DC . 
 252.5 
 C21E 
 1815 
 
 Carnot 
 Memorial
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 , 
 
 / * 
 
 M IE M O It I A ] 
 
 OF 
 
 M. CARNOT, 
 
 LIEUTENANT - GENERAL IN THE FRENCH ARMY, KNIGHT OF THE 
 
 ORDER OF ST. LOUIS, MEMBER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR, 
 
 AND OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, 
 
 ADDRESSED TO 
 
 HIS MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY, 
 LOUIS XVIII, 
 
 TO WHICH 18 SUBJOINED, 
 
 & Sfcetcfi of JflU arnot'$ Eife, 
 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 Some remarkable SPEECHES which he made on former occasions in tJie 
 National Convention and Tribunal. 
 
 And to which is now Added, 
 
 OF 
 
 MEHEE DE LA TOUCHE, 
 
 ADDRESSED TO 
 
 HIS MAJESTY LOUIS XVIII. 
 
 TRANSLATED from the FRENCH MANUSCRIPT COPIES, 
 
 BY LEWIS GOLDSMITH, 
 
 Author of 'The SECRET HISTORY or THE CABINET OF BONAPARTE,' 
 
 Editor of the Antigallican Monitor, &c. &c; 
 
 PUBLISHED BY T. HOOKHAM, JUN. AND CO 
 OLD BOND STREET,
 
 London , printed by T . Wood, 
 No. 22, Russell Court, Drury Lane..
 
 ox 
 
 A FEW WORDS FROM THE 
 TRANSLATOR. 
 
 AT is seldom that a Pamphlet of so 
 small a size as that which I now offer to 
 the Public, requires any introduction ; but 
 it is from a personal motive that is, to 
 justify my own political character, that I 
 feel myself bound to offer a few words by 
 way of preface. 
 
 Translators aud Biographers are gene- 
 rally supposed to be of the same principles 
 as those of the author whose work they 
 translate, or whose life they write. To 
 clear myself from such an imputation I must 
 here declare, that I entirely disapprove oi 
 
 '-f 
 
 '
 
 IV 
 
 the leading principles, and many assertions 
 contained in M. Carnot's pamphlet. 
 
 What induced me to translate it was, 
 that as, from the high and in some respects 
 just reputation in which that gentleman's 
 talents are held, it might be supposed that 
 a charge brought forward by him was both 
 serious and well supported; it was proper 
 therefore to shew the contrary to the people 
 of this country, by exhibiting the work 
 itself. 
 
 M.Carnot seems to think that the Repub- 
 licans in France may shortly expect to be 
 prosecuted and persecuted for their opini- 
 ons ; but I think that the very circumstance 
 of his being at large and unmolested after 
 the circulation of his pamphlet, is the best 
 proof of the mildness of the present Go- 
 vernment of France, and the utter im- 
 probability of his suspicions being ever 
 verified. 
 
 The way the Memorial got into circula- 
 tion is thus related M. Carnot, in July last,
 
 put it into the hands of a] printer, who 
 communicated a proof-sheet to one of the 
 King's Ministers, the Count de Blacas. 
 This gentleman desired the Director-Gene- 
 ral of the Police, M. Beugnot, to see Car- 
 not, and expostulate with him on the im- 
 propriety of sending forth opinions into the 
 world which he must have known from his 
 own experience to have produced such 
 misery in France. 
 
 M. Beugnot sent for M. Carnot, and com- 
 municated to him the conversation he had 
 with the King's Minister. Carnot said, 
 that " the only motive he had for printing 
 the Memorial, which (he said) he never in- 
 tended to offer for sale, was, that the King 
 might read it, as he thought that Kings 
 seldom read any manuscript works." " If 
 that is your only motive (said M. Beugnot), 
 then I will engage that the King shall 
 read it in manuscript, and will inform you 
 to-morrow if his Majesty has any objection 
 to its being printed."
 
 VI 
 
 On the following clay M. Beughot in- 
 formed M. Carnot that bis Majesty had read 
 it, but that he thought it might as well not 
 be printed for the present. " In that case 
 (said M. Carnot) it shall remain in manu- 
 script." Only a few copies in manuscript 
 were circulated among M. Cam ot's particu- 
 lar friends, and it is from one of those copies 
 that I have made the translation. A short 
 time after, the memorial was printed, but 
 in a garbled and mutilated state ; in conse- 
 quence of which the author addressed a 
 letter to the Editors of the French papers, 
 in which he stated that the Memorial was 
 printed without his knowledge. 
 
 The reader will see that there are many 
 doctrines (which Mr. Burke lias denominated 
 " seducing theories") laid down in the pam- 
 phlet, -which might have been well suited 
 to the opinions of Frenchmen, in 1789 ; 
 but after France had seen Jioyades, fusil- 
 lades, and portable and permanent guillo- 
 tines, to enforce the doctrines which M.
 
 Yll 
 
 Carnot so much professes to admire, and 
 the practice of which doctrines inflicted so 
 much misery on his country, I think that 
 his publication might have been dispensed 
 with. Indeed it requires more -than an 
 ordinary share of assurance for a man whose 
 name always appeared joined with that of 
 Roberspierre, in organising- a system of car- 
 nage and devastation unprecedented in the 
 annals of history, to come forward with 
 an attempt to recommend the adoption of 
 those doctrines which made France one 
 great Charnel-house. 
 
 What that system was at the time when 
 Camot was a member of the Revolutionary 
 Government, is thus properly described by 
 one of his countrymen, and who was also 
 of his own dear demagogical school, namely, 
 Prudhomme, who in his " Crimes de la Re- 
 volution" says, " Le regne de la conten- 
 tion a un caractere de perversite qu'on ne,re- 
 trouve point dans Vhfxtoirc d'aucun autrt 
 peuple. Avec beaucoup de rccherchcs, nous
 
 Vlll 
 
 rfavonspu rencontrer line nation au sien de 
 laquelle les crimes aient etc commis aussi 
 longuement et avec autant d'impunite qu'en 
 France. Les trente tyrans d'Athenes n'e- 
 t aient que des apprentifs dans la carrier e 
 des forfaits, compares aux sept cent cin~ 
 quante conventionnels de France" 
 
 As M. Carnot's Work has excited a great 
 sensation in this country, I have thought 
 proper to subjoin, as an appendix, some 
 account of his life, as well as some of the 
 most remarkable speeches delivered by him 
 in the Convention and Tribunat. 
 
 LEWIS GOLDSMITH. 
 
 Oct. 21, 18U.
 
 MEMORIAL, &c. 
 
 THE social state, such as we view it, is, properly 
 speaking, nothing- but a continual struggle between the 
 desire of ruling, on the one side, and the wish to with- 
 draw from subjection on the other. 
 
 In the eyes of the partisans of indefinite liberty, all 
 power, be it ever so confined, is illegitimate ; in the eyes 
 of the partisans of absolute Government, every species 
 of liberty, be it ever so limited, is an abuse. By the 
 former, it cannot be perceived by what right any man 
 could presume to govern them the latter cannot con- 
 ceive what right any man can have to attempt to affix 
 limits to their authority. The one party maintain the 
 perfect equality of all men; the other the innate prero- 
 gative which some men possess, to hold dominion over 
 others. 
 
 From this conflict of opinion and pretension have ari- 
 sen our intestine divisions, and it is difficult, while the 
 imagination is influenced by the horrors of those disor^
 
 10 
 
 ders, to arrive at an impartial decision in a discussion af 
 this nature. Each party is eager to charge the other 
 with all the errors which have been committed. Those 
 whom the former state of things had placed over others, 
 impute all our misfortune to a failure in submission on 
 the part of the latter, whilst the latter attribute them 
 to the arbitrary privileges of the former, and to their 
 obstinacy in defending such absurd and. ridiculous 
 privileges. 
 
 ,To be impartial on such a subject, a man should be 
 able to divest himself of all kind of prejudice; should 
 transport himself, in idea, into future ages, and even in 
 this case should be ignorant of historical results ; should 
 lay aside the propensity almost irresistible of judging 
 of every thing by the event. 
 
 tt is true that the manner of deciding most questions 
 is in some respects justified, on account of the errors to 
 which abstract theory always leads. The Revolution 
 furnishes melancholy proof of this to future ages ; that 
 was prepared by volumes of publications purely philo- 
 sophical; the mind raised by the expectation of a de- 
 gree of happiness till then unknown, made excursions 
 into the region of fancy. We thought that we had laid 
 hold of the phantom of national felicity. We thought 
 that it was possible to obtain a Republic without anar- 
 chy ; an unlimited liberty without disorder; a perfect 
 system of equality without factions. Experience has 
 undeceived us most cruelly. What remains to us after 
 so many chimeras vainly pursued ? Ptegrets preju- 
 dices against all kinds of perfection ; the discouragement 
 of a multitude of good men, who have at length seen 
 the inutility of their efforts. You men who wished to 
 be free have failed, and of consequence all the crirai
 
 ii 
 
 will be imputed to you. You are guilty persons, to 
 whom pardon is provisionally offered on the condition 
 of taking back your former chains, rendered more heavy 
 by a sense of pride, which slept for such a long time in 
 a state of humiliation, and now, in the name of Heaven, 
 dipped in the spirit of revenge. 
 
 And what, during the Revolutionary storm, has 
 been the conduct of those men Who would bring back 
 your chains? Have they indeed a right to accuse 
 others of evils which they have suffered ? Is it 
 not to themselves that the name of Assassin and of Re- 
 gicide is applicable which they so prodigally lavish on 
 you? And do not they resemble those pick-pockets 
 who, that they may turn the suspicion from themselves, 
 cry out " Stop thief!" with a louder voice than any 
 other, whilst they are looking for an opportunity of 
 losing themselves in the crowd? 
 
 What! say those traitors, are not those who have voted 
 for the death of the King the Regicides ? No, the Regi- 
 cides are the persons who took up arms against their 
 native country.. It is you yourselves Who are. The 
 others have voted as judges appointed by the nation, 
 and are not obliged to account for their judgment to any 
 one. If they fell into an error, they are in the same 
 circumstances as other judges who have erred. They 
 have erred together with the intire nation which provo- 
 ked that judgment, and urged it as it were by thousands 
 of addresses sent in from the Departments and from the 
 districts. They have erred in common with all the na- 
 tions in Europe who treated with them, and which 
 would be at this very day in peace with them had not 
 the one as well as the other been equally the victims of 
 a new Upstart. 
 
 But you. Sirs, who return after the storm is over, hovv
 
 do you pretend to justify yourselves for having so un- 
 mercifully refused your assistance to that King whom 
 you affect to lament you, to whose cupidity he sacri- 
 ficed the resources of the public treasury you, who by 
 the perfidy of your counsels drew him into a labyrinth 
 from which he could not be extricated but by your own 
 proper efforts ? Why did you refuse those gratuitous 
 offerings for which he asked you ? why did you refuse 
 him those additional aids which your depredations had 
 rendered indispensible ? What did the Notables do for 
 him? What, the Clergy? Who were they who incited 
 the States General ? who were they who caused a ge- 
 neral insurrection through all France,and who, when the 
 Revolution had once commenced, found themselves ca- 
 pable of stemming the torrent? If you could do it, why 
 did you not? If you could not, why reproach others 
 with not having stopped it? 
 
 Louis XVI., you say, was the best of Kings: did 
 you not abandon him in the most cowardly manner, 
 when you saw him in that danger into which you had 
 precipitated him? Was it not your duty to form a 
 rampart round him with your bodies ? Was not the 
 oath which you took that you would defend him to the 
 last drop of your blood ? If he was the father of his sub- 
 jects, were you not the children of his choice ? Was it 
 not for you that he had run himself in debt? Was it not 
 to satisfy your rapacity that he deprived himself of the 
 affection of his other children, and you left him, without 
 support, to the mercy of those whom you had irritated 
 against him ? Was it the business of Republicans 
 to defend with their tongues him whom you had not 
 the courage to defend with your swords? What would 
 those Republicans have to rest upon for their support,
 
 who, contrary to their own interest, might have wished 
 to save the King ? When you ran away was it not evi- 
 dent thatthey would have sacrificed him and themselves 
 uselessly that they would have been the victims of a 
 popular commotion? You exact from others a virtue 
 more than human, whilst you yourselves give an exam- 
 ple of desertion and of felony. 
 
 Louis was no longer King when his trial was over: 
 his destruction was inevitable ; he could not reign from 
 the instant that he was deprived of the means of keeping 
 the factions under. It follows that the death of Louis 
 should be imputed not to those who pronounced his 
 condemnation, as the fate of a sick person whose life is 
 despaired of is pronounced but to those who having it 
 in their power to arrest his fate in the beginning of a 
 disorderly movement, found it more expedient to quit a 
 post so dangerous. 
 
 You draw a frightful picture of the Revolution ; the 
 more frightful it is the more criminal are you, for it is. 
 your work you are the authors of all the calamities 
 which have resulted from it; expiate (you cannot do 
 better) expiate your cowardice and ingratitude to 
 Louis XVI. by annual sacrifices in the temples. 
 
 You do not demand, as you piously express yourselves, 
 but the punishment of the great criminals and it is 
 yourselves who are the great criminals : others might 
 fall into an error;- .that is a question; but on your trea- 
 son no question can be raised. You were the first-born 
 of that King yeu who had every thing from his weak- 
 nessyou have and always will have to reproach your- 
 selves with the crime of parricide; and Louis might 
 have addressed you in those last words of C^SAR t 
 BEUTUS " Tu quoque fit mi /"
 
 14 
 
 How does it happen then that the first authors of the 
 martyrdom of Louis XVI., the real instigators of our 
 civil commotions, are the persons who in the present day 
 take to themselves the parts of accusers? How happens 
 it that others who have courageously braved the Revo- 
 lution in the midst of its vicissitudes, find themselves 
 at once struck as it were with stupor, and appear to suffer 
 condemnation from their hypocritical clamours? It is 
 only from the singularity of the events, that their weak 
 adversaries have become the stronger. It is because the 
 enemies of the French name, with whom they leagued 
 themselves, had, by the advantage of numbers ten to 
 one got possesion of the capital without resistance. 
 That when one instant sufficed to efface twenty years of 
 glory and of victory, those who had fled at. the moment 
 of danger, returned in triumph behind the baggage wag- 
 gons, and that thus twenty years of glory and of victory 
 have become twenty years of sacrilege and of outrage. 
 
 Had the system of liberty prevailed, things would 
 have borne far different names ; for in the annals of the 
 world, the same action, according to circumstances, at 
 one time is a crime, at another an act of heroism. The 
 same man is at one time a CLAUDIUS at another a 
 MARCUS AURELIUS. CATALINE is but a vile conspira- 
 tor. If like C.ESAR he had been able to found an empire, 
 he would have been esteemed a benefactor. CROMWELL 
 was acknowledged till his last hour, and his protection 
 sought by all Sovereigns. After his death his body was 
 suspended on a gibbet: he only wanted a son like him- 
 self to enable him to form a new dynasty. So long as 
 NAPOLEON was fortunate, Europe bowed down to him. - 
 The first Princes thought it an honour to ally themselves 
 with his family As soon as he fell, there was nothing
 
 15 
 
 seen in him but the miserable adventurer, cowardly, and 
 without, talent. PELOPIDAS, TIMOLEON, ANDREW Do- 
 KIA, were proclaimed the liberators of their country ; 
 they would have been nothing but factious men, like the 
 Gracchi, had they failed in their enterprises. 
 
 Since the perpetually renewed vociferations of the firs* 
 authors of the death of Louis XVI. force those who have 
 voted as judges to justify themselves, though they could 
 not by any means have prevented it, it will not be diffi- 
 cult for the latter to make it evident, that that vote is 
 absolutely conformable to the doctrine taught by our 
 schools, saving the permission of Government, extolled, 
 by way of excellence, as the doctrine, inasmuch as it is 
 the doctrine of Holy Writ, supported by the opinion Of 
 moralists who are considered the wisest of all antiquity 
 and the most proper to be for ever quoted as authority. 
 
