For Boys and Girls
Carlyle's History of the French Revolution.
Now is the time when everybody ought to read or re-read a history of the French Revolution. It is true, History never exactly repeats itself, but there is often sufficient resemblance between past and present events to make the study of history very instructive and illuminating. Carlyle's "History of the French Revolution" is the most widely known book on the subject in English. It is said, that Carlyle is not always true to the facts, that one doesn't get a clear and logical view of the occurrences from his book, that he is too much carried away by his personal sympathies and his favorite theories; that he is unfair to some of the actors in the great drama and partial to others, and so on. Many who attempt to read the book have to give up on account of the peculiar style in which it is written. But in spite of all these criticisms, it would be hard to find a critic who wouldn't say that Carlyle's "History of the French Revolution" is immensely worth reading. If you want to feel the very soul of revolution, read that book. If you want to see and live a revolution, read that book. Having read it, the tumult and disorder in Russia will have something of meaning for you. It will not be mere tumult and disorder. You will see here and there the shapes of future events forming themselves within the chaos. You will believe in the final issuance of order, in the triumph of justice, in the progress of the people.
How Revolutions Profit by History.
ONE of the most curious and interesting facts of human nature is the incapability of despots, tyrants, bosses, and autocrats of
all kinds, of learning from the experience of other despots, autocrats, etc. If you or I were in the place of Czar Nicholas, it seems we should never for a moment dream that it would be possible to hold down a rising nation for our own and our relatives' glory and profit. But Czar Nicholas, with all the illustrious failures before him, did try it. The poor fellows, the autocrats, get bewildered when the crisis comes after they have seemingly had their own way for a long time. Louis XVI whom the French revolutionists guillotined would have liked to grant the demands of the people, when they became very insistent; but his queen, Marie Antoinette and her friends, confused him with their arguments. He had studied the history of Charles I of England, and had even resolved never to be as foolish as that ill-fated king. But he couldn't follow his good impulses when the time to act was short, and really didn't know what in the world to do. And on the other side, you may be sure, the people have studied history. Revolutionaries ideas are not born in a day. They grow slowly and they are caught up by one nation from another. Example is a great incentive to revolution. The French revolutionists had been prepared by a long course of political theorists like Rousseau and Voltaire. Their heads were full of ideas of liberty and fraternity. But they had also learned from the example of the American revolution which was then just over, and many of them had a good knowledge of the English form of overniment, so much more free than under their Louis XVI. They knew what it was to defy a king, for they had read how the English