like all the nations of Europe who negociated with them, and who would still be in amity with them, if all had not fallen a prey to a foreign upstart.

But for you, who come after our commotions, how will you vindicate yourselves for having remorselessly withheld your assistance from that king whom ye affect to mourn? you, to whose avidity he had opened the public treasure-you, who by your treacherous counsels had entangled him in the labyrinth from which yourselves alone could have rescued him? Did you not refuse the voluntary contributions which he asked of you? Did you not refuse to augment those supplies which your rapacity had made indispensable?

How was he supported by the Notables? the Clergy? the Nobility? Who irritated the States General? Who roused all France to insurrection? And when the revolution was begun, who was there able to stem the torrent? If you could turn it, why remain isactive? But if you could not, why reproach others for the same inability?

Louis XVI. you say, was the best of kings-the father of his people. Well! how did you evince your regard for this exquisite and paternal sovereign? Did you not basely forsake him, when you saw him beset by the danger you had caused? Was it not your duty to make your own persons his bulwark? Had you not vowed to drain your life-blood in his defence? If he were the father of his subjects, were not you his favorite children? Had he not embarrassed himself on your account? Was it not to satiate your cupidity, that he had forfeited the love of his other children? And you leave him alone and friendless, to the mercy of those whom you had made his enemies! Was it the part of assembled republicans, to defend with their arguments him whom you dared not protect with your swords? What ground could there be for the conduct of such republicans, as might have wished, against their own interest, to save the king; when you, his natural and troth-plight defenders, had fled from him? Is it not plain, that they would have needlessly sacrificed themselves along with him, and that all would have been the victims of popular excitement ? * You exact from others a virtue above human nature, while yourselves set the example of felony and desertion.

Louis, on his trial, was no longer king: his fate was unavoidable.

From the time that his steptre was degraded, his reign had ceased: and his charter of life expired, when he could no more restrain the different factions. The death of Louis, therefore, should not be charged on those who pronounced his sentence, as physicians give over a desperate malady; but on those who could have eradicated the first principle of evil, and who yet thought it prudent to escape from the duty.

You trace a hideous portrait of the revolution, and by its defor mity, you accuse yourselves; for your own work it was: you were the authors of every calamity. Atone,-for you cannot do better ---atone by public prayer for your ingratitude to Louis XVI.offer annual expiation in our temples. You only claim, as you piously assert, the punishment of the greater criminals-then look towards yourselves. Others may have erred: this will bear inquiry; but your treason needs none. You that were as the firstborn of this paternal king-you, all-powerful in his weaknessnow, and to all Time, you are guilty of a parricide: and Cæsar's last words to Brutus might have been uttered by Louis" Tu quoque, fili mi,"-and thou too, my son!

How comes it then, that the real authors of the death of Louisthe true agitators of all our domestic troubles-are those who now play the part of accusers! How is it then, that other men, who have bravely encountered our revolution, with all its vicissitudes, are suddenly struck with consternation, and seem to give way to these interested clamors? Because, by the alternation of events, their feeble antagonists have recovered the advantage; because the enemies of our country, with whom they had linked themselves, having attacked us in a ten-fold proportion of numbers, entered the capital without resistance: because twenty years of glory have withered in one moment: because those who fled from the crisis of peril are returned in triumph behind the shelter of the camp; and thus have twenty years of victory become so many years of impiety and crime.

Had the system of liberty stood firm, things would have borne very different names; for, in the annals of mankind, circumstances will mark the same fact as belonging to heroism or to crime: Claudius, and Marcus Aurelius, may represent but one man.

Catilina is now a base conspirator: but could he have founded an empire, like Cæsar he would have been the benefactor of Rome.

Cromwell, unto his last hour, was acknowledged, and his favor courted, by all sovereigns, but he was gibbeted after his death: he only wanted a son like himself, to have established a new dynasty. While Napoleon was fortunate, all Europe paid him homage, and princes esteemed his alliance an honor: after his fall, he was but a despicable adventurer, dastardly and without talents. Pelopidas, Timoleon, Andrew Doria, were proclaimed the deliverers of their country-but they would only have been democrats, like the Gracchi, had their enterprises miscarried.

Since the perpetual declamations of the real authors of Louis XVI.'s death, compel a vindication from those who voted for it as judges, when they were unable to prevent it, they will find it easy to prove that their sentence was in conformity with the doctrine taught in our schools, under the superintendence of Government, and lauded as the only correct doctrine: since it is that of scripture, founded on the opinion of moralists, who are considered as the wisest of antiquity, and the most worthy to be recognized as the standard of right. Cicero, for instance, says in his offices, (lib. ii. cap. 8.)