 CICERO, for example, expresses himself in the follow- 
 ing manner, in the 2d book of his Offices, chap. 8. " Tha 
 reasons which may prevail on a man to subject himself 
 to a state of dependence on any one, and so submit to his 
 domination, are almost the same as those which would 
 prevail on him to do him a favour ; for it is done through 
 friendship, or the great obligations of gratitude, or in 
 consideration of his merit, or from the expectation that 
 good will be the result or from fear or from this, that a 
 man may be forced when he is not disposed to comply 
 with good-will or because onesuffers himself to be daz- 
 zled by hopes or by promises or, as we have often seen 
 in the Republic, because one is gained over by a bribe, 
 
 **. Now the best way of preserving whatever portion 
 of credit and consideration we may happen to possess, is 
 to make ourselves loved, and the worst is to make our- 
 selves feared , for, as it is very happily expressed, <* Men
 
 16 
 
 hate those whom they fear, and desire to sec those perish 
 whom they hate." Though we had not known from any 
 other source that there is neither power nor grandeur 
 which can hold out against the public hatred, that which 
 we have seen would have taught it to us. But the as- 
 sassination of that tyrant (C.ESAK) who has oppressed 
 the Republic by the force of his arms, and who stilt 
 holds it in servitude, though he is dead, is not the sole 
 example which has clearly proved how pernicious and 
 fatal to the most exalted rank is the public hatred. We see 
 it besides in the end of all the other Tyrants, who have 
 almost without exception perished in the same manner. 
 We must acknowledge therefore that hatred is but an 
 indifferent guarantee of a long life, and that on the con- 
 trary there is no guard so safe as that of love, and even 
 that there is no sure or solid safety but that 
 
 " Let us leave severity and cruelty to those who think 
 they may have occasion for them, for the purpose of keep- 
 ing in subjection a people whom they have oppressed by 
 force; as for those who enjoy the benefits of civil and 
 political freedom they cannot possibly adopt a more in- 
 considerate line of conduct than*to behave in such-man- 
 ner as to cause themselves to be feared; for although 
 the laws are, as it were, buried under the power of 
 an individual, and that liberty is confined through fear, 
 they sometimes raise their heads, and because the people 
 give hints what their sentiments are without any formal 
 explanation, and that by agreement they raise at once to 
 the Sovereign magistracy persons qualified to draw the 
 Republic from oppression ; now the return of liberty, 
 which lay under restraint, and is interrupted, causes 
 itself to be much more cruelly felt than any thing 
 which the people might suffer, had it been permitted 
 to subsist."
 
 17 
 
 We see that the well known clemency of CAESAR did 
 not prevent his being regarded as n Tyrant, and that the 
 attack made on his person was approved of. CATO went 
 a much farther length ; he thought that a good King was 
 an impossibility. 
 
 If-it be advanced, that the doctrine of Pagan authors 
 ought to be rejected by us, I. would ask why the sacred 
 writings, which are full of the same doctrines, serve as a 
 foundation for public instruction ? But if we are inclined 
 to draw our maxims of Government from the sacred 
 volumes, it will be much worse. The doctrine o King 
 killing will be found established by the Prophets, and 
 Kings rejected, as the scourges of GOD families mur- 
 dered, and the people exterminated, by order of the 
 All-Powerful a furious intolerance preached up by the 
 Ministers of that LORD who is full of compassion. 
 
 Notwithstanding- this ineligible doctrine, which to all 
 appearances Princes do not much read, but which 
 Priests read very often, and which the Jesuits know by 
 heart, it is justly established as a principle among 
 civilized nations, that the person of the King should be 
 sacred and inviolable; but the meaning and application 
 are not well determined; one, for instance, asks if this 
 maxim takes place only in the case of legitimate Sove- 
 reigns, or whether it ought to take place equally in the 
 persons of Usurpers? another enquires what is that 
 positive distinction between an Usurper and a legitimate 
 King? It is demanded, whether we are to regard as 
 sacred and inviolable those Princes in whose eyes nothing 
 was ever esteemed as sacred and inviolable ? Whether 
 a TIBERIUS, a SARDANAPALUS, a NERO, a CALIGULA, 
 a HELIOGABALUS, an ATTILA, a CHILPERIC, a FRE- 
 r>iGONDE-,an ISABEAU of Bavaria, a MAHOMET, a CHRIS-
 
 18 
 
 TIA.V, a PETER tlie Cruel, a SKXTUS QUINTUS, an 
 ALEXANDER VI. &c. &c. &c. ought to be considered 
 as Sovereigns whose persons are inviolable and sacred? 
 It may be asked if, when there were at Rome two, three, 
 four Emperors at the same time, elected at once by as 
 many armies all those Emperors ought to be considered 
 a.s sacred and inviolable? 
 
 These questions, and a great number of others of a 
 similar kind, respecting which men are killing each 
 other since $he beginning of time, stand in great need 
 of a good solution but it appears that, it is reserved for 
 the (.'anon Law to be always that which is termed the 
 ultima ratio region. 
 
 Since then it, is power which in the last resort decides 
 every thing, it is not astonishing that the. Jacobins had 
 the right on their side at first, and after them the Di- 
 rectory, then BcoNAp.vri.TE, and finally the BOURBONS, 
 whose family possessed the right iirst of all, during 
 fou i teen centuries, and, I believe there is nobody in 
 Fiance who does not wish that they should continue to 
 enjoy that light ; but as it is acknowledged that there 
 is no well-founded right where there is not power, it is 
 therefore necessary to act in such a manner as that the 
 BOURBONS may not lose their power, and still more that 
 one part of this force may not turn against the other: 
 now this is, nevertheless, that which will happen, if ex- 
 tinguislied Party be kindled afresh -if the ci-derant 
 Royalist and the ci-dwant Republicans are distinguished 
 anew if there be a disposition to date our regene- 
 ration from an epoch anterior to that of the Constitu- 
 tional Charter. 
 
 The return of the BOURBONS produced in France an 
 universal burst of enthusiasm thev were welcome**
 
 19 
 
 with an inexpressible overflowing of the heart; the old 
 Republicans sincerely participated in the common joy. 
 NAPOLEON had oppressed them in particular so very 
 severely. All the classes of society had suffered to 
 such a degree, that not a man could be found who did 
 not feel a sort of intoxication, and who did not deliver 
 himself up to the most consoling hopes; but the horison 
 did not remain long uncovered with clouds, joy continued 
 but for a moment. Those who returned after such a 
 long absence, thought, apparently, to find France as it 
 was in 1789; but the generation was almost entirely 
 renewed, the youth of the present day has been brought 
 up in other principles : the love of glory above all has 
 struck deep root : it has become the most distinguished 
 attribute of the national character. Exalted by continual 
 success for twenty years, it had met with a small degree 
 of irritation by a momentary reverse unfortunately it 
 has received a deep wound from the conduct of the 
 new Sovereign. 
 
 Formerly the Kings of England came to render ho- 
 mage to the Kings of France, as to their Sovereigns : 
 but Louis XVIII. has, on the contrary, declared to the 
 PRINCE REGENT of England, that under GOD, he owed 
 hiscrown to him ; and when his countrymen flew to meet 
 him, and in order to decree that crown to him by an una- 
 nimous vote of the nation, he was instructed to answer, 
 that he did not wish to receive it from their hands, that 
 it was the inheritance of his fathers Then were our 
 hearts closed they were silent. 
 
 It is thus that Louis XVIII. was made to begin his 
 part in the midst of us by the most violent of all out- 
 rages which a sensible and amiable people could receive. 
 However, we had made no calculation in our sacrifice*
 
 20 
 
 to recover the son of Louis IX. and of Henry IV. We 
 smoothed the way to the Throne for him by shewing 
 our eagerness to adhere to the, perhaps, inconsiderate 
 measures of the Provisional Government; in the liveliness 
 of our satisfaction we had spontaneously abandoned our 
 conquests, we gave up from our national limits that 
 flourishing Belgium, which joined its wishes to our's 
 for its re-union to France. A stroke of the pen sufficed 
 to make us give up those superb countries which all the 
 forces of Europe would not have been able to take from 
 us in ten years. Was Louis, then, under the necessity 
 of imitating the Usurpers, who, not being able to be- 
 come Kings by the assent of the people, make them- 
 selves Kings by the Grace of GOD ? Did he not know 
 that we have had NAPOLEON, by the Grace of GOD, and 
 that it was by the Grace of GOD that the most powerful 
 have been always, and will be always seen to reign ? 
 
 Louis caused himself to be preceded by proclama- 
 tions, which promised an oblivion of the past ; which 
 promised to preserve to each man his situation, his 
 honours, his salary. In what manner have his Counsel- 
 lors made him keep his promise? By causing him to 
 drive from the Senate all those, who might have appeared 
 guilty in his eyes, had he not promised to forget every 
 thing. But not an individual of those against whom 
 the public opinion was raised not one of those who, 
 by the poison of their flattery to NAPOLEON, had redu- 
 ced the French to the last degree of debasement. Thus 
 it appears more and more evident, that flattery is the 
 first want of Princes, under whatsoever title they may 
 reign. 
 
 In the same manner were excluded, with the most 
 extreme diligence, those functionaries of a secondary
 
 21 
 
 class, whom perhaps an excessive love of liberty might 
 have led astray, It is true that they have not as yefc 
 been formally proscribed- they are not as yet given up 
 to the tribunals, but they are pointed out by the very 
 fact of their dismissal in their districts, to the animad- 
 version of their fellow-citizens, as being suspected per- 
 sons, and unworthy of the confidence of Government 
 they are marked with the seal of reprobation; and r if 
 military men be spared a little : if there appear a dis- 
 position to pardon their victories, which they are con- 
 tent with only marking by the appellation of impious, 
 the reason may be easily conjectured. Oh! how many 
 heroic actions are condemned to oblivion, if they be 
 not put down to the account of crimes ! 
 
 The promises of the King should give confidence to all 
 citizens ; and notwithstanding this, inquietude hovers 
 over them more and more it hovers over their 
 existence over their honour over their proper- 
 ties. Men are distrustful of the last thought of a man 
 whom some have caused already, in so short a time, so 
 often to elude his promises. People are desirous to be- 
 lieve that those wrong measures do not proceed from 
 himself, but they inflict on that account a wound no less 
 deep on the Royal Dignity. To pardon is not to forget 
 to forget, gains hearts, whilst pardon ulcerates them. 
 If the persons ot Kings be justly held sacred, ought 
 not their words to be so likewise, and shew a supe- 
 riority to all subterfuge ? Is that then the loyalty or 
 character which people are pleased always to look upon 
 as the most noble appanage of the House of BOURBON? 
 
 When the power of a King over his people is compar- 
 ed to that of a father over his family, the fiction is a 
 happy one ; but it is far, very far from the truth. Mea 
 speak rather of what ought to he, hut not of that whicfe
 
 2-2 
 
 can be still less of what is. A good father does not es- 
 tahlish odious distinctions among his children. His 
 real quality of father inspires him with sentiments which 
 are the inimitable work of nature, and cannot belong 
 to a Sovereign who is nothing more than a Sovereign. 
 In a word, a father is not vindictive; he often pardons 
 after threatening; but he never punishes alter having 
 promised to forget. 
 
 It is impossible to conceal that we experience this 
 difference in an acute manner. The return of the Li- 
 lies has not produced the effect which was expected 
 from them the fusion of Parties is an operation which 
 has not been performed: so far from that, Parties, of 
 which a vestige hardly remained, have been renewed. 
 They look at each other Ihey watch each other there 
 is no longer either reconciliation or abandonment false 
 attempts little meannesses retrograde steps -strange 
 interpretations given to solemn engagements, have pro- 
 duced distrust and disquietude. The Government has 
 not employed the means which were at its disposal it 
 has paralysed a part it has turned that part against 
 itself, by declaring itself against it. 
 
 Those persons are very culpable, or very blind, who 
 have commenced by detaching from the cause of the 
 Prince every thing which had borne the name of Patriot, 
 that is to say, seven-eighths of the nation, and have 
 changed them into a hostile population, in the midst of 
 another to whom they have indirectly given a transcen- 
 dent preference. If you wish to appear at Court with 
 some distinction, take good care that you do not mention 
 that you were one of the twenty-five millions of citizens 
 who defended their country with some degree of courage 
 against hostile invasion ; for you will receive for answer 
 that " those twenty-five millions of pretended citizens
 
 2.3 
 
 were twenty-five millions of rebels; ami that those pre- 
 tended enemies are, and always have been, friends." 
 But you ought to say, that you have had the happiness 
 to have been Chouans, or Vendeans, or deserters, or Cos- 
 sacks, or English, or, finally, that having remained in 
 France, you never solicited a place under the ephemeral 
 Governments which preceded the restoration, but for the 
 purpose of betraying them more conveniently, and hast- 
 ening their downfall. Then indeed will your fidelity be 
 extolled to the skies: you will receive the tender con- 
 gratulations the decorations the affectionate answers 
 of all the Royal Family. 
 
 Behold, then, that which is termed extinguishing th 
 spirit of Party not to see any where but Frenchmen- ~- 
 brothers who have sworn never to call to remembrance 
 their ancient quarrels. But who does not see what this 
 leads to ? Who does not see we are thus prepared for 
 the debasement of every thing which has taken a part in 
 the Revolution to the abolition of every thing which 
 belongs to liberal ideas to the restoration of national 
 property to the resurrection of all those prejudices 
 which weaken a people ? 
 
 According to the tactique always used in similar cases, 
 only those are first attacked who have been the most 
 distinguished, for the purpose of proceeding successively 
 to others, and finishing, by involving in the same pro- 
 scription, every one who more nearly or more remotely 
 took any part whatever in the Revolution to retrogade 
 if possible back to the feudal system to the establish- 
 ment of serfs to those fine days of the Holy Inquisition, 
 the morn of which is commencing to dawn again over 
 the provinces of Spain. 
 
 The French Revolution was a composition of heroism, 
 cruelty of sublime touches and monstrous
 
 24 
 
 ders But all families which remained in France were 
 obliged to take a part more or less active in that revolu- 
 tion. All have made sacrifices more or less affecting- 
 all have furnished children for the defence of the coun- 
 try, and that defence has been glorious all were conse- 
 quently interested, that success might crown the enter- 
 prise: The contrary has happened. Then those who 
 had shewed themselves in opposition to that Revolution 
 endeavoured to make it appear under the most unfavour- 
 able aspect. Glorious events are forgotten or disfigured, 
 an affected contempt is turned towards acts of devoted- 
 ness which have not been attended with any result; and 
 the cry of indignation is re-echoed against those who 
 may have participated in any manner in any thing which 
 has been done. 
 
 Had any thing remained to us, after so many labours 
 and so many victories, we should look upon it as a tro- 
 phy to which we should be happy to attach our recol- 
 lections. In like manner an eagerness is displayed to 
 force the restitution of every conquest which we have 
 made, for fear that there might remain any traces of that 
 glory which Republicans had acquired, because that 
 glory was thought to reflect shame on the opposite par- 
 ty : but this same glory had become our idol it ab- 
 sorbed all the thoughts of the brave soldiers whose 
 wounds had obliged them to quit the combat: all the 
 hopes of our youth who were making their first cam- 
 paigns An unexpected stroke has brought it low: we 
 feel in our hearts a void similar to that which a lover finds 
 who has lost the ooject of his passion: every thing which 
 he sees, every thing Avhich he hears, renevrs his grief. 
 This sentiment venders our existence uncertain and 
 painful; everyone endeavours to conceal that wound, 
 'which he feels at the bottom of his heart. We regard
 
 525 
 
 ourselves as brought low, notwithstanding 20 years of 
 continual triumphs, because we have lost one game 
 alone, which unfortunately was that of honour, and 
 which became the guide of our destinies. 
 
 But this sickly and disordered state of things cannot re- 
 main ; it is a degree of blindness much to be deplored, 
 which has seized a party almost too small lo be perceptible, 
 and which party, admitted to share in a glory which no- 
 thing can efface, affects to degrade every thing which form 
 the national glory, and appears not to have entered into 
 the bosom of their mother country, but to debase it, after 
 having for so long a time torn it in pieces. But that na*. 
 tion will soon have recovered from that tit of stupefaction 
 which the sudden appearance of a coalition without prece- 
 dent must have naturally produced in her which coalition 
 can never again be renewed ; she has again resumed the 
 sensibility of what her own strength is. Those who were 
 thought to have been annihilated, are only dispersed, and 
 should such another crusade recommence, the great people 
 (unfortunately up to this very day too confident) would most 
 probably know how to profit from their experience, to fortify 
 themselves against that unskilfulnees and treachery which 
 delivered them up to the discretion of her enemies. A 
 handful of deserters, who had fallen into oblivion, and who 
 did not appear but to gather the fruits of a victory in which 
 they had taken no part, which now have no support from 
 that league which conquered for them, and who now find 
 themselves thrown into the midst of an immense population, 
 imbued with liberal ideas, cannot impose on that population 
 for any long time, and it would be an ill calculation on 
 their part to suffer the predominant dispositions of the 
 people to appear. The extinction of all parties is the 
 M!V thing vrhich suits them, and which suits every one.
 
 It is iii the Constitutional Chart that we should search 
 for the common safety : that contains a guarantee for the 
 safety of us all, upon which we can rely if we do not suffer 
 it to be entrenched upon. But it is necessary for this pur- 
 pose that the truth should reach the ears of the Sovereign, 
 and that he should not suffer his flatterers to cause him to 
 deviate from the. dispositions of that fundamental law which 
 is his own work. The two Chambers must continue to 
 display that character which they have already shewn on 
 some occasions. It is indispensibly necessary that the new 
 elections which are to take place be not the fruit of cun- 
 ning or intrigue. The true Patriots, that is to say, those 
 who have fought for their Country, constitute every where 
 an immense majority; it belongs to them alone to give a 
 good representative body to the nation ; they have only to 
 return such citizens as are distinguished for their former 
 probity, the fathers of families, the purchasers of national 
 property, men interested in every way to prevent the na- 
 tion from falling into debasement, in order that neither 
 anarchy or despotism should again raise their heads. 
 
