audacity so far, as to break the arms of those persons in the presence of his majesty.

son.

Upon the king's recovery from his illness, be intended to go to St. Cloud, and was detained. In vain did M. de la Fayette endeavour to protect his departure; the faithful servants who surrounded his majesty were torn away from him, and he was taken back to his priAfterwards he was obliged to dismiss his confessor, to approve the letter of the minister to the foreign powers, and to attend mass performed by the new rector of St. Germain Auxerrois. Thus perceiving the impossibility of averting any public evil by his influence, it is natural that he should seek a place of safety for himself.

Frenchmen! and you the good inhabitants of Paris, distrust the suggestions of the factious; return to your king, who will always be your friend; your holy religion shall be respected; your government placed upon a permanent footing; and liberty established upon a secure basis.

(Signed)

Paris, June 20, 1791.

LOUIS.

near the conclusion of its long labours; the constitution was almost completed; the tumults of the revolution were about to cease; and the enemies of the public welfare were eager, therefore, to sacrifice the whole nation to their vengeance. The king and the royal family were carried off on the 21st instant.

But your representatives will triumph over all these obstacles. They estimate calmly the extent of the duties imposed upon them. The public liberty shall be maintained; conspirators and slaves shall understand the intrepidity of the French nation, and we make, in the name of the nation, a solemn engagement to revenge the law or die.

France would be free, and she shall be so. It is intended to make the revolution recede, but it recedes not. It is the effect of your will, and nothing can retard its progress. It is necessary to accommodate the law to the state of the kingdom. The king, in the constitution, exercises the power of the royal sanction over the decrees of the legislative body; he is the head of the executive power, and in that capacity, causes the laws to be executed by his minister.

If he quits his post, although carried off against his will, the representatives of the nation have the right to supply his place. The national assembly has in consequence decreed, that the seal of state, and the signature of the ministers of justice, shall be added to all its decrees to give them the character of laws. As no order of the king would have been executed without being countersigned by the responsible minister, nothing

was

was necessary but a simple delegation by the assembly to authorise him to sign the orders, and those only issued by them. In this circumstance they have been directed by the constitutional law relative to a regency, which authorises them to perform the functions of the executive power until the nomination of a regent.

By these measures your representatives have ensured order in the interior part of the kingdom; and to repulse any attack from without, they add to the army a reinforcement of three hundred thousand national guards.

The citizens then have, on all sides, the means of security. Let them not be overcome by their surprise; the constituent assembly is upon its duty; the constituted powers are in activity; the citizens of Paris, the national guards, whose patriotism and fidelity are above all praise, watch round your representatives; the active citizens throughout the kingdom are in arms, and France may wait for its enemies.

Are they to fear the consequences of a writing forced, before his departure, from a seduced king? It is difficult to conceive the ignorance and blindness that have dictated this writing, which may deserve to be further discussed hereafter; at present, your representatives content themselves with examining particular sentiments.

The national assembly has made a solemn proclamation of political truths and of rights, the acknowledgment of which will one day produce the happiness of the human race: to engage them to renounce this declaration of rights,

the theory of slavery itself has been presented to them.

Frenchmen! we have no fear in recalling to your memories the famous day of the 23rd of July 1789; that day, on which the chief of the executive power, the first public functionary of the nation, dared to dictate his absolute will to your representatives, charged by your orders to form a constitution. The national assembly lamented the disorders committed on the 5th of October, and ordered the prosecution of the persons guilty of them; but, because it was difficult to discover some rioters amongst such a multitude of people, they are said to have approved all their crimes. The nation is, however, more just. It has not reproached Louis XVI, with the violences that have occurred under his reign and those of his ancestors.

They are not afraid to call to your recollection the fœderation of July. What are the statements of the persons who have dictated the letter of the king with respect to this august act? that the first public functionary was obliged to put himself at the head of the representatives of the nation. In the midst of the deputies of all the kingdom, he took a solemn oath to maintain the constitution. If the king does not hereafter declare, that his good faith has been surprised by seditious persons, he has, of course, announced his own perjury to the whole world! Is it necessary to go through the fatigue of answering the other reproaches of this letter?

