“The day of revelation is upon us.… The very bones have risen at the sound of the voice of French freedom; they bear witness against the centuries of oppression and death, and prophesy the regeneration of human nature and of the life of nations.” Then he predicts: “We have reached the heart of time. The tyrants are ready to fall.” It is the moment of astonished and generous faith when a remarkably enlightened mob overthrows the scaffold and the wheel at Versailles.
