When the Royal authority had been conquered, the Parliaments at first conceived that the triumph was their own. They returned to the bench, less as reprieved1 delinquents2 than as conquerors3, and thought that they had only to enjoy the sweets of victory.
The King, when he withdrew the edicts which had raised to the bench new judges, ordered that at least the judgments4 and decrees of those judges should be maintained. The Parliaments declared that whatever had been adjudged without themselves was not adjudged at all. They summoned before them the insolent5 magistrates6 who had presumed to aspire7 to their seats, and, borrowing an old expression of medi?val law to meet this novel incident, they noted8 them infamous9. All France saw that the King’s friends were punished for their fidelity10 to the Crown, and learnt that henceforth safety was not to be found on the side of obedience12.
The intoxication13 of these magistrates may easily be understood. Louis XIV. in all his glory had never been the object of more universal adulation, if that word can be applied14 to immoderate praise prompted by genuine and disinterested15 passions.
The Parliament of Paris, exiled to Troyes, was received in that city by all the public bodies, which hastened to pay it the homage16 due to the sovereign, and to utter to its face the most extravagant18 compliments. ‘August senators!’ they said, ‘generous citizens! strict and compassionate19 magistrates! you all deserve in every French heart the title of fathers of your country. You are the consolation20 of the nation’s ills. Your actions are sublime21 examples of energy and patriotism22. The French nation looks upon you with tenderness and veneration23.’ The Chapter of the Cathedral of Troyes, complimenting them in the name of the Church, said: ‘Our country and our religion solicit24 some durable25 monument of what you have done.’ Even the University came forth11, in gowns[225] and square caps, to drawl out its homage in bad Latin, ‘Illustrissimi Senat?s princeps, pr?sides insulati, Senatores integerrimi! We share the general emotion, and we are here to express our lively admiration26 of your patriotic27 heroism28. Hitherto the highest courage was that military valour which calls legions of heroes from their homes; we now see the heroes of peace in the sanctuary29 of justice; like those generous citizens who were the pride of Rome in their day of triumph, you have earned a triumph which secures to you immortal30 fame.’ The First President replied to all these addresses curtly31, like a sovereign, and assured the speakers of the good will of his Court.
In several provinces the arrest or exile of the judges had provoked riots. In all, their return gave rise to almost insane explosions of popular rejoicing. At Grenoble, when the courier arrived, who brought the news of the restoration of the Parliaments, he was carried in triumph through the town, and overpowered with caresses32 and acclamations; women, unable to reach his person, kissed his horse. In the evening the whole town was spontaneously illuminated33. All the public bodies and guilds34 defiled35 before the Parliament, declaiming bombastic36 compliments.
At Bordeaux on the same day there was a similar ovation37. The people took the horses from the carriage of the First President, and drew him to his chambers38. The judges who had obeyed the King’s orders were hooted39. The First President reprimanded them in public. In the midst of this scene the oldest member of the Parliament exclaimed, ‘My children, tell this to your descendants, that the remembrance of this day may keep alive the fire of patriotism.’ He who said this was an aged41 man, born ninety years before, whose youth had been spent under the reign17 of Louis XIV. What changes may not take place in the opinions and the language of a people within the lifetime of a man! They ended by burning a cardinal42 in effigy43 on the market-place; which did not prevent the clergy44 from singing a Te Deum. These events took place at the end of October, 1788.
Suddenly the acclamations which surrounded the Parliaments ceased; the enthusiasm dropped; silence and solitude45 gathered about them. Not only were they the objects of public indifference46, but all sorts of charges were brought against them, the same which the Government had vainly attempted to urge. The country was inundated47 with vituperative48 pamphlets against them. ‘These judges,’ it was said in these pamphlets, ‘know nothing of politics; in reality they have only been aiming at power. They are at one with the nobles and the priests, and as hostile as these are to the[226] commons, who constitute almost the entire nation. They fancied that their attack on despotism would cause all this to be forgotten; but, in asserting the rights of the nation, they have allowed them to be questioned: those rights are derived49 from the Social Contract; to discuss them, is to clothe them in the false colours of voluntary concession50. Indeed, the demands they made from the King were in some respects excessive. They are an aristocracy of lawyers who want to be masters of the King himself.’[125] Another pamphlet, attributed to Volney, apostrophised them in these terms: ‘August body of Magistrates! we are under sacred obligations to you which we do not disown, but we cannot forget that during all these years that you have represented the people, you have allowed it to be oppressed: you, the teachers of the people, have allowed almost all the books calculated to enlighten it to be burnt; and when you resisted despotism it was because it was about to crush yourselves.’
