GONCOURT, EDMUND ET JULES. Histoire de la Societe Francaise pendant la Revolution. GRANIER DE CASSAGNAC. Histoire des Girondins et des Massacres de Septembre. GUILLON, l'Abbe. Les Martyrs de la Foi pendant la Revolution Francaise. HAMEL, ERNEST. Histoire de Robespierre. JEFFERSON, THOMAS. Memoirs and Correspondence. LAFERRIERE (de l'Institut). Essai sur l'histoire du Droit Francais. MALLET DU PAN. Memoires et Correspondance. MASSON, FREDERIC. Le Departement des Affaires Etrangeres pendant la Revolution. MORRIS, GOUVERNEUR. Diary and Letters. MORTIMER-TERNAUX. Histoire de la Terreur, 1792-1794, d'apres des documents authentiques et inedits. ROCQUAIN, F. L'Esprit Revolutionnaire avant la Revolution. TISSOT, P. F. Histoire complete de la Revolution Francaise. VATEL, CH. Charlotte Corday. YOUNG, ARTHUR. Voyages en France pendant les annees 1787-89. Traduction de M. Le Sage; Introduction par L. de Lavergne. * * * * * INTRODUCTION I This volume is neither a diary nor a narrative. To have given it either of these forms, each of which has its obvious advantages, would have extended it beyond all reasonable limits. It is simply a selection from my very full memoranda of a series of visits paid to different parts of France during the year 1889. These visits would never have been made, had not my previous acquaintance with France and with French affairs, going back now--such as it is--to the early days of the Second Empire, given me reasonable ground to hope that I might get some touch of the actual life and opinions of the people in the places to which I went. My motive for making these visits was the fact that what it has become the fashion to call 'parliamentary government,' or, in other words, the unchecked administration of the affairs of a great people by the directly elected representatives of the people, is now formally on its trial in France. We do not live under this form of government in the United States, but as a thoughtless tendency towards this form of government has shown itself of late years even in the United States and much more strongly in Great Britain, I thought it worth while to see it at work and form some notion of its results in France.