The Novels of Charles Lever
Book Description
Volume: 9 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1894 Original Publisher: Little, Brown, and Co. Subjects: Fiction / General Fiction / Classics Fiction / Literary History / General Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or m...
MoreVolume: 9 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1894 Original Publisher: Little, Brown, and Co. Subjects: Fiction / General Fiction / Classics Fiction / Literary History / General Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III. THE "TEMPLE." At the time of which I write, there was but one motive principle throughout France, -- "terror." By the agencv of terror and the threat of denunciation was everything carried on, not only in the public departments of the State, but in all the common occurrences of every-day life. Fathers used it towards their children, children towards their parents; mothers coerced their daughters, daughters in hir n braved the authority of their mothers. The tribunal of public opinion, open to all, scattered its decrees with a reckless cruelty, -- denying to-day what it had decreed but yesterday, and at last obliterating every trace of " right" or " principle " in a people who now only lived for the passing hour, and who had no faith in the future, even of this world. Among the very children at play, this horrible doctrine had gained a footing: the tyrant urchin, whose ingenuity enabled him to terrorize, became the master of his playfellows. I was not slow in acquiring the popular education of the period, and soon learned that fear was a " Bank " on which one might draw at will. Already the domineering habit had given to my air and manner all the insolence of seeming power, and while a mere boy in years, I was a man in all the easy assumption of a certain importance. It was with a bold and resolute air I entered the restaurant, and calling Boivin aside, said, -- " I have business in ...
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