 The Military returned to their homes are the depositaries 
 of the national glory., and, above all for the preservation of 
 that importunate glory, which certain men shew a disposi- 
 tion to tarnish Let those brave men feel sensibly that that 
 glory is at this day not their recompense alone, but the pala- 
 dium of whatever liberty remains to us. 
 
 Far from me be tne most distant thought which could 
 afford the least pretext for new troubles. On the contrary. 
 I complain bitterly of those which some men are endeavour- 
 ing to excite by forming new parties ; it is a certain fact 
 that there were no parties at the time of NAPOLEON'S re- 
 signation ; it is certain that parties now exist, and it is as- 
 suredly not the former Republican&who have excited them,
 
 27 
 
 It was not they who filled the Journals with diatribes against 
 themselves ; it was not they who caused incendiary writings 
 against the Constitutional Chart to be hawked about, which 
 Chart is their guarantee It was not they who counselled his 
 Majesty to elude the accomplishment of such promises as 
 were favourable to them, ajid to fail in his royal word. 
 Why, contrary to that word, are distinctions made, and 
 those distinctions marked more strongly than ever, between 
 those who remained attached to the person of the King, 
 and those who remained attached to the soil of their country ? 
 That distinction was natural so long as the one was in arms 
 against the other, but it ought to have been effaced as soon 
 as the former re passed the sea which separated them When 
 they set their feet again on their natal soil, they then pre- 
 tend to return as conquerors, who were reckoned as 
 nothing in the crisis which has just passed! 
 
 Do they think to bring us back to the epoch of 1789, a* 
 if reason could retrogade ? Do they hope to make us pro- 
 claim aloud that me entire Revolution is but a heap of 
 crimes, when the Revolution presents no other than those of 
 which they themselves have been the first cause ? It is 
 always the defenders of the soil which form the imperish- 
 able body of the nation of this nation, powerful this na- 
 tion victorious, for so many years! They will not submit 
 that their laurels be touched, but will share them in a fra- 
 ternal manner, if the others are worthy of them, but certainly 
 they must not tarnish them. 
 
 What was it which made us support the tyranny of 
 NAPOLEON? It was because he had exalted the national 
 pride. With what devotedness did not even those serve 
 him who detested him the most ? It was despair alone 
 which caused his eagles to be abandoned. His character 
 imposed upon men, to the last moment, and even in his 
 
 OS?
 
 28 
 
 distress he treated on equal terms with the Allies, who 
 dictated laws to us within the walls of Paris. 
 
 The rights of successiou are but little regarded by a war- 
 like people This is not theory, but fact. In the early ages 
 of our monarchy, the Crown was not always conferred ou 
 the eldest child,but on him who appeared the fittest to com- 
 mand the armies. Nature appears to have put in the heart 
 of man a particular propensity to military glory It electri- 
 fies nations, even down to the lowest individual. 
 
 You draw tears of tenderness from the eyes of the na- 
 tion, or of the family, when you recount one single act of 
 honourable warfare. Why did the people of France shew 
 their love so strongly to their Kings ? It was because they 
 looked upon them as the guardians as the protectors of 
 their glory : it was because they were accustomed to re- 
 gard their King as the most valiant of their Knights. 
 The mass of the people are not acquainted with gene- 
 alogies, and never discuss the point of hereditary right : 
 they do not take any part in the quarrels of them who govern 
 them in their private conduct nor even in their political 
 crimes, only as far as they touch upon their own proper in- 
 terests. It results from their instinct that they judge that 
 the right of governing belongs to him who governs well, and 
 that that right is forfeited when they are badly governed. 
 He who renders them happy is legitimate enough, or he is 
 very soon legitimated. The Romans soon forgot the first 
 years of AUGUSTUS, because the Emperor knesv how to 
 raake a paternal Government succeed the horrors commit- 
 ted by the Triumvirs. The English still respect the me- 
 mory of the usurping despot WILLIAM the CONQUEROR, 
 because he made them a great people. 
 
 They rank the capricious and sanguinary HENRY VIII. 
 in the number of those who have most contributed to their
 
 prosperity, because he liberated them from their subjection 
 io the court of Rome. They honour CROMWELL, who 
 sent their legitimate King to the scaffold, because the 
 Protector knew how to reign better than- the King, whilst, 
 in a short time after, they again expelled their new legiti- 
 mate King, JAMES If. for the purpose of raising a new 
 usurper to his place. The French applauded the usurpa- 
 tion of PEPIN LE BREF, in the time of the Kings of the 
 Merovingian race, and afterwards the usurpations of Eu- 
 DENS, and of HUGH CAPET under the descendants of 
 CHARLEMAIGNE, because the new Princes governed bet- 
 ter than those whom they had dethroned. 
 
 France had already subscribed to the usurpation of 
 NAPOLEON, and perhaps might have confirmed him in the 
 name of Grand, which his flatterers were rather too eager 
 in bestowing on him, were it not for the perfidiousness and 
 extravagance of his last expedition ; and that nation will be 
 more rigorous, perhaps, at this day, towards her legitimate 
 Prince, because men always think that they have a right to 
 expect more from him who comes to them, than from him 
 whom they oblige to resign. When any man expels ano- 
 ther, that he may occupy his place, he takes upon himself 
 an engagement to act better than he. 
 
 Some men are terrified by' the mere sound of the 
 word Liberty, because they judge of it agreeably to 
 Revolutionary ideas, without thinking, on the contrary, 
 that that Revolution was one continual despotism. 
 Alas ! the whole history of the world hardly offers a 
 few pages which may be consecrated to record the ef- 
 fects of real liberty. That history is not much more 
 than a monotonous view of the eternal abuse of power. 
 The people are represented in history only as the 
 instruments and the victims of the ambition of theft
 
 30 
 
 Chiefs, We only behold there, Princes who engage 
 their subjects in wars for their own private interests- 
 Kings who are themselves nothing better than regicides 
 and parricides Priests who excite to carnage, and who 
 erect the funeral pile. We can only on some occasions 
 remark the generous efforts of some intrepid men, who 
 devote themselves to deliver their countrymen from 
 oppression. If they succeed they are styled Heroes if 
 they fail they are called factious. 
 
 Our Revolution which appears so terrible when 
 viewed at a short distance, how will it rank in the an- 
 iials of the world ? What are those events of which we 
 have been witnesses, after the barbarians had invaded 
 the Roman empire? What, those after the massacres 
 which the discovery of the new world has occasioned ? 
 What, after those wars of extermination which have so 
 often depopulated Asia, countries larger than all Eu- 
 rope ? But we see in the world but the imperceptible 
 point which we occupy: we resemble a nation of ants, 
 which imagine that they see the dissolution of the uni- 
 verse, because a traveller has heedlessly trampled upon 
 their habitations. Well then I these great catastrophes, 
 were they the effect of liberty, or that of ambition? 
 
 In the state of nature man is cruel only from neces- 
 sity ; in the social state he is so from caprice to satisfy 
 imaginary wants and passions which spring up in crowds 
 from communication with their fellow-creatures. 
 
 I. do not desire to give the state of nature the prefer- 
 ence, but the social state is susceptible of an infinity of 
 gradations, one of which systems would be that of total 
 isolation, and the other that of the most complete des- 
 potism. Now both these extremes are equally vicious, 
 and in their results are confounded together, for it is
 
 31 
 
 evident, cruel experience proves it, that in both one and 
 the other, neither knowledge or industry, or national 
 prosperity, can exist. There is therefore a problem 
 to be resolved, and it is that of discovering the point 
 between those two extremes where we ought to stop, 
 namely, to distinguish what is the character of a just 
 liberty, and of a legitimate government, but where 
 shall we find in this way the measure of good and bad ? 
 Is it by reasoning alone ? Is it in the authorities which 
 writers furnish, or, finally, in that of experience ? The 
 insufficiency of mere reasoning is sufficiently proved, 
 as I have before remarked ? in those errors of every kind 
 which it leads us into. 
 
 Nature has its moral, as well as physical laws, and 
 the one are as difficult of discovery as the other. Ex- 
 perience is only that which can inform us, and it is only 
 on that as a proper basis that we can establish solid 
 principles and solid reasoning. 
 
 Man in the state of nature is under no greater restraint 
 than any other animal. Every thing in that state has 
 a reference to his physical wants, but we consider in 
 this place only the social man ; we set out with the 
 supposition that he lives with beings like himself, and 
 that the most desirable state for him, is that of a well-, 
 organized society, where men afford each other mutual 
 assistance ; so that the point which we are to investi- 
 gate is how that society should be constituted, so that 
 it may arrive at the highest degree of prosperity of 
 which it is capable. 
 
 Now we are of opinion that this maximum of pros- 
 perity cannot be found in an absolutely isolated stale ; 
 inasmuch as the very first succours, were it even those 
 which a mother affords to her children, would not be ad-
 
 32 
 
 ministered. This state of things, therefore, not only 
 does not attain the end, hut ,it is even absolutely 
 impossible ; it is therefore proved that the most desira- 
 ble state of civilization requires the sacrifice of a portion 
 of our natural liberty. 
 
 But experience also demonstrates, that under an ab- 
 solute despotism, which is the other extreme, know- 
 ledge becomes extinct by insensible degrees; the arts 
 cea.se to be cultivated, emulation disappears, every one 
 becomes indifferent to the national glory and to national 
 prosperity : so that agriculture, commerce, and popu- 
 lation are gradually annihilated. 
 
 It is, then, at a point between absolute liberty and 
 absolute power that the maximum of national prosperity, 
 of which we aj-e in search, exists ; we mean, that it is 
 indispensibly necessary to obtain it, that on the one side 
 liberty should be confined within certain bounds, and 
 on the other, that power should be under some limits- 
 Now it, is this liberty, thus restricted, that I call social 
 liberty, and this power, thus limited, that I name legiti- 
 mate power. 
 
 It is therefore necessary that, among citizens, the one 
 should renounce their chimeras of absolute liberty, and 
 tke other their pretensions to absolute power, which 
 cannot be supported. It is necessary that on each side 
 a generous abandonment of every thing which might 
 injure that state of prosperity which should be the ob- 
 ject of the general wish, should take place. It was 
 certainly with such a reflection that the Revolution 
 ought to commence, and then the Revolution would not 
 have taken place. 
 
 That we may fix as precisely as possible the point 
 where it is proper to stop between the two extremes of
 
 33 
 
 which we have spoken, it is necessary" to ascertain the 
 most perfect state of society, that with the existence of 
 which no man can flatter himself; but it is sufficient 
 for us to conclude, that we have made the nearest possi- 
 ble approach to it, in order that we may establish the 
 existence of the principle, that such a state of things 
 can neither be reconciled with indefinite liberty or abso- 
 lute power. 
 
 The Social State may be organized in different ways, 
 and receive an infinity of modifications ; for experience 
 proves that it can prosper as well under a monarchy 
 properly limited, as under a well balanced popular go- 
 vernment ; and my object is not to have recourse to dif- 
 ficult researches, in which men have so often fallen into 
 mistakes ; only one sees that the question is susceptible 
 of different solutions, according to the nature of the 
 governments of different countries, and that there are 
 many points which ought to be common to all, as for 
 instance, the necessity of civil and criminal legislation, 
 of a public force, of an administration of finance, 
 of establishments for the instruction of youth. Although 
 it is not possible to establish in theory the limits of these 
 different powers, we perceive that all of them should 
 not the less be held to have been created for the object 
 of attaining the highest degree of national prosperity, 
 and that consequent!}^ distinction and privileges ought 
 not to be admitted into the organization, but only as far 
 as they have a tendency to accomplish that object alone. 
 They are the wheel work destined to put the machine 
 in motion, but which are not placed there on their own 
 account, and which should even be removed, when they 
 only render the machine still more complicated and 
 add to its attrition. Of whatsoever importance one of
 
 34 
 
 those pieces may be, should it be even as the main 
 spring of a watch, it would be absurd to say that the 
 watch was made for the spring, and not the spring for 
 the 'watch. Here we have the fable of the belly and the 
 members ; the members are not made for the belly, nor 
 the belly for the members, but are all made for the 
 general organisation of the human frame. 
 
 But will it be said, although we know that the maxi- 
 mum of national prosperity is the great and only end 
 which we should propose to ourselves, if we do not pre- 
 cisely know iu what this maximum consists, how will we 
 attain it? what route shall we take iu order to arrive 
 at it ? and when we shall have discovered it, how shall 
 we determine, each of us, to follow it? To this 'I 
 answer, that it is by the progress of knowledge that men 
 will successively arrive at the discovery of those routes, 
 and that it is by the formation of a national mind that 
 each person will be directed in the pursuit. 
 
 The science of government is brought to perfection 
 by insensible degrees, and, like all the others, by expe- 
 rience and meditation. As soon as every one shall 
 sincerely search for that which is most suitable to the 
 great family, each day will add to the information of tlie 
 preceding, men will cease to wander in uncertainty, 
 and all will eagerly carry their tribute of intelligence and 
 zeal to the common stock. 
 
 But what will be the great moving principle of all 
 those individual efforts ? Who will give them that uni- 
 form tendency to the same object? It is evident that 
 it cannot beany thing short of a passion which is noble 
 and strong, and that passion cannot be other toan that of 
 
 LOVE OF COUNTRY. 
 
 It is necessary, therefore, to generate this love
 
 it is necessary to create a public spirit a national 
 spirit. It is in this that we are deficient, and deficient to 
 such a degree, that we can scarcely form an idea of it, 
 and that nobody amongst us, to state a fact, compre- 
 hends how individual can be sacrificed to general inte- 
 rest to forget himself for the safety and glory of his 
 country, and that one should perhaps exclude the pos- 
 sibility of his own existence in some measure, if ancient 
 history did not supply us with a proof, and did we not 
 see it exist in a high degree among some neighbouring 
 nations. In England the fortune of each individual it 
 linked with the fortune of the State, every man there 
 is powerfully interested in guarding the State against 
 any perceivable shock, consequently the great majority 
 of the nation is, of course, on the side of Government, 
 and the party in opposition must be very weak. The 
 only use of that opposition is to keep every man in 
 breath, and to render public discussions more profound, 
 and to cause public business to be more carefully ex- 
 amined. These are the reasons why England possesses 
 a national spirit There is no such thing in France. 
 The fortunes of individuals being likewise portions of 
 the soil, are less connected one with the other more 
 independent on the management of public affairs, which 
 can to a certain point be exposed to hazard, without 
 making any alteration in their landed property, in 
 which the public fortune is vested. These are the 
 reasons why there is less union in France, more ego- 
 tism, little or no public spirit; and nevertheless one 
 of them is necessary ; for nothing less than great pas- 
 sions can form great nations. With one it is the pas- 
 sion of liberty with another that of conquest with 
 some it is religions fanaticism with us it should
 
 36 
 
 tie the love of country that is, of the soil which gave 
 us birth. 
 
 France and England cannot be governed after the 
 same manner, relatively to the national spirit, which 
 should be different in the two countries England, 
 being entirely commercial, ought to be directed by 
 calculation and a taste for hazardous enterprizes 
 France should be governed by the love of territorial ac- 
 quisitions. England places her point of honour in consi- 
 dering herself as the central point of all the maritime 
 operations which unite all nations France should 
 place hers in profiting from all those gifts which na- 
 ture has lavished upon her within herself: we should be 
 proud of our own peculiar riches, bestow our affec- 
 tions on them, and endeavour to spread them uni- 
 formly by the facility of our interior communications, 
 without aiming to become the rivals of our neighbours 
 on an element, the supremacy over which geographical 
 position and the system of the balance of power among 
 the nations of Europe- appear to adjudge to them, at 
 least, for a long time to come. We would be better 
 employed in confining ourselves to multiply and im- 
 prove the productions of our soil, than to consign our- 
 selves over to a foreign commerce, which we can never 
 follow but in an interior and precarious manner, subject 
 to the will of the English, who will always endeavour to 
 make us incur every possible loss. 
 
 Such should be the national character which is suit- 
 able to the French nation. It is the love of great ter- 
 ritorial possession which includes all particular posses- 
 sions ; the love of our soil, collectively considered, its 
 integrity, its improvement, its political independence ; 
 the turn of our mind naturally carries us towards this
 
 37 
 
 common end. The French have always be,en very strong 
 within themselves ; and it is as difficult for strangers to 
 maintain themselves in France as it is difficult for the. 
 French to establish themselves in a solid manner at a 
 distance from their own homes. 
 
