Sunday, July 14, is the hundredth anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, and the occasion will be splendidly celebrated1 at Paris. In itself the capture of this prison-fortress by the people was not a wonderful achievement; it was ill-defended, and its governor might, had he chosen, have exploded the powder magazine and blown it sky-high. But the event was the parting of the ways. It showed that the multitude had got the bit between its teeth, and needed a more potent2 master than the poor king at Versailles. And the event itself was a striking one. Men are led by imagination, and the Bastille was the symbol of centuries of oppression. Within its gloomy dungeons3 hundreds of innocent men had perished in solitary4 misery5, without indictment6 or trial, consigned7 to death-in-life by the arbitrary order of irresponsible power. Men of the most eminent8 intellect and character had suffered within its precincts for the crime of teaching new truth or exposing old superstitions9. Voltaire himself had twice tasted imprisonment11 there. What wonder, then, that the people fixed12 their gaze upon it on that ominous13 fourteenth of July, and attacked it as the very citadel14 of tyranny? The Bastille fell, and the sound re-echoed through Europe. It was the signal of a new era and a new hope. The Revolution had begun—that mighty15 movement which, in its meaning and consequences, dwarfs16 every other cataclysm17 in history.
But revolutions do not happen miraculously18. Their advent19 is prepared. They are as much caused as the fall of a ripe apple from the tree, or the regular bursting of the buds in spring. The authors of the Revolution were in their graves. Its leaders, or its instruments, appeared upon the scene in '89. After life's fitful fever Voltaire was sleeping well. Rousseau's tortured heart was at rest. Diderot's colossal20 labors21 were ended; his epitaph was written, and the great Encyclopaedia22 remained as his living monument. D'Holbach had just joined his friends in their eternal repose23. A host of smaller men, also, but admirable soldiers of progress in their degree, had passed away. The gallant24 host had done its work. The ground was ploughed, the seed was sown, and the harvest was sure. Famished25 as they were, and well-nigh desperate at times, the men of the Revolution nursed the crop as a sacred legacy26, shedding their blood like water to fructify27 the soil in which it grew.
Superficial readers are ignorant of the mental ferment28 which went on in France before the Revolution. Voltaire's policy of sapping the dogmas by which all tyranny was supported had been carried out unflinchingly. Not only had Christianity been attacked in every conceivable way, with science, scholarship, argument, and wit; but the very foundations of all religion—the belief in soul and God—had not been spared. The Heresiarch of Ferney lived to see the war with superstition10 carried farther than he contemplated30 or desired; but it was impossible for him to say to the tide of Freethought, "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." The tide poured on over everything sacred. Altars, thrones, and coronets met with a common fate. True, they were afterwards fished out of the deluge31; but their glory was for ever quenched32, their power for ever gone.
Among the great Atheists who prepared the Revolution we single out two—Diderot and D'Holbach. The sagacious mind of Comte perceived that Diderot was the greatest thinker of the band. The fecundity34 of his mind was extraordinary, and even more so his scientific prescience. Anyone who looks through the twenty volumes of his collected works will be astonished at the way in which, by intuitive insight, he anticipated so many of the best ideas of Evolution. His labors on the Encyclopaedia would have tired out the energies of twenty smaller men, but he persevered35 to the end, despite printers, priests, and governments, and a countless36 host of other obstructions37. Out of date as the work is now, it was the artillery38 of the movement of progress then. As Mr. Morley says, it "rallied all that was best in France round the standard of light and social hope."
Less original, but nearly as bold and industrious39, D'Holbach placed his fortune and abilities at the service of Freethought. Mr. Morley calls the System of Nature "a thunderous engine of revolt." It was Atheistic40 in religion, and revolutionary in politics. It challenged every enemy of freedom in the name of reason and humanity. Here and there its somewhat diffuse41 rhetoric42 was lit up with the splendidly concise43 eloquence44 of Diderot, who touched the work with a master-hand. Nor did this powerful book represent a tithe45 of D'Holbach's labors for the "good old cause." His active pen produced a score of other works, under various names and disguises, all addressed to the same object—the destruction of superstition and the emancipation46 of the human mind. They were extensively circulated, and must have created a powerful impression on the reading public.
