John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

17. V:30 Monday.

On going to the door this morning for my daily walk, I found it raining and the ground a glare of ice— The rain continued without intermission the whole day— It kept us all confined to the house, and I gave much of it to reading— A few chapters of Madame de Stael’s considerations on the French Revolution—a few passages of La Cretelle—and a large portion of the Memoirs of Thibaudeau— All these works were published after the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1814. and before the last Revolution of 1830— I read for the sake of collecting facts relating to the Life of La Fayette, but in retracing these events of the French Revolution, an impression of deep melancholy is the sentiment resulting from them all— The facts are a succession of deep tragedies; with a total absence of all religious principle excepting in Louis 16 and his Sister, the two most deplorable victims of the Tale— The horrible effusion of blood for five years from July 1789 to July 1794— The constant alternations of Representative Assemblies elaborating Constitutions, and Popular and Military Insurrections destroying them— The despotism of a frantic rabble, succeeded by that of an automaton soldiery—and the wild and wonderful rise and fall of a military adventurer, oppress the mind with gloom, from which the only resource I now find is in looking at the results which now appear, and which after all seem to promise and even to exhibit some improvement in the condition of the human race— This is my consolation and my hope— I made out my task of writing for the day.