 If we once take this principle as our political regu- 
 lator, we shall have administered a great remedy to 
 that inconstancy that fickleness which is more closely 
 allied to local circumstances than to that unsteadiness 
 which is commonly attributed to the French character. 
 The French are not more unsteady than the inhabitants 
 of any other country. The Revolution has sufficiently 
 proved that they possess great constancy and great 
 perseverance in their enterprises, when .they have before 
 their eyes an object worthy their ambition. They 
 do not deliver themselves up to little passions but when 
 a great one is not presented to them, which fixes the 
 entire people, and ties their individual powers as it 
 were in one bundle together : when, therefore, expe- 
 rience proves that this public spirit is by no means a 
 metaphysical and absurd being, it is the duty of Go- 
 vernment to apply every means to create it. It is the 
 duty of Government to collect the scattered elements 
 of this spirit and to set them in motion. The elements 
 of the public spirit are honour, sensibility, urbanity, 
 which the climate seems to inspire all the qualities by 
 which nature has wished to distinguish nations the one 
 i'rom the other. The art of setting those elements ii: 
 motion consists in a Legislature -in an education in 
 institutions appropriated to the end which is proposed. 
 
 I am far from being able to examine all thoss 
 objects ; I shall only attach myself in this place to the 
 principal point honour, which is, properly speak-
 
 as 
 
 ing, the great lever with which nations are moved, and 
 above all the French nation. 
 
 We owe perhaps the greater part of our evils to the 
 want of distinguishing between honour and honours. 
 What is there, however, common between those two 
 things ? Honour is the foundation of every thing great 
 which is done in the world Honours a simple sign of 
 favour, and oftener the mark of intrigue and of a vile 
 complaisance than of real merit honour excites a ge- 
 nerous emulation honours a base jealousy : these lat- 
 ter render the persons who are distinguished by them 
 indifferent to the interests of the bulk of the nation, 
 and separates him who is clothed with them from the 
 community the honour of each citizen, on the con- 
 trary, is but an emanation or a portion of the national 
 honour. 
 
 All that can be said most favourable to what is called 
 honours is, that they are not precisely incompatible 
 with true honour ; but a man full of blemishes, stains, 
 and disgrace, may unite in his person all titles ; all 
 dignities all decorations all honours; whilst a modest 
 man, full of probity of virtues of talents in a 
 word, of real honour, may possess none of those dis- 
 tinctions which are named honours. Honour is inherent 
 in him who has known how to acquire it. Men strip them- 
 selves of their honours when they pull off their clothes ; 
 but, unfortunately, in the eyes of the vulgar, the latter 
 often dispense with the former, of which they are only 
 
 the representative mark It is a kind of false coin 
 
 which some men often pass for better than that which 
 is free from alloy. Hence the fraud is encouraged, 
 the thing itself is neglected for the sign, and nothingj 
 then, but loss, remains to well-intentioned men.
 
 Without doubt, it is of great advantage to a nation, to 
 be able to pay the most important services which can 
 be rendered it with branches of oak or of laurel with 
 crosses and with ribbands"; but if those distinctions be- 
 come the price of flattery of acting the spy and of 
 services still more shameful, of what utility will they 
 soon become to that nation ? Who would be willing to 
 devote himself to the most painful labours to the most 
 painful privations to obtain them ? who will go to ga- 
 ther them in camps, if they may be obtained in hands- 
 fui in antichambers ? 
 
 When those decorations, however, hare thus become 
 so common and trivial, that even in the eyes of the vul- 
 gar it is no longer an honour to wear them, but only a, 
 dishonour to be without them, those who despise them 
 the most find themselves often obliged to carry them- 
 
 C* / 
 
 selves humbly to intrigue, in order to obtain them; and 
 it is thus that those counterfeit honours end by killing 
 real honour by producing debasement and denaturali- 
 zation, when they ought to raise and purify the soul. 
 They substitute vanity in the place of greatness of soul 
 country is no longer any thing, in the midst of laurels. 
 There is no more aliment for emulation, and ages slick: 
 away without leaving behind any recollections of these 
 innumerable puerilities. But how are we to re-esta- 
 blish true honour in its rights, and to reduce to their 
 just value so many parasitical distinctions* By per- 
 mitting the truth to circulate freely nothing- mora is 
 necessary. Therefore, instead of such a multitude of 
 controverted facts, which are employed for interested 
 purposes in order to obtain belief for those who run af- 
 ter honours to engross them to themselves, we shall 
 know what reality the facts which we hear possess-
 
 40 
 
 made clear by the faculty of discussion, they will be 
 stripped of exaggeration and false colours which change 
 their appearance, and imposture exposed shall not suc- 
 ceed in taking possession of those recompenses which 
 should belong to merit alone. Then shall justice openly 
 rendered to this man devclope itself more and more his 
 appeals being no longer strangled by influence and 
 boasting, each man will exert himself to gain the esteem 
 of his fellow-citizens, without any fear of seeing himself 
 thwarted by impudent quackery. The faculties will 
 acquire power from the expectation of public consider- 
 ation, and every man will be eager to follow the paths 
 traced out for every class of citizens by the mighty pros- 
 perity of the nation. 
 
 We have already seen that it is by the propagation 
 of knowledge that men can arrive successively at the 
 discovery of those paths; but the free circulation of 
 thought must necessarily perform two services 'at the 
 same time-namely, to make known the best things and 
 the best men by drying up the sources of error and in- 
 trigue. Such should be the natural effects of the li- 
 berty of the press. Effects quite contrary must take 
 place, of course, if it remain compressed.* A division of 
 
 * The non-liberty of the press deprives the public of one of.their 
 greatest enjoyments, namely, that of discovering truth with cer- 
 tainty : the public must be told expressly, that they are not to give 
 their belief to it, or that they believe one half to be concealed, if 
 they are prevented from having information conveyed to them 
 through a free and open channel : the non-liberty of the press is, 
 as it has been called, and as we feel every day, the exclusive pri- 
 vilege which some men reserve to themselves, of blackening, 
 lacerating, and defaming the characters of whomsoever they 
 please, without granting to him, thus exposed to a moral death, 
 the privilege of complaint. In one of those pamphlets which ap-
 
 41 
 
 powers is sought after, which, instead of perpetually 
 opposing one another, unite, on the contrary, for the 
 purpose of accomplishing the same end. These powers 
 should be, the POWER of OPINION and the POWER of 
 ACTION :- the first searches out the road which leads to 
 prosperity, the second directs in that road all indivi- 
 dual efforts. What signifies a light agitation, which 
 has only for its object to discover what is useful ? A 
 dangerous agitation is never but that which the factious 
 produce ; and what faction can there be, if every one be 
 animated with the same spirit If distinctions be no 
 longer the work of caprice, but that of a just discern- 
 ment enlightened by the analysis of facts if every one 
 acknowledges the necessity of a power, and of the sa- 
 crifice of a portion of his liberty ? Now, we are suffici- 
 ently ripened by experience to be deeply penetrated 
 by these maxims. And if there remain yet any indivi- 
 duals filled with old prejudices in these respects, or ob- 
 stinate in their exaggerated opinions, they will find 
 themselves so lost in the number of those who are fa- 
 tigued with the Revolution, that they will soon be 
 ashamed of their absurd character; and for this the will 
 of the Prince alone is wanting that is the queen be* 
 
 pear as if written under the dictation of the furies, a most inge- 
 nious method has been suggested to the King, of escaping, at 
 once, from all the obligations which his Majesty thought proper 
 to contract towards the people of France, in order that he might 
 mount the throne of his fathers j that is, to declare that he has 
 said so and so, but not promised. We must agree that such 
 juggling as this would do honour to the genius of the Reverend 
 Father Escobar: is it to a King of France to a Bourbon to a 
 son of Henry IV. that it is proposed to act such an ignoble part in 
 the face of nations? 
 
 3)
 
 42 
 
 of the Live : it will be followed universally as soon as 
 the signal is given, and that it shall be known that he 
 desires only the common safety, without any exception 
 of persons. 
 
 I admit that such principles are far different from 
 those dark maxims Divide et Impera. May, therefore, 
 my fellow-citizens see in those hasty reflections nothing 
 more than the sincere desire of preventing every new 
 reaction of inspiring the noble sentiments of that 
 universal benevolence which leads them not to exact 
 from others more than they themselves are capable of 
 performing. May they feel the necessity of sacrificing 
 their individual pride, which divides all to the na- 
 tional pride which re-unites all not to think themselves 
 superior to others by nature, but only by their place in 
 the social order to comprehend that the true end of 
 governments is to maintain harmony between all the 
 parts that those useless distinctions are always odious 
 or ridiculous, or subversive of emulation that it is to 
 this same social order that all the exertions of indivi- 
 duals should have reference that it is susceptible of 
 an infinity of different forms, between which faults and 
 advantages are divided that they all require the exer- 
 cise of power of some kind, and consequently the sacri- 
 fice of a portion of our liberty ! May they, finally, per- 
 ceive that it is better to put up with some inconveni- 
 ences, than to aim at a perfection which in practice is 
 a chimera, and the theory of which is too uncertain 
 that the most useful principle in morals is to learn to be 
 contented with one's lot and that Nature, full of wis- 
 dom, has established a kind of compensation between 
 men, which knows that the inequality of condition be- 
 tween them is almost always more apparent than real.
 
 4S 
 
 As to you MINISTERS who enjoy his Majesty's confi- 
 dence, you doubtless deserve it by your talents, and 
 your devotedness to his sacred person, but you do not 
 know how to encrease the number of his friends you 
 are labouring incessantly in disuniting those whom you 
 ought to unite together you exasperate more and more 
 thousands of people who wish for nothing but concord : 
 you do not inform the SOVEREIGN that in the heart of 
 a King the interests of the great family ought to pre- 
 vail over all private affections. Have you already for- 
 got that NAPOLEON has not fallen from such an emi- 
 nence but for no other reason but because he would not 
 suffer the truth to be mentioned, or that any one should 
 tell it to the French nation ? Is it consistent with the 
 dignity of a Prince to quibble on some obscure expres- 
 sions of the constitutional chart, as if he was already 
 sorry for having given it to us ? and in case of any 
 doubt arising, should it not always be interpreted in 
 the most liberal manner? Should not a King rather go 
 beyond, than stop short of what he has promised ? and 
 ought you not perpetually to remind him of that sublime 
 passage in the Proclamation of his ancestor, Henry IV. 
 when he was nothing more than King of Navarre 
 " Who can say to the King of Navarre that he has 
 forfeited his word?''
 
 44 
 
 JUSTIFICATORY STATEMENTS. 
 
 PROCLAMATION OF THE KING. 
 
 LOUIS XVIII. &c. &c. 
 
 THE moment is at length arrived, when Divine Pro- 
 vidence appears ready to break in pieces the instrument 
 of its wrath. The usurper of the throne of St. Louis, 
 the devatator of Europe, experiences reverses in his turn. 
 Shall they have no other effect but that of aggravating 
 the calamities of France ; and will she not dare to over- 
 turn an odious powerno longer protected by the illusions 
 of victory? What prejudices, or what fears, can now 
 prevent her from throwing herself into the arms of her 
 King, and from recognising, in the establishment of his 
 legitimate authority, the only pledge of union, peace and 
 happiness, which his promises have so often guaranteed 
 to his oppressed subjects? 
 
 Being neither able nor inclined to obtain, but by their 
 efforts, that throne, which his rights and their affection 
 can alone confirm, what wishes should be adverse to 
 those which he has invariably entertained what doubt 
 can be started with regard to his paternal intentions?
 
 45 
 
 
 
 The King has said in his preceding declarations, and 
 he reiterates the assurance, that the Administrative and 
 Judicial Bodies shall be maintained in the plenitude of 
 their power; that he will preserve their places to those 
 who at present hold them, and who shall take the oath 
 of fidelity to him; that the Tribunals depositaries of the 
 laws, shall prohibit all prosecutions bearing relation to 
 those unhappy times, of which his return will have for 
 ever sealed the oblivion; that, in fine, the code polluted 
 by the name Napoleon, but which, for the most part, 
 contains only the ancient ordinances and customs of the 
 realm, shall remain in force, with the exception of enact- 
 ments contrary to the doctrines of religion, which, as 
 well as the liberty of the people, has long been subjected 
 to the will of the tyrant. 
 
 The Senate, in which are seated some men so justly 
 distinguished for their talents, and whom so many ser- 
 vices may render illustrious in the eyes of France, and of 
 posterity, that corps, whose utility and importance can 
 never be duly appreciated till after the restoration, can 
 it fail to perceive the glorious destiny which summons 
 it to become the first instrument of that great benefac- 
 tion which will prove the most solid, as well as the most 
 honourable guarantee of its existence and its preroga- 
 tives ? 
 
 On the subject of property, the King, who has already 
 announced his intention to employ the most proper 
 means for conciliating the interests of all, perceives in 
 the numerous settlements which have taken place be- 
 tween the old and the new landholders, the means of 
 rendering those cares almost superfluous. He engages, 
 however, to interdict all proceedings by the Tribunals, 
 contrary to such settlements, to encourage voluntary
 
 46 
 
 arrangements, and, on the part of himself and his family, 
 to set the example of all those sacrifices which may 
 contribute to the repose of France, and the sincere union 
 of all Frenchmen. 
 
 The Kin has guaranteed to the army the maintenance 
 of the ranks, employments, pay and appointments which 
 it at present enjoys; he promises also to the Generals, 
 Officers, and soldiers, who shall signalise themselves in 
 support of his cause, rewards more substantial, distinc- 
 tions more honourable, than any they can receive from 
 an Usurper, always ready to disown, or even to dread 
 their services. The King binds himself anew to abolish 
 that pernicious conscription, which destroys the happi- 
 ness of families and the hope of the country. 
 
 Such always have been such still are, the intentions 
 of the King. His re-establishment on the throne of his 
 ancestors will be for France only the happy transition 
 from the calamities of a war which tyranny perpetuates, 
 to the blessinge of a solid peace, for which Foreign Pow- 
 ers can never find any security but in the word of the 
 legitimate Sovereign. 
 
 Hartvrell, Feb. 1, 1813. L. 
 
 PROCLAMATION OF MONSIEUR, 
 
 THE KING'S BROTHER. 
 
 WE, Charles-Philip of France, son of France, Mon- 
 sieur, Count of Artois, Lieutenant General of the King- 
 dom, &c. &c. &c. 
 
 To all Frenchmen, greeting. 
 
 Frenchmen! The day of your deliverance approaches; 
 the brother of your King is arrived among you : it is in
 
 47 
 
 the middle of France that he wishes to erect the ancient 
 standard of the lilies, and to announce to you the return 
 of happiness and of peace, under a sovereignty affording 
 equal protection to the laws and to public liberty. 
 
 No more tyrants no more war no more conscrip- 
 tions no more droits reunis (tripple assessments) ; let 
 your misfortunes, at the voice of your Sovereign of your 
 father, be effaced through hope ; your errors by oblivion ; 
 your dissensions by that union of which he wishes to be 
 the pledge. 
 
 The promises which he this day solemnly renews, he 
 burns to accomplish, and to signalize by hisjlove and 
 his goodness, the fortunate moment which, in bringing 
 him back to his subjects, is about to restore him. to, his 
 children. 
 
 THE ANSWER OF THE KING TO THE PRINCE 
 REGENT OF ENGLAND. 
 
 I beg your Royal Highness to accept my most lively 
 and sincere thanks, in return for those congratulations 
 which you are so kind to address me.' I return you 
 my particular thanks for the constant attentions of which 
 I have been the object, as well on the part of your 
 Royal Highness, as of every member of your illus- 
 trious house. To the counsels of your Royal Highness, to 
 this glorious country, and to the courage of its inhabit- 
 ants it is, that, under Providence, I shall always ascribe 
 'the re- establishment f our house on the throne of our
 
 48 
 
 ancestors, and this happy state of things, which pro- 
 mises to close the wounds, to calm the passions, and to 
 bestow happiness on all people. 
 
 THE ANSWER OF MONSIEUR, THE KING'S BROTHER, 
 TO THE SENATE. 
 
 I thank the Senate for what they have done for the 
 happiness of France, by recalling its legitimate Sove- 
 reign. The King and his family will sacrifice their days 
 to the happiness of the French people : there can he but 
 one sentiment amongst us : all that is passed is forgot- 
 ten ; from this day we are a nation of brothers. During 
 the time thUt I shall be at the head of the govern- 
 ment, $(a time that I trust will be very short), I shall 
 employ all the means in my power to promote the pub- 
 lic happiness. 
 
 THE ANSWER OF MONSIEUR, THE KING'S 'BROTHER 
 TO THE LEGSILATIVE BODY. 
 
 We are all Frenchmen we are all brothers. The 
 King is about to arrive amongst us : his only happiness 
 will be to establish the prosperity of France, and to 
 forget past evils. Let us no longer think: but of the 
 future. The King and I have felt, in the most lively 
 manner, the merit of your courageous resistance against
 
 49 
 
 tyranny, at moment when there was great danger in 
 peaking against the cruel tyranny which oppressed 
 France ; -in a word, we are all Frenchmen. 
 
