanny. That he should
begin by overthrowing other politicians was all in the way of business.
But that he should go on at it, time after time, for year after year,
while other and inferior men took the posts he had opened for them, was
not to be explained by any known theory of human motives. If he had
been a cranky religionist, now, that would conceivably have met the
case. He might have been "possessed" from on high or from below. But
Clemenceau was and is a free-thinker of free-thinkers: neither Heaven
nor Hell has anything to say to him. Clearly it is a case of malignant
atavism: Clemenceau has thrown back to his animal ancestry. What is
the totem of the tribe which has entered into him, whose instinct of
depredation pervades his every political action? We have it! He is of
the jungle, jungly. His spring is terrific. His crashing attack fatal.
He looks as formidable as he is. In short, he is a Tiger, and there you
are. That accounts for everything!
When Clemenceau was re-elected Deputy for the 18th Arrondissement
to the National Assembly, on October 14th, 1877, and took the active
part in the renewed struggle with Marshal MacMahon already spoken of,
Gambetta was the leader at the height of his power and influence, with
a solid Republican majority of more than a hundred votes. But from
this period he became steadily more and more Opportunist, which gained
him great credit in Great Britain, and Clemenceau was thenceforth the
recognised leader of the advanced Left. MacMahon having resigned, M.
Grévy was elected President with the support of Gambetta.
From the first Clemenceau had vigorously opposed the establishment
of a Second Chamber in the shape of a Senate divorced from a direct
popular vote. This was a step calculated to hamper progress at every
turn, and at critical moments to intensify those very antagonisms which
it was Gambetta's intention, no doubt, to compose entirely, or at any
rate to mitigate. Clemenceau did not view the matter from Gambetta's
point of view. The Monarchists and Buonapartists were the domestic
enemy, as the Germans had been and might be again the foreign enemy.
The only sound policy for strengthening the Republic to resist both
was to favour those measures political and social which would make
that Republic, which they had established with so much difficulty and
at such great cost, a genuinely democratic Republic. Any surrender to
the reactionists and the clericals must inevitably dishearten those
parties, now shown to be the majority of the whole French people, who
were for the Republic and the Republic alone. Opportunism also gave
the anti-democrats and intriguers a false notion of their own power,
virtually helped them to carry on their underground agitations for a
change of the new constitution, and provided them in the undemocratic
Senate with a political force that might be turned to their own purpose.
It was more important all through, thought Clemenceau, to inspire
your own side with confidence than to placate your opponents by
half-measures. It was, in fact, not enough to eject officials who were
known to be hostile to the Republic; it was still more essential to
give such shape to the political forms and so vivify political opinion
that even the most unscrupulous officials could not turn them to the
account of reaction. Both steps were necessary to carry out a thorough
democratic programme. In fact, the whole scheme of administration in
France could not be permanently improved merely by substituting one set
of bureaucrats for another. Much more drastic measures of a peaceful
character were indispensable, and these Opportunism thwarted. Gambetta
may not have given up his desire to carry these Radical measures in
1877 and 1878: he still retained and expressed his old opinions upon
clericalism and its sinister influence. But he was no longer the
vehement champion of the advanced party at Versailles, and the position
which he had abandoned Clemenceau took up and pushed further to the
front.
