They have made my heart bleed over
the history of this most beautiful country. It is truly mournful that a people
with so many fine impulses, so much genius, appreciation, and effective
power, should, by the influence of historical events quite beyond the
control of the masses, so often have been thrown into a false position
before the world, and been subjected to such a series of agonizing
revulsions and revolutions.
"O, the French are half tiger, half monkey!" said a cultivated
American to me the other day. Such remarks cut me to the heart, as if
they had been spoken of a brother. And when they come from the mouth
of an American, the very shade of Lafayette, it would seem, might rise
and say, "_Et tu, Brute!_"
It is true, it is a sarcasm of Voltaire's; but Voltaire, though born a
Frenchman, neither imbodied nor was capable of understanding the true
French ideal. The French _head_ he had, but not the French heart.
And from his bitter judgment we might appeal to a thousand noble
names. The generous Henri IV., the noble Sully, and Bayard the knight
_sans peur et sans reproche_, were these half tiger and half
monkey? Were John Calvin and Fenelon half tiger and half monkey?
Laplace, Geoffroy St.
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