How Public Opinion Becomes Numb To Horror

July 12, 2018

General Charles-François du Périer Dumouriez

“You see that I am annoyed,” said the Queen to Dumouriez¹ in Louis XVI’s presence; “I dare not go to the window looking into the garden. Last evening, needing a breath of air, I showed myself at the window facing the courtyard. A gunner belonging to the guard apostrophized me in an insulting way, and added: ‘What pleasure it would give me to have your head on the end of my bayonet! ‘In that frightful garden a man standing on a chair reads out horrors against us on one side, and on the other may be seen a soldier or a priest whom they are dragging through a pond, and crushing with blows and insults. Meantime, others are flying balloons or quietly strolling about. Ah! What a place! What a people!”

¹Charles-François du Périer Dumouriez

 

Marie Antoinette and The Downfall Of Royalty by Imbert de Saint-Amand, 1834-1900, Pg. 157.

Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 634

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