7520. REVOLUTION (French), Leaders in.—[continued].
When I left France at the close of '89, your revolution was, as I
thought, under the direction of able and honest
men. But the madness of some of their successors,
the vices of others, the malicious intrigues
of an envious and corrupting neighbor,
the tracasserie of the Directory, the usurpations,
the havoc, and devastations of your
Attila, and the equal usurpations, depredations
and oppressions of your hypocritical deliverers,
will form a mournful period in the history of
man, a period of which the last chapter
will not be seen in your day or mine,
and one which I still fear is to be written
in characters of blood. Had Bonaparte
reflected that such is the moral construction
of the world, that no national crime passes
unpunished in the long run, he would not now
be in the cage of St. Helena; and were your
oppressors to reflect on the same truth, they
would spare to their own countries the penalties
on their present wrongs which will be inflicted
on them in future times. The seeds of
hatred and revenge which they are now sowing
with a large hand, will not fail to produce their
fruits in time. Like their brother robbers on
the highway, they suppose the escape of the moment
a final escape, and deem infamy and
future risk countervailed by present gain.—
To M. de Marbois. Washington ed. vii, 76.
(M.
1817)
