PREFACE

The object of the présent volume is to furnish the student with French reading of not a difficult nature, and, at the same time, to give some insight into one of the great epochs in modem history most interesting to an American. The book is not a history of the French Révolution, and no attempt has ther.efore been made to connect the extracts by a running comment. It is expected that those who use the work chiefly for its historical interest will read it in connection with some short history of the period. Still, with the exception of the war in La Vendée and the foreign wars of the Republic, omitted for want of space, a tolerably complète picture, or séries of pictures, of the French Révolution is afforded, and it is believed that no event of real importance has been passed over.

It seemed best to conclude the volume with the Ninth Thermidor, at ^vhich date the Reign of

VUl PREFACE,

Terror ceased and the Révolution was virtually ended.^vVhat f ollôWS ^\^ôû1c^)e mor^^^ T" treated in a volume devoted to the Directory, Cont-^ulate, and Empire. 5^--------=^

T He' exîfacts hâve been made with great care, not only for their historical interest, but also for their rhetorical worth, and the volume affords a wide range of style, The editors hâve, however, been much restricted in their choice by the purpose for which the book is intended, and in their désire to exclude ail matter of an objectionable nature, they hâve been obliged to sacrifice many a passage which might hâve shown, it may be, in a better ajid truer light the manners of the men and women of the French Révolution.

The notes are chiefly local or historical — the most prominent characters are sufiiciently depicted in the extracts themselves — and biographical notices hâve generally been avoided as superfluous. For places in Paris of Revolutionary interest Lavallée's valuable Histoire de ParishsLS afforded much information. The editors suppose that the volume will be most used by students who are still devoting a part of their time to grammatical exercises, and