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Untitled Article
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Untitled Article
And while the manner in which the Revolution has been effected is so individually honourable to the Frepch people , it reflects equal , if not higher , lustre upon them , considered collectively . So long as oppression worie even the form of law , it was only encountered by a legal resistance . While the charter was even in profession adhered to , the people only availed themselves of the means which the charter allowed to defeat infractions of its letter and its spirit . They acted by their constitutional representatives . When the chamber was dissolved , by the advice of ministers whose very names were an outrage upon the nation , they quietly and peaceably , but almost unanimously , elected other deputies who would , as was well known , not fall short of their predecessors in advocating national principles , and sustaining national rights , When this chamber was dissolved , even before it had assembled , the censorship of the press established , and the law of elections changed by a mere act of royal will , most arbitrary , illegal , and unconstitutional , they still awaited actual aggression before they resorted to active and armed resistance . Through the press , to which belongs the glory of having commenced the revolution , they declared their determination not to act upon illegal mandates , but they proceeded to no violence ; there were no demonstrations of riot , no arms had been prepared , no attack
was commenced , no tumult had originated ; it was only when actually assailed , when the printing offices were entered by the soldiery , when the
inhabitants were sabred in the streets , that with such weapons as they could at the moment obtain , the citizens stood up in self-defence , and would not unresistingly be massacred by the military . As much of regularity and organization as could be effected in circumstances so extraordinary , were spontaneously and instantly adopted . The people were anxious to put themselves under the direction of trust-worthy leaders ; and so far as the military conduct of the little bands into which they formed themselves was
concerned , there was a felicitous provision for their guidance in the skill , the spirit , and the patriotism , of the pupils of the Polytechnic School . These lads are the true nobility of France . The new deputies were immediately invited to assemble ; the fate of the country was committed to their hands ; the chief magistracy was consigned to the nearest relative of a family which France could evidently never tolerate again ; order was restored , yet more rapidly than it had been interrupted ; and in five days , of which three were days of mortal conflict , the change was complete , and the nation was
regenerated . In the course of these proceedings , the French people have with a perspicacity and a determination which cannot be too much admired , penetrated every delusion , and shewn themselves superior to every influence , by which it might have been supposed that they could be diverted from their purpose , and rendered unfaithful to their own interests and those of their posterity . By no outbreakings of popular feeling , by no internperateQess of language , by no premature ebullitions of impatience or resentment , have they given a pretext or a colouring to the effort which was made to subject
them to absolute and undisguised despotism . It stands in all the bareness of unprovoked aggression . Even military glory could no longer dazzle or seduce their minds . The unanticipated and wonderful success of the expedition to Algiers ^ a success on which the court could not have calculated , totally failed of that kind and degree of influence on which , even from a much inferior triumph , it is obvious that the court did calculate . And in the forms and offices of the government which they have now established , a becoming independence of the example and the desires of other states , with
Untitled Article
622 France .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1830, page 622, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2588/page/38/
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