 Articles 8, 9, and 11, of the Constitutional Chart. 
 
 Art. 8. Frenchmen possess the right of publishing' 
 and printing their opinions, conforming themselves to 
 the laws which should repress the abuse of that liberty. 
 
 Art. 9. All property is inviolable, without any 
 exception of that which is termed national, the law 
 making no distinction. 
 
 Art. 11. All inquiries- respecting opinions, and votes 
 given up to the time of the restoration, are forbidden ; 
 the same oblivion is recommended to the tribunals and 
 citizens.
 
 50 
 
 MEMOIRS OF M. CARNOT. 
 
 L. N. M. CARROT, the subject of these memoirs, was born at 
 Nolay, in Burgundy, in the year 1753. His father was a rerj 
 respectable advocate, but not rich: he placed his son early in the 
 artillery, in the study of which he made considerable progress, 2nd 
 was promoted through the interest of the Prince of COHDE. 
 Before he was twenty he published some mathematical essays, 
 an eulogium on Marshal Y r AUBAN, (for which he obtained a prize 
 from the Academy at Dijon,) as also some fugitive poems, for 
 which he was chosen a member of several learned Societies* He 
 was a Captain in the Artillery at the time of the Revolution, and 
 although he owed his education and advancement in life to the 
 I'rince of COJJDE, he nevertheless became its most violent parti, 
 zan. In September 1791, the department of the Pas dc Calais 
 elected him a Member of the Leaislative Body. One of his first 
 public speeches which he there delivered was for the impeachment 
 of the French Princes of the Blood. He afterwards proposed 
 substituting Serjeants for officers, and made a motion that the 
 principle of passive obedience to the officers should be erased from 
 the regulations of the army. His next motion was* that 300,000 
 pikes should be manufactured for the purpose of arming the sant 
 culMes, On the 9th of Jun% 1702, he obtained a Decree to 
 honor the memory of General THEOBALD DILLON, who was 
 murdered at Lisle by his own soldiers. 
 
 After the 10th of August, CARNOT was sent to the army of 
 Marshal LUCKNER, to notify the abolition of Royalty. lie -was 
 appointed a Member of the Convention, and voted for the death 
 of Locis XVI. without an appeal to the people. Shortly after 
 that unfortunate catastrophe he was sent as one of the repieseu-
 
 51 
 
 tatives of the people to the army of the North, where on the field 
 of battle he cashiered General CR ATI EN, who had retired before 
 the enemy, and he himself marched at the head of his columns. 
 On his return to the Convention he was appointed a Member of 
 that Committee of General Safety which governed in the name 
 of the Convention, and was itself governed by ROBERSPIERRE, to 
 whom alone the sanguinary measures which characterized the 
 Reign of Terror were afterwards imputed. Then began CARSOT'S 
 great influence in military affairs: being master of all the plans 
 which were deposited in the public offices since the time of Louis 
 XIV. he directed the operations of the French armies, shewed 
 himself extremely jealous in this species of glory, and even wanted 
 to claim the success of the battle of Maubeuge, gained by JOURDAN, 
 at which he was present as Commissioner from the Convention.. 
 It cannot be disputed that the plans and instructions he delivered 
 in the name of the Committee of Public Safety, contributed to 
 the victories of the French. On the 1st of April, 1794, he caused 
 the Executive Council to be abolished, which was succeeded by 
 twelve acting commissioners: on the 5th of May following he was 
 chosen President of the Convention. 
 
 CARNOT has been reproached with signing all those sangui- 
 nary decrees -with ROBERSPIERRE and others, which brought so 
 much misery on France, although he occupied himself in the 
 Committees of Public and General Safety, principally with mi- 
 litary affairs, nay .even some of the most atrocious official letters 
 were signed by him, BILLAUD DE VARENNES and BARRERE, to 
 which ROBERSPIERRE'S name is not affixed: the following 
 addressed to JOSEPH LE BON, the Pro-Consul, at Arras, de- 
 serves to be particularly noticed. It is dated l6th Nov. 1793, 
 and is extracted from the Meniteur. " Dear Colleague, You 
 are to take the most energetic measures, which the public safety 
 require. Continue in your revolutionary attitude. The amnesty 
 \vhichwasproclaimedbythedeceitful Constitution of 1791, is a 
 crime which cannot be palliated by others. Delinquencies against 
 a Republic are not to be forgiven they are expiated by the sword. 
 Cause the travelling expences of the denunciators to be dis- 
 charged by the treasury ; they have deserved well of their country. 
 Shake fire and swerd over the heads of -traitors. Always march 
 on this revolutionary line which you boldly trace out: the Com-
 
 52 
 
 fnitiee applaud your labours. All those measures are not only 
 permitted to you, but commanded by \our mission." 
 
 The violent measures adopted at Orange, in the department of 
 Vauciuse, arc particularly ascribed to, CARNOT. When Ro- 
 BF.RSPIERRE fell, CARNOT continued in the Committees^ and he 
 then accused CARRIER and TURREAU with their sanguinary con- 
 duct in La Vendee. In a report which he made to the Conven- 
 tion, on the 2d of Jan. 179~>, respecting the successes of the French 
 army in Flanders and Holland, CARNOT endeavoured to revive 
 tiie decree of ROBERSFIERKE, that no quarter should be given to 
 the Fnglish. This motion excited murmurs, and TALLIEN accused 
 liim of aping BARREHE. When the latter was, in his turn, accused 
 by the Convention jointly with COLLOT D'HERBOIS and BILLAUO 
 DE VARENNES, as accomplices in ROBFRSPIERRE'S cruelties, and 
 -were ultimately sentenced to be deported to Cayenne: an excep- 
 tion was made in favour of ROBERT LINDET and CARNOT; of 
 the fatter it was said, by BOURDON DE L'OisE, " that he was the 
 man who organized victory," yet CARNOT was not much inclined 
 to be exempted from the charges in which BARRERE and the 
 others were implicated ; and on that occasion he made the follow- 
 ing curious speech : 
 
 " Behold (said he) into -what an abyss they wish to drag you ! 
 By directing against you the double accusation, the dilemma of 
 baibarity or of weakness, they wish to bring you to agree that you 
 were all the accomplices of Roberspierre the one party by cruelty, 
 the other by cowardice; but citizens, it is only the" abettors of 
 the system of debasement, or of the absolute dissolution of the na~ 
 tional representation, who either do not know how, or do not wish 
 to answer such pitiful arguments. I myself, citizens, declare, that 
 en every occasion you have done that which you ought to do that 
 you could not have followed a different line without overturning 
 he basis of the democracy to which you have sworn. Citizens, 
 we are in this place discussing principles we are considering of 
 the manner of avenging the national representation, for the out- 
 rages which are perpetually committed against it on pretence of 
 excusing it. 
 
 *' You are the delegates of a free people : that people have not 
 stripped themselves of their rights to invest you with them ; it is on 
 the contrary to preserve them that they have sent you hither. You
 
 are not here for the purpose of giving them laws, but to frame, de- 
 clare, and promulgate those which are the expression of their own 
 will. You have received a tacit but imperative mandate, not from 
 your respective departments by no means from any one section of 
 the people but from the whole collective people; it is their will 
 which makes the law, not yours: the declaration of rights has 
 expressly told you so: it tells you that the law is the expression of 
 the general will. Your manner of seeing things, even though it 
 should be better, cannot be substituted in place of that of 
 the people; and it is not your own proper opinion which you can 
 here express, but that of your constituents, that is to say, that 
 which you, in your own consciences, believe to be not the best in 
 itself, but that of the majority of Frenchmen. If you believe that 
 the majority is in an error, enlighten them. But should they 
 obstinately persevere in wishing that which even in your opi- 
 nion might be against their interests, you ought either to resign or 
 vote as they expect. Such is the irrefragable principle of a re- 
 presentative democracy ; otherwise, citizens, we must renounce 
 the popular government; it would be necessary to declare that 
 we are under an aristocratical regime, and that we thought it 
 would be better to substitute the will of seven hundred individuals 
 chosen by the people, in place of the will of the people 
 themselves. 
 
 " The people may sometimes deceive themselves, but they are 
 never to be considered as guilty for they would be so against 
 themselves and besides, citizens, we are not to believe that that 
 sort of instinct that feeling received from nature, is less certain 
 than our reasoning; experience is not often in favour of specu- 
 lative truths. 
 
 "Now Citizens,those decrees with which they appear to reproach 
 you those contradictory laws which it was necessary to repeal, 
 was it you that have enacted them ? Then would you have been 
 culpable. Or supposing that you have yielded to what you con- 
 ceived to be the general will, when you voted the law o'f the 
 Maximum for instance, or any other, the question was not tc 
 know whether yon merchants or you philosophers found this a 
 bad law, but if the people wished it or not. You believed that 
 they desired to have it, and it was your duty to believe it, after 
 the multitude of petitions which were presented to you on that
 
 54 
 
 jubjecl: you have decreed it you have done your duty. How- 
 ever you have not ceased in your discussions to discover its 
 faults; the people themselves have ascertained them. You have 
 repealed the law yon have still done your duty. 
 
 "Those apparent contradictions far from imputing to you a 
 wrong, prove on the contrary your steadiness in the line which is 
 traced out to you hy the declaration of rights and the principle of 
 representative democracy. 
 
 "How great then must be that blindness or that fatal frenzy which 
 serves the designs of Aristrocracy and Royalism so very ably to 
 .desire that the Convention should appear guilty in the eyes of the 
 people, of self accusation, and self disparagement that people 
 whom they (the Convention) have represented as they ought 
 whom they have constantly served with zeal and dignity. Would 
 you wish to call on them to gather the fruits of the numerous sa- 
 crifices which they have made ? Lay aside your dissentions 
 adjourn your quarrels, and give them a Government, for you have 
 none. It is necessary for you to say, Citizens, the apprehension 
 of an extravagant responsibility has caused its dissolution." 
 
 He from that period was no longer employed in either of the 
 Committees, but retained his seat as member of the Convention. 
 When the Directory was established in 1795, CARNOT was made 
 one of its body, and for some time retained a considerable share 
 of influence; but he let B ARRAS take from him the port- folio of 
 war, and from that time became his secret enemy. In 1797 a 
 party having been formed in the councils against the Directory, 
 he sought to make use of it to overthrow his adversary; this party 
 which had other views, was not his dupe; but he was himself 
 tricked by LAREVEILLIERE, who by BARRAS'S direction, seemed 
 for a very short time willing to aid him, but afterwards suddenly 
 joined his enemies, who then involved him in the proscription of 
 the 4th of September, 1797. It vras singular enough to see 
 CARNOT, an inflexible Jacobin, and a man who voted for the 
 death of his King, accused of favouring a counter-revolution in 
 support of the BOURBONS. He, however, avoided being banished 
 to Cayenne by escaping to Germany, where he published a work 
 explanatory of his conduct. In this pamphlet which is entitled 
 *' An Answer to Bailleul," Carnot shews himself as well provided 
 with reasons, when he attacks his accomplices, as weak when be
 
 55 
 
 pretends to justify himself. He concludes by declaring, that " lie 
 i* still the irreconcileable foe to kings;" a declaration not a little 
 remarkable, when it is remembered that Carnot printed his book 
 under the protection of the kings who had afforded him an asylum, 
 against the rage of the demagogues. A short time after he pub- 
 lished a supplement to this work, which contains personalities 
 still more violent. These memoirs, re-printed at Paris in 1799* 
 were read there with eagerness by the enemies of the Directory, 
 which then governed; it thten issued an order for the apprehen- 
 sion of the printers; but the blow was struck, and Carnot, by 
 publishing the crimes of his former colleagues, contributed to 
 their downfall, which soon after happened on the 18th of June, 
 1799. After the Revolution of the 18th of Brumaire, Carnot was 
 recalled to France, and appointed Inspector of the Reviews, in 
 February, 1800: and on the 2d of April, War-Minister, which 
 place he did not keep long, but resigned, on account of a disa- 
 greement between | him and Buonaparte, although it is well 
 known that the plan of crossing Mount St. Bernard, which led to 
 the battle of ,Marengo, was planned by Carnot. He then with- 
 drew into the bosom of his family, and was called to the Tribunal 
 on the Qth of March, 180-2. He there shewed the same inflexibi- 
 lity of principle by which he was always distinguished; he fre- 
 quently alone opposed the Government, and ;voted against the 
 Consulate for life; and when it was proposed to confer the Im- 
 perial Dignity on Buonaparte, Carnot delivered the following 
 speech againit it in the Triliunat, on the 10th Flared, 1804. 
 
 "Among the public Speakers who have preceded me,.and all of 
 wkom have supported the motion of our Colleague CUREE, many 
 have anticipated the objections which might be made against it, 
 and have answered them with as much force of talent as powers 
 of persuasion : they have given an example of a moderation 
 vrhich I shall endeavour to] imitate, by proposing other observa- 
 tions which appear to me to have escaped them ; and as for those 
 who shall attribute personal motives to me because I opposed 
 their opinions motives altogether unworthy the character of a 
 man entirely devoted to his country, I shall consign over to them, 
 as a full answer, the mosf scrupulous examination of my political 
 conduct since the commencement of the Kevolntion, and that of 
 jny private life. ,
 
 56 
 
 " I am far from wishing to diminish the praises bestowed on 
 the FIRST CONSUL: were we indebted to BUONAPARTE for the 
 Civil (.'ode alone, his name -would deserve to be transmitted to 
 posterity. But whatever services a Citizen may have been able 
 to render to posterity, reason opposes limits to the national 
 gratitude. If a Citizen has restored public liberty if he has 
 accomplished the preservation of his country, shall the recompence 
 which shall be offered him be the sacrifice of this very same 
 liberty ? 
 
 " From the moment that it was proposed to the people of France 
 to vote upon the question of the Consulate for life, every one 
 could easily judge that there existed a latent design, and foresee 
 an ulterior object. 
 
 " I voted at the time against the Consulate for life ; I shall now 
 vote against the establishment of Monarchy, as 1 think my qua- 
 lity of Tribune obliges me to do ; but it shall always be with the 
 necessary caution not to rouse the spirit of party it shall be 
 without personalities without any other passion than that for the 
 ' public good, and also acting consistently with myself in the de- 
 fence of the popular cause. 
 
 " I always professed submission to the existing laws, even yrlien 
 they displeased me most : more than once have I been the victim 
 of my devotedness to them, and I shall not at this day pursue a 
 contrary course. I declare therefore at the very outset, that 
 though I am combating the proposition before us, the moment 
 a new order of things shall be established that it shall have re- 
 ceived the approbation of the general mass of the citizens, I shall 
 be the first to conform all my actions to it to give to the su- 
 premeAuthority all themarks of deference which the constitutional 
 heirarchy will demand. May every member of the great society 
 be able to put forth vows equally sincere, and equally disinterested 
 as my own ! 
 
 "I shall by no means enter into the discussion as to the prefer- 
 ence which in general such or such a system may obtain over 
 such or such another. Volumes without number are extant upon 
 this subject. I shall confine myself to examine in very few words 
 and in the most simple terms, the very particular case in which 
 circumstances have placed us. 
 
 " All the arguments offered to us, up to this very day, for the 
 re-establishment of Monarchy in France, are reduced to the asser-
 
 57 
 
 lion that without it there exists no way of providing fur the stabi- 
 lity of the Government and the public safety of escaping from 
 iijtestine discoid, and of uniting against foreign enemies : that 
 the republican system has been tried in vain in all possible ways- 
 that anarchy has been the only result of such great efforts a Re- 
 volution prolonged and continually jevived the perpetual fear 
 of new disorders, and consequently a universal and profound 
 desire of seeing the Hereditary Government re-established 
 changing the dynasty alone. It is to these points that I am to 
 answer. 
 
 "I shall observe,in the first place, that when a government is vested 
 in one man, it is by no means an assured pledge of stability and 
 tranquility. The duration of the Roman Empire was not longer 
 than that of the Republic had been. The internal troubles of the 
 empire were also greater and crimes more multiplied. The Re- 
 publican pride and heroism its masculine virtues were re- 
 placed by vanity the most ridiculous, by adulation the most vile, 
 cupidity the most unbridled the most absolute carelessness as to 
 the national prosperity. What remedy did the hereditary quality 
 of the throne afford ? Was it not regarded as the lawful inheri- 
 tance of the House of AUGUSTUS? Was not DOMETIAN the son 
 of VESPASIAN a CALIGULA, the son of GERMANICUS a CAM- 
 MILLUS, the son of MARCUS AUR.EI.IUS ? 
 