There was no matter on which the lines of cleavage between the
Republicans and the reactionists were more definitely and clearly drawn
than on the question of the Amnesty of the Communists. No man in the
Assembly was stronger in favour of their complete amnesty by law than
Clemenceau. This he showed in 1876, and in his powerful advocacy of the
release of the great agitator and conspirator Blanqui in 1879. Every
reactionary and trimming man of moderate views was bitterly opposed to
a policy of justice towards the victims of the wholesale measures of
repression formulated by M. Thiers and so frightfully carried out by
General Gallifet and the Versailles troops in 1871. Even when measures
of partial amnesty were passed, their application was nullified as
far as possible by Ministers. It was part of an organised policy
to frighten the bourgeoisie and peasants into another Empire. The
reprisals of the Bloody Week and the transportations to Cayenne and New
Caledonia had not by any means fully satisfied the enemies alike of the
Commune and the Republic. So Clemenceau and his friends never ceased
their attacks upon M. Waddington and others who took the rancorous
conservative view of unceasing persecution of the men and women who,
after all, were the first to declare the Republic. M. Waddington, as
Premier, got a resolution passed by the Chamber in his favour. But this
did not silence either Clemenceau's friends or himself. Here, in fact,
was a crucial case of his power of getting rid of an obnoxious Ministry
even in the face of a Ministerial majority. The Tiger showed his
claws and made ready to spring. But first he gave fair warning of his
intentions. Nothing could be plainer than this: "Why has the Minister
of Justice demanded a partial amnesty? Because he is anxious that the
country should not forget the horrors of the Commune. But then, if you
do not wish it to forget the horrors of the Commune, why do you desire
that those who have been condemned should forget the horrors of its
repression? Because for eight long years we have kept under cover the
abominable facts at our disposal, you have thought yourselves in a
position to trample on us! You say: We shall not forget the hostages
and the conflagrations. Very well. I who speak here tell you: If you
forget nothing, your opponents will remember too."
The speech from which that passage is an excerpt was regarded as
a distinct menace on Clemenceau's part. It was followed up by the
extreme Left with a series of interruptions, interrogations and
denunciations which ended in the retirement of M. Waddington. He had
his majority but he had no Clemenceau. So out went Waddington and his
colleagues. In came M. Freycinet--"the white mouse." "We have had,"
said Clemenceau's organ, _La Justice_, "in the Waddington cabinet a
Dufaure cabinet without M. Dufaure. To-day we have a Waddington cabinet
without M. Waddington. It is a botch upon a botch." A nice welcome for
M. Freycinet! A pleasing congratulation for the President, M. Grévy!
The administration was regarded as a political monstrosity. It had two
heads, M. Freycinet and M. Jules Ferry, one looking to the right and
the other to the left. The friends of Freycinet could not stand Ferry:
the friends of Ferry abhorred Freycinet. This new political marriage
not only began but went on with mutual aversion. It stood at the
mercy, therefore, of Clemenceau, who was less inclined to be merciful
since the Premier declared himself bitterly hostile to the plenary
amnesty proposed by the famous old Republican, M. Louis Blanc. Also on
account of clerical tendencies. Out goes Freycinet, therefore, in his
turn, and in comes M. Jules Ferry, with various clerical, educational
and other troubles of his own hatching to clear up. Ministries, in
short, were going in and out on the dial of Presidential favour like
the figures of a Dutch clock. Clemenceau was getting his claws well
into the various political personages all the time. As none of them
had any blood to lose in the shape of principles there was no great
harm done--except to the Republic! It was the perpetual immolation
of a sawdust brigade. A keen critic of the period said of the Ferry
Ministry--which was beaten on its proposal to postpone on behalf of
education the reform of the magistracy and all that this carried with
it in regard to the amnesty--that it wished to die before it lived.
Down it went for the moment, and returned to place out of breath and
half-ruined. But there the Ministry still was, and that by itself was
something in those days of political topsy-turveydom, with Clemenceau
and his party ever ready to assert themselves.
Thus the Republic stumbled rather than marched on, from the date
of Marshal MacMahon's resignation and the installation of M. Grévy
as President up to the period of the declaration of July 14th, in
remembrance of July 14th, 1789, and the Fall of the Bastille, as the
fête day of the Republic after the passage of a practically complete
amnesty. This was really a great triumph for all Republicans, as it put
the Republic in its true historic relation to the past, the present
and the future. With such a national fête day, with the certainty that
Republicans, if they chose to keep united, could always command a large
majority in the Assembly, the elections of 1881 might well have been
a first step towards a thorough political and social reorganisation
of the Republic. Unfortunately there were several causes of disunion.
