Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/15

Rh beholders of the finest scenery, are the least capable of appreciation. Yet in other cases the spectators are more to us than the spectacle. Whereas, however, a multitude of French memoirs, authentic or spurious, are in existence, scarcely any English observers committed their recollections to writing. Only here and there have we an opportunity of seeing through English eyes what went on. Even the few who ventured into print mostly give us reflections in lieu of facts, and the researches of the Historical Manuscripts Commission have in this field yielded but a meagre harvest. Some who printed and even wrote nothing, yet whose character interests us, left no issue, and their collateral descendants, regarding them as the black sheep of the family, are unwilling or unable to supply any information—oftener, perhaps, unable than unwilling, for the probability is that these emigrants mostly broke off all intercourse with their kinsmen, especially as after a certain date war rendered communication very uncertain and difficult. There are, indeed, sources of information in France, contemporary newspapers and pamphlets, local and national archives, but even these are incomplete, and as regards manuscripts, rarely catalogued. The Commune of 1871, moreover, created an irreparable gap, for in the burning of the Palais de Justice and Hotel de Ville the municipal records, the registers of deaths, and many of the prison lists were consumed. I have, however, profited by every still available source of information. I have skimmed a multitude of journals and tracts, rummaged musty documents, made inquiries of relatives which have