Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (Vol. 2)Trollope, Frances Milton
History
Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (Vol. 2)
Trollope, Frances Milton
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
Never certainly did any event brought on by tumult and confusion give
such fair promise of producing eventually the reverse, as the
accession of King Louis-Philippe to the throne of France.
The manner of this unexpected change itself, the scenes which led to
it, and even the state of parties and of feelings which came
afterwards, all bore a character of unsettled confusion which
threatened every species of misery to the country.
When we look back upon this period, all the events which occurred
during the course of it appear like the rough and ill-assorted
fragments of worsted on the reverse of a piece of tapestry. No one
could guess, not even the agents in them, what the final result would
be. But they were at work upon a design drawn by the all-powerful and
unerring hand of Providence; and strange as the medley has appeared to
us during the process, the whole when completed seems likely to
produce an excellent effect.
The incongruous elements, however, of which the chaos was composed
from whence this new order of things was to arise, though daily and
by slow degrees assuming shape and form, were still in a state of
"most admired disorder" during our abode in Paris. It was impossible
to guess where-unto all those things tended which were evidently in
movement around us; and the signs of the times were in many instances
so contrary to each other, that nothing was left for those who came to
view the land, but to gaze--to wonder, and pass on, without attempting
to reconcile contradictions so totally unintelligible.
But, during the few weeks that have elapsed since I left the capital
of France, this obscurity has been dispersed like a mist. It was the
explosion of an infernal machine that scattered it; but it is the
light of heaven that now shines upon the land, making visible to the
whole world on what foundation rest its hopes, and by what means they
shall be brought to fruition.
Never, perhaps, did even a successful attempt upon the life of an
individual produce results so important as those likely to ensue from
the failure of the atrocious plot against the King of the French and
his sons. It has roused the whole nation as a sleeping army is roused
by the sound of a trumpet. The indifferent, the doubting--nay, even
the adverse, are now bound together by one common feeling: an assassin
has raised his daring arm against France, and France in an instant
assumes an attitude so firm, so bold, so steady, and so powerful, that
all her enemies must quail before it.
As for the wretched faction who sent forth this bloody agent to do
their work, they stand now before the face of all men in the broad
light of truth. High and noble natures may sometimes reason amiss, and
may mistake the worse cause for the better; but however deeply this
may involve them in error, it will not lead them one inch towards
crime. Such men have nothing in common with the republicans of 1835.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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