e new constitution of France
as another vindication of American ideals.

=The Reign of Terror.=--While profuse congratulations were being
exchanged, rumors began to come that all was not well in France. Many
noblemen, enraged at the loss of their special privileges, fled into
Germany and plotted an invasion of France to overthrow the new system of
government. Louis XVI entered into negotiations with his brother
monarchs on the continent to secure their help in the same enterprise,
and he finally betrayed to the French people his true sentiments by
attempting to escape from his kingdom, only to be captured and taken
back to Paris in disgrace.

A new phase of the revolution now opened. The working people, excluded
from all share in the government by the first French constitution,
became restless, especially in Paris. Assembling on the Champs de Mars,
a great open field, they signed a petition calling for another
constitution giving them the suffrage. When told to disperse, they
refused and were fired upon by the national guard. This "massacre," as
it was called, enraged the populace. A radical party, known as
"Jacobins," then sprang up, taking its name from a Jacobin monastery in
which it held its sessions. In a little while it became the master of
the popular convention convoked in September, 1792. The monarchy was
immediately abolished and a republic established. On January 21, 1793,
Louis was sent to the scaffold. To the war on Austria, already raging,
was added a war on England. Then came the Reign of Terror, during which
radicals in possession of the convention executed in large numbers
counter-revolutionists and those suspected of sympathy with the
monarchy. They shot down peasants who rose in insurrection against their
rule and established a relentless dictatorship. Civil war followed.
Terrible atrocities were committed on both sides in the name of liberty,
and in the name of monarchy. To Americans of conservative temper it now
seemed that the Revolution, so auspiciously begun, had degenerated into
anarchy and mere bloodthirsty strife.

=Burke Summons the World to War on France.=--In England, Edmund Burke
led the fight against the new French principles which he feared might
spread to all Europe. In his _Reflections on the French Revolution_,
written in 1790, he attacked with terrible wrath the whole program of
popular government; he called for war, relentless war, upon the French
as monsters and outlaws; he dema