It was one of
the brutal stupid acts of individual cruelty which characterise the
Austrian despotism, and have done more to ruin it than a wider
oppression--such a one, for instance, as ours, more mischievous, but more
intelligent,--would have done.'
'Freedom,' said Ampere, 'was offered to him on the mere condition of his
not serving in the French army. At that time the Jacobins would have
guillotined him, the Royalists would have forced duel after duel on him
till they had killed him. It seemed impossible that he should ever be
able to draw his sword for France. In fact he never _was_ able. America
offered him an asylum, honours, land, everything that could console an
exile. But he refused to give up the chance, remote as it was, of being
useful to his country, and remained a prisoner till he was delivered by
Napoleon.'
'He firmly believed,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'that if the Royal Family
would have taken refuge with his army in 1791 he could have saved them,
and probably the Monarchy. His army was then in his hands, a few months
after the Jacobins had corrupted it.'
'Two men,' said Ampere, 'Mirabeau and La Fayette, could have saved the
Monarchy, and were anxious to do so.
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