President of the Assembly though he was, and therefore excluded by
his position as well as by M. Grévy's prejudice against him from
coming into immediate competition with M. Ferry for the Premiership,
Gambetta was actively supporting the _scrutin de liste_, or political
appeal to the whole country, against _scrutin d'arrondissement_, or
local elections. This was regarded as a bid on his part for a clear
Parliamentary dictatorship. Already on October 20th, 1880, Clemenceau
had denounced the hero of the dictatorship of despair of 1871, fine as
his effort had then been, as aiming at personal power ten years later.
A victory at the polls gained through _scrutin de liste_ would probably
ensure him success in this venture.
Nevertheless, in spite of open and secret opposition, Gambetta had
sufficient influence to carry the _scrutin de liste_ through the
National Assembly. But with the curious irony of fate he was defeated
by a majority of 32 in the Senate which he himself had been so largely
instrumental in forcing upon the Republic! This was on June 9th, 1881.
Three months before, M. Barodet had brought forward a resolution
backed by 64 deputies which, if carried, would have abolished the
equality of rights between the Senate and the National Assembly, would
have withdrawn the right of the former to dissolve Parliament, would
have made the Chamber permanent like the Senate, would have modified
the system of election of the second House; would have prevented the
re-enactment of the _scrutin de liste_ by again making the electoral
law for the deputies part of the Constitution; and lastly would have
summoned a Constituent Assembly in order to carry out these reforms.
This whole project was discussed in the Assembly on May 31st. There
was no mistake about Clemenceau's attitude. He formulated a vigorous
indictment against the Constitution of 1875 and attacked the Senate
with great violence. The Constitution of 1875 was, he declared, a
powerful weapon of war expressly forged for use against the Republic.
The Senate with its anti-democratic method of election was a permanent
danger to the State. It was not in any sense an element of stability
but an element of resistance. "What is the use of talking of a brake
on the machine or a weight to counterbalance popular opinion? Does not
universal suffrage provide its own brake, its own regulator?" This
time, however, Clemenceau missed his _coup_. M. Barodet's motion was
rejected and the conservative Republic rumbled on comfortably, though
Clemenceau shortly afterwards very nearly toppled M. Ferry's Cabinet
over, the Ministers only securing a vote in their favour by a majority
of 13 made up by their own votes.
Looking back to that period when the whole Constitution seemed almost
certain to go into the melting-pot and come out again in a thoroughly
democratic shape, it is remarkable to notice how, in spite of the
efforts of Clemenceau, M. Naquet and other democrats, the Republic of
compromise has steadily adhered to its old machinery. Why the cumbrous
and often reactionary Senate, elected in such wise as to exclude
democratic influence, should have been maintained for more than forty
years is difficult to explain. But nations, as our own belated and
unmanageable Constitution proves, when once they have become accustomed
to a form of government, are very slow indeed to adapt it to rapidly
changing economic and social developments. This, it may be said,
suits the English turn of mind with its queer addiction to perpetual
compromise. But the French are logical and apparently restless. Yet
their Constitution remains an unintelligible muddle. Their real
conservatism overrides their revolutionary tendencies except in periods
of great perturbation. Thus the Opportunist Republic of Gambetta,
which ought to have been a mere makeshift, has held on, with partial
revision, for more than forty years. Fear of the monarchists on one
side and of the Communists, afterwards the Socialists, on the other has
kept Humpty-Dumpty up on his wall.
The elections of 1881, conducted as they were amid much excitement,
gave the Republicans of all parties a crushing majority--a majority in
the Assembly greatly out of proportion even to the total vote. There
were five millions of votes for Republicans against 1,700,000 for
the various sections of monarchists. The Republican deputies in the
Chamber, however, numbered 467 to only 90 "conservatives." According
to the returns, this was a victory for the Government and its chief,
M. Jules Ferry, especially as the Prime Minister had arrived at some
understanding with Gambetta, who at this time had become extremely
unpopular with the democracy of Paris. But those who were of this
opinion reckoned without the question of Tunis and, above all, without
taking account of the difficulty of facing the criticisms of the
irreconcilable Clemenceau. Clemenceau had always opposed a policy of
colonial adventure. This of Tunis was from his point of view not only
adventurous but dangerous. Tunis had been offered to France in an
indefinite way at the Peace-with-Honour Congress of Berlin in 1878.
