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While the political history of the era of the French Revolution has been written by Sybel and Sorel and a crowd of lesser men, the influence of its ideas and of the moving drama of blood and tears on the mind and soul of the different countries of Europe has never been thoroughly explored. The universal significance of the upheaval was grasped at the outset both by actors and spectators. Your laws... More

While the political history of the era of the French Revolution has been written by Sybel and Sorel and a crowd of lesser men, the influence of its ideas and of the moving drama of blood and tears on the mind and soul of the different countries of Europe has never been thoroughly explored. The universal significance of the upheaval was grasped at the outset both by actors and spectators. Your laws will be the laws of Europe, if you are worthy of them, declared Mirabeau to the Constituent A ssembly; so strong is the influence of great States, and, above all, of France. Whoever regards this Revolution as exclusively French, echoed Mallet du Pan, is incapable of pronouncing judgment upon it. Friends and foes beyond the frontiers were at one in emphasising the power of its appeal; and men like Burke and Paine, Kant and de Maistre, who agreed in nothing else, were convinced that the problems which it raised concerned humanity as a whole. When France has a cold, remarked Metternich bitterly, all Europe sneezes. The verdict of contemporaries has been ratified by succeeding generations, and has now become an established commonplace. The object of this book is to measure the repercussion of the French Revolution on the mind of Germany. The story of diplomacy and war in the closing decade of the eighteenth century has been told with ever-increasing knowledge by two generations of historians; and the atmospheric difference between the heated polemics of Hausser and the cool serenity of Heigel registers a welcome advance in the arts of interpretation. But no panoramic survey of the intellectual Jerment has been attempted. It is scarcely necessary to remark that this chapter of German history, like every other, has been the theme of innumerable monographs ;and to some learned specialists a synthetic treatment may appear to be premature. Butjihjittemptjs, at any rate, wor
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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