[3] But, at the moment of
action, he finds only three out of eighteen companies, supposed by
him to be enlisted in his cause, that are willing to march with him.
Others remain in their quarters until, Froment being overcome, they
are found there and slaughtered; the survivors, who escape to Jal?s,
find, not a stronghold, but a temporary asylum, where they never
succeed in transforming their inclinations into determinations.[4]
- The nobles too, like other Frenchmen, have been subject to the
lasting pressure of monarchical centralization. They no longer form
one body.; they have lost the instinct of association. They no
longer know how to act for themselves; they are the puppets of
administration awaiting an impulse from the center, while at the
center the King, their hereditary general, a captive in the hands of
the people, commands them to be resigned and to do nothing.[5]
Moreover, like other Frenchmen, they have been brought up in the
philosophy of the eighteenth century. "Liberty is so precious,"
wrote the Duc de Brissac,[6] "that it may well be purchased with
some suffering; a destroyed feudalism will not prevent the good and
the true from being respected and loved.
Pages:
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742