Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/275

 CHAPTER VII

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES IN IRELAND

a month of the Confederation debate an event occurred wholly unforeseen by either party to that contest, but destined to move both profoundly. Paris, the ganglionic centre from which European opinion so often radiated, was again in revolution; forthwith the king fled to England, and immediately a Republic was proclaimed, with some of the Frenchmen best known to the world at its head. A spasm of sympathy and confidence passed over the civilised world, and was nowhere more intense than in Ireland. Ledru Rollin and other members of the Provisional Government had proffered officers and arms to Ireland less than five years