Présentation de l'éditeur
This second part of Les Origines de la France Contempo raine will consist of two volumes. Popular insurrections and the laws of the Constituent Assembly end in destroying all government in France; this forms the subject of the present volume. A party arises around an extreme doctrine, gets possession of the power, and exercises it in conformity with that doctrine; this will form the subject of the second volume. A third volume would be required to criticize authorities. For this I have no room, and I merely state the rule that I have observed. The most trustworthy testimony is that of the eyewitness, especially when this witness is an honourable, attentive, and intelligent man, writing on the spot, at the moment, and under the dictation of the fects themselves if it is manifest Uiat his sole object is to preserve or furnish information, if his work is not a piece of polemics planned for the needs of a cause, or a passage of eloquence arranged for popular efifect, but a legal deposition, a secret report, a confidential dispatch, a private letter, or a personal memento. The nearer a document approaches this type, the more it merits confidence, and supplies superior materials. I have found many of this character in the national archives, principally in the manuscript correspondence of ministers, intendants, subdelegates, magistrates, and other functionaries; of military commanders, officers in the army, and gendarmerie; of royal commissioners, and of the A ssembly; of administrators of departments, districts, and municipalities, besides persons in private life who address the King, the National A ssembly, or the ministry. A mong these are men of every rank, profession, education, and party. They are distributed by hundreds and thousands over the whole sur ce of the territory.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)
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