is sparing of words; violent threats betray weakness.

In the mean time, commissaries were sent to the frontier towns to examine the state of those that were most exposed to the attack of a foreign enemy. They found the city of Metz, where M. Bouillé had commanded, in a neglected condition but, contrarily to the expectations of the royal party, the military expressed the highest resentment at his conduct, and branded him with the name of traitor. Other towns were left in like manner unprepared; but there were no signs of invasion from any quarter.

In Paris, though commotions did not arise, the flight of the King gave birth to a variety of speculations extremely hostile to monarchy, and tending strongly to recommend republican principles; they met with a great number of favourers; and violent contentions arose between the respective supporters of these tenets and the friends of a monarchical government. These were, by the warm advocates of a commonwealth, accused of inclining to arbitrary power, notwithstanding that they insisted strenuously on every limitation of the crown that was requisite for the security of free

dom.

The friends to monarchy in the National Assembly took this opportunity to express their firm determination never to relinquish its defence, and to maintain it at all hazards against all opposers. They united in a resolute protest against those decrees in virtue of which the Assembly acted independently of the crown and against the king's custody, by the Parisian military.

They asserted the inviolability of the King, and that his prerogatives ought to be held sacred. Yet, in contempt of the constitution, his authority had been usurped, laws had been enacted without his assent, and, that no outrage might be omitted, he was now in a state of imprisonment. They accused the Assembly of having invaded the paternal rights of the King, by taking out of his hands the education of his son and entrusting it to others, over whom he was precluded from any authority. They reproached them with having engrossed the whole executive power, exacting oaths and solemn engagements from the people, assuming the organization of the army, and exercising military command: obliterating by such acts the very semblance of monarchy, and converting the government into a Commonwealth. They reprobated such a conduct, as manifestly repugnant to the maxims and spirit even of the present constitution. They explicitly avowed themselves resolved to decline all public business in future with those in the Assembly who participated in such proceedings, and to adopt the profoundest silence in all deliberations but on those which related to the rights of the crown. These alone they would loudly assert, and disregard whatever else might be proposed.

Such was the purport of this resolute protest, which was signed by 290 members of the National Assembly. Farther: To manifest how averse they were to the principles of the popular party, and how firmly they were determined never to submit to them, such of those members as bore hereditary

titles,

titles, boldly inserted them with their signatures, regardless of the danger they might incur. What procured considerable influence to this protest, they who signed it were men of irreproachable character in private life, and had strenuously and constantly avowed the principles to which they now bore so undisguised a testimony: this proved a circumstance of great moment in the present conjuncture, through the weight and importance it gave to this spirited and memorable transaction.

In the mean time the detention of the King was an object of deep mortification to the potentates of Europe. However inimical to France in the general system of their politics, they viewed with indignation a monarch held in thraldom by his subjects. Such an instance of the vicissitudes of fortune came home to their feelings, and excited a species of anxiety among them to which they had been utter strangers.

In the foregoing century, the civil disputes that had raged in England, arose in a great measure from religious causes; and the ar mies that met Charles I. in the field, consisted of men who thought they were asserting the cause of Heaven as well as of their country. The enthusiastic fury which was inspired by such ideas, might well impel them to the excesses which they committed. But in the present case, human affairs alone were concerned and this consideration rendered the obstinacy and resolution with which the French pursued the objects they had in view, the more formidable and dangerous, as they arose from motives that might

be supposed to actuate the subjects of every sovereign in Europe no less than those of the King of France. The fact indeed was, that all the people in Europe had their eyes fixed upon those of France. Though restrained by fear from uttering their sentiments, numbers in every country considered the French as struggling for their natural rights; and many did not scruple, in defiance of danger, to avow their thoughts. Nor were there wanting politicians who predicted, that if the French revolution stood its ground, it would prove the parent of many others.

Struck with objects of so serious a nature, it was not surprizing that the European potentates should be alarmed at an insolent treatment of a sovereign prince, and unite in their warmest wishes to extricate him from a situation of which they felt the disgrace almost as much as himself. This participation of sentiments among them seemed daily to increase, from the success that attended the popular party in France. They began to dread that their own people waited only for a completion and thorough settlement of the system established in France, to make a similar attempt in their own favour.

What added considerably to their fears, was the behaviour of the French military. Armies had hitherto been viewed by princes as the support of their power. The implicit obedience of soldiers to their officers, appeared a security that might always be depended on. Since the refusal which James the Second experienced on Hounslow Heath, from those regiments, whose assistance

assistance he solicited in his designs against this country, there had been no such instance of non-compliance with the desires of a sovereign. It seemed reserved for the French military to be the next to deny obedience to their King.

Without meaning to insinuate that this disobedience proceeded from so meritorious a cause as that of the English, still it arose from principle, and destroyed at once the maxim so strongly insisted on, that a soldier should have no other principle than submission to the word of command. A well grounded apprehension that such an example might prove contagious among their own troops, induced the powers in the neighbourhood of France to keep a watchful eye on the least indication of this tendency, and was now become their chief disquietude. Were this prop of their authority to fail them, they foresaw that nothing would prevent those innovations which they so much dreaded. The Emperor was but just risen, as it were, from a most dangerous contest with his subjects in the Netherlands. An accommodation had been effected between him and that people; but no confidence subsisted on either side. It was shrewdly suspected that he would have laid a heavy hand on them, but from the surmises that the inhabitants of his other dominions might avail themselves ofthe disputes necessarily resulting from such a conduct, and make such demands as he was not disposed to comply with.

