30/40 Private consideration, timidity of situation, difference of rank, all disappears. No one is responsible--to-day he rises to power--to-morrow he descends to exile or the scaffold--there is no _morrow_, all is _to-day_--resistance is crushed by the irresistible power of movement. All bends--all yields before the people. The resentments of castes--the abolished forms of worship--the decimation of property--the extirpated abuses--the humiliated aristocracies--all are lost in the thundering sound of the overthrow of ancient ideas and things. On whom can we demand revenge? |