Constitution after constitution had risen, like mushrooms, in
a night, and like mushrooms had perished in a day. Civil war was
raging with bloodhound fury in France, Monarchists and Jacobins
grappling each other infuriate with despair. The allied kings of
Europe, who by their alliance had fanned these flames of rage and
ruin, were gazing with terror upon the portentous prodigy, and were
surrounding France with their navies and their armies.
The people had been enslaved for centuries by the king and the nobles.
Their oppression had been execrable, and it had become absolutely
unendurable. "We, the millions," they exclaimed in their rage, "will
no longer minister to your voluptuousness, and pride, and lust."
"You shall, you insolent dogs," exclaimed king and nobles, "we
heed not your barking." "You shall," reiterated the Pope, in the
portentous thunderings of the Vatican. "You shall," came echoed back
from the palaces of Vienna, from the dome of the Kremlin, from the
seraglio of the Turk, and, in tones deeper, stronger, more resolute,
from constitutional, liberty-loving, happy England. Then was France
a volcano, and its lava-streams deluged Europe.
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