But the policy of expansion pushed on by financial intrigues did not
take shape at once. When it did it was serious enough, for France not
only had to deal with troubles in Algeria itself, with the natural
opposition of the Bey of Tunis to French interference and annexation,
but Italy took umbrage at the advance, regarding Tunis as specially
her business, Turkey was by no means favourable, and there was even
a possibility that Germany might stir up trouble for purposes of her
own. Moreover the whole business had been extremely ill-managed, not
only by the Government itself but by M. Albert Grévy, the brother of
the President, who was the Governor-General of Algeria. This personage,
on account of his Presidential connections, could neither be censured
nor replaced. So credits were asked for, troops were moved, a railway
concession granted--everything as usual, in short, when annexation is
being prepared.
Clemenceau quite rightly denounced the whole mischievous business as
the policy of intriguers and plutocrats, and demanded an inquiry into
the affair from the first. He did not measure his phrases at all.
French blood and French money, sadly needed at home, were being wasted
abroad. M. Ferry, to do him justice, fought hard for his policy of
colonisation by force of arms. His attacks upon the extremists who
criticised him did not lack point or bitterness. Discharged officials
from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and returned Communards from
Noumea who composed the public meetings and irregular assizes that
condemned him, M. Ferry, "as is fitting, kicked aside with his boot."
As to Clemenceau, if he had allowed matters to take their own course
in Tunis, what a tornado of malediction would have raged around them
from that orator! "I can hear even now the philippics of the honourable
M. Clemenceau." Clemenceau did not get the inquiry he demanded. But
on November 10th M. Ferry retired, so badly had he been mauled in
the fray. It was a win, that is to say, for Clemenceau, who by his
speech on November 9th again overthrew the Government in spite of the
cordial support of Gambetta. What made this victory of Clemenceau and
the extreme Left the more astounding was the fact that the Treaty
concluding the "first pacification" of Tunis had been confirmed on May
23rd by a majority of 430 to 1. Clemenceau was that one. Six months
later, therefore, he had his revenge. The _expédition de vacances_,
which had developed into a _guerre de conquête_, cost M. Jules Ferry
his Premiership, notwithstanding this unheard-of majority. The Tiger at
work indeed!
So now at last, in spite of M. Grévy's ungrateful conduct towards him,
in spite likewise of the rejection of the _scrutin de liste_, Gambetta
became President of the Council instead of President of the Chamber.
He was still at this time in the eyes of all foreigners the most
eminent living French statesman. In England particularly his accession
to office was received with jubilation in official circles. It meant,
so said Liberals like Sir Charles Dilke, who were then in power, a
permanently close understanding between France and England, a joint
settlement of the troublesome and at times even threatening Egyptian
question, as well as a fair probability of the arrangement of other
thorny problems between the two countries. But in order to accomplish
all this Gambetta must carry the Assembly, the Senate and the bulk of
his countrymen with him, and control a solid Republican party, even
if Clemenceau and his squadrons still hung upon his flank. Gambetta,
however, had shaken the confidence of the country. It was no longer
Clemenceau and his friends only who accused him of aiming at supreme
dictatorial power. The public in general suspected him too. Nor did
his immediate friends, either old or young, do much to destroy this
unfortunate impression.