Especially for the Parliament of Paris was the fall sudden and terrible. How shall I describe the mighty51 void, the death-like silence which encompassed52 that great Court, and its own sense of impotence and despair, or the scornful vengeance53 of the Crown, when, in reply to fresh remonstrances54, Louis XVI. said, ‘I have no answer to make to my Parliament or to its supplications: with the assembled nation I am about to concert measures to consolidate55 for ever public order and the prosperity of the kingdom’?
The same measure which recalled the Parliament to its hall of justice restored d’Eprémenil to liberty. The reader will remember the dramatic scene of his arrest, his address in the style of Regulus, the emotion of the audience, and the immense popularity of the martyr56. He was confined in the Ile Ste. Marguérite, off Cannes: the warrant for his discharge arrives, and he starts. On the road he is at first treated as a great man, but as he proceeds the radiance that surrounded him fades away: once at Paris, nobody cares about him, unless it be to cut a joke. To descend40 thus from the sublime to the ridiculous, he had only to post across the territory some two hundred leagues.
The Parliament, wretched at the discovery of its unpopularity, endeavoured to regain57 the favour of the public. Recourse was had to stirring means: the same language which had so often served to excite the people in its favour was again employed. The cry for[227] periodical sessions of the States-General, for the responsibility of Ministers, for personal freedom, for the liberty of the press: all was in vain. The amazement58 of the judges was extreme: they were totally unable to comprehend what was happening before their eyes. They continued to speak of the constitution to be defended, not seeing that this word was popular enough when the constitution was opposed to the King, but hateful to public opinion when it was opposed to equality. They condemned59 a publication which attacked the old institutions of the kingdom to be burnt by the common hangman, not perceiving that the ruin of these institutions was precisely60 what was desired. They asked of one another what could possibly have brought about such a change in the public mind. They fancied they had a strength of their own, not being aware that they had only been the blind auxiliaries61 of another power: everything, as long as that power made them its instruments; nothing, as soon as, being able to act on its own behalf, it ceased to need their assistance. They did not see that the same wave which had driven them along, and raised them so high, carried them back with it as it retired62.
Originally the Parliament consisted of jurists and advocates chosen by the King from the ablest members of their profession. A path to honours and to the highest offices of State was thus opened by merit to men born in the humblest conditions of fortune. The Parliament was then, with the Church, one of those powerful democratic institutions, which were born and had implanted themselves on the aristocratic soil of the Middle Ages.
At a later period the Crown, to make money, put up to sale the right of administering justice. The Parliament was then filled by a certain number of wealthy families, who considered the national judicature as a privilege of their own, to be guarded from the intrusion of others with increasing jealousy63; they obeyed in this the strange impulse which seemed to impel64 each particular body to dwindle65 more and more into a small close aristocracy, at the very time when the opinions and general habits of the nation caused society to incline more and more to democracy.
Nothing certainly could be more opposed to the ideas of the time than a judicial66 caste, exercising by purchase the whole jurisdiction67 of the country. No practice, indeed, had been more often and more bitterly censured68, for a century past, than the sale of these offices. This magistracy, vicious as it was in principle, had nevertheless a merit which the better constituted tribunals of our own time do not always possess. The judges were independent. They administered justice in the name of the sovereign, but not in[228] compliance69 with his will. They obeyed no passions but their own.
