ty-two
of life before him yet.

He took with him to Paris the model of an _iron bridge_. He submits it
to the Academy of Sciences. It is pronounced a success, if theory can be
sustained by mathematical demonstration. He proposes an iron arch with a
span of four hundred and eighty feet. But theory must be tested, and the
next year he builds his bridge in an open field near Paddington, in
England. Experiment said it was a success, but he got into gaol for debt
on account of it. The bridge now spans the river Wear, at Sunderland.
This iron arch bridge was the first in the world. The principles are
now seen in thousands of bridges in Europe and America; and if they
could speak, each one would say: "I was born from the brain of Thomas
Paine."

Two American merchants assist him to pay his debts, and he gets out of
an English gaol in time to go over to France to witness the taking of
the Bastile, on the 14th of July, 1789. That "high altar and castle of
despotism" fell at the bidding of those republican principles which he
had dedicated his life to teach and maintain. It was a most fitting and
grand event when Lafayette gave to Thomas Paine the key to the Bastile
to present to Washington. It is now the property of this nation.

Mr. Burke the next year writes his "Reflections" on the French
Revolution, and Mr. Paine returns in November, 1790, to answer the
publication. In March, the first part of "The Rights of Man" appeared
for this purpose. It was dedicated to Washington. In another year the
second part appeared, dedicated to Lafayette. A hundred thousand copies
of this work went into the hands of the people. It was translated into
all the European languages, and was read by the poor and the rich, the
high and the low; it became the companion alike of the vassal and his
lord. In this he says: "The peer is exalted into the man. Titles are but
nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly
harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human
character which degrades it. It talks about its fine ribbon like a girl,
and shows its garter like a child. A certain writer of antiquity says,
'When I was a child I thought as a child, but when I became a man I put
away childish things.' ... The insignificance of a senseless word like
duke, count, or earl, has ceased to please, and as they outgrew the
rickets, have despised the rattle. The genuine mind of man, thirsting
for its native home society, contemns