Thomas H. Dyer, LL.D.: "An active agent in the French Revolution."
"One of those celebrated foreigners whom the nation ought with eagerness to adopt."—Madame Roland.
M. Cheslay: "He defended in London the principles of the French Revolution."
Brockhaus' Konversatjons-Lexikon: "After he returned to England in 1791 he published his 'Rights of Man.' (translated into many languages) in which he defended the French Revolution against the assaults of Burke."
Porter C. Bliss: "Published, in 1791-92 his 'Rights of Man' [two parts], a vindication of the French Revolution, in reply to Burke, which gave him immense popularity in France and led to a bestowal of citizenship and his election to the French National Convention."
"He was made a French Citizen by the same decree with Washington, Hamilton, Priestley and Sir James Mackintosh."—Joel Barlow.
Nelson's Encyclopedia: "The book was dedicated to Washington, was translated into French and made a, great impression." (The second part was dedicated to Lafayette.)
Edmund Gosse, LL.D.: "The circulation was so enormous that it had a distinct effect in coloring public opinion."
Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography: "His 'Rights of Man,' if the undenied statement as to its circulation (a million and a half of copies is correct) was more largely read in England and France than any other political work ever published."
Chamber's Encyclopedia: "The most famous of all the replies to Burke's 'Reflections on the French Revolution.' A million and a half copies were sold in England alone."
John Hall (London, January, 1792): "Burke's publication has produced nearly fifty different answers. Nothing has ever been so read as Paine's answer."
Edward Baines, LL.D.: "Editions were multiplied in every form and size; it was alike seen in the hands of the noble and the plebeian, and became, at length, translated into the various languages of Europe."
Paris Moniteur (Nov. 8, 1792): "That which will astonish posterity is that at Stockholm, five months after the death of Gustavus, and while the northern Powers are leaguing themselves against the liberty of France, there has been published a translation of Thomas Paine's 'Rights of Man,' the translator being one of the King's secretaries."
The following is a summary of Paine's political philosophy as presented in the "Rights of Man":
1. Government is the organization of the aggregate natural rights which individuals are not competent to secure individually, and therefore surrender to the control of society in exchange for the protection of all rights.
2. Republican government is that in which the welfare of the whole nation is the object.
3. Monarchy is government, more or less arbitrary, in which the interests of an individual are paramount to those of the people generally.
4. Aristocracy is government, partially arbitrary, in which the interests of a class are paramount to the people generally.
5. Democracy is the whole people governing themselves without secondary means.
6. Representative government is the control of a nation by persons elected by the whole nation.
7. The Rights of Man mean the right of all to representation.
Paine advocated a republic (2.) with a representative government (6.). The first real republic with a representative government of importance established in the world was in the United States of America, of which, when religious prejudice passes away, Thomas Paine will be recognized as the founder.
Professor J. B. Bury, LL.D.: "His 'Rights of Man' is an indictment of the monarchical form of government, and a plea for representative democracy."
Terrible but truthful is Paine's indictment of monarchy: "All the monarchical governments are military. War is their trade; plunder and revenue their objects. While such governments continue, peace has not the absolute security of a day. What is the history of all monarchical governments but a disgustful picture of human wretchedness, and the accidental respite of a few years repose. Wearied with war and tired with human butchery, they sat down to rest and called it peace."
This is his conception of an ideal government:
"When it shall be said in any country in the world, 'My poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive, the rational world is my friend, because I am the friend of its happiness,'—-when these things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and its government."
"The political events of our own day—of the present hour—point to the time when the ambitions and the wars of monarchy will be at an end, and when republican peace will reign throughout the world. Then shall the dream of Thomas Paine, the world's greatest citizen of the world, be realized."—Marshall J. Gaitvin.
Washington Irving: "A reprint of Paine's 'Rights of Man,' written in reply to Burke's pamphlet on the French Revolution, appeared [in America] under the auspices of Mr. Jefferson."
In introducing Paine's work to the American people Jefferson, then Secretary of State, said: "I have no doubt our citizens will rally a second time round the standard of 'Common Sense.'"
The Builders of the Nation: "At this time the Republican party as it was called, accepted the views of Jefferson, and as he openly accepted Paine's 'Rights of Man' it followed that the advanced views contained in that book grew to be held measurably as the party tenets of his followers."
Prof. E. D. Adams, Ph. D.: "As a cult [democracy], the theory undoubtedly first found adequate expression amongst us in the writings of Thomas Paine.... In these two books ['Common Sense' and 'Rights of Man'] Paine was then the first to state the ideal of democracy, as it later came to be accepted in America under the leadership of Jefferson."
In a letter to Monroe, referring to the censure he had received for his endorsement of Paine's book, Jefferson says: "I certainly merit the same, for I profess the same principles."
In a letter to Paine (June 19, 1792,) Jefferson says: "Our good people are firm and unanimous in their principles of Republicanism, and there is no better proof of it than that they love what you write and read it with delight."
James Madison declared the "Rights of Man" to be "a written defense of the principles on which that [our] Government is based."
For our so-called Jeffersonian Democracy we are indebted to Thomas Paine. He formulated its principles. Jefferson, Madison and others of his disciples popularized them.
After commending the "Rights of Man" Richard Henry Lee wrote: "I sincerely regret that our country could not have offered sufficient inducements to have retained as a permanent citizen a man so thoroughly republican in sentiment and fearless in the expression of his opinions."
In his book, one of the most brilliant volumes ever penned, Burke, long the friend of popular government, defended royalty and aristocracy. He sought to arouse the sympathies of Europe in behalf of royalty and aristocracy in France which were tottering to their fall, a disaster which endangered their existence everywhere. The book was circulated by tens of thousands. Captivated by its marvelous beauty a reaction in favor of despotism was setting in when Paine's immortal work appeared. The glowing rhetoric of Burke went down before the merciless logic of Paine.
