This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1844 edition. Excerpt: ...his province, at a time when France could still do no more than insist upon the privileges of towns and provinces. Young Corday was an enthusiast for the cause of the Revolution, like many other women of her time; and, like Madame Roland, she was intoxicated with the idea of a republic submissive to the laws, and fertile in virtues. The Girondins appeared to her desirous to realize her schemes; the Mountaineers alone seemed to throw obstacles in its way; and on the tidings of the 31st of May, she determined to avenge her favourite orators. The war of the Calvados.commenced. She conceived that the death of the leader of the anarchists, concurring with the insurrection of the departments, would insure victory to the latter; she therefore resolved to perform a great act of self-devotion, and to consecrate to her country a life of which a husband, children, family, constituted neither the employment nor the delight. She wrote to her father, intimating that, as the troubles in France were daily becoming more alarming, she was going to seek quiet and safety in England; and, immediately after thus writing, she set out for Paris. Before her departure she was solicitous to see at Caen the deputies who were the object of her enthusiasm and devotion. She devised a pretext for introducing herself to them, and applied to Barbaroux for a letter of recommendation to the minister of the interior, having, she said, some papers to claim for a friend, formerly a canonees. Barbaroux gave her one to Duperret, the deputy, a friend of Garat. His colleagues, who saw her as well as he, and who, like him, heard her express her hatred of the Mountaineers, and her enthusiasm for a pure and regular republic, were struck by her beauty and touched by her...