New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-07-24

public affairs than an uncultivated one. q man
specially qualified for the task is better able to
perform it we'll than who is not.
This timidity is apparent, however, only in such
ways this In the body of the book, 81. Tainc
has very resolutcly dealt with his subject without
fear tlinching. The book is not history in the
ordinary sense. 1t Is not narrative of events at
large. The war into which the Jacobins plunged
France is barely referred to almost nothing is said
of the business and social state of the country dur
ing the time covered by the volume, nothing in
fact, except that which is necessary to the main
purpose. That main purpose is to inquire into the
methods of the conquest the frauds in election the
terrorism the boldly illegal practices the assassna-
tons and the IiOtings by which the minority seized
power in France and welded it for purposes more ty
rannical than any that despos have dreamed Of The
work is therefore, the complement rather than the
rival of oil er histories of the French Revolutions
II completes the singuarly perfect equipment of the
student OF that great upheayal In NJ. ThlcTs's his
tory we have brilliant glowing, living narrative
of events $ they occurred with such portraits and
charactcrizatons of men are rarely found III any
piece of historical writing NJ. Mignet is less bril-
liant, less dramatic, but moro phiOso phical, and
perhaps in some respects soundcr Carlyle has il
Illuminated the picture with red lights, and NJ
Tame analyses and minutcly depicts the methods
and the means employed in producing il. There
are few pages of history completely presented to
the reader.
NJ Iainc'S analysis is not without profit well rs
interest to American readers When the doctri
narcs Of the jacobin clubs proclaimed the Rights
of Man and the Sovereignty of the People. they
nounced doctrines which deeply imbeddcd not
only i'll our own fundamental law, but in all our
political conceptions. Tho destruction wrought in
France by the msapplication of these doctrines was
made possible by conditions which not wholly
absent from political life. The .Daco bins
made themselves II dcspotic minority by naming
their own passions the will of tn" people: and we
need not search long to discover instances among
ourselves in which minoritics have fallen into pre-
cisciy the same 1t this sort of ,sSumpt ION
which produces stuffed ballot boxes, tisSro-hll lots
and red-shlrt terrorism. Nor is the parallel difficult
to trace between these practices and those by which
the Jacobms made themselves the terrible masters
of France. The Jacohins, even with the rabbc at
their heels, were never in the majority, but they
we're always active, always ntolcrant. They sue
cccGcd III various in legally DISTINGUISHING
large numbers of men; where they could not dis
franchise their opponents they drove them away
from tie ballot-hoXes by thrcatcnngs and violence
III order that the will of the pcope-that is to saw
of the reso!ulc acknowledgements not he ovcrborne by
superior numbers. They employed bribery we'll
as violence. and derived an advantage from the i'll
difference. the political iucrtncss and the selfish
devotion to private business of their opponents
Other men were too much occupied with their
shops to give attention to their duties citizens
The Jacohins made themselves masters of France
because better men were negligent, self mdulgont
and timd, while they were active. vigilant, violent
and unScrupuloUs. Surely there ARE admonlto
for in this terrible story. We cannot shut our
eyes TO the fact that there is selfish indulgence
among u.s. that men who ought to lc active are
inert in political affairs, while the worst classes of
men among lis are always energetic We canuut
help seeing that in parts of the country mi
norities have assumed to he the people and have
suhjugatcd maOrticS by violence and fraud. Nor
can safely assume that those things bear smaller
possibilities of danger to us than they bore to
France near the end of the last century.
The rhetoric of the book is that which diStin-
gushcd its Immediate predecessor in the series 70
the mind of English speaking readers il is some
what Ovcrwrought, at time, almost lurid. 4 worse
fault, perhaps is the authoi'a vacillaton between
the past tense and the historical present This
leads always to confusion. and in the present vol
umc the confusion is increased by certain careless,
ness III making the transitions. Sometimes both
lenses used in single sentence which is not
only bad rhetoric but also Qrammaticaly unanthor-
led 1t would require closer comparison than We
are Just now inclined 10 make OF Mr. Durand's
translation with the original, To determine how TAR
this fault is due to the author and how tar To the
translator; but Mr.. Durand's known fatufulncss
and skill go far to eXonoratc him in advance
Il A DY.,,