雙語+MP3|美國學(xué)生世界歷史76 天翻地覆

76
Upside Down
天翻地覆

     MEASLES and Mumps are very catching.
     So are Revolutions.
     Just a little later than the Revolution of the thirteen colonies, the people in France had a Revolution, too. They saw how successful the Americans had been in their fight against the king of England, and so they rebelled against their own king and queen in France. This was called the French Revolution.
     The reason the French people rebelled against their king was that they had very little, and the king and his royal family and nobles seemed to have everything. Both the Americans and the French rebelled against paying taxes. Although the English taxes were not very high, the Americans thought them unjust. The French taxes, however, not only were unjust but they took almost everything away from the people.
     I have already told you how bad things were under Louis XIV, and they got worse until the people could stand it no longer.
     At this time the king of France was Louis XVI, and his queen was named Marie Antoinette. The people were so poor that they had hardly anything to eat except a very coarse and bad-tasting kind of bread called black bread. They were compelled to pay the king and the nobles money so the king and nobles could live in fine style and have parties; and they had to do all sorts of work for nothing or next to nothing. If anyone complained, he was put in a great prison in Paris called the Bastille and left there to die. In spite of the fact that all the people were so terribly poor, the king and the queen and their friends lived in luxury and extravagance with everything in the world they wanted, all paid for by the poor people.
     Neither the king nor his wife was really wicked. They were simply young and thoughtless. They meant well, but like a great many well-meaning people they lacked common sense and did not know how others lived. They didn't seem to understand that people could be poor, for they had so much themselves. Marie Antoinette was told that her subjects had no bread to eat. "Let them eat cake," she said.
     To right the wrongs of the people, a body of many of the best men from all France gathered together and, calling themselves the National Assembly, tried to work out some plan to do away with all the injustice the people had been suffering. They wanted to make everyone free and equal and give everybody a say in the government. Their slogan was, Liberté, égalité, fraternité. In English this means, Liberty, equality, brotherhood.
     The poor had become so furiously angry at the way they had been treated by the rich that they would stand things no longer, and a wild and angry mob of them attacked the old prison of the Bastille. They battered down the walls and freed the prisoners and killed the guards of the Bastille simply because they were servants of the king. Then they cut off the heads of the guards and stuck them on poles and, carrying them aloft, paraded through the streets of Paris. There were only seven prisoners in the old jail, so that freeing them didn't matter much, but this attack was to show that the people would no longer allow the king to imprison them.
     The Bastille was stormed on July 14, 1789. This was the beginning of what is called the French Revolution, and this day is celebrated in France in almost the same way that our Fourth of July is, for it was the French Declaration of Independence against their kings.
     Lafayette, who was now back in France, the same Lafayette who had helped the Americans fight their king, sent the key of the Bastille over to George Washington as a souvenir that his own country had now overthrown its king and declared its independence.
     The king and queen were living in the beautiful palace at Versailles, the palace that Louis XIV had built. Many of the king's nobles, when they heard what was taking place in Paris, became frightened and, deserting their king and queen, took to their heels and left the country. They knew pretty well what was going to happen, and they didn't wait to see.
     Meanwhile the National Assembly drew up what was called a Declaration of the Rights of Man, which was something like our Declaration of Independence. It said that all men were born free and equal, that the people should make the laws, and that the laws should be the same for all.
     Soon after the Declaration of Rights had been made, the angry mob from Paris, ragged and wild-looking, carrying sticks and stones, and crying, "Bread, bread!" marched the thirteen miles to Versailles, where Louis and Marie Antoinette were still living. Up the beautiful grand staircase of the palace they rushed. The few guards remaining round the king were unable to hold them back. They captured the king and queen and took them prisoners to Paris. There they kept Louis and Marie Antoinette prisoners. Once the king and queen tried to escape in disguise but were caught before they could get out of the country, and they were brought back.
     Then it was that the National Assembly drew up a constitution-a set of rules by which the country should be justly governed. This the king agreed to and signed.
     That still wasn't enough. The people wanted no king at all to rule over them. So about a year later they started a real republic like our own, and the king was sentenced to death. A Frenchman had invented a kind of machine with a big knife for chopping off heads. This was called the guillotine, and it was used instead of an ax, for it was quicker and surer. The king was taken to the guillotine, and his head was cut off.
     But the people did not settle down quiet and contented when they had got rid of their king. They were afraid that those who were in favor of kings might start another kingdom. The people chose red, white, and blue as their colors and the Marseillaise as their national song; and everywhere they marched they carried the tricolor, as they called the three-colored flag, and as they marched they sang the Marseillaise.

French revolution crowd and guillotine （法國大革命的民眾和斷頭臺(tái)）
     Then began what is called the Reign of Terror, and that is a tale of blood. A man named Robespierre and two of his friends were leaders in the Reign of Terror. Anyone whom the people suspected of being in favor of kings they caught and beheaded. The queen was one of the first to have her head cut off. If anyone even whispered that there was a man, or a woman, or even a child who was in favor of kings, that man, woman, or child would be rushed to the guillotine. If anyone hated another and wished to get rid of him, all he had to do was to point him out as in favor of kings, and off he would be taken to the guillotine. No one was sure of his life for a day. He never knew what moment some personal enemy might accuse him. Hundreds, then thousands, of suspected people were beheaded, and a special sewer had to be built to carry off the blood. The guillotine, fast as it was, was too slow for the terrorists. It could cut off but one head at a time, and so prisoners were lined up and shot down with cannon.
     People seemed to have gone wild, crazy, mad! They insulted Christ and the Christian religion. They put a pretty woman called the Goddess of Reason on the altar of the beautiful Church of Notre Dame and worshiped her instead of the Lord. They pulled down statues and pictures of Christ and the Virgin Mary. In their places they put statues and pictures of their own leaders. The guillotine was put up in place of the cross. They did away with Sundays. They made a week ten days long, and every tenth day they made a holiday instead of Sunday. They stopped counting time from Christ's birth, because they didn't want anything that had to do with Christ, and they began to call the year when the republic was started in 1792 the Year 1.
     But Robespierre wished to rule alone, and he plotted against his two friends. One of these he had beheaded, and the other was killed in his bathtub by a girl named Charlotte Corday, who was in a rage at what he had done. So Robespierre was left alone. At last the people, in fear of this man who was such a monstrous and inhuman tyrant, rose up against him. When he found that he too, was to be put to death, he tried to commit suicide, but before he could do so, he was caught and taken to the guillotine, where he went to the same death to which he had sent countless others, and the Reign of Terror was ended.