Burke is filled with sorrow for the French king and nobles whose rule and privileges have been abolished or restricted, but expresses none for the millions who for centuries have been persecuted, impoverished and imprisoned by the ruling classes. In words that come from the heart of the author and which reach the hearts of the people, Paine answers him:
"Not one glance of compassion, not one commiserating reflection, that I can find throughout his book, has he bestowed on those that lingered out the most wretched of lives; a life without hope, in the most miserable of prisons. It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt himself. Nature has been kinder to Mr. Burke than he has been to her. He is not affected by the reality of distress touching upon his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird. Accustomed to kiss the aristocratic hand that hath purloined him from himself, he degenerates into a composition of art, and the genuine soul of nature forsakes him. His hero or his heroine must be a tragedy-victim, expiring in show, and not the real prisoner of misery, sliding into death in the silence of a dungeon."
Referring to this intellectual combat William Cobbett, one of England's most distinguished political writers, writing more than a quarter of a century after Paine's reply to Burke, says: "As my Lord Grenville introduced the name of Burke, suffer me, my Lord, to introduce that of a man who put this Burke to shame, who drove him off the public stage to seek shelter in the pension list, and who is now named fifty million times where the name of the pensioned Burke is mentioned once."
Lord John Morley: "Thomas Paine replied to them [Burke's 'Reflections'] with an energy, courage and eloquence worthy of his cause in the 'Rights of Man.'"
"In brilliant rhetoric Burke argued its [Natural Rights] dangerous and baseless nature.. Paine in his even more brilliant 'Rights of Man,' answered Burke."—Encyclopedia of Social Reform.
Thomas Campbell: "He strongly answered at the bar of public opinion all the arguments of Burke. I do not deny that fact; and I should be sorry if I could be blind, even with tears in my eyes for Mackintosh, to the services that have been rendered to the cause of truth by the shrewdness and courage of Thomas Paine."
(Great events inspire great works. Three of the masterpieces of literature were inspired by the French Revolution, Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution" condemning it, and Sir James Mackintosh's "Vindiciæ Gallicæ" and Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" defending it.)
Dictionary of National Biography (England): "Paine is the only English writer who exposes with uncompromising sharpness the abstract doctrines of political rights held by the French Revolutionists."
Charles James Fox: "It ['Rights of Man'] seems as clear and as simple as the first rules of arithmetic."
Manchester Constitutional Society (March 13, 1792): "A work of the highest importance to every nation under heaven, but particularly to this, as containing excellent and practical plans for an immediate and considerable reduction of the public expenditure; for the prevention of wars; for the extension of our manufactures and commerce; for the education of the young; for the comfortable support of the aged; for the better maintenance of the poor."
Sheffield Society for Constitutional Information (March 14, 1792): "We have derived more true knowledge from the two works of Thomas Paine, entitled 'Rights of Man,' Parts First and Second, than from any other author. The practice as well as the principle of government is laid down in those works in a manner so clear and irresistibly convincing."
James Anthony Froude: "Copies of Paine's 'Rights of Man' were sown broadcast [in Ireland]."
"Protestant Belfast had declared itself a disciple of Paine."
"The Irish patriots were red republicans... anxious to establish in Ireland the principles of Paine."
"Paine," says his biographer, Dr. Conway, "held a supremacy in the constitutional clubs of England and Ireland equal to that of Robespierre over the Jacobins of Paris."
William Pitt (to Lady Hester Stanhope, who had quoted from the "Rights of Man"): "Paine is quite in the right, but what am I to do?"
Sir James Mackintosh: "His bold speculations and fierce invectives indicated the approach of social confusion."
Prof. G. P. Gooch, M.A.: "The 'Rights of Man,' compelled attention not less by the novelty of its ideas than by its consummate pamphleteering skill.... The alarm increased when it was known that the book was selling by tens of thousands."
Diccionaris Enciclopedico (Spain): "The friends of the Government burned Paine in effigy in the streets of London. Later he was proclaimed the great apostle of liberty and the father of the Revolution."
Gouverneur Morris: "Bonnville is here [Paris]. He is just returned from England. He tells me that Paine's book works mightily in England."
Louis Blanc: "The militia were armed, in the southeast of England troops received orders to march to London, the meeting of Parliament was advanced forty days, the Tower was reinforced by a new garrison, in fine there was enrolled a formidable preparation of war—against Thomas Paine's book on the 'Rights of Man.'"
H. D. Traill, D.C.L.: "Paine's book on the 'Rights of Man' was known to have an enormous circulation, and he was prosecuted for it under the proclamation of May, 1792. Paine's counsel argued in vain that it had never been held criminal to express opinions on the problems of political philosophy.... Paine was condemned."
"He was defended by Erskine, who was then in the zenith of his glory as an advocate, in a speech of marvelous power and eloquence."—Hon. E. B. Washburne.
J. Redman ("London, Tuesday, Dec. 18, 1792, 5 P.M."): "Mr. Paine's trial is this instant over. Erskine shone like the morning star. The instant Erskine closed his speech the venal jury [it was a packed jury] interrupted the Attorney General, who was about to make reply, and without waiting for any answer, or any summing up by the Judge, pronounced him guilty. Such an instance of infernal corruption is scarcely upon record."
Paine's case was set for June, 1792, and he was anxious to go to trial then. At the request of the Government it was postponed till December. In the meantime Paine, having been elected to the National Convention, went to France. Had he remained in England death or a long imprisonment would have been his fate, the charge against him being high treason.
Alexander Gilchrist: "On Paine's rising to leave [he had delivered a radical address in London the night before], Blake [William] laid his hand on the orator's shoulder, saying, 'You must not go home, or you are a dead man,' and he hurried him off on his way to France.... Those were hanging days in England."
