United States or Finland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
An old Girondin, whom Charlotte Corday had requested to defend her, and who died a senator of the Second Empire, Pontécoulant, assured his friends that Lamartine had given the true colour, had reproduced the times as he remembered them. In the same way General Dumas approved of Thiers's 10th of August.
That there were three or four earnest men among them, no one can dispute; but as to the rest, I can only say that if they were zealous patriots devoted to their country's good, they did not, when I saw them, look like it." In the first week of May the Commune decreed the destruction of M. Thiers's beautiful home in the Rue St. Georges.
He had noted faults in M. Thiers's work, and he spoke with the utmost respect of a certain professor named Dumouchel. Bouvard had the advantage of him in other ways. His hair watch-chain, and his manner of whipping-up the mustard-sauce, revealed the greybeard, full of experience; and he ate with the corners of his napkin under his armpits, giving utterance to things which made Pécuchet laugh.
I saw Thiers's house being demolished; and when the end came and the Versailles troops made their entry into the city, I was repeatedly in the street-fighting with my good friend, Captain Bingham.
REFERENCES. Alison's History of the French Revolution, marked by his English prejudices, heavy in style, and inaccurate in many of his facts, yet lofty, temperate, and profound. Thiers's History is more lively, and takes different views. Carlyle's work is extremely able, but the most difficult to read of all his works, in consequence of his affected and abominable style.
It made us very sad all day to think that death had entered our gates. 15th May. Thiers's house in the Rue St. Georges was pillaged to-day by the mob, who howled like madmen and hurled all sorts of curses and maledictions on luckless Thiers, who has done nothing wrong, and certainly tried to do good. Auber, who lives in the same street, must have seen and heard all that was going on.
He himself stood almost always leaning against the mantelpiece. Prince Orloff, Russian ambassador, was one of the habitues of the salon, and I was always delighted when he would slip away from the group of men and join the ladies in Madame Thiers's salon, which was less interesting. He knew everybody, French and foreign, and gave me most amusing and useful little sketches of all the celebrities.
A little later, as we discussed certain recent books, I re- ferred to Jules Simon's work on Thiers's administration. Bismarck said that Thiers, in the treaty negotiations at Versailles, impressed him strongly; that he was a patriot; that he seemed at that time like a Roman among Byzantines. This statement astonished me.
This country is surely the paradise of painters and penny-a-liners; and when one reads of M. Horace Vernet at Rome, exceeding ambassadors at Rome by his magnificence, and leading such a life as Rubens or Titian did of old; when one sees M. Thiers's grand villa in the Rue St. Noble people! they made Tom Paine a deputy; and as for Tom Macaulay, they would make a DYNASTY of him.
Well, I don't think so, exactly; still, I do not believe much in the justice and impartiality of the Vehmgerichte, Parliamentary committees, the Berlin police, the prefects of the past empire, Monsieur Thiers's communistic courts-martial, or of the New York Erie Ring nor, indeed of any representative, or, other body, which hides its deeds and decisions under a cloak of secrecy!
Word Of The Day