has been paralyzed; and to whom is this fatal lethargy owing? To a single man, whom the nation has made its chief, and whom perfidious courtiers have made its enemy. There is a plot, of which the heart is at the court, and all our dangers, internal and external, are the fruit of that plot. If the king be guilty, let it be said frankly; all composition with the executive power would be a crime."

These are expressions to be found in Bertrand de Moleville's version of the speech, accompanied by some of those, the most violent, found in the Mercure; and in conclusion, Brissot moved, and in the name of the king, that his conduct should be investigated, and that the article of the constitution should be considered, which ordained, that in case of the king's not formally opposing any enterprises entered upon in his name against the constitution, he should be deemed to have abdicated.

After such a speech, the meaning of such a motion was sufficiently clear. Ere the middle of July, there remained little trace of the great indignation that had been raised by the outrages of the 20th of June, still less of the union effected by the Abbé Lamourette.

Another circumstance occurred. Pétion had been suspended by the directory; the king had very unwillingly taken a part, and had confirmed the suspension; and then the Assembly immediately after, though they had themselves desired the king to interfere, actually restored him. This was again a pretty clear indication that his services would be soon wanted, and that they had been found important on the 20th.

The federation was on the 14th of July, and the violent party had summoned to appear there, under the denomination of Federates, men chosen generally from among the most furious members of the clubs of the provinces. At the federation, though the king was not assassinated, as the queen had expected, the great idol of the day had been Pétion. Nothing could be more mournful and discouraging to the king and the court, than the ceremony and all its circumstances; and the king's danger had not at all passed away with the day of the federation. The Federates could be easily retained in Paris; more of the Marseillois had been sent for; many had before arrived for the federation; and Barbaroux was ready for the insurrection: and violent speeches and motions were continually made from time to time by Brissot, Gaudet, and the rest of the Girondists. The decree that the country was in danger had produced the greatest effect all over the interior; Paris was in a constant state of alarm and agita

VOL. II.

E

tion; the abdication or deposition of the king was everywhere the common topic of conversation, was every where the measure of the clubs and sections, and was the point laboured by all the revolutionary demagogues out of the Assembly, and by many of the leading orators within.

In the meantime, it appears from Bertrand de Moleville, that the minister had (for his own part) taken heart when he saw the federation of the 14th had produced no commotion, and that the concourse of the Federates had been less than he had expected. "These circumstances," he says, gave a little relief to the fears of a general confusion, which the violent ferment of the capital had raised; and the good news I received, a few days after, from Mallet du Pan, relative to the disposition of the emperor and king of Prussia, revived my hopes. I thought all would yet be saved, if we could manage to counteract the plan of the factions, sufficiently to prevent the execution of it, till the combined armies had entered France."

Such were then the sentiments of Bertrand de Moleville. But, as I must again and again observe, what a fearful interval have we here! The violent party preparing their insurrection, and the royal family, in the meantime, sitting in the Tuileries without effort, and waiting to be first rescued by the interference of the approaching armies of the allied sovereigns. You have already had to consider this extraordinary case in that distant and general manner in which alone it can be described to you; and with respect to one great cause of this universal fermentation, this general distrust, it could not be exactly said, as I must always remind you, that the king had no connexion whatever with the approaching armies of the enemy; that was the great misfortune of all; in a certain sense of the words he undoubtedly had. I have been fortunate enough to have had it in my power to exhibit to you very distinctly what this connexion was. You have had the particulars of the mission of Mallet du Pan laid before you the king's views and opinions you exactly know; they were not those imputed to him by the popular leaders, but they were not such as could have been avowed. Though the king did not call upon the allied powers to invade France; though he meant them not to exercise any domination over the country; though his intentions were of the most benevolent nature, with respect to his people, still it is clear, that, in a certain sense of the word, he wished for a counter-revolution; that he had no desire for the continuance of the constitution, no love for its original promoters or present abettors; that he had no hope for

his own personal comfort, safety, or respectability, but from some new system, to be founded, in the first place, on the success of the combined powers; that so far he was in connexion with them; that so far they had his wishes in their favour; and that any such connexion and such wishes would have been at the time, if known, considered, not only by the popular leaders, but by the majority of the people of France, as treason to the state. In this situation of things, it is too much for Bertraud de Moleville, or the royalist party, to talk, as you will see them do, of the mere suspicions, conjectures, declamations, and absurdities of the popular party. These are the terms used.

The fault of that party was not now in suspecting the king, but in having, by their behaviour from the first opening of the Legislative Assembly, and subsequently by not joining La Fayette, reduced themselves and the king to the awful crisis in which they were both now placed. Neither party could be considered as blameless; far from it. It was not for the king ever to have tampered with those who were, after all, upon every supposition, to invade his country with arms in their hands; and of the popular party, on the contrary, it was the duty to have acted from the first on a system of conciliation and indulgence to their sovereign; while to act as they did, and never to leave it honourable to him, according to his own natural opinions, to be a constitutional king, was to adopt a system of conduct unfeeling and irrational, and one that could only lead to bloodshed and to crimes--crimes to be by themselves committed.

