Page:The story of the French revolution (IA storyoffrenchrev00baxe).pdf/20

vi statement of the facts of the French Revolution cannot but be desirable, and although there exist summaries galore, the writer ventures to think that the present little work differs from them in two respects: firstly, in the point of view from which the Revolution is viewed, and secondly, in the endeavor to throw the principal events into as strong relief as possible by the omission of all detail which is unessential to the understanding of them. Brevity has also been a distinct aim, and for this, as for the former reason, much that is in itself interesting has been left out. The foregoing especially applies to biographical details respecting the chief actors. These have been uniformly omitted throughout, as tending to expand the sketch indefinitely, and to draw off attention from its main purpose. The circumstances of the time and the events made the personalities what they were, and there is not one of them who, in so far as public life is concerned, can be regarded otherwise than as the embodiment of some more or less wide-spread contemporary tendency. The actors, therefore, merely cross the stage in connection with the principal events in which they played a role. Yet, though they may have suddenly become especially prominent, it must be understood that, in almost all cases, they were already familiar to the population of Paris, and, in many cases, of the whole of France, as club-orators, parliamentary politicians, or as journalists. It is not too much to say that in the French Revolution journalism first became a power in the world’s history.

Those who seek further details both of the Revolution itself and of the life of its leading figures may be referred to the larger histories. The admirable history of Mr. Morse Stephen now in progress represents by far the best work that has as vet been done in English (both as regards exhaustiveness and impartiality) in connection with the subject. Mr. Stephen's excellent articles in the ninth edition of the "Encyclopdia Britannica" may also