Dr. James Currie (1793): "The prosecutions that are commenced all over England against printers, publishers, etc., would astonish you; and most of these are for offenses committed months ago. The printer of the Manchester Herald has had... six different indictments for selling or disposing of six different copies of Paine—all previous to the trial of Paine. The man was opulent, supposed worth £20,000; but these different actions will ruin him, as they were intended to do."
The trial of Paine was followed by a veritable reign of terror in England. Alluding to the prosecutions and persecutions of the publishers and venders of Paine's books, Buckle, in his "History of Civilization," says: "It is no exaggeration to say that for some years England was ruled by a system of absolute terror."
It was over the writings of Thomas Paine chiefly, his "Rights of Man" at first and later his "Age of Reason," that the battle for free speech and a free press in England was fought and won. In this great struggle England's gifted statesman, Charles James Fox, whom Edmund Burke describes as "the greatest debater the world ever saw," and whom Sir James Mackintosh declares to De "the most Demosthenian speaker since Demosthenes," ably and fearlessly upheld the rights of Paine and the disseminators of his writings and teachings. In this struggle the poet Shelley, too, did valiant work.
Richard Carlile: "It is not too much to say that if the 'Rights of Man' had obtained two or three years' free circulation in England and Scotland, it would have produced a similar effect to that which 'Common Sense' did in the United States."
Sir Francis Burdett: "Ministers know that a united people are not to be resisted; and it is this that we must understand by what is written in the works of an honest man too long calumniated. I mean Thomas Paine."
M. Brissot: "The grievance of the British Cabinet against France is not that Louis is in judgment, but that Thomas Paine wrote the 'Rights of Man'."
Abbe Sieyes: "His 'Rights of Man,' translated into our language, is universally known; and where is the patriotic Frenchman who has not already, from the depths of his soul, thanked him for having fortified our cause with all the power of his reason and his reputation."
"Paine's 'Rights of Man'," says Dr. Conway, "had been in every French home. His portrait, painted by Romney and engraved by Sharp, was in every cottage, framed in immortelles." Napoleon Bonaparte said: "I always sleep with the 'Rights of Man' beneath my pillow." Hon. Elihu B. Washburne, Minister of the United States to France during President Grant's administration, and later a prominent candidate for president of the United States himself, in a monograph on Thomas Paine, says: "He at once became a hero in France, and was everywhere received with enthusiasm. The doors of the salons and clubs of Paris were opened to him, and he was soon recognized as one of the advanced figures in the Revolution, standing by the side of de Bonneville, Brissot and Condorcet."
It is a commonly accepted opinion that the French Revolution was inspired chiefly by the writings of Rousseau and Voltaire. Hardly less potent, however, were Paine's "Rights of Man," published at the beginning of the Revolution, and his "Common Sense," which electrified France fifteen years before. Referring to these French writings and the "Rights of Man," Dr. Conway says: "In this book the philosophy of visionary reformers took practical shape. From the ashes of Rousseau's 'Contrat Social,' burnt in Paris, rose the 'Rights of Man,' no phoenix, but an eagle of the new world, with eye not blinded by any royal sun. It comes to tell how by union of France and America—of Lafayette and Washington—the 'Contrat Social' was framed into the Constitution of a happy and glorious new earth."
Charles Knight: "In the week of the flight of Louis [June, 1791] Paine wrote in English a proclamation to the French nation, which, being translated, was affixed to all the walls of Paris. It was an invitation to the people to profit by existing circumstances, and establish a Republic."
Ida M. Tarbell: "Brissot brought several of his friends to see them [the Rolands]. Among the most important of these were Petion and Robespierre. In April 1791 Thomas Paine appeared. So agreeable were these informal reunions found to be that it was arranged to hold them four times a week.... To Madame Roland these gatherings were of absorbing interest."
"With Condorcet, Brissot, and a few others as sympathizers, Paine formed a Republican society."
Justin H. McCarthy: "The prospectus of a journal called Le Republicaine was posted at the very doors of the General Assembly. It was signed by Duchatellet, a colonel of Chasseurs, but is said to have been drawn up by Thomas Paine."
Etienne Dumont: "Some of the seed sown by the audacious hand of Paine were now budding in leading minds."
Meyers' Gross Konversations-Lexikon: "In Paris Paine was declared a French citizen and was elected to the National Convention by the department of Pas-de-Calais."
La Grande Encyclopédie: "Declared a French citizen by the National Assembly, he was elected a member of the Convention by the departments of l'Oise, the Puy-de-Dome and the Pas-de-Calais."
H. Morse Stephens, LL.D.: "Paine, one of the founders of the American Republic, was elected by no less than three departments to the Convention."
M. Louvet (and thirty-two others): "Your love for humanity, for liberty and equality, the useful works that have issued from your pen in their defense, have determined our choice. It has been hailed with universal and reiterated applause. Come friend of the people, to swell the number of patriots in an Assembly which will decide the destiny of a great people, perhaps of the human race."
Biographie Universelle: "Amid salvos of artillery and cries of 'Vive Thomas Paine!' his arrival was announced."
Cates' Biographical Dictionary: "The garrison of Calais were under arms to receive this friend of liberty. The tri-colored cockade was presented to him by the mayor, and the handsomest woman in the town was selected to place it in his hat."
W. T. Sherwin: "The hall of the Minimes [in Calais] was so crowded that it was with the greatest difficulty they made way for Mr. Paine to the side of the president. Over the chair he sat in was placed the bust of Mirabeau, and the colors of France, England, and America united. A speaker acquainted him from the tribune with his election, amid the plaudits of the people. For some minutes after the ceremony nothing was heard but 'Vive la Nation! Vive Thomas Paine!'"
