Explore "Marie Antoinette" by Hilaire Belloc on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
THERE existed in France at that moment one force which, in alliance with the Government, could have preserved the continuity of institutions, among other institutions of the Throne. That force resided in the personality of Mirabeau.
Had he survived and so succeeded-for his failure was only possible with death-the French nation might indeed have preserved all its forms and would then have lost its principle and power. It might have been transformed into something of lower vigour than itself, it might have grown to forget action, and the nineteenth century, which was to see our civilisation ploughed by the armies and sowed by the ideas of Napoleon-so that it became a century enormous with French energy and has left us to-day under a necessity still to persevere-might have been a time of easy reaction: an Europe without Germany, without Italy: an Europe having in its midst the vast lethargic body of the French Monarchy and dominated wholly by the mercantile activity of England.