The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series by Rafael Sabatini
page 276 of 294 (93%)
page 276 of 294 (93%)
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still.
She witnessed in Caen the failure of the Girondin attempt to raise an army with which to deliver Paris from the foul clutches of the Jacobins. An anguished spectator of this failure, she saw in it a sign that Liberty was being strangled at its birth. On the lips of her friends the Girondins she caught again the name of Marat, the murderer of Liberty; and, brooding, she reached a conclusion embodied in a phrase of a letter which she wrote about that time. "As long as Marat lives there will never be any safety for the friends of law and humanity." From that negative conclusion to its positive, logical equivalent it was but a step. That step she took. She may have considered awhile the proposition thus presented to her, or resolve may have come to her with realization. She understood that a great sacrifice was necessary; that who undertook to rid France of that unclean monster must go prepared for self-immolation. She counted the cost calmly and soberly--for calm and sober was now her every act. She made her packages, and set out one morning by the Paris coach from Caen, leaving a note for her father, in which she had written: "I am going to England, because I do not believe that it will be possible for a long time to live happily and tranquilly in France. On leaving I post this letter to you. When you receive it |
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