Truth to tell, Gambetta was not the man he had been a few years
before. He looked fat, even bloated, unhealthy and sensual. His
magnificent frame had undergone deterioration. A brilliant French
journalist cruelly comparing him to Vitellius, as a man of gluttony
and debauchery combined, summed up his career against that of the
extraordinary Roman general and Emperor who had played so many parts
successfully, as soldier in the field and as courtier in the palace,
and wound up in derision of Gambetta with the terrible phrase, "_Je
te demande pardon, César!_" And over against this self-indulgent and
fiery man of genius was a very different personage, who had taken up
the rôle which had once been that of the great tribune of the French
people. Spare, alert, vigorous, always in training, despising ease and
never taken by surprise; equal, as he had just shown, to fighting a
lone hand victoriously, yet never despising help in his battles even
from the most unexpected quarters--what chance had Gambetta against
such a terrible opponent as Clemenceau? None whatever. Down he went,
after a Premiership of but sixty-six days. Many believe that, finding
the situation too complicated, and relying still upon obtaining the
_scrutin de liste_ later--as indeed came about some time after his
death--Gambetta deliberately rode for a fall. Certain it is that M.
Spüller, who had Gambetta's complete confidence, gave this explanation
of his intentions three weeks before his defeat in the Assembly.
Gambetta, with all his great reputation, being overthrown, straightway
his old Secretary of 1871, de Freycinet, came again to the front.
The affairs of Egypt, always with Clemenceau's genial assistance,
made short work of him. The Anglo-French Condominium having fallen
through and England having thought proper to suppress a people "rightly
struggling to be free," de Freycinet was anxious to reassert the claims
of France in Egypt after a fashion which threatened unpleasantness
with Great Britain. Whatever Clemenceau may have thought privately
of English policy at this juncture, he would have none of that. His
arguments convinced the Assembly that French intervention in Egypt
against England would be dangerous and unsuccessful. France, said
Clemenceau, had neither England's advantages nor England's direct
interests in Egypt. France is a continental, not a great sea power. Her
apprehensions are from the East. Do nothing which may drive England
into the arms of Germany.
What was much worse, the same colonial expansion which had been carried
out in Tunis was now followed up in Tonquin, Annam and Madagascar, at
great expense and to little or no advantage. Clemenceau still opposed
this entire policy on principle. Ferry thought France would recompense
herself for the disasters of 1870-71 by these adventures: Clemenceau
was absolutely convinced to the contrary. "Why risk £20,000,000 on
remote expeditions when we have our entire industrial mechanism to
create, when we lack schools and country roads? To build up vanquished
France again we must not waste her blood and treasure on useless
enterprises. But there are much higher reasons even than these for
abstaining from such wars of depredation. It is all an abuse, pure and
simple, of the power which scientific civilisation has over primitive
civilisation to lay hold upon man as man, to torture him, to squeeze
everything he has in him out of him for the profit of a civilisation
which itself is a sham." There could be no sounder sense, no higher
morality, no truer statesmanship than that. Clemenceau had aspirations
that France should lead the world, not by unjustifiable conquests
over semi-civilised populations, but by displaying at home those
great qualities which she undoubtedly possesses. His attacks were
inspired, therefore, not by personal animosity against Jules Ferry or
any other politician, but against a megalomania that was harmful to
his country and the world. Unfortunately, Clemenceau could not, this
time, persuade the Assembly or his countrymen to recognise the dangers
and disadvantages of expansion by conquest in the Far East, until the
disaster of Lang Son and the demand for additional credits enabled him
to push the perils of such a policy right home. Then M. Ferry was once
more discharged, practically at Clemenceau's behest.
So matters went on, Clemenceau striving his utmost, in opposition, to
enforce the genuine democratic policy of abstention from Imperialism
abroad and strengthening of the forces of the Republic at home which
the successive Opportunist Administrations in power refused to
accept. In each and every case, Tunis, Tonquin, Annam, Madagascar
and Egypt, he considered first, foremost and all the time what would
most benefit Frenchmen in France, and refused to be led astray by any
will-o'-the-wisps of Eastern origin, however gloriously they might
disport themselves under the sun of finance. But now came a still more
awkward matter close at home. There are not the same facilities for
shutting down inquiries into the financial peccadilloes or corrupt
malversations of public men in France as there are in England. Monetary
scandals will out, though political blunderings may be glossed over, as
in the cases of the Duc de Broglie, M. Jules Ferry and M. Albert Grévy.
