French Revolution

<p><span class="deck">Washington was his idol, but he could not apply his American ideals to a France sliding into the Terror</span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Refugees from the French Revolution, many of them of noble birth, built a unique community in the backwoods of Pennsylvania—and hoped their queen would join them</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> and how, a decade after the Revolution, a melodramatic rescue attempt, involving a grateful young American, went awry</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">When the French Revolution broke out 200 years ago this month, Americans greeted it enthusiastically. After all, without the French, <span class="typestyle">we</span> could never have become free. But the cheers faded as the brutality of the convulsion emerged, and Americans realized that they were still only a feeble newborn facing a giant, intimidating world power. </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">For a hundred years now ,Americans have been reading as comedy Mark Twain’s dark indictment of chivalry, technology, and all of humanity.</span></p>

<p>Enormous crowds greeted the Marquis de Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolution, during his visit to all 24 states nearly 40 years after the war ended.</p>