"That is not Freedom as I understand it," piped the little man,--and one
believed him,--but could not refrain from murmuring with the poet:
C'est que la Liberte n'est pas une comtesse
Du noble Faubourg St. Germain,
Une femme qu'un cri fait tomber en faiblesse,
Qui met du blanc et du carmin;
C'est une forte femme.
XIV.
A very instructive resort, even for a layman, was the Record Office, for
there one could run through the whole history of France in the most
entertaining manner with the help of the manuscripts placed on view,
from the most ancient papyrus rolls to the days of parchment and paper.
You saw the documents of the Feudal Lords' and Priests' Conspiracies
under the Merovingians and the Capets, the decree of divorce between
Philip Augustus and Ingeborg, and letters from the most notable
personages of the Middle Ages and the autocracy. The period of the
Revolution and the First Empire came before one with especial vividness.
There was Charlemagne's monogram stencilled in tin, and that of Robert
of Paris, reproduced in the same manner, those of Louis XIV. and
Moliere, of Francis the Catholic and Mary Stuart. There were letters
from Robespierre and Danton, requests for money and death-warrants from
the Reign of Terror, Charlotte Corday's last letters from prison and the
original letters of Napoleon from St.
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