All in a garden fair; the simple story of three boys ... - University Library

ALL L\ A GARDEN FAIR. iii
beginning of tlie devolution. Some of them
had not forgotten its ideas and its phrases ;
they spoke still—though it was not the time for
such Avords—of the Sovereign People, the
Rights of Man, and oppressed Humanity. To
them a Priest was an accursed hypocrite ; a
King was a sanguinary tyrant ; and the voice
of the People was the voice of God.
'They were phrases— yes, phrases. Yet,
remember, before the Eevolution there wxtc
no people, there was only a mob. Do you
know what La Bruyere said ?
' " I see certain wild animals scattered over
the fields ;
black, livid, burnt by the sun, bound
to the earth. They have an articulate voice,
and when they rise on their feet, they show a
human foiin and are, in fact, men.'*
'It was a great thing to have made a
people out of a herd—a flock. When the
people found out themselves they began to
dream greater things. I, too, my friends, being
young and generous, dreamed witli tlie others,
and told my dream.'