 " In France, it is true that the la'e dynasty was upheld for eight 
 hundred years, but were the people the less tormented on that 
 account? What intestine disorders what foreign wais were 
 undertaken upon the pretence of the rights of succession which 
 ;the alliances of that dynasty with foreign powers gave ride tot 
 From the moment that an entire nation espouses the interests of 
 one family, it is obliged to interfere in numerous events which, 
 otherwise would have been of the most perfect indifference. 
 
 "We could not, it is true, establish a Republican regime though 
 we have attempted it under different forms, more or less democratic 
 but it is necessary to observe that of all the constitutions . v/iiich 
 have been successively tried without success, theie is not one that 
 has not been produced in the midst of factions, and which were 
 not the offspring of circumstances as imperious as fugitive. Here 
 then are the reasons why they all have been defective. But since 
 the 18th Brumaire we have an epoch perhaps unique in the aiinab 
 
 f the world, to provide a harbour against a stonn to establish 
 
 fi
 
 58 
 
 liberty on solid bases, approved by experience and reason. After 
 the Peace of Amiens, BUONAPARTE might have chosen between 
 the Republican and Monarchical system he might have dons 
 every thing he wished, he would not have met with the slightest 
 opposition. 
 
 "The depot of our liberty was intrusted to him; had he fulfilled 
 the expectations of the nation which had judged him alone capable 
 of resolving the grand problem of public liberty in all its extended 
 bearings, he would have covered himself with matchless glory- 
 It is true that before the 18th Brumaire the state was falling int 
 dissolution, and that absolute power has drawn it from the brink 
 of the abyss: but what conclusion is to be drawn from that ? That 
 which every one knows that political bodies are subject to mala- 
 dies which cannot be cured but by violent remedies ; that a mo- 
 mentary dictatorship is sometimes necessary for the preservation 
 of liberty. The Romans, who were so jealous oY it, had, rtotwith- 
 standing, acknowledged this supreme power at intervals: but are 
 we, because a violent remedy has saved the patient's life, to be al- 
 ways administering violent remedies? The Fabii the Cincinnati 
 and the Camilli saved Roman liberty by absolute power but they 
 did so because they divcstetUthemselves of that power as soon as 
 possible they would have destroyed liberty by the very act, had 
 they attempted to retain this power. C.*SAR was the first who 
 wished to keep it he was its victim, but liberty was annihilated 
 for ever. Thus every thing which to this day has been said on 
 absolute power, proves merely the necessity of a momentary dic- 
 tatorship in the crises of the state, but not that of a permanent and 
 immoveable power. 
 
 " It is by no means from the nafure of their government that great 
 Republics are deficient instability: the reason is, that being un- 
 provided against internal storms, it is always violence which pre- 
 sides at their establishment. One alone was the work of philosophy, 
 organised in a calm, and this Republic subsists fuU of wisdom and 
 vigour. It is the establishment of North America which present 
 the phenomenon, and every day their prosperity receives additions 
 which astonish the other nations; tlnis it has been reserved for the 
 New World to instruct the Old, that nations n.ay subsist in peace 
 under a regime of liberty and equality. Yes, I presume to lay it 
 down as a principle, that when an order of things can be established 
 without being under any apprehension of the influence of faction,
 
 59 
 
 which thing the first Consul might have accomplished, particu 
 larly after the Peace of Amiens, and which he has it still in his 
 power to do it is easier to form a Republic without anarchy than a 
 Monarchy without despotism for how can we conceive a limita- 
 tion which is not illusory, in a Government, the head of which 
 holds the entire executive force in his hands, and has all employ- 
 ments to bestow. Men speak of institutions which they say are 
 calculated to produce this effect; but before the establishment of 
 Monarchy is proposed, should not those who propose it have been, 
 able to convince themselves previously, and also be able to demon- 
 strate to those who are to vote on the question that such institu- 
 tions are in the order of possible things-^that they are not 
 such metaphysical abstractions as are objected to the contrary 
 system? So far as we have gone nothing has been invented 
 to moderate the supreme power, such as is termed intermediary 
 or privileged bodies. But is not the remedy worse than the dis- 
 ease ? For absolute power only takes away liberty, while the in- 
 stitution of privileged orders takes away at once both liberty and - 
 equality/, and although, even in the first days of our monarchy, 
 the great dignitaries were only persona!, it is very well known that 
 they always ended in the same- manner as the great^t;/* in becoming 
 hereditary. Without doubt there would not be any room for he- 
 sitation in the choice of an hereditary chief, were it necessary for 
 us to have one. It would be absurd to compare with the Firt Con- 
 sul the pretensions of a family fallen into just contempt, and whose 
 sanguinary and vindictive dispositions are but too well known.* 
 The recall of the House of Bourbon would renew the frightful 
 scenes of the Revolution, and proscription would be most assuredly 
 extended to the property, as well as to the persons of almost the 
 entire of the citizens ; but the exclusion of that dynasty does not 
 draw along with it the necessity of a new one. Are there men who 
 
 [NOTB- BY THE TRANSLATOR.] 
 
 * M. CARNOT is himself a living instance of the false and injurious nature 
 of this remark on the dispositions of the family of the Bourbons. Were they 
 vindictive, he would not be now living iu the bosom of his country, and al- 
 lowed to insult the common understanding and moral sense of Frenchmen 
 with the false reasoning and ill-founded invective which abound in so many 
 parts of his " Memorial." What proscriptions hare b?en heard of since 
 the return of the Bourbons ?
 
 60 
 
 hope to hasten the happy epoch of a general peace by elevating 
 a new dynasty to the throne ? Would not that be rather a new ob- 
 stacle ? Have we commenced by obtaining assurance that the 
 other great powers of Europe will adhere to this new title ? And 
 if they do not consent to it, shall we take up arms to force them 
 or, after having lowered the title of Consul below that of Emperor, 
 will he be satisfied to be Consul with respect tt Foreign Powers, 
 whilst he is Emperor with respect to Frenchmen alone ? 
 
 " Has liberty then been shewn to man that he might never enjoy 
 it? Has it then been incessantly presented to his view as a 
 fruit to which he cannot reach his hand without being struck 
 with death ? Thus, then, would nature, which makes this liberty 
 a want so pressing, be inclined to treat us as step-mother. No, 
 1 cannot consent to look upon this good, so universally preferred 
 to all others, but as one without which all others are mere illusions. 
 My heart tells me that liberty is possible, and that the government 
 arising from it is more easy and more stable than any arbitrary 
 govcinment than any oligarchy. 
 
 "But, nevertheless,(l repeat it,) I shall be always ready to sacii- 
 rice my dearest affections to the interests of our common country ; 
 I shall be satisfied to have once more caused to be heard the ac- 
 cents of an independent mind; and my respect for the law will be 
 so much the more sure, as it is the fruit of long misfortunes, and 
 of this reason, which commands us imperiously, at this day, to re- 
 unite, as one body, against the implacable enemy of one party as 
 well as the other of this enemy, which is always ready to foment 
 iiscord, and to whom all means are lawful, provided he can at- 
 tain his end, namely universal oppression and tyranny over tl^e 
 whole extent cf the ocean."* 
 
 " I vote against the proposition." 
 
 [NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR.] 
 
 * Ta.iudsje of your former conduct, when Member of the French Govern- 
 ment, I apprehend that you had as much regard for the liberty of the seas 
 as you had for the liberties of the Continent. You could not have forgotten 
 that, when you were President of the Directory, you signed au Arrete, or- 
 dering French cruizers to burn, destroy, and sink British property which 
 might be found on board of Neutral Vessels; and still you accuse the 
 Knglifh of being the Tyrants of the Ocean. By the above Arrele it ap- 
 pears that you respected the Neutral Flag, in the same vay aa you did tbs 
 neutrality of several Continental States !
 
 It is necessary to state that CARNOT v'as the only member of the 
 Tribunate which voted against conferring, the Imperial dignity on 
 BUONAPARTE. 
 
 In 1806, when the Tribunat was suppressed, CAKNOT again re- 
 tired into private life, and soon after published a work on Geo- 
 metry. He is not a rich man, his only property consists in a small 
 landed estate near Dunkirk. It is well known that he did not en- 
 rich himself by the Revolution. He remained in obscurity from 
 that time till last January, when the Allies entered France, and 
 Carnot being not quite at his ease respecting his fate, should the 
 Bourbons be re-established, offered his services to Buonaparte, as 
 appears by the following letter which he addressed to him, and 
 which was origjoally published in the Antigallican Monitor on 
 Sunday the 2oth of September last. 
 
 / 
 
 To /its Majesty the Emperor Napoleon* 
 
 Paris, Jan- 24, 1814. 
 
 SIRE, So long as success crowned your enterprises, I abstained 
 from offering such services to your Imperial and Royal Majesty, 
 as might not perhaps have been agreeable to you. Now that bad 
 fortune puts your firmness to the grand test, I no longer hesitate 
 to offer your Majesty the feeble means which I still possess. Tri- 
 fling, indeed, are the efforts f a man who has passd his sixtieth 
 year; but I think that the example of an old soldier, whose patri- 
 otic sentiments are well known, may rally round your Eagles many 
 persons who have not yet made up their minds to what party to 
 attach themselves, and who may allow themselves to be led away 
 by a notion, that to serve their country would be to abandon it. 
 Those are not my sentiments, however I have differed with you as 
 to the titles which you have assumed, and however I opposed your 
 wishes in giving to France a Regal Government, yet now that our 
 common country is threatened by a foreign invasion, as well as the 
 danger of having the old dynasty forced upon us a dynasty which 
 almost every Frenchman had sworn to renounce, the restoration of 
 which can only subject onr country to all the horrors of discord 
 and persecution, I eagerly wait the opportunity, to shew you and 
 my countrymen, that I have determined to fight for, and die in a 
 cause which I always have, and always shall consider a just cause 
 the establishment of a Republic in France. Millions of Frenck-
 
 62 
 
 men have ir.oistcneJ it with their blood. The manes of all 
 those brave warriors who have died on the field of honour call 
 aloud for every Frenchman to defend his country against foreign 
 invaders, and against the Bourbons. 
 
 You have still time, Sire, tp conquer a glorious peace, and to act 
 in such a manner as to acquire the love of the Great Nation. 
 
 I am, &c. (Signed) CARNOT. 
 
 In consequence of the above letter he was appointed to the com- 
 mand of Antwerp, which town he defended with much bravery, 
 although repeatedly attacked and summoned to surrender, nor 
 would he give up the city, even after the Provisional Government 
 was established in France, till he received the order direct from 
 Louis XVIII. Qn the ISth of April last he published .the follow- 
 ing Proclamation at Antwerp. " We, the Governor, Generals, 
 &c. Sec. both of the army and, navy of Antwerp, adhere without 
 restriction to the acts of the Senate, of the Legislative Body, and 
 Provisional Government of the 1st, 2d, and 3d inst. and swear to 
 preserve and defend this place to the last extremity, in the name 
 of Louis XV III.." 
 
 When Carnot returned to Paris, he had an audience of the 
 French King, and it is reported thai his Majesty wished to 
 continue his employment in the army, but that he declined it. 
 A few months after he wrote the " Memorial" addressed to his 
 Majesty, the Translation of which is now before the Public. 
 
 In justice to M. Carnot it is pioper to add, that he has always 
 maintained a character for incorruptibility as well as consistency. 
 The former part of the character is justly deserved , but adhering 
 to a system replete with en or and crime, may be justly termed 
 obstinate perversity, rather than consistency. 
 
 As the Spectator observes that people are generally desirous of 
 knowing something of the person of the author whose work they 
 read, the writer of these Memoirs can, from personal knowledge, 
 gratify public curiosity in this respect, by informing them that M. 
 Carnot is of the middle size, regular features and expressive coun- 
 tenance very pale, cold in his manner, and slovenly in his dress, 
 lie has not at all the appearance of a military man. 
 
 It is very singular that though M. Carnot is a siaunch Repub- 
 lican, the author *)f this Memoir has ofcen heard him say, that 
 he loved a Republic, bat hated Republicans.
 
 The Publisher having informed the Translator that many Persons enquire 
 after the following Letter, he has thought proper to add it to this Second 
 Edition of " CARVOT'S Memorial." As the reasons already given in the 
 Preface for the publication of the " Memorial," are in substance applicable 
 to the publication of the " Denunciation," it is unnecessary to repeat 
 them here. 
 
 An Account of the LIFE of M. DE LA TOUCHE will be found to fv.'lotv 
 the Letter. 
 
 TO 
 
 OF THE ACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BY WHICH THE MINISTERS 
 
 OF HIS MAJESTY HAVE VIOLATED 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION, 
 
 BY MEHEE DE LA TOUCHE, 
 
 JJurmerly Under Secretary of State (Chef de Division) in the Foreign 
 Department, and in the War Department. 
 
 SIRE, 
 
 At the moment of that crisis of danger which the ig- 
 norance or despotism of the agents of power have almost 
 always produced, Princes have never failed to discover 
 that they have been deceived, and that things would 
 have taken a different course had the truth been exhibited 
 to them by faithful servants. They have always deplored
 
 64 
 
 (when fallen into the abyss) the fatality attached to their 
 condition, which seemed to condemn them to be the 
 perpetual sport of the passions of their Ministers and 
 Courtier?. Such late regrets sometimes have the effect 
 of absolving them before the indulgent tribunals of their 
 contemporaries; but history, more severe, punishes those 
 faults which have caused the ruin of generations by a 
 measure of justice proportioned to their crimes, and 
 when she traces out with an independent hand the errors 
 of people and of Kings, she with equal justice reproaches 
 the one with that stupid submission, by means of which 
 tyranny has been consolidated, and the other with the 
 little care which they had taken to assure to truth that 
 access to the throne which she ought to find. 
 
 Fortunately, Sire, these reproaches will never be de- 
 served by you, or by the people submitted to your Go- 
 vernment. Your Majesty is too enlightened not to fore- 
 see the case, in which the inexperience of those to whom 
 you have consigned the management of your affairs, 
 might make your Majesty's interference between your 
 Ministers and your people necessary. Frenchmen, you 
 have said, have a, right to publish and to print their opi- 
 nions, only conforming to the laics which should repress the 
 abuse of that liberty. By making this solemn declaration 
 your Majesty has deprived us of every pretext for com- 
 plaining, on some future day, of that servitude into which 
 we would have voluntary fallen, should we lay down 
 those arms which yourself has deigned to put into our 
 hands for the purpose of preventing it. Should that 
 misfortune 'ever happen, you would have a right to say 
 to us:" Have I not foreseen the possibility of my being 
 deceived? Have not I myself furnished you with the 
 means of preserving me from it ? If I was under the
 
 65 
 
 necessity of confiding great powers to my Ministers, have 
 not I given you the means of informing me when they 
 abused these powers ? In recovering for you your rights, 
 and in recognizing them, has your Prince told you not to 
 use them but in such manner and circumstances as might 
 best suit those against whom he has provided you with 
 them ? This phrase, 'conforming to the laws,' can it mean 
 conforming to the caprice, the opinion, the interest, or the 
 will of a Censor? The Ministers are afraid that, you 
 might censure their administration! Well, then, it is 
 proper they should fear it is even proper that their 
 measures should be censured by those who have reason 
 to find fault with them : it is necessary that those cen- 
 sures should be known to me, in order that I might ap- 
 preciate their merit. Behold the usage which it was my 
 intention to authorise. As to the abuses of the privilege 
 which men may fall into, we have laws proper to repress 
 them. Would I have feared those abuses of your rights 
 if I had intended to keep to myself the direction of the 
 use? Could you have forgotten the very words of your 
 King words so clear, so precise to admit the in- 
 terested interpretations of his agents? What terms, 
 what forms must I make use of to verify and con- 
 solidate my principles, if an act the most religious, the 
 most holy, the most solemn, of my authority, appeared 
 no more respectable to you than the cavils, so often con- 
 futed, of those who had enslaved you?" 
 
 Behold, Sire, what your Majesty would not fail to say 
 to us, if, in marching on to a general reorganization under 
 your auspices, we should let go the thread which you 
 have held out to save us ! 
 
 Fear not, Sire, that we shall again fall into that snare 
 into which every species of tyrants have in turn dragged
 
 66 
 
 us, for five and twenty years, with such deplorable sue* 
 cess. Your Majesty hath willed that the press should 
 be free It shall be so, and you shall be obeyed on this 
 point as well as every other. You have desired to secure 
 to yourself the means of discovering the truth; you have 
 nothing to fear from it; you shall know it, therefore, of 
 whatever kind it may be, and its reign, which shall have 
 commenced with yours, shall be dated from the first year 
 of the restoration. 
 