"Ancient Calais, in its time, had received heroes from across the channel, but hitherto never with joy. That honor the centuries reserved for a Thetford Quaker. As the packet sails in a salute is fired from the battery; cheers sound along the shore. As the representative for Calais steps on French soil soldiers make his avenue, the officers embrace him, the national cockade is presented. A beautiful lady advances, requesting the honor of setting the cockade in his hat, and makes him a pretty speech, ending with Liberty, Equality and France. As they move along the Rue de l'Egalité (late Rue du Roi) the air rings with 'Vive Thomas Paine'! At the town hall he is presented to the Municipality, by each member embraced, by the Mayor also addressed. At the meeting of the Constitutional Society of Calais, in the Minimes, he sits beside the president, beneath the bust of Mirabeau and the united colors of France, England and America. There is an official ceremony announcing his election, and plaudits of the crowd, 'Vive la Nation! Vive Thomas Paine!'"—Dr. Conway.
Rev. Francis L. Hawkes, LL.D.: "Meantime Paine had been declared in Paris worthy of citizenship, and he proceeded thither, where he was received with every demonstration of extravagant joy."
"The ovation which Paine received on his arrival in France was one such as theretofore only kings had received."—Theodore Schroeder.
Hérault de Sechelles, (President of National Assembly): "France calls you, Sir, to its bosom to fill the most useful, and consequently the most honorable of functions—that of contributing, by wise legislation, to the happiness of a people whose destinies interest and unite all who think and all who suffer in the world.
"It is meet that the nation which proclaimed the Rights of Man should desire to have him among its legislators who first dared to measure all their consequences."
Philip Van Ness Myers, LL.D.: "The Convention, consisting of seven hundred and forty-nine deputies, among whom was the celebrated freethinker, Thomas Paine, embraced two active groups, the Girondins and the Mountainists [Jacobins]."
Alphonse de Lamartine: "A stranger sat among the members of the Convention—the philosopher, Thomas Paine, born in England, the apostle of American independence, the friend of Franklin, author of 'Common Sense,' the 'Rights of Man,' and the 'Age of Reason'—three pages of the New Evangelist in which he brought back political institutions and religious creeds to their primitive justice and lucidity; his name possessed great weight among the innovators of the two worlds."
"Everyone," says Paul Desjardins, "turned toward Paine as toward the living statue of liberty. The enfranchisement of America consecrated him."
The official reports of the National Convention state that when Paine arose in the Convention and cast his vote for its first decree the act was received by "acclamations of joy, the cries of Vive la nation! repeated by all the spectators, prolonging themselves for many minutes!"
Referring to this Convention, the Hon. E. B. Washburne says: "Never was there a legislative or constituent body which displayed such stupendous energy or performed such immense labor. In the delirium of its passions it stamped itself on the history of the world not only by its crimes, but by its great acts of legislation, which will live as long as France shall endure. Thomas Paine was a member of this Convention. His popularity in France at this time is shown by the fact that he was chosen a member of the Convention by three departments.
"The Convention was not long in giving Paine a striking recognition of the consideration in which it held him. One of its earliest decrees was to establish a special Commission (committee) of nine members on the Constitution. This Commission was composed of the most distinguished men of the Convention: Gensonne, Thomas Paine, Brissot, Petion, Vergniaud, Barrere, Danton, Condorcet, and the Abbe Sieyes."
Louis Adolphus Thiers: "A sixth committee was charged with the principal object for which the Convention had met, to prepare a new constitution. It was composed of nine celebrated members. Philosophy had its representatives in the persons of Sieyes, Condorcet, and the American Thomas Paine, recently elected a French citizen, and a member of the Convention. The Gironde was more particularly represented by Gensonne, Vergniaud, Petion, and Brissot; the Centre by Barrere, and the Montagne by Danton."
The names of these eminent men will live long in history; but dear was the price paid for their fame. Danton, Brissot, Gensonne and Vergniaud died on the scaffold; Condorcet died in a prison cell, a suicide; Petion escaped to a forest where his body was afterward found partly devoured by wolves; Barrere was banished, and Paine was imprisoned. Sieyes alone escaped unharmed.
Thomas Carlyle: "To make the Constitution; to defend the Republic till that be made. Speedily enough, accordingly, there has been a Committee of Constitution got together. Sieyes, old constituent, constitution builder by trade; Condorcet, fit for better things; Deputy Paine, foreign benefactor of the species with the black beaming eyes;... Hérault de Sechelles, ex-parlementier, one of the handsomest men in France,—these, with inferior guild-brethren, are girt cheerfully to the task." (Hérault was a supplementary member of the Committee).
John King (referring to Paine): "The chief modeler of their new Constitution."
The Constitution was almost entirely the work of Paine and Condorcet. It is known as the Paine-Condorcet Constitution.
Dr. David Saville Muzzey: "Paine labored to make this new republic of France an example for the monarchy-cursed countries of Europe. It was he who protested against the domination of the Assembly by the section of Paris which led to the Reign of Terror."
M. Taine: "Compared with the speeches and writings of the times, it [Paine's Letter to Danton] produces the strangest effect by its practical good sense."
Madame de Stael: "When the sentence of Louis XVI. came under discussion Paine alone advised what would have done honor to France if it had been adopted."
Henri Martin: "Thomas Paine, the famous representative of the idea of a universal Republic, had voted against both an appeal to the people and the penalty of death."
Thomas Wright, F. S. A.: "He urged with great earnestness that the execution of the sentence of death should be delayed."
M. Guizot: "The last effort was about to be attempted to save the life of the King by delaying execution. The anger of the Jacobins was extreme; they refused to listen to a speech from Thomas Paine, the American, till respect for his courage gained him a hearing.... The prayer and the hope were as vain as they were affecting."
