In order to effect such mighty reformation as this, the revolution had
many obstacles to overcome, involving transient excesses with durable
benefits. The privileged sought to prevent it; Europe to subject it; and
thus forced into a struggle, it could not set bounds to its efforts, or
moderate its victory. Resistance from within brought about the sovereignty
of the multitude, and aggression from without, military domination. Yet
the end was attained, in spite of anarchy and in spite of despotism: the
old society was destroyed during the revolution, and the new one became
established under the empire.

When a reform has become necessary, and the moment for accomplishing it
has arrived, nothing can prevent it, everything furthers it. Happy were it
for men, could they then come to an understanding; would the rich resign
their superfluity, and the poor content themselves with achieving what
they really needed, revolutions would then be quietly effected, and the
historian would have no excesses, no calamities to record; he would merely
have to display the transition of humanity to a wiser, freer, and happier
condition. But the annals of nations have not as yet presented any
instance of such prudent sacrifices; those who should have made them have
refused to do so; those who required them have forcibly compelled them;
and good has been brought about, like evil, by the medium and with all the
violence of usurpation. As yet there has been no sovereign but force.

In reviewing the history of the important period extending from the
opening of the states-general to 1814, I propose to explain the various
crises of the revolution, while I describe their progress. It will thus be
seen through whose fault, after commencing under such happy auspices, it
so fearfully degenerated; in what way it changed France into a republic,
and how upon the ruins of the republic it raise the empire. These various
phases were almost inevitable, so irresistible was the power of the events