 You are led, Sire, into a deplorable error, if you are 
 persuaded that the public opinion is the same at this day 
 as at the time of your return. That joy, so pure, of 
 which you were at once the witness and the cause, has 
 given phce to that dark restlessness, to this general dis- 
 trust, the ordinary aliment of factions, and the first means 
 to which disorganizes resort. The security which your 
 consoling words inspired, hath fled before those measures 
 of your Ministers, following one after another so rapidly; 
 and those unfaithful or aukward servants have conducted 
 themselves in such manner, as if they had undertaken 
 the task of proving that the consoling principles pro- 
 fessed by your Majesty were nothing but a trap to de- 
 ceive the nation, and one of'those means which the ma- 
 diiavelism of tyrants hath always employed to lull their 
 victims to sleep before they sacrifice them. 
 
 Deign, Sire, to compare for a moment the paternal in- 
 tentions which you so happily expressed to us, with the 
 manner in which they have been fulfilled, and your Ma- 
 jesty will then be able to judge of the effect which that 
 comparison should have on the public mind. It is not 
 the few and weak partisans of the government which 
 has been overturned, neither is it the disorganisers and 
 the evil-disposed : it is all France the most decided
 
 67 
 
 Royalists the very Emigrants themselves, who fearing, 
 with reason, that the want of concordance which they re- 
 mark between the sacred promises of your Majesty and 
 the acts of the Government, may introduce new storms, 
 and may put off indefinitely that repose which they as 
 well as we began to enjoy, make with regret the sad re- 
 capitulation, a picture of which I think it necessary in 
 this place to present. 
 
 A COMPARATIVE EXAMINATION OF ROYAL PROMISES 
 AND MINISTERIAL PERFORMANCES. 
 
 The first acknowledgment which has fallen from a 
 source of truth so very respectable as that of a descend- 
 ant of Saint Louis is, that he has been recalled to the 
 throne of his ancestors by the love of his people. Why is 
 this acknowledgment of a truth, which does honour at 
 the same time to the nation and Prince of a truth 
 which erects his new government on the only title which 
 fenders it incontestible and legitimate, omitted in the 
 preambles of all the acts of the Royal Authority ? Why 
 is it not said, that " our Prince is King by the free 
 choice of the nation," as he is so in reality? Why sul>. 
 stitute in the place of this phrase, so beautiful and so 
 true, the old and trivial for rnula, " Louis, by the Grace 
 of GOD, &c. If it be objected, that a pious Prince, such 
 as ours, accustomed to refer every thing to the will of 
 heaven, has thought it a duty on this occasion to offer 
 to the Supreme Being the homage of the sentiment 
 which prompted the French people to call him to the 
 throne, and that to say, " King by the Gracz of GOD,"
 
 65 
 
 signifies, hi/ the will of fhe people, in whom GOD has 
 inspired that will, we shall answer, that the clypsis is too 
 long ; that the gratitude of the Prince towards his peo- 
 ple could not be too strongly expressed : and we repeat, 
 ir, that the, formula, by the grace of GOD, is common and 
 superfluous. Religion teaches us that nothing happens 
 in the world without the permission of GOD ; but GOD 
 permits many things which the people would not have 
 chosen. GOD has permitted the reign of the Jacobins 
 (to make use of the expression of M. the Abbe MONTES- 
 <juiou)--~ he has permitted that of the Committees of 
 Public Safety, of the Revolutionary Government, of the 
 Directory, of the Consuls, of an Emperor, c. &c. all 
 this has happened by the grace of GOD, and nothing of 
 all this by the free-will of the French. The new formula, 
 the omission of which I regret, might have contained 
 the ancient : the ancient does not necessarily contain 
 the new. When a King is affected and is grateful, it is 
 not natural that he should boast of the less comprehen- 
 sive form, when he might quote the more in his favour. 
 The same spirit of religion which has consecrated the 
 sentiment that Kings and Shepherds are equal before 
 GOD, according to our way of thinking, does not permit 
 a modest Prince to think that GOD is more particularly 
 occupied with him than with every other, and that hea- 
 ven has decided that it should be Louis, rather than 
 PI:TER or PHILIP, who should discharge the duties of 
 executive magistracy in France. That which answered 
 every thing is. that the Frenih people willed it. Our good 
 King has on many occasions repeated it ; it is therefore 
 against his opinion arid his will that the expression is 
 omitted on the most important occasions. 
 The Ministers have not confined themselves to that,
 
 they have wished to humble the nation, and vilify his 
 Royal Majesty, in a poin,t which must affect the people 
 in the most sensible manner. Our journals make our 
 King acknowledge a kind of homage for his Crown to 
 the PRINCE REGENT of England. They make him say, 
 that after GOD, he owes his Crown to htm. Certainly, if this 
 phrase has escaped from his Majesty, we ought to rank 
 it in the class of those compliments of pure courtesy 
 which cost nothing, and which are given for as much as 
 they are worth ; he should make haste to forget it, and 
 by no means give it a place in the annals of his resto- 
 ration. Besides, it is enough for the national honour and 
 glory, that it has not pleased GOD and the English to re- 
 establish Louis XVIII. but when it. pleased the people 
 of France no longer to maintain a Government become 
 insupportable. 
 
 His Majesty admitted, not many months ago, that he 
 was called to the throne by the love of his people, and 
 his Ministers make him date all his acts from the 19th 
 year of his reign! What can be the object of a singu- 
 larity which gives the lie to the Prince himself, to rea- 
 son and to truth ? Are they desirous of making the 
 Prince responsible for the evils which we have suffered 
 during that long period, when we were so plainly 
 deprived both of his counsels and his influence ? Would 
 they wish to charge to the account of his Majesty all the 
 horrors of which we have been the victims the treasons 
 executed in his name against our common country the 
 massacres of the inhabitants of all parties the burnings 
 of our vessels in our ports and harboursall kinds of 
 plots organised in the interior the assassinations of cou- 
 riers the robberies of coaches the falsehoods the 
 calumnies, apd all the crimes with which, were it not
 
 70 
 
 for the law of oblivion, we should have to reproach the 
 zeal of those fanatics who at this day pretend to have 
 served their country in serving the enemies of the State ? 
 Such a project makes us shudder, and we dare not 
 suspect any one of it. 
 
 Do they wish to prove that all our acts, during nine- 
 teen years, were so many crimes and rebellions ? But 
 from whence then comes this fury of always furnishing 
 us with new crimes? And if the intention be to shew 
 obedience to the King, who hath declared that he did 
 not desire to date it but from the 12th of March, why 
 these excursions into times past? Why are we always 
 to retrograde ? In a word, why say a falsehood ? 
 
 His Majesty, on taking into his hands the reins of the 
 Empire has declared, that every thing which had any 
 reference to acts, votes, and opinions, previous to the 
 restoration, should be consigned to oblivion. He has 
 even condescended to make this oblivion one of the 
 principal articles of the Chart, which enjoins it on all tri- 
 bunals and to all the citizens. 
 
 The Ministers are, to all appearance, above the tri- 
 bunals, the citizens, and the Chart itself, inasmuch as 
 that clause was broken the day after its promulgation. 
 Is it by way of oblivion that the authorities and all 
 that belong to them, the priests, the writers, and the 
 journalists, ha/e proclaimed most eagerly those funeral 
 commemorations in honour of every one who died vic- 
 tims of their attachment to one of the parties which have 
 divided France ? Is it for the purposes of oblivion that 
 all the effects of the civil troubles are gucceisively 
 recalled, \vhich are intended for the memory of those 
 who have suffered under the acts of the opposite party 
 -that the press, the statuary art, the pulpits, the
 
 71 
 
 theatres, reproduce those acts which it is pretended are 
 consigned to oblivion that attempts are made to cover 
 France with a funeral crape, and to transform it into 
 one vast lachrirnatory? 
 
 And what would our Ministers say, if we should 
 choose this moment to renew the funeral homages which 
 we formerly paid to those men who fell on the 10th of 
 August, in the contest of the people against the remain- 
 ing defenders of the throne if in those days of general 
 reconciliation we should be disposed to recall to me- 
 mory the assassinations committed on the patriots at 
 Fort John, at Marseilles, at Lyons, at Avignon, &c. and 
 to call forth unseasonable pity for those victims, immo- 
 lated, according to the acknowledgment of the assas- 
 sins, as a holocauste, and in the way of expiation of 
 other assassinations!* Whom do those hypocrites think 
 to impose on, by affecting a grief which does not be- 
 long to the nature of man? The most tender father- 
 the most pious son the most disinterested brother, do 
 not lament but only for a stated time the objects most 
 dear to them. Tears dry up, grief dies away as every 
 thing else, and if at any time the recollection of former 
 afflictions happen to steal a tear, that tear falls isolated 
 and solitary. It was that noise which rendered it sus- 
 pected, and which does not want journalists or preach- 
 
 * T shall not omit observing on the present occasion, that tlw 
 effects which certajn persons doubtless expected from one of those 
 last solemnities, was eluded by the discretion of a worthy priest, M. 
 1'Abbe Duval, who was charged to pronounce the discourse ou 
 those who fell on the 2d of September: this discourse, which dis- 
 covered extraordinary talents, is besides a model of that mode: 
 ration from which true i-iety ond zeal, which the Gosj:d admit*, 
 never depart.
 
 72 
 
 ers. Virtue is fair of herself but, gentlemen, true 
 virtue is modest, and yours makes a bustle, the least 
 inconvenience of which is, that most people do not put 
 any faith in it. The wisest way would be to obey the 
 King, by forgetting those things altogether on both 
 sides. 
 
 Be convinced, that you are as much interested in this 
 oblivion as we are. It would be painful to us to appear 
 to recriminate; but if the emigrants reproach us with 
 the losses they nave experienced during the late war, 
 which is fortunatel} terminated, we shall reply to them 
 in the language of a character in the fable, to the lioness 
 which had lost her whelp 
 
 Ma commcre 
 
 Ceux que cons a~ccz etranglcs, 
 
 N'avaient-il )ii ptrc ni mere? 
 
 The KING had promised to leave each person in the 
 post which he occupied; and the agents of the Royal 
 authority are no sooner named, than all the persons em- 
 ployed under the old Government are dismissed, under 
 the specious pretext of economy ; but, in reality, to 
 make room for a cloud of Priests, to whose ambition 
 the service of the Altar does not offer any thing satis- 
 factory. Complaints were lately heard of the want 
 which we felt of gentlemen of this profession ; there 
 were not sufficient, it was said, to serve the churches! 
 GOD must have worked a singular miracle in their 
 favour, for within these six months means have been 
 found not only to furnish the churches with them, but 
 out of them to furnish Ministers Administration 
 the offices agencies, and all other posts where there is 
 money to be gained, and heads of families to be replaced. 
 All the acts of authority appear as if they emanated from
 
 73 
 
 a council or a conclave. "We are spoken to no longer 
 in any other language, than that of the solemn offices 
 of religion about processions, and every thing which 
 ought to be absolutely foreign to the Administration of 
 the State. In this, we shall presume to ask, that which 
 his MAJESTY intended when he declared to France, that 
 in the constitution which he gave to it, he wished to 
 appreciate the effects of the progress of knowledge, which 
 was perpetually increasing the new relations which this 
 progress had introduced into society- -the direction which 
 during half a century it has given to the public mind, 
 
 &.Jf.t 
 
 The King desires to forget votes and opinions! Is it not 
 insolently opposing the will of the Monarch to drive, as 
 has been done, from every public employment, the men 
 who, in the proceedings of Louis XVI. adopted an 
 opinion fatal to that unfortunate Prince ? These men are. 
 assassins, we are told by theTribunat of our Legislative 
 Chambers, and by the Journals directed by our Minis- 
 ters ! But how long is it since men, constituted judges 
 by a great nation, have become responsible for the sen- 
 tence which their consciences, well or ill informed, dic- 
 tated to them ? I am far from presuming to set bounds 
 to the opinions of a legislator or a writer, but I 
 will boldly assert, that those who deliver themselves 
 to that effect, deserve a most exemplary punishment, 
 not because they have been unjust or insolent, but be- 
 cause they have violated one of the principal articles of 
 the Constitution. 
 
 Perhaps it is believed that the nation may be lulled 
 into security, by its appearing that only some hun- 
 dreds of individuals are persecuted who are accused of 
 this crime: but, in the first place, it is a principle that. 
 
 l?
 
 74 
 
 in the social state, the whole society is injured when one 
 it-dividual is unjustly oppressed; and, in the next place, 
 do they think to persuade us that, after those, the much. 
 more serious crime of those men will be forgotten, who, 
 r.ot being bound to any thing in this question, have ex- 
 pressed their opinions freely and voluntarily on the 
 great and terrible act of the National Convention ? 
 Will it be forgotten, that ninety thousand communes 
 bad each of them, at that epoch, two or three com- 
 mittees, who were eager to applaud it to their repre- 
 sentatives ? Will those innumerable addresses be for- 
 gotten, in which men hastened to felicitate the Conven- 
 tion upon that event, and the two thousand signatures 
 which attest the voluntary assent of so many men? 
 
 The death of Louis XVI. was, in our mind, unjust 
 mid impolitic; unjust, because the person of the Prince 
 lias been declared inviolable, and because no previous 
 law was applicable to his situation; impolitic, because 
 injustice is always so ; and, beside?, a nation which con- 
 jides in her own strength, should prove her confidence by 
 respecting at least the existence of a Piince whose whole 
 crime was, having followed Ifad counsels. Such is the 
 opinion which we at that time endeavoured to propagate; 
 but that was but an opinion, and the national authority 
 has pronounced otherwise. The King by closing, or 
 wishing to close the mouths of his faithful subjects on 
 this point, so very delicate, has himself made a sacrifice 
 sufficiently great to enable him to believe most confiden- 
 tially that he would be obeyed by persons whom that 
 event touched less nearly than his Majesty. An ap- 
 pearance is assumed of prosecuting only a few hundred 
 individuals, but at bottom the cause of those who voted, 
 and that of all those who have approved of the judg-
 
 75 
 
 ment, is the same It is that of an army of two millions 
 of men, who find themselves obliged at this day to put 
 themselves on their defence against the impolitic attack 
 of those who have dispersed their advance-guard. 
 
 Great care is taken, in proscriptions of this nature, to 
 appear to except the army; but besides that, the nature 
 of such considerations as lead to arts of this description, 
 escape nobody : Can the army in such a case be consi- 
 dered distinct from the nation ? Are not our soldiers 
 our children our brothers relations friends? Is it 
 possible to menace the families of five hundred thousand 
 men, without menacing those five hundred thousand 
 themselves ? Shall each individual soldier be prohibited 
 from returning forthwith into his family, where he will 
 fh id himself, beyond all doubt, the son, cousin, son-in-law 
 of an assasin or of the partisans of assassination ? Is this 
 the manner in which our civil discords are terminated, 
 and shall a handful of fanatics presume after this manner 
 to insult and proscribe two generations ? 
 
 The journals are ransacked for all printed opinions; 
 all the books in which are given any ideas of those times; 
 and a pretence is set up to arrange these against the will 
 of the King. In the pages of the Moniteur published at 
 that time, extracts are made of letters of our Generals, 
 in which they gave to the Legislative Body a favourable 
 account of the dispositions of our armies at those epochs, 
 and a willingness is manifested to extract from that 
 iource a considerable quantity of the expressions which 
 the language then made use of furnished against the mo- 
 narchical regime. But what is gained by this ? Some 
 weak men are afflicted, who blush at this day on account 
 of that which they then thought right, whilst reflection, 
 age, and experience, explain so naturally the change
 
 76 
 
 v> Inch has taken place in (heir manner of thinking ; they 
 are troubled, and terror is infused into the souls which his 
 Majesty himself undertook to tranquilize, by inviting us 
 to a security so necessary to us all. 
 
 THE KING HAS DESIRED that no distinction should 
 be made between the properties named national and pa- 
 trimonial property. We shall not advance that Minis- 
 ters have directly and positively established this diffe- 
 rence, but it. exists in fact, and consequently doubts and 
 alarms as to the fate of the Constitution and of France 
 to which it has naturally given rise. It is a fact, that 
 every owner of national property, who might be now 
 disposed to sell or to raise on the said property fortunes 
 for his children, or to borrow a sum of money necessary 
 to put his industry in motion, would be obliged to give 
 up that idea, or to sutler a notable loss, contrary to the 
 wishes of the King and the Constitution which he has 
 given us. 
 
