Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 7.djvu/239

 BARON D'ESTOURNELLES DE CONSTANT We understand that so well in France that we send you more and more frequently delegates to study your science, your industry, your agriculture, and we are trying, just now, to found a French school or something of that kind in America. Why not? We have French schools in Italy, in Greece, in Egypt, where the elite of our youth studies the past; why should we not have in America similar schools looking forward to the future?

It is a true saying that a good deed is never lost. We helped you, of old, in the conquest of liberty, but you, in revenge, have taught us how it can be preserved. You have given us a type of the modern hero, whom I have come from so far to celebrate here to-day—Washington, your "Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche." Washington put his sword to the noblest use by fighting for your independence, but this independence, once assured, he respected. His victories have made him great, but he is greater still by his renunciation. Once his cause triumphant, he aimed not at power, but at retirement. Power weighed heavily upon him; he used it for the safety of the Republic, not, as so many others, for its destruction. Admirable example to those countries where conquerors of another type have sought, not to secure liberty, but to defeat it; admirable example to offer to the world, a hero who was in turn a conqueror and liberator, and who crowned Glory with Peace.

No country better than France has