When all the intermediate powers which might counter-balance or attenuate70 the unlimited71 power of the King had been struck down, the Parliament alone still remained firm. The Parliament could still speak when all the world was silent, and maintain itself erect72, for a time, when all the world had long been forced to bow. The consequence was that it became popular as soon as the Government was out of favour with the nation. And when, for a moment, hatred73 of despotism had become a fervent74 passion and a sentiment common to all Frenchmen, the Parliaments appeared to be the sole remaining barrier against absolute power. The defects which had been most blamed in them acted as a sort of guarantee of their political honesty. Even their vices75 were a protection, and their love of power, their presumption76, and their prejudices were arms which the nation used. But no sooner had absolute power been definitely conquered, and the nation felt assured that it could defend its own rights, than the Parliament again at once became what it was before—an old, decrepit77, and discredited78 institution; a legacy79 of the Middle Ages, again exposed to the full tide of public aversion. To effect its destruction, the King had only to endure its triumph.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
reprieved
|
|
| v.缓期执行（死刑）( reprieve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
delinquents
|
|
| n.（尤指青少年）有过失的人，违法的人( delinquent的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
conquerors
|
|
| 征服者，占领者( conqueror的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
judgments
|
|
| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
insolent
|
|
| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
magistrates
|
|
| 地方法官，治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
aspire
|
|
| vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
noted
|
|
| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
infamous
|
|
| adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
fidelity
|
|
| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
obedience
|
|
| n.服从，顺从 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
intoxication
|
|
| n.wild excitement;drunkenness；poisoning | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
applied
|
|
| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
disinterested
|
|
| adj.不关心的，不感兴趣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
homage
|
|
| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
reign
|
|
| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
extravagant
|
|
| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
compassionate
|
|
| adj.有同情心的，表示同情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
consolation
|
|
| n.安慰，慰问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
sublime
|
|
| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
patriotism
|
|
| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
veneration
|
|
| n.尊敬，崇拜 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
solicit
|
|
| vi.勾引；乞求；vt.请求，乞求；招揽(生意) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
durable
|
|
| adj.持久的，耐久的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
admiration
|
|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
patriotic
|
|
| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
heroism
|
|
| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
sanctuary
|
|
| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
immortal
|
|
| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
curtly
|
|
| adv.简短地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
caresses
|
|
| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
illuminated
|
|
| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
guilds
|
|
| 行会，同业公会，协会( guild的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
defiled
|
|
| v.玷污( defile的过去式和过去分词 )；污染；弄脏；纵列行进 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
bombastic
|
|
| adj.夸夸其谈的，言过其实的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
ovation
|
|
| n.欢呼，热烈欢迎，热烈鼓掌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
chambers
|
|
| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
hooted
|
|
| （使）作汽笛声响，作汽车喇叭声( hoot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
descend
|
|
| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
aged
|
|
| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
cardinal
|
|
| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
effigy
|
|
| n.肖像 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
clergy
|
|
| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
solitude
|
|
| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
indifference
|
|
| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
inundated
|
|
| v.淹没( inundate的过去式和过去分词 )；（洪水般地）涌来；充满；给予或交予（太多事物）使难以应付 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
vituperative
|
|
| adj.谩骂的；斥责的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
derived
|
|
| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
concession
|
|
| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
mighty
|
|
| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
encompassed
|
|
| v.围绕( encompass的过去式和过去分词 )；包围；包含；包括 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
vengeance
|
|
| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
remonstrances
|
|
| n.抱怨，抗议( remonstrance的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
consolidate
|
|
| v.使加固，使加强；(把...)联为一体，合并 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
martyr
|
|
| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
regain
|
|
| vt.重新获得，收复，恢复 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
amazement
|
|
| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
condemned
|
|
| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
precisely
|
|
| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
auxiliaries
|
|
| n.助动词 ( auxiliary的名词复数 )；辅助工，辅助人员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
retired
|
|
| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
jealousy
|
|
| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
impel
|
|
| v.推动；激励，迫使 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
dwindle
|
|
| v.逐渐变小（或减少） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
judicial
|
|
| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
jurisdiction
|
|
| n.司法权，审判权，管辖权，控制权 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
censured
|
|
| v.指责，非难，谴责( censure的过去式 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
compliance
|
|
| n.顺从；服从；附和；屈从 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
attenuate
|
|
| v.使变小，使减弱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
unlimited
|
|
| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
erect
|
|
| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
hatred
|
|
| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
fervent
|
|
| adj.热的，热烈的，热情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
vices
|
|
| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
presumption
|
|
| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
decrepit
|
|
| adj.衰老的，破旧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
discredited
|
|
| 不足信的，不名誉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
legacy
|
|
| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |