Biographical Memoirs of the French Revolution, Volume 2

Front Cover
T. Cadell, jun. and W. Davies, 1799 - France
 

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 132 - Curchod were embellished by the virtues and talents of the mind. Her fortune was humble, but her family was respectable. Her mother, a native of France, had preferred her religion to her country. The profession of her father did not extinguish the moderation and philosophy of his temper, and he lived content with a small salary and laborious duty, in the obscure lot of minister of...
Page 284 - Abstractedly speaking, government, as well as liberty, is good; yet could I, in common sense, ten years ago, have felicitated France on her enjoyment of a government (for she then had a government) without inquiry what the nature of that government was, or how it was administered?
Page 132 - Grassy soon afterwards died ; his stipend died with him; his daughter retired to Geneva, where, by teaching young ladies, she earned a hard subsistence for herself and her mother; but in her lowest distress she maintained a spotless reputation and a dignified behaviour.
Page 468 - I cared not about the prosecution, but to have defended the principles I had advanced in the work. The duty I am now engaged in is of too much importance to permit me to trouble myself about your prosecution : when I have leisure, I shall have no objection to meet you on that ground ; but as I now stand, whether you go on with the prosecution, or whether you do not, or whether you obtain a verdict, or not, is a matter of the most perfect indifference to me as an individual.
Page 39 - A horrid plot, hatched by the court, to murder all the patriots of the French empire, a plot in which a great number of members of the National Assembly are implicated, having, on the 9th of last month, reduced the commune of Paris to the cruel necessity of employing the power of the people to save the nation, it has not neglected any thing to deserve well of the country. After the...
Page 261 - ... theatre in Europe, in Paris the rival of Athens and Rome, that I am forced to allow that a multiplicity of crimes, which I had weakly...
Page 132 - She furpaffed his hopes by her proficiency in the fciences and languages ; and in her fhort vifits to fome relations at Laufanne , the wit , the beauty, and erudition of Mademoifelle Curchod •were the theme of univerfal applaufe. The report of fuch a prodigy a'wakened my curiofity ; I faw and loved.
Page 469 - I was unknown, on purpose to learn the currency of opinion, and I never yet saw any company of twelve men that condemned the book ; but I have often found a greater number than twelve approving it, and this I think is a fair way of collecting the natural currency of opinion. Do not then, Sir, be the instrument of drawing twelve men into a situation that may be injurious to them afterwards.
Page 468 - But I have other reasons than those I have mentioned for writing you this letter : and, however you may choose to interpret them, they proceed from a good heart. The time, Sir, is becoming too serious to play with court prosecutions, and sport with national rights. The terrible examples that have taken place here, upon men who less than a year ago thought themselves as secure as any prosecuting judge, jury, or attorney-general, can now do in England, ought to have some weight with men in your situation.
Page 301 - I am not asking your opinions of the doctrines themselves ; you have given them already pretty visibly since I began to address you ; but I shall appeal not only to you, but to those who, without our leave, will hereafter judge, and without appeal, of all that we are doing to-day, whether, upon the matter which I hasten to lay before you, you can refuse to pronounce, that from his education, from the...

Bibliographic information