The king is said to have experienced some inconveniences in his residence in Paris, and not to have M 2

found

found the same pleasures as formerly; by which it is implied, no doubt, that a nation ought to regenerate itself without any agitation, without disturbing for an instant the pleasures and the indulgences of courts. As to the addresses of congratulation and adherence to your decrees, these, say they, are the works of the factious.-Yes-no doubt, of twenty-six millions of the factious! It was necessary to re-constitute all powers, because all the powers were corrupted, and because the alarming debts accumulated by the despotism and the disorders of government would have overwhelmed the nation. But does not royalty exist for the people? And if a great nation obliges itself to maintain it, is it not solely because it is believed to be useful? The constitution has left to the king this glorious prerogative, and has confirmed to him the only authority which he should desire to exercise. Would not your representatives have been culpable, if they had sacrificed twenty-six millions to the interest of one man?

The labour of citizens supports the powers of the state: but the maxim of absolute power is to consider the public contributions as a debt paid to despotism. The national assembly has regulated its expences with the strictest justice; they thought themselves bound, when acting in the name of the nation, to act munificently; and when they were to determine what part of the public contributions should be allowed to the first functionary, thirty millions were allotted for him and the royal family; but this is represented as a trifling sum!

The decrees upon the subject of peace and war have taken from the king and his ministers the power of sacrificing the people to the caprices of courts, and the definitive ratification of treaties is reserved to the representatives of the nation. The loss of a prerogative is complained of. What prerogative? that of not being obliged to consult the national will, when the blood and the fortunes of citi zens were to be sacrificed. Who can know the wish and the interests of the nation better than the legislative body? it is wished to make war with impunity. But have we not had, under the ancient government, sufficient experience of the terrible effects produced by the ambition of ministers?

We are accused of having despoiled the king, in forming the judicial power, as if he, king of a great nation, ought to appear in the administration of justice for any other purpose than that of causing the law to be observed, and its judgments executed. It is wished that he should have the right of granting pardons and changing punishments; but does not all the world know how such a right would be exercised, and upon whom the benefit of it would fall? The king could not exercise it by himself, and after having prohibited royal despotism, it was very natural to prohibit that of the ministers.

The necessity of circumstances has sometimes obliged the national assembly to meddle, contrary to its inclination, in the affairs of administration. But ought it not to act, when the government remained in blameable inertness? Is it, therefore,

therefore, necessary to say, that neither the king nor the ministers have the confidence of the nation?

The societies of friends of the constitution have supported the revolution; they are more necessary than ever, and some persons presume to say that they govern the administrative bodies and the empire, as if they were the deliberating bodies.

Frenchmen! all the powers are organized; all the public functionaries are at their posts; the national assembly watches over the safety of the state; may you be firm and tranquil! one danger alone threatens us. You have to guard against the suspension of your labours; against delay in the payment of duties; against any inflammatory measures which commence in anarchies, and end in civil war. It is to these dangers that the national assembly calls the attention of citizens. In this crisis, all private animosities and private interests should disappear.

Those who would preserve their liberty should show that tranquil firmness which appals tyrants. May the factious, who hope to see every thing overturned, find order maintained, and the constitution confirmed, and rendered more dear to Frenchmen, by the attacks made upon it. The capital may be an example to the rest of France. The departure of the king excited no disorders there, but, to the confusion of the malevolent, the utmost tranquillity prevails in it. To reduce the territory of this empire to the yoke, it will be necessary to destroy the whole nation. Despotism, if it pleases, may make such an attempt. It will either

fail, or at the conclusion of its triumphs will find only ruins.

Note from M. Simolin, the Russian Ambassador to M. Montmorin.

M. le Comte,

I DID not learn till this morning, from the public newspapers, the unfortunate effect of a passport which I had the honour to request of your excellency three weeks ago. I there read, that madame the baroness de Corff was a Swede, which would tend to impress the public, whose opinion I infinitely respect, with the idea, that I had infringed upon the rights and privileges of the Swedish ambassador. I hastened to rectify that error, by declaring, that madame the baroness de Corff is a Russian, born at Petersburgh, widow of baron de Corff, a colonel in the service of the empress, who was killed in the assault of Bender, 1770-that she is daughter of madame de Stegleman, likewise born at Petersburgh, and that they have both resided for twenty years past at Paris.

These two ladies then could not, nor ought they to have addressed themselves to any other but me, to procure them their passports; and though no way related to them, never having even seen them, I could not refuse them the slight favour of my intervention for that purpose. It is true that a passport was pretended to have been burnt, as madame de Corff herself observed in the note which accompanied my request to obtain a duplicate; but my conduct through the whole

of