fering of the unfortunate
an odious tribute which they would pass on to their generations still
unborn. Realizing from the barbarity of the means employed by our
enemies to perpetuate our oppression that we have everything to fear
from the aristocracy they would set up as a constitutional principle for
the governing of France, let us declare ourselves at once enfranchised
from it.
"The establishment of liberty and equality should be the aim of every
citizen member of the Third Estate; and to this end we should stand
indivisibly united, especially the young and vigorous, especially those
who have had the good fortune to be born late enough to be able to
gather for themselves the precious fruits of the philosophy of this
eighteenth century."
Acclamations broke out unstintedly now. He had caught them in the snare
of his oratory. And he pressed his advantage instantly.
"Let us all swear," he cried in a great voice, "to raise up in the name
of humanity and of liberty a rampart against our enemies, to oppose to
their bloodthirsty covetousness the calm perseverance of men whose cause
is just. And let us protest here and in advance against any tyrannical
decrees that should declare us seditious when we have none but pure and
just intentions. Let us make oath upon the honour of our motherland that
should any of us be seized by an unjust tribunal, intending against us
one of those acts termed of political expediency--which are, in effect,
but acts of despotism--let us swear, I say, to give a full expression
to the strength that is in us and do that in self-defence which nature,
courage, and despair dictate to us."
Loud and long rolled the applause that greeted his conclusion, and he
observed with satisfaction and even some inward grim amusement that the
wealthy merchants who had been congregated upon the steps, and who now
came crowding about him to shake him by the hand and to acclaim him,
were not merely participants in, but the actual leaders of, this
delirium of enthusiasm.
It confirmed him, had he needed confirmation, in his conviction that
just as the philosophies upon which this new movement was based had
their source in thinkers extracted from the bourgeoisie, so the need
to adopt those philosophies to the practical purposes of life was most
acutely felt at present by those bourgeois who found themselves debarred
by Privilege from the expansion their wealth permitted them. If it might
be said of Andre-Louis tha
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