Now in this state of things, it was impossible for the king, as you have seen, to pacify the popular leaders, who kept pressing upon him with such terrible motions and speeches as I have already alluded to,-those of Vergniaud and Brissot, and such as I shall hereafter allude to; nor was the king, still less the queen, disposed to try the chance of a second flight, for both had expectations, though probably not exactly the same, from the immediate approach of the allied armies; so that on the one side, as you have seen, the popular leaders were determined to find or make an opportunity of dethroning the king as soon as possible, and the king, and his ministers, and the court, persuaded themselves, as Bertrand de Moleville expresses it," that all would yet be saved, if they could but manage to counteract the plan of the factions, sufficiently to prevent the execution of it, till the combined armies had entered France."

Now it is this that makes the period of the history before us so painfully interesting. Not only have we to consider how far

are the popular leaders justified or not in their terrors and reproaches, but is the king to be dethroned before the Prussians reach Paris? Even if the allied powers should be successful, and on their immediate march to Paris, are not the king and royal family likely to be first assassinated?

Observe, therefore, a few of the particulars that may be gleaned from the history; a history which you will no doubt read with the greatest attention in all and every part. I have already mentioned to you the Memoirs of Barbaroux; I must again allude to them. I shall do so, not only that you may see the state of Paris, but that you may judge of the case of the Girondist party, and that on their own showing.

In the first place it appears, though not very clearly from this work, that from the very beginning of July, forty-three of the Fédérés had assembled every day in the correspondence room of the Jacobins, and a directory of five had been chosen, called the committee of insurrection; to them five others were afterwards joined; and Barbaroux, in the course of his fourth chapter, makes the following observations :

"There were then three parties; the court, the Feuillans and the Jacobins. The court laboured to overthrow the constitution, for the purpose of establishing despotism; the Feuillans wanted its revision, that two chambers might be obtained, and an order of patricians; the Jacobins had not, all of them, exactly the same object, though they acted in concert, for the Cordeliers among them wished for bloodshed, for money, for places, and the Duke of Orleans; the Republicans, for a republic, and a corresponding system of morals. The two first parties, the court and the Feuillans, were agreed, and ready to admit the Austrians, and they were reinforced by all the timid people, who are always enemies to revolutions; and this powerful coalition threatened to enslave the people, who were defended only by the Jacobins; with different intentions indeed, some from ambition, others from a love of gain, very few from principle. We had not then any written proof of the manœuvres of the court (they have been since found in the Tuileries, in the iron closet), but a crowd of circumstances gave us a moral certainty on the point." He then alludes to the silence of the court on the subject of the treaty of Pilnitz, the conduct of La Fayette, the two decrees, the dismissal of the ministers, as proofs of the perfidy of the king and court. He next proceeds to his interviews with Roland and his wife; their doubt and despair of their Revolution; their resolve that Paris must be saved; and

their sending to Marseilles for six hundred patriots, "who were ready to die." Afterwards he alludes to the 20th of June; the suspension of Pétion; the federation of the 14th of July; and his hint to this magistrate (Pétion) that he might soon be kept a prisoner in his house. "But we shall confine your husband," he said turning to Me. Pétion, " by the ruban tricolore." An insurrection, as the magistrate was to be kept out of the way, was therefore intended.

"In Paris," he then continues, "the deposition of the king became the great subject of discussion. This measure, in giving the throne to the prince royal, would have given the regency to the Duke of Orleans." He then describes the efforts of Marat and the Cordeliers to procure this measure; their vehemence and their activity; and the cooperation of patriots more pure; and he says, "that the Jacobins, all the popular societies in Paris, and the forty-eight sections, had held deliberations to present a petition to the same effect; but a few wiser men," he continues," of the committee of general defence, tried other expedients, and had it not been for them (that is, for the most violent of the party), we should have passed from the domination of a feeble monarch, to be submitted to the plunder of the prince's friends." Barbaroux must here mean the friends of the Duke of Orleans; and now comes his defence of himself and his own friends.

"It is true," he adds, " that France in avoiding these evils has not escaped the evils of anarchy; but are those to be blamed who laboured, and with perfect sincerity, to found a republic? The court," he goes on to say, on its side, made every preparation. No one who witnessed these unhappy times would deny, that the court marched on with the most perfect hardiness to effect a counter-revolution; and this fact, weil settled, justifies the insurrection of the 10th of August. All Paris was in motion on the one side and on the other. The Fédérés assembled at the house of Gorsas, at the house of Carra, a central committee at the Jacobins (this is his indistinct allusion to the conspiracy), under the presidency of Vaugeois. On the contrary, that of the Tuileries was directed by the most impudent counter-revolutionists; there was continual fighting in the Palais Royal, at the cafés, and at the spectacles; half the national guard was for the court, half for the people; the mob of the patriots were in a constant uproar; some were busy intriguing, scarcely any laboured on with proper steadiness. Pétion alone, placed at the head of this general movement, calculated the