Hon. Elihu B. Washburne: "It was on the 19th day of January, 1793, that Paine mounted the tribune to speak to this question. This trial of Louis XVI. by the National Convention is one of the most remarkable on record. The session was made permanent, and the trial went on day and night. After a lapse of nearly one hundred years, the painful and dramatic scenes stand out with still greater prominence. The Salle des Machines, in the Pavillon de Flores at the Tuileries, had been converted into a grand hall for the sittings of the Convention. The galleries were immense and could seat fourteen hundred spectators. In an immense city like Paris, convulsed with a political excitement never equaled, the trial of a king for his life produced the most profound emotions that ever agitated any community. All classes and conditions were carried away by the prevailing excitement, and the pressure for places exceeded anything ever known.
"The appearance of Thomas Paine at the tribune, with a roll of manuscript in his hand, created a sensation in the Convention. By his side stood Bancal, who was there to translate the speech into French and read it to the Convention. The first declaration of the celebrated foreigner produced a commotion on the benches of the Montagne. Coming from a democrat like Thomas Paine, a man so intimately allied with the Americans, a great thinker and writer, there was fear of their influence on the Convention.
"The most violent exclamations broke out, drowning the voice of Bancal, the unfortunate interpreter, and creating an indescribable tumult. Never was a man in a more embarrassing condition than Paine was at this time. Though not understanding the language, he yet realized the fury of the storm which raged around him. Standing at the tribune in his half Quaker coat, and genteelly attired, he remained undaunted and self-possessed during the tempest. This speech of Paine breathed greatness of soul and generosity of spirit and will forever honor his memory."
Paine's speech, says Conway, is "unparalleled for argument and art and eloquence."
Charlotte M. Yonge: "A brave remonstrance."
Hon. Thomas E. Watson: "Among the brave who would not bend to the storm was Thomas Paine. Man enough to defy kings and priests, he was man enough, likewise, to defy a howling mob."
E. Belford Bax: "Paine, up to the last, manfully voted in the sense in which he had always spoken, for the life of the king at the imminent risk of his own."
Writing of the events which preceded and attended the trial and execution of Louis XVI, Prince Talleyrand, a profound admirer of Paine, says: "It was no longer a question that the king should reign, but that he himself, the queen, their children, his sister, should be saved. It might have been done. It was at least a duty to attempt it." It was a duty, however, whose performance carried with it the probable penalty of death. Danton, France's greatest and bravest son, wished to save the life of the king, but dared not to vote in favor of it. "Although I may save his life," he said, "I shall vote for his death. I am quite willing to save his head, but not to lose my own." Even the king's cousin, Philip of Orleans, voted for his kinsman's death. Paine did not shirk his duty. He, too, loved life, but he loved honor more, and so, defying death, voted and pleaded for the life of the fallen monarch.
"Ah, that man who stood there alone in that breathless hall with such mighty eloquence warming over his lofty brow! That man was one of that illustrious band who had been made citizens of France—France the redeemed and newborn! Yess with Mackintosh, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson and Washington, he had been elected a citizen of France. With these great men he hailed the French revolution as the dawn of God's millennium. He had hurried to Paris, urged by the same deep love of man that accompanied him in the darkest hours of the American revolution, and there, there pleading for the traitor-king, alone in that breathless hall he stood, the author-hero, Thomas Paine, pleading—even amid that sea of scowling faces—for the life of King Louis."—George Lippard.
"In that maelstrom of thought, in that pandemonium of words, in that whirlwind of passion, pleading for the life of the king, Thomas Paine, not counting his own life, well knowing the consequences of his act, Thomas Paine stood there and pleaded that the life of the king might be spared."—Dr. J. E. Roberts.
A. F. Bertrand de Moleville (French Minister of State): "It must be recorded to the eternal shame of this assembly, that Thomas Paine... proved himself the wisest, the most humane, the boldest—in a word, the most innocent among them."
Victor Hugo: "Thomas Paine, an American and merciful."
"When tidings came of the king's trial and execution, whatever glimpses they [Paine's adherents in England] gained of their outlawed leader showed him steadfast as a star caught in one wave and another of that turbid tide. Many, alas, needed apologies, but Paine required none. That one Englishman, standing on the tribune for justice and humanity, amid three hundred angry Frenchmen in uproar, was as sublime a sight as Europe witnessed in those days."—Dr. Conway.
"The rank and file followed their Thomas Paine with a faith that crowned heads might envy. The London men knew Paine thoroughly. The treasures of the world would not draw him, nor any terrors drive him, to the side of cruelty and inhumanity. Their eye was upon him. Had Paine, after the king's execution, despaired of the republic there might have ensued some demoralization among his followers in London. But they saw him by the side of the delivered prisoner of the Bastile, Brissot, an author well known in England, by the side of Condorcet and others of Franklin's honored circle engaged in a death struggle with the fire-breathing dragon called 'The Mountain.' That was the same unswerving man they had been following, and to all accusations against the revolution their answer was—Paine is still there."—Ibid.