 THE KING HAS DESIRED that personal liberty should 
 be secured to us. It is with this as the preceding article. 
 No perso.i can depend on this so long as the violation of 
 the other Constitutional articles shall not be punished 
 in an exemplary manner. Besides, who can assure 
 us that no person has been arbitrarily arrested, when 
 the only manner in which we could be informed of it, 
 namely, the information of the journals, is exclusively 
 in the hands of the Ministers contrary to the intention 
 of the King and of the Constitution when every a v ticle 
 to be inserted in a public paper is searched and measured 
 by a royal Commissary, na.cned by Ministers when the, 
 insertion of one disagreeable paragraph might com pro- 
 mise the existence or tranquil ity of the author of the 
 printer of the bookseller and of any other person who
 
 77 
 
 might shew it fax f our ? Nothing is in reality securely 
 established whilst there exists in the State any man who 
 has reserved to himself the means of attacking those 
 rights which are troublesome to him 
 
 THE KING HAS DESIRED that his Ministers should 
 be responsible; but as this word responsible has appeared 
 too clear or too-extensive, they have found means of 
 giving to- that article, as well as to all others where the 
 will of the King did not admit of any Jesuitical distinc- 
 tions, a small twist, enough to raise, on a future day. 
 doubt sufficient to introduce a grammatical explanation 
 on that subject, such as may suit their purpose They 
 have added, that they are not to be prosecuted but for 
 treason, and for acts of violence ; and it is in the un- 
 settled meaning of the word treason, that they hope to 
 find their safety. They will pretend, that they have not 
 been guilty of treason, so long as they shall not have de- 
 livered over the person of the King to the enemies of 
 the State ; since it is well known that, according to their 
 meaning, they cannot be guilty of treason but against 
 the King, who has named them to their offices. So long 
 as the Legislative Body shall not have decided, that the 
 
 O ** 
 
 depositary of the Constitution* being intrusted to Go- 
 vernment,, there will be treason committed whenever 
 the Constitution sha-11 have been violated in consequence 
 of the orders of a Minister, their responsibility will be 
 an article at which talaugh ; and this-isso well arranged 
 in their heads^ that they make no scruple to executa 
 every day, in the King's name, ordonnances by which 
 they break existing laws, or. contravene them, in a, most 
 barefaced and criminal manner. 
 
 The Legislative Authority is silent under these in- 
 eroachments of the Government, and authorises, by it.s
 
 78 
 
 silence, the fears and disquietudes which disturb the na- 
 tion, and prevent the consolidation of the new order of 
 things which is so very desirable. 
 
 LASTLY, THE KING HAS DESIRED, that the Press 
 should be free. That article had not been printed, when 
 an order was already issued to the King's bookseller, to 
 stop the circulation of every work that might not be 
 agreeable to the Censors that is to say, to every thing 
 \vhich was known to be most basely and most constantly 
 sold to Ministerial despotism to insolent and ignorant 
 detractors of every thing useful and generous to those 
 men, in a word, who are, as to literature, what eunuchs 
 are in a seraglio Appointed to guard objects which they 
 cannot enjoy, they avenge their impotence by exciting 
 trouble and vexation, for the benefit of their masters. 
 
 In this respect we certainly might be excused from 
 pushing ouv reflections further. It is evident that .the 
 Constitution is violated, from this one circumstance alone, 
 that the Press is not free. This violation is an evil so 
 frightful, that it may appear superfluous after it to en- 
 large on the humiliating or precarious situation to which 
 the French nation, in the nineteenth century, is reduced 
 in that point of view which formerly inspired her with a 
 pride at once ^o noble and so just that of the pre-emi- 
 nence to which her literature entitled her. When pub- 
 lic liberty is crushed by the violation of that Chart 
 v;hich assured it to us, is it meet to deplore the debase- 
 ment of literature- 1 Do men think of the loss of their 
 jewels, when their honour and their lives are in danger? 
 
 Besides, those who have taken the pains to defend the 
 rights of genius and of thought, consecrated so well by 
 the engagements of the Monarch, and who have so ably 
 supported those rights with all the power of courage and
 
 79 
 
 talent, have taken up only the weaker side of the question. 
 We are not all of us men of letters, namely, we who make 
 an outcry for the liberty of the press, but we are all of us 
 citizens and subjects of the State. Our literature might 
 constitute our pride and riches, but a Constitution, sa- 
 credly maintained for all, would have constituted our 
 happiness and tranquility. The liberty of the press 
 guaranteed to us every thing which renders life happy 
 and agreeable. It secures to us our properties our 
 honour our lives, and the punishment of any man who 
 would make an attempt against any one of those bless- 
 ings. The privation of that guarantee delivers us ever, 
 as brute beasts, to the chains and scourges of our keep- 
 ers. I am very eager, doubtless, that men would behold 
 in me the wretched wish to blot over a few sheets of 
 paper when I claim the liberty of the press only against 
 defamatory brigands, who for six francs would butcher 
 any one who might have the honour to incur the displea- 
 sure of the tyrants in whose pay they are! I like to be 
 told hypocrite-ally that I may write a book of three 
 hundred and twenty pages, when I have occasion only to 
 utter these words, THE MINISTERS HAVE VIOLATED THE 
 CONSTITUTION . l 
 
 What reprehensible matter has been printed since the 
 press has been able to enjoy a portion of liberty? 
 
 A few anonymous pamphlets (but those which are 
 anonymous, for no other reason but for this alone, that 
 the authors dare not shew themselves) cannot do any 
 harm : some calumnies, but almost all of them had 
 been inserted in the journals submitted to the cen- 
 sors ; the answers, which alone should have been ad- 
 mitted, have alone been rejected. 
 
 The laws which have been made suffice to insurejus-
 
 tice v to those who have been offended, if the tribunals 
 \vould' wish to execute justice against certain protected 
 rascals; and we must hope that that will happen, when 
 it shall please Ministers to organise the tribunals as the 
 constitution prescribes, and cause to be delivered to the 
 judges that Royal Commission which makes them im- 
 rnoveable and independent. 
 
 Ministers have not been attacked hitherto, but as far as 
 respects their logic, and the innovations which they wish 
 to introduce into language ; and those gentlemen com- 
 plain already of the opposition they meet with ! But it 
 remains with themselves alone to have as many auxilia- 
 ries as there are writers honest and attached to the 
 Constitution. There is nothing more required to effect 
 this, than that they would habituate themselves to 
 respect it, instead of looking round for the means of 
 eluding it with impunity. What, besides, is the great 
 inconvenience of seeing Ministers a little disquieted, 
 compared to that of tormenting an entire nation, which 
 sees the dreadful gulph of arbitrary government once 
 more opening before them! 
 
 It is well known that they themselves feel the weak- 
 ness of their ressonirg; and for the purpose of interest- 
 ing some more august personages in their quarrel, it 
 has been contrived to supply idle curiosity with some 
 pages most highly reprehensible, and which have excited 
 the just severity of the Police ; but who, at this day, is 
 t'ie dupe of a manoeuvre towhich recourse has been had 
 so often ? Fecit is cui procest. This is an axiom fitted 
 for all times which can serve to direct our researches. 
 Besides attempts such as these, devoid of reason those 
 insults offered to the objects of our respect, prove 
 nothing against the liberty of the press, and shew, at
 
 81 
 
 most, only the danger which has been done in the Mo- 
 niteur, of searching for evidence almost always to be 
 suspected, if not palpably false. A law is extant to 
 punish the crime If it be not entirely complete, let the 
 Ministers propose one '^which is more so; but let them 
 not make a handle of crimes to prevent the use of our 
 rights. 
 
 Should we pass from the examination of the Consti- 
 tution to that of the the other acts which emanate 
 directly from the King's will, and which have been given 
 us in his presence, it will be immediately seen that the 
 excellent understanding of this worthy Prince has fore- 
 seen and ordered that which is convenient to us; but 
 that in every particular he is disobeyed in the subsequent 
 proceedings, in which he is either taken by surprise, or 
 which pass without his knowledge. The King, for ex- 
 ample, has caused to be read before the solemn assembly 
 which received the Constitution, an ordonnance, which, 
 excludes strangers from all important functions, not wish- 
 ing to admit to the right of French citizenship any stran- 
 ger who had not merited it by some important services. 
 Well ! in one month after, the journals informed us that 
 a treatyw as entered into with the Swiss, the conditions 
 of which would place the sacred pledge of the King's 
 personal safety at the mercy of a troop of foreigners. 
 The protection of the person of the Chief of the State, 
 will be confined to men to whom the King is not willing 
 to entrust the exercise of the most insignificant public 
 function, and this too when there are in France* 20,000 
 officers as faithful as brave, who most be reformed from 
 economy. We shall be told that those troops will be 
 taken from among a people distinguished for their loyalty 
 and strict adhertnce to their engagements ; we know
 
 8-2 
 
 this, but these soldiers are strangers they are hrave and 
 faithful but they are not braver than Frenchmen : they 
 will not be braver to France than Frenchmen. Their 
 over-scrupulous fidelity is not even without its inconve- 
 nience, and contributes very much to the abuses to 
 which it is liable. They have been seen on the 10th of 
 August, without any order from the King, and cer- 
 tainty contrary to his disposition, obeying the impulse of 
 a blind courage, and commencing a combat, which per- 
 haps would not have taken place had Frenchmen been 
 in their place.* 
 
 Is not the inconvenience evident, of employing troops 
 in France, who might perhaps think themselves bound 
 to avenge on an innocent people a catastrophe so very 
 lamentable to the regiments which preceded them? The 
 same men who wished tor mutes, would they have Janis- 
 saries also ? 
 
 We dare not give room to the ominous conjectures 
 
 * I made one of a company of grenadiers of the, battalion of St. 
 Etienne du Mont. All this battalion was attached to the Consti- 
 tution, and consequently hostile to the movement directed against 
 the castle. They marched there with an intention of defending 
 the King, but the nature of the manoeuvre adopted by their offi- 
 cers, plated them before the Swiss guaid. These inconsiderate 
 hut brave foreigners thought it their duty to fire on them, and 
 the troops which came to support them, seeing themselves at- 
 tacked, yielded to the evil genius which directed that day. I 
 do not know how the affair would have passed, had not the Swiss 
 fired but perhaps it could not have been more unfortunate. I 
 i;r;-jvpd, after an absence of two days, on the evening of the loth, 
 and found my section assembled. Many of them, who had 
 inarched to defend the King, changed by the event, accused 
 and denounced me as an Ari'-.'ocra'c, who had re fust J to inarch 
 to afa-ck the castle. So much lor men en
 
 83 
 
 to whtcli so strange a measure, and so little analogous 
 to the state in which we find ourselves, has given rise ; 
 that which above all is lamentable is, that the men who 
 provoke the people, are possessed with the unfortunate 
 notion that they are the stronger, and authorised to 
 satisfy this vengeance against the people when they are 
 surrounded by thousands of men ! When will it be 
 acknowledged that real force is nothing but. justice 
 that prudence is justice that the security of Govern- 
 in en t is justice? 
 
 There still existed a numerous and invincible body of 
 men, already habituated to preserve to France that which 
 they considered the depositary most dear to her ; they 
 wanted only one virtue Fidelity. The regrets which 
 have escaped from them, recommended them perhaps 
 more to our Monarch, better advised than the desertion 
 of the men most favoured by the fallen Government. 
 Behold the warriors whom we think that we might trust! 
 A noble and generous temerity is the prudence of great 
 souls; it is that which the descendant of HENRY IV. 
 would have adopted, had he delivered himself up to his 
 own sentiments It is perhaps what might have saved 
 us. The measures which the Government takes are not 
 the spring from which proceeds our critique, no further 
 than they are literally contrary to the Constitutional 
 Chart. We shall confine ourselves, therefore, to say, 
 that the calling in of the Swiss guards in France appears 
 to us eminently impolitic, but, if the expression be pre- 
 ferred, that its policy is most rash. We shall presume to 
 loretell, that if it is executed, it will be fatal to France ; 
 and though, on a future day, we may be accused of having 
 ourselves prepared the evils with which we are previously 
 so well acquainted, the vain apprehension of being once
 
 84 
 
 more calumniated shall not prevent us from predicting- 
 that which appears to result necessarily from the nature 
 of things, and to say before-hand, that when we see the 
 seed bad, a bad harvest must follow. 
 
 Behold ! Sire, a picture, rather softened than over- 
 charged with the acts by which your Ministers have de- 
 stroyed, in the minds of the people, the hopes which 
 caused them to forget their sorrows. Behold the truth 
 \vhich no doubt is concealed from you, and which I 
 thought necessary to be placed before the eyes of your 
 Majesty. 
 
 Deigh, Sire, to receive kindly the homage of respect- 
 ful devoteduess with which I am, 
 
 Sire, 
 
 Of your Majesty, 
 The very humble, very obedient 
 and faithful Subject, 
 
 MEHEE DE LA TOUCHED
 
 MEMOIRS OF M. BE LA TOUCHE. 
 
 M. de la Touche, the author of the preceding letter, lately ad- 
 dressed to Louis XVIII. was the son of a surgeon, formerly known 
 by the name of Chevalier de la Touche, resided long in Poland 
 and Russia, \vhence he was driven, in 1792. on account of his revo- 
 lutionary principles; he then went to Paris, and was accounted 
 worthy of being appointed assistant secretary register of the Com- 
 mune called that of August the 10th ; as such, he, Tallicn, and Hu- 
 guenin, signed a resolution on the 30th, conceived nearly in these 
 terms : " The Council has determined that this night and morn- 
 ing the sections shall, on their responsibility, examine and judge 
 the citizens who are in prison." On the 17th of September, when 
 the section of the French Pantheon was deliberating on the mode 
 of Government which the Convention should be required to regu- 
 ?ate, he sent his vote in a billet, thus worded: " If ever a King, er 
 any thing like one, dares to present himself in France, and you 
 want some one to stab him, deign to inscribe me among the candi- 
 dates. Signed by me, Mehee." He was strongly accused of having 
 taken a part in the massacres ef September, but he denied thp 
 charge in the moit formal and positive manner; he had little weight 
 during the time of the revolutionary Government, which even sent 
 him to prison. After the 27th of July, 1794, he again appeared in 
 public life, connected himself wtth|Tallien, and was one of the 
 principal writers of the numerous pamphlets then directed against 
 the Jacobins, who Mehee ludicrously termed Robespierre's tail. - 
 Most of his writings were signed Felbeinesi, the anagram of Me-
 
 86 
 
 Iiec fils, or Mehec junior. However, when tlie progress of reaction 
 threatened the Thermiilorian party itself, he endeavoured to on- 
 ciliate the Jacobins, and declared that circumstances had led him 
 farther than he intended to go. In 1795 he even began the Jour- 
 nal of the Patriots of 1789, of which he and Real were the princi- 
 pal conductors, and in which he opposed the system of moderation 
 which signalised the latter part of the reign of the Convention, 
 and brought on the crisis of Oct. the 5th, 1795, at which period it 
 was proposed to raie Meheeto the . irectory, and in fact he was, 
 on the 25th of November, nominated Secretary for the War De- 
 partment, and afterwards for Foreign Affairs; hut the accusations 
 of having assisted in the massacres of September were renewed 
 against him with such violence, that he could nto keep his place 
 long at a time when moderation was the ruling principle of Go- 
 vernment as well as of public opinion, and he resigned in April, 
 1796, that he might, as he said, employ his time in justifying himself, 
 lie afterwards joined a company of purveyors, who refused to pay 
 him the interest they had agreed on, and against whom he brought 
 an action at law. In July, 1796, Drouet desired to have him for 
 his defender, but he was on the point of being himself implicated 
 in Babeufs conspiracy. After the revolution of the 18th Brumaire 
 he was appointed Editor of the Freeman's Journal, but he con- 
 tinued in this office only three months, for having thought fit to 
 write against the priesthood, a decree of the consuls ordered his 
 arrest, as having been concerned in the murders of September. 
 Mehee tried to remonstrate in the public prints and in the courts 
 of law; but he was banished, first to Dijon, and afterwards to the 
 Isle of Oleroti, whence he escaped to England, in 1805. He there 
 assumed a new character, and prevailing on Bertram! de Moleville, 
 whom he supplied with materials for his history of the Revolution, 
 to present him to the English Ministry, he represented himself as 
 an enemy to the Consular Government, and as the chief agent of 
 a party which had resolved on its overthrow. He was now furnished 
 with money and instructions, and was sent to Mr. Drake, the British 
 Minister at Munich, who received him on the credit of the recom- 
 mendatory letters he brought, arranged a correspondence which he 
 was to keep up with him on public affairs after his return to Pari?, 
 and gave him more money and fresh instructions. la the begin-
 
 87 
 
 fling of 1804, Mehee arrived in the French capital, and gave aa 
 account of the whole to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and ob- 
 tained permission to write to Drake, who was completely duped 
 by this stratagem. As all this was passing at the time George's 
 conspiracy was discovered, Mehee speedily published an account 
 of his manoeuvres, which added to the accusations brought against 
 the English Government. Mehee acquired a great deal of money 
 thus, and again settled at Paris, where he lived at first in some 
 splendour, but soon fell back into that indigence usnal with him. 
 He has written a History of the pretended Revolution in Poland, 
 with an Inquiry into its new Constitution, 1792; second edition, 
 1793: a pamphlet entitled the Whole Truth respecting the mas- 
 sacres committed in September, 1792, and respecting several se- 
 cret days and nights of the ancient government committees, 1794* 
 In 1791 and 1792 he was editor of the Warsaw Gazette; and in 
 1800 he published a treatise on the Wounds made by Fire Arms. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 WOOD, Printer; 22, Russell Court, London.
 
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