The President, M. Grévy, was very unfortunate in his relations. His
brother, the Governor-General of Algeria, had shown himself dreadfully
incompetent in that capacity. But M. de Freycinet, M. Jules Ferry and
the whole Ministerial set had entered into a conspiracy of silence and
misrepresentation, throwing the blame of his mistakes upon anybody but
the Governor-General himself, in order to uphold the dignity of the
President quite uninjured. Now, however, the President's son-in-law,
M. Wilson, was found out in very ignoble transactions. He was actually
detected in the flagitious practice of trading in decorations, the
Legion of Honour and the like, not for what are considered on this
side of the Channel as perfectly legitimate purposes, the furtherance,
namely, of Party gains or Ministerial advantages, but in order to
increase his own income. The thing became a public scandal. Those
who could not afford to buy the envied distinctions were specially
incensed. But out of regard for the President, out of consideration
for their personal advancement in the future, because when you start
this sort of thing you never know how far it will go, because other
Ministers in and out of office had had relations of their own addicted
to similar trading in other directions--for all these reasons, good and
bad, nobody cared to take the matter up seriously.
Nobody, that is to say, except that tiger Clemenceau. He actually
thought that the honour of the Republic was at stake in the business:
was of opinion that a President should be more careful than other
people in keeping the doubtful characters of men and women of his
own household under restraint. And he not only thought but spoke and
acted. M. Rouvier, who was then Premier, felt himself bound to stand
by the President and exculpated him from any share in the affair.
This made matters worse. For M. Grévy, when the whole transaction was
fully debated, could not withstand the pressure of public opinion
against him; Clemenceau carried his point and the President resigned.
Thereupon M. Rouvier thought it incumbent upon him to retire too,
though Clemenceau took pains to tell him that this was a concern
purely personal to the President and not a political issue at all.
There was consequently a Presidential Election and a new Ministry at
the same time. So great was Clemenceau's influence at this juncture
that although three of the most prominent politicians in the Republic
were eager for the post, he, out of fear of the election of the
irrepressible expansionist M. Ferry, persuaded the electors to favour
the appointment of the able and cool but popularly almost unknown
M. Sadi-Carnot--who turned out, it may be said, quite an admirable
President up to his outrageous assassination.
By this time Clemenceau had fully justified his claim to the
distinction of being the most formidable and relentless political
antagonist known in French public life since the great Revolution.
As he would never take office himself and was moved by few personal
animosities, he stood outside the lists of competers for place. He
had definite Radical Republican principles and during all these years
he acted up to them. He was throughout opposed, as I have said, to
compromise. He fought it continuously all along the line. Moreover, he
had a profound contempt for politicians who were merely politicians.
"I have combated," he said, "ideas, not persons. In my fight against
Republicans I have always respected my party. In the heat of the
conflict I have never lost sight of the objects we had in common, and I
have appealed for the solidarity of the whole against the common enemy
of all."
As, also, he triumphantly declared in a famous oration against those
who were engaged in sneering at Parliamentary Government and the
tyranny of words, he was ever in favour of the greatest freedom of
speech, and even stood up for the commonplace debates which often
must have terribly bored him. "Well, then, since I must tell you so,
these discussions which astonish you are an honour to us all. They
prove conclusively our ardour in defence of ideas which we think right
and beneficial. These discussions have their drawbacks: silence has
more. Yes, glory to the country where men speak, shame on the country
where men hold their tongues. If you think to ban under the name of
parliamentarism the rule of open discussion, mind this, it is the
representative system, it is the Republic itself against whom you are
raising your hand."
A great Parliamentarian, a great political Radical was Clemenceau the
Tiger of 1877 to 1893. He, more than any other man, prevented the
Republic from altogether deteriorating and kept alive the spirit of the
great French Revolution in the minds and in the hearts of men.