Leaving its authors and precursors47, and coming to the Revolution itself, we find that its most distinguished48 figures were Atheists. Mirabeau, the first Titan of the struggle, was a godless statesman. In him the multitude found a master, who ruled it by his genius and eloquence, and his embodiment of its aspirations49. The crowned king of France was pottering in his palace, but the real king reigned50 in the National Assembly.
The Girondists were nearly all Atheists, from Condorcet and Madame Roland down to the obscurest victims of the Terror who went gaily52 to their doom53 with the hymn54 of freedom upon their proud lips. Danton also, the second Titan of the Revolution, was an Atheist33. He fell in trying to stop the bloodshed, which Robespierre, the Deist, continued until it drowned him. With Danton there went to the guillotine another Atheist, bright, witty55 Camille Desmoulins, whose exquisite56 pen had served the cause well, and whose warm poet's blood was destined57 to gush58 out under the fatal knife. Other names crowd upon us, too numerous to recite. To give them all would be to write a catalogue of the revolutionary leaders.
Atheism59 was the very spirit of the Revolution. This has been admitted by Christian29 writers, who have sought revenge by libelling the movement. Their slanders60 are manifold, but we select two which are found most impressive at orthodox meetings.
It is stated that the Revolutionists organised a worship of the Goddess of Reason, that they went in procession to Notre Dame51, where a naked woman acted the part of the goddess, while Chenier's Ode was chanted by the Convention. Now there is a good deal of smoke in this story and very little flame. The naked female is a pious61 invention, and that being gone, the calumny62 is robbed of its sting. Demoiselle Candeille, an actress, was selected for her beauty; but she was not a "harlot," and she was not undressed. Whoever turns to such an accessible account as Carlyle's will see that the apologists of Christianity have utterly63 misrepresented the scene.
Secondly64, it is asserted that the Revolution was a tornado65 of murder; cruelty was let loose, and the Atheists waded66 in blood. Never was greater nonsense paraded with a serious face. During the Terror itself the total number of victims, as proved by the official records, was less than three thousand; not a tenth part of the number who fell in the single massacre67 of St. Bartholomew!
But who caused the Terror? The Christian monarchies68 that declared war on Freethinkers and regicides. Theirs was the guilt69, and they are responsible for the bloodshed. France trembled for a moment. She aimed at the traitors70 within her borders, and struck down many a gallant friend in error. But she recovered from the panic. Then her sons, half-starved, ragged71, shoeless, ill-armed, marched to the frontier, hurled72 back her enemies, and swept the trained armies of Europe into flight. They would be free, and who should say them nay73? They were not to be terrified or deluded74 by "the blood on the hands of the king or the lie at the lips of the priest." And if the struggle developed until the French armies, exchanging defence for conquest, thundered over Europe, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean75, from the orange-groves of Spain to the frozen snows of Russia—the whole blame rests with the pious scoundrels who would not let France establish a Republic in peace.
