splendid palace in the world, which they left swimming in blood, polluted by massacre, and strewed with scattered limbs and mutilated carcasses. Thence they were conducted into the capital of their kingdom.1 Two had been selected 2 from the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous slaughter which was made of the gentlemen of birth and family who composed the king's body-guard. These two gentlemen, with all the parade of an execution of justice, were cruelly and publicly dragged to the block, and beheaded in the great court of the palace. Their heads were stuck upon spears, and led the procession; whilst the royal captives who followed in the train were slowly moved along, amidst the horrid yells, and shrilling 3 screams, and frantic dances, and infamous contumelies, and all the unutterable abominations of the furies of hell, in the abused shape of the vilest of women. After they had been made to taste, drop by drop, more than the bitterness of death, in the slow torture of a journey of twelve miles protracted to six hours, they were, under a guard composed of those very soldiers who had thus conducted them through this famous triumph, lodged in one of the old palaces of Paris, now converted into a Bastile for kings.5 1 capital of their kingdom. Re- 3 shrilling. member that the royal residence form. was at Versailles, twelve miles from Paris. 2 Two had been selected. M. de Huttes and M. Varicourt, two of the guards. Give the modern 4 one of the old palaces. The Tuileries, where Louis XVI. was whilst Burke was writing, for the king had not then been executed. 5 Bastile for kings. Explain. Although this work of our new light and knowledge1 did not go to the length that in all probability it was intended to be carried, yet I must think that such treatment of any human creatures must be shocking to any but those who are made for accomplishing revolutions. But I can not stop here. Influenced by the inborn feelings of my nature, and not being illuminated by a single ray of this new-sprung modern light, I confess to you, sir, that the exalted rank of the persons suffering, and particularly the sex, the beauty, and the amiable qualities of the descendant 2 of so many kings and emperors, with the tender age of royal infants, insensible only through infancy and innocence of the cruel outrages to which their parents were exposed, instead of being a subject of exultation, adds not a little to my sensibility on that most melancholy occasion. I hear that the august person, who was the principal object of our preacher's triumph,3 though he supported himself, felt much on that shameful occasion. As a man, it became him to feel for his wife and his children, and the faithful guards of his person that were massacred in cold blood about him: as a prince, it became him to feel for the strange and frightful transformation of his civilized subjects, and to be more grieved for them than solicitous for himself. It dero 1 new light and knowledge. Ironical. Point out another use of irony in this paragraph. 3 of our preacher's triumph. The reference is to Dr. Price, who had lately published a sermon 2 the descendant, etc. The glorifying the doings of the French queen, Marie Antoinette. revolutionists. gates1 little from his fortitude, while it adds infinitely to the honor of his humanity. I am very sorry to say it, very sorry indeed, that such personages are in a situation in which it is not unbecoming in us to praise the virtues of the great. I hear, and I rejoice to hear, that the great lady, the other object of the triumph, has borne that day (one is interested that beings made for suffering should suffer well), and that she bears all the succeeding days, that she bears the imprisonment of her husband, and her own captivity, and the exile of her friends, and the insulting adulation of addresses, and the whole weight of her accumulated wrongs, with a serene patience, in a manner suited to her rank and race, and becoming the offspring of a sovereign 3 distinguished for her piety and her courage; that like her she has lofty sentiments; that she feels with the dignity of a Roman matron; that in the last extremity she will save herself from the last disgrace, and that, if she must fall, she will fall by no ignoble hand. — It is now sixteen or 1 derogates. Give a synonym. 2 I hear, etc. What kind of sentence (grammatically) is this paragraph? Is it a period or a loose sentence? 4 6 It is now, etc. This "vision" of Marie Antoinette is one of the most gorgeous pages in English literature. Robert Hall, the distinguished Baptist minister, a man of great eloquence and power, but utterly opposed to Burke's opin 8 offspring of a sovereign, etc. Marie Antoinette was the daughter of Maria Theresa, the heroic Em-ions, gave it as his judgment, that press of Austria. 4 in the last extremity, etc. Alluding to the queen's carrying poison about with her. 5 ignoble. What is the prefix? "those who could read without rapture what Burke had written of the unhappy queen of France, might have merits as reasoners, but ought at once to resign all pre seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness,1 at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,-glittering like the morning star full of life and splender and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what a heart must I have to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to that enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote 2 against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous tensions to be considered men of taste." Burke himself wrote of it to a friend: "The recollection of the manner in which I saw the queen of France in the year 1774, and the contrast between that brilliancy, splendor, and beauty, with the prostrate homage of a nation to her, and the abominable scene of 1789, which I was describing, drew tears from me, and wetted my paper. These tears came again into my eyes, almost as often as I looked at the description; they may again." 1 dauphiness, wife of the dauphin, the title of the heir apparent of France under the old monarchy. 2 sharp antidote. See note on page 214. 8 cavaliers. See Glossary. loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness. This mixed system1 of opinion and sentiment had its origin in the ancient chivalry; and the principle, though varied in its appearance by the varying state of human affairs, subsisted and influenced through long succession of generations, even to the time we live in. If it should ever be totally extinguished, the loss, I fear, will be great.2 It is this which has given its character to modern Europe. It is this which has distinguished it under all its forms of government, and distinguished it to its advantage, from the states of Asia, and possibly from those states which flourished in the most brilliant periods of the antique world. It was this which, without confounding ranks, had produced a noble equality, and handed it down through all the gradations of social life. It was this opinion 1 This mixed system. What kind of sentence, grammatically? ... 2 If it should great. What kind of sentence rhetorically? the genius of our policy, has probably suggested those peculiarities in the law of nations by which modern states are distinguished from the ancient.". FERGUSSON: 8 It is this... Europe: that is, chivalry. "Chivalry, uniting with | History Civil Society. |