From these motives it was imagined he had forborne from the severity, which would otherwise have been exercised upon those who had been concerned in the VOL. XXXIII.

preceding insurrections; but the progress of the French revolution began at this time to wear so alarming an aspect, that both he and other princes thought it seasonable to make some shew of interference in the affairs of France, were it only to stop the current of that innovating disposition which threatened to flow from these into other parts. An additional motive to assume an appearance of activity, was, to preserve habits of discipline and subordination among their troops, and to prevent them from imbibing those speculative notions that are found to be mostly the produce of inaction and leisure. By keeping them employed in their own line of duty, it was hoped they would remain submissive and manageable as heretofore.

The first potentate that ostensibly interfered in favour of the King of France, was a prince of his own family, the King of Spain. He addressed a declaration to the French government, purporting that the King was clearly justifiable in withdrawing, as he had done, in order to deliver himself from the insulting treatment of the people; and that the National Assembly had no right to confine their Sove. reign for having sought a place of refuge and safety, where he might preside over the lawful representatives of his subjects, and exercise his royal prerogatives with personal freedom. He professed himself deeply interested in the peace and felicity of the French nation; he admonished the Assembly to consider seriously what their ill usage of the King had compelled him to do, and not to deny him that respect which was due to his station. These sentiments of the King of N

Spain

Spain being communicated to the Assembly, it was judged proper to return no answer to them at present, but to postpone it until the business relating to the King's person should have been finally decided; when a solemn notification should be made to all the sovereigns of Europe, that the people of France, having already signified in the most formal and explicit manner their resolution to maintain the strictest peace and amity with them, were no less determined to submit to no interference of any kind in their domestic affairs. The Assembly, it seems, thought itself not slightly insulted by the indirect insinuation contained in the Spanish monarch's declaration, that he did not consider them as the lawful representatives of the French nation: for that reason it was resolved to pass over his memorial with so little notice.

Europe, in the mean while, was anxiously solicitous to learn the fate of the French monarch. His situation was singular; he was an acknowledged king; and there appeared no intention to deprive him of that title, nor of the functions annexed to it. There were indeed some violent assertors of republican principles, who maintained that he merited deposition; and that were France to renounce a monarchical government, it was noways inconsistent either with the right or the interest of the people. Tenets of this kind were boldly advanced by great numbers; but they were strenuously combated by those who perceived the necessity of reconciling parties, and who knew that monarchy, though depressed by a train of accidents that had reduced it to the lowest ebb, had yet a mul

titude of firm and zealous adherents, who were invincibly resolved to perish, if necessary, in its support. The King indeed had taken a step which would inevitably subject him to many inconveniences; but even those who disapproved of his conduct, did not seem in general inveterate to his person. They were not without hope, that, seeing so plainly as he must have done, the popular party was irresistible, he would make a virtue of necessity, and comply, were it only for his own and his family's security and peace, with the terms of the constitution; especially as it left him in posession of such prerogatives as would enable him to exercise a very considerable degree of power, when the fermentation of the times was over, and the government duly settled. It invested him, at the same time, with a revenue that would empower him not only to maintain the dignity of a monarch, but amply to recompence those of whom he had experienced the fidelity, and to encourage those whom he had reason to think his friends. Such were the sentiments of those who constituted what was stiled the moderate party. As they spoke and acted in a manner equally remote from violence and from want of spirit, discerning people doubted not but they would at length prevail over both the republicans and the zealous royalists: the first of these betrayed an impetuosity and warmth in the subversion of every plan but their own, that alienated many who approved of most of their opinions, but would not go the lengths they proposed: the second were deemed too implicitly adherent to the old system, to merit the confidence of those

who,

who, though firmly attached to the kingly government, were equally resolved that it should be limited.

The Assembly seemed, in the midst of these agitations, to preserve a studied calmness. They attended with great circumspection to the divers opinions that divided the public, as if they had intended to consult the voice of the nation; and from their decrees respecting the great points before them, consistently with what should appear to be the wishes of an evident majority. So confident were the nation at large that they would make a prudent decision, that they testified no impatience at the delay that took place from day to day in settling the future condition of the King. Numbers, however, complained that the Assembly were averse to such a settlement, from a design to engross the power of the state, which was now lodged exclusively in their own hands. Thus, it was observed, that the president performed the royal functions, and the members assumed those of the ministers of state. Some insinuated that their intention was, to make trial, whether France could be governed without a king; and if the experiment were in the affirmative, to proceed to the abolition of royalty. Certain it is, that the most violent efforts were made by the republican party, either to dethrone the King, or to effect such a diminution of his power, already so much reduced, as would leave him hardly more than the royal title. They insisted, that no faith could be placed in his words; and that neither he nor his adherents would scruple to infringe it, the moment they could do it with any prospect of accomplishing the purposes they

had in view, and which were invariably the same they had constantly pursued; the destruction of the new, and the re-establishment of the old government.

As a proof that this resolution subsisted in full force, they alleged the exultation expressed by the roy. al party on the King's flight from Paris; and their vaunts, that the time was come when vengeance would fall on the National Assembly for the many evils they had inflicted on the kingdom, and when satisfaction would be required at the hands of all those who had been accessary to those enormities. The restoration of the King to his former power, of the nobility to their titles, privileges, and all their possessions and authority, were denounced in the plainest terms; and the whole system of despotism was held up that had so long oppressed the nation.

These allegations of the republican party made the stronger impression, as it could not be denied that the royalists had manifested a forwardness on the late event, which had exposed them to great inconveniences. They had in some places proceeded so far as to prepare themselves for action, in so glaring a manner as that several had been seized and imprisoned. It was not doubted that, if the King had completed his escape, and erected his standard on the frontiers, the royalists would have repaired to it from all parts of the kingdom.

But, allowing the truth of these assertions, and that the royalists were not to be trusted, numbers of the warmest friends to the present measures disapproved of all harsh treatment to them. They were,