The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-08-27
REFORMS IN FRANCE.


In The Herald's Home Study Circle
the tragic story of Marie Antoinette
was concluded yesterday. 1t was an IN
cident of a most lurid epoch in the his
tory of France-that great stage and
greenroom of national tragedy and in
trigue.
The nature of the people is the same
today that it was during the French
revolution. They are just as excitable,
just as tickle as they were then. They
are as prone to haggle over the symbols
of honor while ignoring the virtue it
self as they were in the latter part of
the eighteenth century, And yet there
have been changes, marvellous changes.
These are seen, not so much in the tenn
per of the people as in the manner they
give it vent. Conspiracies were Matched
in the sunlight then; they are brought
TO life in the dark now. Traitors fought
in those days; they forge now. 1t was
the guillotine then; it is the courtmar-
tial now. There may be as much VIII
lainy as ever, but there is less saw
agery. Civilization has changed meth
DDS, but not men.
Marie Antoinette lived in terrible
times. Yet the result of that upheaval,
in its influence upon the rest of Europe,
proves the truth of the axiom that out
of evil good may come. Out CT that
revolution came, SCARED and bleeding.
the rights of man. On. the cory field
a mortal wound had been inflicted upon
that superstitious reverence for kingly
power that had held men in abject
slavery for centuries. The old order lay
dying; the new came forth. The rem
nants of feudalism We're destroyed not
only in France, but in all of western
and central Europe. 1t was more than
revolution; it was dissolution, said
Taine.
Up to this period France had been an
absolute monarchy. The doctrine that
kings reigned by divine right had been
taught to all the peoples of Europe by
a system of'compulsory education They
were supposed to represent the divin-
ity in civil government From this be-
lief came that motto of absolutism,
The king can do no wrong" Millions
of human lives have been sacrificed for
daring to dispute that doctrine. The
wrongs that have been perpetrated up
on mankind under the shelter of this
cloak constitute a large portion of the
history of civilization Not that civ
ilization has grown because of this SUI
perstition and the tyranny it nurture,I.
but in spite of such belief. A brilliant
line of F1anch writer's had given years
to the task of disproving the divinity
of kings and showing that rulers of
nations are as fallible as are other
mortals. They taught that the people
themselves had rights which even
king was bound TO respect. Monies
quien told them of Runnymede and call
ed their attention to the English con-
stitutiOn in which the rights of both
sovereign and subject We're carefully
defined. Voltaire defended the liberties
of the individual and declared his ina
lienable right to think and speak for
himself in all matters that concerned
his welfare. Rousseau's contributions
emphasized the sovereignty of the peo-
pie. 1t was under the influence of men
like these that the French mind broad
ened and Europeans generally came to
look upon the doctrine of kingly divin-
ity as obsolete and absurd.
Another cause that contributed to the
French revolution was the war of the
American revolution and the fact that
Frenchmen had participated in that
struggle of the colonies for independ-
ence. French soldiers had carrier the
American flag at Yorktown and Lafay-
cite had been received as a hero upon
his return to France. Out of demon
stration born of traditional hatred of
England, grew an admiration for tie
independence and institutions of this
young republic.
1t took a long time to satisfy the pas
sions of the Frelch once they were
aroused. The ever hungry guillotine
was gorged at last. The leaders of the
new party were more merciless and re-
vengeful than the royalists had been
RobesDierre, the dictator of France at
the close of the revolution. found the
mob as ready TO turn and rend him as
it had been ready to obey his savage
orders the day before. But as Caesar
had his Brutus. so had Robespierre his
BareSe, who accomplished his over
throw in mass convention. Once de-
feated, the great republican was de-
spised. His arrest and execution fol-
lowed shortly, and as he was carted
from the prison to the place of execu-
ton the multitude shouted: Kill him,
Kill him. and not voice was raised
in his behalf.
There is no guillotine today for
wholesale decapitation. There is no
Robespierre to infiame the mob. There
are no royalists worth noticing. But
there are Frenchmen yet, even as they
were in the lifetime of the giddy An
toinette. Current history is full CT their
antics. They are as mercurial as ever