"The best means of preserving our credit and personal consideration, is to attract love; and the worst, to make one-self feared'; as Ennius has well expressed it-We hate all those we fear, and we wish for the death of those we hate.

If we had not been taught, otherwise, that no power or grandeur can withstand the public hatred, our later experience might have instructed us. But the death of that tyrant (Cæsar) who oppressed this republic by military force, and who, dead as he is, still holds it in subjection, is not the only example which has proved how destructive and fatal is the public hate to the highest fortune. We perceive it in the end of other tyrants, who have nearly all died in like manner. We must conclude then, that hate is but a feeble tenure for long life and that on the contrary, there is no guard so faithful as popular love, nor any security so solid and so lasting.

“Let us leave severity and cruelty to those who think they need them, to restrain a people whom they have forcibly oppressed. As for those who live in a free government, they can commit no greater folly than to become the objects of fear; for though the laws may be almost overpowered by the authority of an individual, and li

berty may be restricted by fear, they rouse themselves at intervals, both because the people disclose their sentiments, without professing them, and by combinations, which suddenly bestow the chief magistracy on men who are able to redeem the commonwealth. But the return of a constrained and intermitted authority is more cruelly felt, than all which it could accomplish, before it was suspended." 3

We see, that the well-known clemency of Cæsar did not prevent Cicero from considering him as a tyrant, and approving of the conspiracy against his life. Cato went farther: he did not think it possible to be a good king.*

If it be pretended, that the tenets of these pagan authors should be reprobated by us, I ask, why the books that contain them are used in the elements of public education? But if we would derive our maxims of government from Scripture, it will be much worse: we shall find the doctrine of regicide confirmed by the prophets, kings proscribed as the scourge of God, families massacred, the people exterminated by order of the Almighty, and harsh intolerance promulgated by the ministers of the Lord All-Merciful."

Notwithstanding this mysterious doctrine, which princes do not seem to read, but which is studied by priests, and which the Jesuits knew by heart, it is justly admitted as a principle, among civilised nations, that the persons of kings should be sacred and inviolable; but the meaning and application of this principle are not well defined.

It is enquired, for example, if this maxim obtains only in regard to legitimate sovereigns, or if it be alike applicable to usurpers? It is asked, how we can positively distinguish an usurper from a legitimate king?

It is asked, if we should regard as sacred and inviolable those princes who are unrestrained by laws divine or human? If a Tiberius, a Sardanapalus, a Nero, a Caligula, a Heliogabalus, an Attila, a Chilperic, a Fredegunda, an Isabel of Bavaria, a Mahomet II., a Christiern II., a Peter the Cruel, a Sixtus IV., an Alexander VI., &c. &c. &c. are to be regarded as sovereigns, whose persons were sacred and inviolable ?

When Rome at one time contained twelve emperors, elected by

different armies, it is asked, if every emperor. was sacred and inviolable?

These questions, and many other such, for which we have slaughtered each other throughout the earth, from the beginning of time, should be satisfactorily determined: but it seems that the canon law is destined to be long the "ultima ratio regum."

Since, in the last result, force decides on every thing, it is not surprising that the Jacobins should at first have been right, afterwards the Directory, subsequently Buonaparte, and finally, the Bourbons, whose family had already been right once, for the first time in nine centuries; and I believe there is no one in France who does not wish that they had remained so. But, since it is acknowledged, that there is no right without force, the Bourbons should have especial care of their resources, and be more earnestly cautious that one part of their force be not turned against the other.

And yet this will take place, if we revive obsolete parties, if we discriminate anew the ci-devant royalists from the ci-devant republicans, if we wish to dissever France from the French nation, and to date our regeneration from any æra before the constitutional charter.

The return of the Bourbons roused an universal enthusiasm in France; they were greeted with an effusion of feeling, beyond description: the ancient republicans partook sincerely of the general sentiment. Napoleon had so oppressed them individually, all classes of society were so injured, that every mind was inebriated, and diffused itself in the most soothing hopes.But the horizon was quickly overcast: the sunshine was but momentary. Those who returned after so long an absence, expected apparently to find France as they left it in 1789: but the national race was almost remoulded; the youth of this day had been bred in other principles: the love of glory, in particular, had taken wide and firm root: it had become the most prominent attribute of the national character: elated by twenty years of unremitted success, it had been irritated by temporary reverses, and unhappily it received a deep wound from the first actions of the new king.

Formerly the kings of England brought allegiance and homage to the kings of France, as to their liege lords; but Louis XVIII.

• Suzerains.