Page:Sarolea - Great Russia.djvu/202

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
186
GREAT RUSSIA

tete de roi! And how many Conservatives did repeat the pathetic lamentation: O Liberté. que de crimes sont commis en ton nom!

It must, therefore, be a subject of the most absorbing interest closely to investigate how far the analogies are real or misleading, and whether we may infer and expect similar conclusions from similar causes and similar antecedents; whether history is actually repeating itself and will give us a rehearsal, on a larger scene, of the tragedy which was enacted a hundred and twenty years ago.

I. Analogies Between the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution

But it must be understood that the question before us is not merely whether there are certain broad and general resemblances between the two situations. Such broad analogies are only what one would naturally expect. All revolutionary outbursts, like the catastrophes of elemental nature, have some common features, because human nature in such emergencies remains the same in all times and in all climes. Everywhere, whether in Athens, in Rome, or in London, we find at work the same forces, the same motives disguised under different princi-