Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette, Volume 3

Front Cover
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 163 - The tumultuous populace of large cities are ever to be dreaded. Their indiscriminate violence prostrates, for the time, all public authority, and its consequences are sometimes extensive and terrible. In Paris, we may suppose these tumults are peculiarly disastrous at this time, when the public mind is in a ferment, and when, as is always the case on such occasions, there are not wanting wicked and designing men whose element is confusion, and who will not hesitate in destroying the public tranquillity...
Page 7 - We swear to be faithful to the nation, to the law, and to the king ; and to maintain with all our power the constitution decreed by the National Assembly and accepted by the king ; and to remain united to all Frenchmen, by the indissoluble ties of fraternity.
Page 152 - The distance, which separates us, joined to the delicacy of the subject, has always suspended my opinion on your national affairs. I am well aware, that it is impossible to judge with precision of measures, the motives of which are sometimes unknown, and the necessity of them not always understood ; but there is one circumstance on which I find it difficult to suppress an anxious wish ; that the present National Assembly may not protract their own existence so long, as to beget any uneasiness on...
Page 178 - I knew a young man, who, after having visited countries where liberty and equality reigned, conceived the idea of establishing the same system in his own country. Do you know what happened to him ?"
Page 116 - ... the Mississippi (which we must have, and as certainly shall have as we remain a nation), I have supposed, that, with the undeviating exercise of a just, steady, and prudent national policy, we shall be the gainers, whether the powers of the old world may be in peace or war, but more especially in the latter case.
Page 390 - Rochambeau, the centre under me. "I had refused every public employment, that had been offered by the people, and still more had I denied my consent to my being appointed to any military command ; but, when I saw our liberties and constitution were seriously threatened, and my services could be usefully employed in fighting for our old cause, I could no longer resist the wishes of my countrymen ; and, as soon as the King's express reached my farm, I set out for Paris ; from thence for this place...
Page 395 - ... the number of non-proprietors, the jealousy of every governing measure, all which inconveniences are worked up by designing men, or aristocrats in disguise, but both extremely tend to defeat our ideas of public order. Do not believe, however, the exaggerated accounts you may receive, particularly from England. That liberty and equality will be preserved in France, there is no doubt ; in case there were, you well know that I would not, if they fall, survive them. But you may be assured, that we...
Page 395 - ... to you alone to offer an observation respecting the late choice of the American ambassador. You know I am personally a friend to Gouverneur Morris, and ever as a private man have been satisfied with him. But the aristocratic, and indeed counter-revolutionary principles he has professed, unfitted him to be the representative of the only nation, whose politics have a likeness to ours, since they are founded on the plan of a representative democracy.
Page 167 - Paris, June 6th. exposed ; and I cannot help looking forward with an anxious wish, and a lively hope, to the time when peace and tranquillity will reign in your borders, under the sanction of a respectable government, founded on the broad basis of liberality and the rights of man. It must be so. The great Ruler of events will not permit the happiness of so many millions to be destroyed...
Page 305 - ... of the constituted authorities — their disorganizing maxims to the true principles of liberty — their delirious fury to the calm and constant courage of a nation which knows its rights, and...

Bibliographic information