"Sire," said he, "I deliver to you, pure and sacred, the sword of the faithful Bretons. It shall never be stained but with the blood of your enemies."
LOUIS XVI. AND THE DEPUTATION OF THE BRETONS.
The heart of the kind-hearted king was touched. He returned the sword, and, throwing his arms around the neck of the chief of the Bretons, said, in tones broken with emotion,
"That sword can not be in better hands than those of my dear Bretons. I have never doubted their fidelity and affection. Assure them that I am the father, the brother, the friend of all the French."
For a moment there was silence, and all alike were moved by the affecting scene. The chief of the Bretons then rejoined,
"Sire, all the French, if I may judge from our hearts, love and will love you because you are a citizen-king."
Many of the most influential men in England contemplated with admiration this immense reform, in which, to use the language of Professor William Smyth, one of the most candid of English writers, "the Constituent Assembly was supposed to have freed the country from temporal and spiritual thraldom; the government had been rested on free principles; the Bastille had been destroyed, lettres de cachet abolished, feudal impediments and oppressions of every kind removed, religious liberty established, the system of law made uniform, the criminal jurisprudence reformed, monasteries abolished; and by making the military force consist of the citizens of the country, freedom, and all those new and weighty advantages, seemed to be forever secured from the machinations of arbitrary power."
The aristocracy, however, of England and Europe were struck with alarm. The emancipation of the people in France threatened their emancipation throughout the civilized world. Edmund Burke espoused the cause of the aristocracy. With eloquence quite unparalleled he roused England and Europe to war. In view of his fierce invectives Michelet exclaims, in language which will yet be pronounced by the world as not too severe,