Excerpt from Glimpses of the French Revolution, Myths: Ideals, and RealitiesEnthusiasm and despair, heroism and savagery, fanaticism and frivolity - such are the main ele ments of a Revolution 'prepared,' as Tocqueville says, 'by the most civilised classes of the nation, and carried out by the rudest and most un cultivated.' 'the French nation,' he adds, 'is always better or worse than had been expected now below the general level of mankind, now much above it more capable of heroism than of virtue, of genius than of common sense, fitter to conceive immense designs than to accomplish great enterprises, the most brilliant and the most dangerous of European nations, and the one most calculated to become by turns an object of admira tion, pity, terror, but never of indifference.'About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.