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er successes and depressed by her faults; like the classic historian who refused with horror to tell the story of his compatriots' defeat at Cannae; saying; 〃I could not survive the recital。〃
〃Do you remember;〃 a friend once asked Madame Michelet; 〃how; when your husband was writing his chapters on the Reign of Terror; he ended by falling ill?〃
〃Ah; yes!〃 she replied。 〃That was the week he executed Danton。 We were living in the country near Nantes。 The ground was covered with snow。 I can see him now; hurrying to and fro under the bare trees; gesticulating and crying as he walked; ‘How can I judge them; those great men? How can I judge them?' It was in this way that he threw his ‘thousand souls' into the past and lived in sympathy with all men; an apostle of universal love。 After one of these fecund hours he would drop into his chair and murmur; ‘I am crushed by this work。 I have been writing with my blood!'〃
Alas; his aged eyes were destined to read sadder pages than he had ever written; to see years as tragic as the 〃Terror。〃 He lived to hear the recital of (having refused to witness) his country's humiliation; and fell one April morning; in his retirement near Pisa; unconscious under the double shock of invasion and civil war。 Though he recovered later; his horizon remained dark。 The patriot suffered to see party spirit and warring factions rending the nation he had so often called the pilot of humanity's bark; which seemed now to be going straight on the rocks。 〃FINIS GALLIAE;〃 murmured the historian; who to the end lived and died with his native land。
Thousands yearly mount the broad steps of the Pantheon to lay their wreaths upon his tomb; and thousands more in every Gallic schoolroom are daily learning; in the pages of his history; to love FRANCE LA DULCE。
End