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1 celebrated | |
adj.有名的,声誉卓著的 | |
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2 potent | |
adj.强有力的,有权势的;有效力的 | |
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3 dungeons | |
n.地牢( dungeon的名词复数 ) | |
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4 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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5 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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6 indictment | |
n.起诉;诉状 | |
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7 consigned | |
v.把…置于(令人不快的境地)( consign的过去式和过去分词 );把…托付给;把…托人代售;丟弃 | |
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8 eminent | |
adj.显赫的,杰出的,有名的,优良的 | |
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9 superstitions | |
迷信,迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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10 superstition | |
n.迷信,迷信行为 | |
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11 imprisonment | |
n.关押,监禁,坐牢 | |
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12 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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13 ominous | |
adj.不祥的,不吉的,预兆的,预示的 | |
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14 citadel | |
n.城堡;堡垒;避难所 | |
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15 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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16 dwarfs | |
n.侏儒,矮子(dwarf的复数形式)vt.(使)显得矮小(dwarf的第三人称单数形式) | |
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17 cataclysm | |
n.洪水,剧变,大灾难 | |
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18 miraculously | |
ad.奇迹般地 | |
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19 advent | |
n.(重要事件等的)到来,来临 | |
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20 colossal | |
adj.异常的,庞大的 | |
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21 labors | |
v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 );苦干;详细分析;(指引擎)缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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22 encyclopaedia | |
n.百科全书 | |
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23 repose | |
v.(使)休息;n.安息 | |
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24 gallant | |
adj.英勇的,豪侠的;(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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25 famished | |
adj.饥饿的 | |
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26 legacy | |
n.遗产,遗赠;先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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27 fructify | |
v.结果实;使土地肥沃 | |
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28 ferment | |
vt.使发酵;n./vt.(使)激动,(使)动乱 | |
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29 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
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30 contemplated | |
adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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31 deluge | |
n./vt.洪水,暴雨,使泛滥 | |
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32 quenched | |
解(渴)( quench的过去式和过去分词 ); 终止(某事物); (用水)扑灭(火焰等); 将(热物体)放入水中急速冷却 | |
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33 atheist | |
n.无神论者 | |
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34 fecundity | |
n.生产力;丰富 | |
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35 persevered | |
v.坚忍,坚持( persevere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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36 countless | |
adj.无数的,多得不计其数的 | |
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37 obstructions | |
n.障碍物( obstruction的名词复数 );阻碍物;阻碍;阻挠 | |
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38 artillery | |
n.(军)火炮,大炮;炮兵(部队) | |
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39 industrious | |
adj.勤劳的,刻苦的,奋发的 | |
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40 atheistic | |
adj.无神论者的 | |
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41 diffuse | |
v.扩散;传播;adj.冗长的;四散的,弥漫的 | |
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42 rhetoric | |
n.修辞学,浮夸之言语 | |
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43 concise | |
adj.简洁的,简明的 | |
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44 eloquence | |
n.雄辩;口才,修辞 | |
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45 tithe | |
n.十分之一税;v.课什一税,缴什一税 | |
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46 emancipation | |
n.(从束缚、支配下)解放 | |
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47 precursors | |
n.先驱( precursor的名词复数 );先行者;先兆;初期形式 | |
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48 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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49 aspirations | |
强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 ); 志向; 发送气音; 发 h 音 | |
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50 reigned | |
vi.当政,统治(reign的过去式形式) | |
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51 dame | |
n.女士 | |
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52 gaily | |
adv.欢乐地,高兴地 | |
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53 doom | |
n.厄运,劫数;v.注定,命定 | |
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54 hymn | |
n.赞美诗,圣歌,颂歌 | |
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55 witty | |
adj.机智的,风趣的 | |
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56 exquisite | |
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的 | |
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57 destined | |
adj.命中注定的;(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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58 gush | |
v.喷,涌;滔滔不绝(说话);n.喷,涌流;迸发 | |
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59 atheism | |
n.无神论,不信神 | |
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60 slanders | |
诽谤,诋毁( slander的名词复数 ) | |
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61 pious | |
adj.虔诚的;道貌岸然的 | |
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62 calumny | |
n.诽谤,污蔑,中伤 | |
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63 utterly | |
adv.完全地,绝对地 | |
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64 secondly | |
adv.第二,其次 | |
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65 tornado | |
n.飓风,龙卷风 | |
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66 waded | |
(从水、泥等)蹚,走过,跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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67 massacre | |
n.残杀,大屠杀;v.残杀,集体屠杀 | |
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68 monarchies | |
n. 君主政体, 君主国, 君主政治 | |
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69 guilt | |
n.犯罪;内疚;过失,罪责 | |
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70 traitors | |
卖国贼( traitor的名词复数 ); 叛徒; 背叛者; 背信弃义的人 | |
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71 ragged | |
adj.衣衫褴褛的,粗糙的,刺耳的 | |
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72 hurled | |
v.猛投,用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 );大声叫骂 | |
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73 nay | |
adv.不;n.反对票,投反对票者 | |
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74 deluded | |
v.欺骗,哄骗( delude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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75 Mediterranean | |
adj.地中海的;地中海沿岸的 | |
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