While Paine allied himself to no particular faction of the convention, his sympathies were with the Girondins. Lamartine says: "Paine, the friend of Madame Roland, Condorcet and Brissot, had been elected by the town of Calais; the Girondins consulted him and placed him on the committee of surveyance." The Girondins comprised, for the most part, the wisest and the best of France's legislators. Had they remained in power the excesses of the revolution would, to a great extent, have been avoided. But in an evil hour the Jacobins gained the ascendancy and while they ruled madness reigned supreme. The Girondins were slaughtered or expelled. In one night twenty-two of them—every one a noted statesman or orator—the very flower of French manhood, "the eloquent, the young, the beautiful, the brave," as Riouffe, their fellow prisoner, lovingly describes them, were taken before a Jacobin tribunal and condemned to death. Carlyle thus graphically and pathetically tells us how they died:
"All Paris is out; such a crowd as no man had seen. The death-carts, Valaze's cold corpse [he had committed suicide] stretched among the yet living twenty-one, roll along. Bareheaded, hands bound, in their shirt sleeves, coat flung loosely round the neck; so fare the eloquent of France; bemurmured, beshouted. To the shouts of Vive la Republique, some of them keep answering with counter shouts of Vive la Republique. Others, as Brissot, sit sunk in silence. At the foot of the scaffold they again strike up, with appropriate variations, the hymn of the Marseilles. Such an act of music; conceive it well! The yet living chant there; the chorus so rapidly wearing weak! Samson's axe is rapid; one head per minute, or a little less. The chorus is wearing weak; the chorus is worn out; farewell, forevermore, ye Girondins. Te-Deum Fauchet has become silent; Valaze's dead head is lopped; the sickle of the guillotine has reaped the Girondins all away."
"How Paine loved those men—Brissot, Condorcet, Lasource, Duchatel, Vergniaud, Gensonne! Never was man more devoted to his intellectual comrades. Even across a century one may realize what it meant to him, that march of his best friends to the scaffold."—Dr. Conway.
Eight days after the execution of the Girondins another of Paine's friends, Madame Roland, the "Inspiring Soul" of the Girondins—one of the greatest, one of the fairest, one of the bravest, and one of the noblest women that ever came to brighten our planet—died on the same scaffold. Beautiful in life, Madame Roland rose to sublimity in death. Standing on the scaffold, robed in white, she seemed like a lovely bride before the altar. She asked for pen and paper to record "the strange thoughts that were rising in her" as she gazed into the eyes of death. This request denied, she turned toward the statue of liberty and, with tearful eyes, exclaimed, "O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!" Then, seeing the one who was to have preceded her to the guillotine trembling with fear, she begged and obtained permission to take his place—to die first—that she might soften the terrors of death by showing him "how easy it is to die." This is her picture—painted by Carlyle: "Noble white vision, with its high queenly face, its soft proud eyes, long black hair flowing down to the girdle; and as brave a heart as ever beat in woman's bosom! Like a white Grecian statue, serenely complete, she shines in that black wreck of things;—long memorable."
"What with the arrestations and flights Paine found himself, in June, almost alone. In the convention he was sometimes the solitary figure left on the plain, where but now sat the brilliant statesmen of France. They, his beloved friends, have started in procession towards the guillotine, for even flight must end there; daily others are pressed into their ranks; his own summons, he feels, is only a question of a few weeks or days."—Dr. Conway.
Madame Roland died in November; Paine was imprisoned in December.
Dictionary of Religious Knowledge: "Here [trial of Louis XVI] his honorable moderation won the enmity of Robespierre, who marked him for a victim."
Scheaf's Religious Encyclopedia: "He had the courage to vote against the execution of Louis XVI., and thus incurred the anger of Robespierre, who threw him into prison."
Chambers' Encyclopedia of English Literature: "He offended the Robespierre faction, and in 1794 [December 28, 1793], possibly by the procurement of the American minister, Gouverneur Morris—who disliked the French revolution and the alliance between the new republics—he was imprisoned."
Col. Thomas W. Higginson: "They urged him (he was in personal danger) to go back to America, the country he had served so long. 'Go there,' they said; 'it is your country,' 'No,' he said, 'for the time, this is my country.'... So said Thomas Paine, and the doors of the Bastile closed around him."
Rev. John W. Chadwick: "A prisoner deserted by the young Republic at whose birth he had assisted so efficiently, his life in jeopardy for the humanity of his opinions."
Morning Advertiser (England, Feb. 8, 1794): "His arrest was a species of triumph to all the tyrants on earth. His papers had been examined, and far from finding any dangerous propositions the committee had traced only the characters of that burning zeal for liberty—of that eloquence of nature and philosophy—and of those principles of public morality which had through life procured him the hatred of despots and the love of his fellow citizens."
"His arrest and imprisonment, without charges preferred or even the pretense of crime, were acts of perfidy without a parallel except in the history of the French revolution."—Hon. E. B. Washburne.
Major W. Jackson (and other Americans in Paris): "As a countryman of ours, as a man above all so dear to the Americans; who like ourselves are earnest friends of liberty, we ask you in the name of that goddess cherished by the only two republics of the world, to give back Thomas Paine to his brethren."
Achille Audibert: "A friend of mankind is groaning in chains—Thomas Paine.... But for Robespierre's villainy the friend of man would now be free."
At the beginning of the revolution Robespierre was recognized as one of the most moderate and humane of men. In the National Assembly he advocated the abolition of the death penalty. Describing his advent to leadership, Paine's biographer says: "Mirabeau was on his deathbed, and Paine witnessed that historic procession, four miles long, which bore the orator to his shrine.... With others he strained his eyes to see the coming man; with others he sees formidable Danton glaring at Lafayette; and presently sees advancing softly between them the sentimental, philanthropic—Robespierre."
M. Danton: "What thou hast done for the happiness and liberty of thy country I have in vain attempted to do for mine. They are sending us to the scaffold."
"It was a strange scene; these two constitution makers, Paine and Danton, and for the last time in the prison of the Luxembourg, both equally destined for the scaffold."—Hon. E. B. Washburne.
Danton was taken to the guillotine; Paine, by mistake, was left.
The manner of Paine's escape, as related by Carlyle, was as follows: "The tumbrils move on. But in this set of tumbrils there are two other things notable: one notable person; and one want of a notable person. The notable person is Lieu-tenant-General Loiserelles, a nobleman by birth and by nature; laying down his life for his son. In the prison of Saint-Lazare, the night before last, hurrying to the grate to hear the death-list read, he caught the name of his son. The son was asleep at the moment. 'I am Loiserelles,' cried the old man.... The want of the notable person, again, is that of Deputy Paine! Paine has set in the Luxembourg since January; and seemed forgotten; but Fouquier had pricked him at last. The turnkey, list in hand, is marking with chalk the outer doors of to-morrow's fournee. Paine's outer door happened to be open, turned back on the wall; the turnkey marked it on the side next him, and hurried on; another turnkey came and shut it; no chalkmark now visible, the fournee went without Paine. Paine's life lay not there."
In a letter to Washington, Paine thus narrates the inhuman slaughter of his fellow-prisoners, from whose fate he so narrowly escaped: "The state of things in the prisons [for over four months] was a continued scene of horror. No man could count upon life for twenty-four hours. To such a pitch of rage and suspicion were Robespierre and his committee arrived, that it seemed as if they feared to leave a man to live. Scarcely a night passed in which ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more were not taken out of the prison, carried before a pretended tribunal in the morning, and guillotined before night. One hundred and sixty-nine were taken out of the Luxembourg one night in July, and one hundred and sixty of them guillotined, of whom I know I was to have been one. A list of two hundred more, according to the report in the prison, was preparing a few days before Robespierre fell. In this last list I have good reason to believe I was included."
Concerning this reign of terror Guizot says: "Two thousand four hundred prisoners were registered in Paris on the books of the prison, at the moment of the deaths of the Girondins; three [four] months later, on the 1st of March, 1794, the number reached six thousand; on the 2d of May, eight thousand unfortunate persons waited for death. From June 10th to July 27th, two thousand, two hundred and eighty-five perished on the scaffold." (History of France, Vol. VI, pp. 178, 196.) Menzies says: "The queen, Marie Antoinette, her sister, Madame Elizabeth, Bailly, the Girondin chiefs, the Duke of Orleans, General Custine, Madame Roland, Lavoisier, Malesherbes, and a thousand other illustrious heads fell by the guillotine."
"The light of burning rafters flashed luridly over scenes of blood; soon all that is grotesque, or terrible, or loathsome in murder, was enacted in the streets of Paris. The lantern posts bore their ghastly fruit; the streets flowed with crimson rivers, the life-blood of ten thousand hearts, down even to the waters of the Seine. Lafayette and Paine and all the heroes were gone from the councils of France, but in their place, aye, in the place of poetry, enthusiasm and eloquence, spoke a mighty orator—King Guillotine."—George Lippard.
With Danton died another of Paine's cherished friends—Hérault de Sechelles. Hérault, president of the National Assembly, and, for a time, president of the National Convention, was the first to welcome Paine to Paris when he came to take his seat in the convention. He was physically and intellectually one of France's most magnificent men. He was a ripe scholar and a superb orator. He possessed great wealth and a most fascinating address. He and Paine and Danton had from the first been members of the Convention; they had served together on the Committee of the Constitution, Hérault as Paine's suppliant, and they had occupied the same prison, the prison set apart for the most illustrious victims of the Revolution. I quote from Washburne. I desire to present one of the ten thousand tragic and pathetic scenes which compose this mighty and immortal drama. "Tragedy walks hand in hand with History and the eyes of Glory are wet with tears:"
"More victims were now demanded, and, at this time, the oldest children of the Revolution were claimed. They were the 'Dantonists,' among whom was included Hérault.... Hérault was unmarried. When imprisoned at the Luxembourg awaiting his trial he appeared sad and preoccupied. On arriving at the guillotine, on the Place de la Revolution on the day of his execution, all his looks were turned toward the hotel of the Garde-Meuble, hoping evidently to exchange glances with one with whom were all his thoughts at that supreme moment. Behind the shutters, half closed, was a beautiful woman who sent to the condemned a last adieu and waved a last sigh of tenderness to the dying man: Je t'aime (I love thee). It was a beautiful day of the springtime, and the crowd that had assembled to witness the execution of Danton, the great Apostle of the Revolution, and his associates was enormous. The splendid figure of Hérault de Sechelles seemed to take new life, and the serenity of courage replaced the inquietude and sadness which had settled upon him. The first one to mount the scaffold, he showed himself calm, resolute and unmoved. As he was about to lay his head under the knife, he wished to present his cheek to the cheek of Danton [their hands were bound], as a last farewell. The aids of Samson, the executioner, prevented it. 'Imbeciles!' indignantly exclaimed Danton, 'it will be but a moment before our heads will meet in the basket in spite of you.'"
"Declared an outlaw by the same Convention which he had so long used as an instrument of his private vengeance, Robespierre was killed like a dog.... The death of Paine's mortal enemy saved his life."—Ibid.
Madame Lafayette: "The news of your being set at liberty,... has given me a moment's consolation in the midst of this abyss of misery."
Madame Lafayette, like Thomas Paine, was a prisoner, daily expecting death. Her mother, grandmother and sister, prominent members of the French nobility, all died together on the scaffold. Lafayette himself was at this time confined in an Austrian dungeon.
Glorious was the freedom born of the French Revolution, but terrible was the travail.
Daniel Coit Gilman, LL.D.: "His [Minister Monroe's] effort to secure the release of Thomas Paine from imprisonment was a noteworthy transaction."
"Released from prison at Monroe's intercession."—Richard Hildreth.
Stanislaus Murray Hamilton: "Paine was liberated by the Committee of General Surety in consequence of Monroe's assertion of his American citizenship, and demand for his release; but he had suffered an imprisonment of ten months and nine days before Monroe's generous and manly aid reached him."
We owe a debt of gratitude to James Monroe.
He rescued Paine from prison and from death. When Paine was thought to be dying, as a result of his imprisonment, the Monroes tenderly cared for him in their own home and nursed him back to life and health. Washington's apparent neglect of Paine, which for nearly a century rested as a deep stain upon an otherwise fair name, filled Paine with astonishment and grief and caused him to write that bitter letter of reproach. It is now known that this seeming indifference of Washington was due to the treachery of Monroe's predecessor, Gouverneur Morris.
A. Outram Sherman: "It is a long story, how his secret instructions conflicted with Paine's hearty and open love for America's ally, how Morris virtually acquiesced in his imprisonment by Robespierre as a foreigner, how Morris misled Washington to believe he had demanded Paine's release as an American, and how he misled Paine to believe that Washington had given no directions that Paine be so reclaimed."
Nelson's Encyclopedia, in its article on Paine, says: "It seems clear that his imprisonment was in part the result of a discreditable intrigue to which Gouverneur Morris, the American minister, was a party."
Madison, in a letter to Jefferson, dated January 10, 1796, referring to Paine's letter to Washington, says: "It appears that the neglect to claim him as an American citizen when confined by Robespierre, or even to interfere in any way whatever in his favor, has filled him with an indelible rancor against the President, to whom it appears he has written on the subject. His letter to me is in the style of a dying one, and we hear that he is since dead of the abscess in his side, brought on by his imprisonment."
Referring to his letter to Washington, Dr. Conway says: "It was the natural outcry of an ill and betrayed man to one whom we now know to have been also betrayed. Its bitterness and wrath measure the greatness of the love that was wounded."
Rev. Eugene Rodman Shippen: "That he was estranged from Washington through the malicious representations of others is one of the sad episodes of our national life."
M. Thibaudeau: "It yet remains for the Convention to perform an act of justice. I reclaim one of the most zealous defenders of liberty—Thomas Paine. My reclamation is for a man who has honored his age by his energy in defense of the rights of humanity, and who is so gloriously distinguished by his part in the American Revolution....I demand that he be recalled to the bosom of this Convention."
"He was unanimously restored to his seat in the Convention."—International Encyclopedia.
Samuel P. Putnam: "Paine was self-centered. He could stand alone, like a mighty rock, with seas and storms breaking upon him. Not Mirabeau, not Danton, shone with a more brilliant genius, nor towered with more rugged strength and grandeur.
"Paine represented the immortal part of the Revolution.... Voltaire emphasized justice, Rousseau emphasized liberty; Paine emphasized both liberty and justice."
One of the strongest proofs of Paine's transcendent greatness is the fact that while nearly all the leaders of the Revolution—even Danton—were swept from their moorings by this volcanic upheaval, Paine's career throughout was characterized by wisdom, moderation, and a moral courage that was truly sublime.
Thomas Curtis:
"When France shall lift her banners fair,
And brighter hopes shall dawn once more,
In counting up her jewels rare
She'll not forget the days of yore.
For when the name of Lafayette
Shall summon others in its train,
There's one she never will forget—
The author-hero, Thomas Paine."
Prof. Isaac F. Russell, LL.D.: "Paine was one of the immortals who worked for liberty in three countries, America, France and England."
Frederick May Holland: "He sought to establish the rights of man in France and England as well as in America. In two of these three countries his work seemed almost fruitless a hundred years ago; but the nineteenth century has given him as complete a victory in England and France as he achieved in the United States. These three great nations now stand side by side as the bulwarks of freedom."
Hon. George W. Julian: "If any man among the illustrious characters' of 'the times that tried men's souls' is to be singled out as the real father of American Democracy, it is Thomas Paine."
Lord Beaconsfield (to Gladstone): "How does your reform government differ from that of Thomas Paine, except that the sovereign is left in name?"
"Today the student of political history may find... in Paine's ['Rights of Man'] the living Constitution of Great Britain."—Dr. Conway.
Alexander Dumas: "It is not the liberty of France alone that I [Dr. Gilbert, i. e., Paine] dream of; it is the liberty of the whole world."
Alice Hubbard: "England, France and America were made more noble, more intelligent, more civilized, by the work Thomas Paine did for each country and for all countries."
T. B. Wakeman: "The Father of Republics." "All these glories of three great peoples were obtained by revolutions that were fought by a war of feelings and thoughts before they came to arms; and in that primal war of thoughts and words Thomas Paine was the most known of men and the actual leader—the Author Hero."
"The republic—as we now all use that word—the true modern republic, in and by which government based upon the consent of all, and administered by the cooperation of all, for the protection and benefit of all, was not known among men until it was originated by Thomas Paine."
"The so-called 'republics' of antiquity and the Middle Ages were only oligarchies resting upon the slavery or serfdom of the masses, and in fact the reverse of republics."
National Encyclopedia (England): "Paine, from his first starting in public life, was a Republican, uniformly consistent and apparently sincere."
"The Democratic movement of the last eighty years, be it a finality or only a phase of progress toward a more perfect state, is the grand historic fact of modern times, and Paine's name is intimately connected with it."—Atlantic Monthly, July, 1859.
"After contributing by one publication to the establishment of a transatlantic republic in North America, he introduced, with astonishing effect the doctrines of democratic government into the first states of Europe."—Edward Baines, LL.D.
"'Invent printing,' wrote Carlyle, 'and you invent democracy.' Not quite so! Invent a sort of writing which when printed shall be understood by the people, then you invent democracy. And this, earlier and better than any other man, is what Thomas Paine did."—The Nation, London.
"As the champion of popular power in opposition to the abuses of monarchical government, Paine will always stand pre-eminent in the world."—William Cobbett.
Mrs. Marilla M. Ricker: "Thomas Paine dreamed the most glorious dream of human freedom that ever enchanted the mind of man; fairer and sweeter than lay under the broken marbles of Greece, brighter and better than was buried with the dead eagles of Rome."
"Paine stands between two epochs: the epoch of Kings and the epoch of Man. To the King he said, 'The night is coming'; to Man he said, 'The day is dawning.'"