gust character, which makes guilt shudder at the feet of royal majesty when worthily supported, would lose its force; it would augment, as the appearance of abandoning the interests of religion might excite the most dreadful ferment. In fine, it would augment, if contenting yourself with the empty title of a king without power, you should appear in the opinion of the universe to abdicate the crown, the preservation of which every one knows is indispensably connected with those unalienable rights which are essentially inherent in it.

The most sacred of duties, sire, as well as the most ardent attachment, induce us to lay before your eyes all the dangerous consequences of the smallest appearance of weakness, at the same time that we present that mass of overbearing force, which ought to be the safeguard of your firmness.

We ought still to announce to you, and we even swear at your feet, that if motives which it is impossible for us to perceive, but which can originate only from the excess of that violence and constraint which is only more cruel by being disguised, should compel your hand to subscribe an acceptance which your heart rejects, which your own interest and that of your people condemn, and which your duty as king expressly prohibits; we will protest in the face of the whole world, and in the most solemm manner, against this illusive act, and all that may follow from it; we will show that it is null of itself, null by defect of liberty, null from the radical vice of all the operations of the usurping assembly, which, not being an assembly of the states-general, is no

thing. We are supported by the rights of the whole nation in rejecting decrees diametrically opposite to their wishes, expressed by

the unanimous tenor of instructions to their representatives; and we disavow, on behalf of the nation, those treacherous mandatories, who, in violating their orders, and departing from the mission entrusted to them, have ceased to be its representatives. We will maintain what is evident, that having acted contrary to their title, they have acted without power, and what they could not legally do cannot be validly accepted.

Our protest, signed in conjunction with us by all the princes of your blood who are connected with us, should be common to all the house of Bourbon, whose eventual claims to the throne impose on them the duty of defending the august deposit. We will protest for you, sire, in protesting for your people, for religion, for the fundamental maxims of monarchy, and for all the orders of the state.

We will protest for you, and in your name, against what can only bear its false impression. Your voice being stifled by oppression, we shall be its necessary organs, and we express your real sentiments, as they exist in the oath of your accession to the throne, as they have appeared in the actions of your whole life, as, they have been displayed in the declaration which you made at the first moment that you believed yourself free. You neither can nor ought to have any other, and your will exists only in those, or where it breathes freely.

We will protest for your people, who in their delirium cannot per

́ceive how destructive this phantom of a new constitution, which is made to dazzle their eyes, and before which they are vainly made to swear, must be unto them. When these people, neither knowing their lawful chief, nor their dearest interests, suffer themselves to be misguided to their destruction; when, blinded by deceitful promises, they see not those who excite them to destroy the pledges of their own security, the supporters of their repose, the principles of their subsistence, and all the ties of their civil association; it becomes necessary to claim for them the reestablishment of all these, it becomes necessary to save them from their own frenzy.

We will protest for the religion of our fathers, which is attacked in its dogmas and worship as well as its ministers; and in order to supply your want of power at present to discharge in your own person your duties as eldest son of the church, we will assume in your name the defence of its rights; we will oppose those invasions of its property which tend to degrade it; we will rise with indignation against acts which menace the kingdom with the horrors of schism; and we loudly profess our unalterable attachment to the ecclesiastical rules admitted in the state, whose observance you have sworn to maintain.

We will protest for the fundamental maxims of the monarchy, from which sire you are not permitted to depart; which the nation itself has declared inviolable; and which would be totally reversed by the decrees presented to you; especially by those which, in excluding the king from all exer

cise of the legislative power, abolish royalty itself; by those which destroy all its supports, by suppressing all the intermediate ranks ; by those which, in levelling all states, annihilate even the principle of obedience; by those which deprive monarchy of the functions most essential to the monarchical government, or which render it subordinate on those which remain; by those, in fine, which have armed the people, which have annulled the public force, and which, in confounding all powers, have introduced into France popular tyranny.

We will protest for all the orders of the state, because, independently of the intolerable and impossible suppression pronounced against the two first orders, all have been injured, harassed, despoiled; and we have all at once to reclaim the rights of the clergy, who have displayed a firm and generous resistance only to the interests of heaven, and the functions of the holy ministry; the rights of the noblesse, who, more sensible of the outrages committed on the throne, of which they are the support, thar. of the persecution which they experience, sacrifice every thing to display, by an illustrious zeal, that no object can prevent a French gentleman from remaining faithful to his king, his country, his honour; the rights of the magistracy, who regret much more than the privation of their state, to see themselves reduced to lament in silence the absence of justice, the impunity of crimes, and the violation of laws, of which they are essentially depositaries; in fine, the rights of all possessors, since in France there is no property which has been re

spected

spected, no honest citizens who have not suffered.

How can you, sire, give a sincere and valid approbation to the pretended constitution which has produced so many evils? Depositary and possessor for life of the throne, which you have inherited from your ancestors, you can neither alienate its primordial rights, nor destroy the constitutive basis on which it is founded.

Born defender of the religion of your states, you can neither consent to what tends to its ruin, nor abandon its ministers to disgrace.

Owing to your subjects the discharge of justice, you cannot renounce the function, essentially royal, to cause it to be conducted by tribunals legally constituted, and yourself to superintend the administration.

Protector of the rights of all the orders, and of the possessions of all individuals, you cannot allow them to be violated and annihilated by the most arbitrary oppressions.

In fine, father of your people, you cannot abandon them to disorder and anarchy.

If the guilt which encompasses you, and the violence which binds your hands, do not permit you to fulfil these sacred duties, they are not less impressed on your heart in characters that cannot be effaced; and we will accomplish your real will, in supplying, as

which will not, in reality, cease till your people have returned to their duty, and your troops to their obedience; these prohibitions, which can have no more value than all that you have done before your departure, and which afterwards you disavowed; these prohibitions, in fine, which would partake of the same nullity with the act of approbation against which we shall be obliged to protest, cannot certainly induce us to betray our duty, to sacrifice your interests, and prove wanting in what France has a right to expect from us in such circumstances. We shall obey, sire, your real commands, in resisting extorted prohibitions, and we shall be secure of your approbation in following the laws of honour. Our perfect submission is too well known to you ever to appear doubtful. May we soon arrive at that happy moment, when, re-established in full liberty, you shall see us fly into your arms, there to renew the homage of our obedience, and set the example to all your subjects.

We are,

Sire, your brother and lord,
Your majesty's

Most humble and most obedient brothers,

Servants and subjects,

LOUIS STANISLAS XAVIER.
CHARLES PHILLIPPE.

near Coblentz, Sept. 10, 1791.

Letter to Louis XVI. from the other branches of his family accompanying the above.

Sire,

YOUR august brothers having been pleased to communicate to us

the

the letter addressed to your majesty, permit us personally to add, that we adhere to its contents with all our heart and soul; that we are impressed with the same sentiments, animated with the same views, unshaken in the same resolutions. The zeal of which they afford us the example, is inseparable from the blood which flows in our veins, from that blood always ready to be shed in the service of the state. Frenchmen and Bourbons, even to the bottom of our hearts, what ought to be our indignation, when we see a vile faction return your benefits only by crimes -insult the royal majesty-treat all sovereignty with contempt trample under foot laws human and divine-and pretend to establish their monstrous system on the ruins of our ancient constitution.

All our steps, sire, are guided by the princes, whose wisdom equals their valour and sensibility. In following their steps, we are secure of firmly marching in the track of honour; and it is under their auspices that we renew in your hands, as princes of your blood, and French gentlemen, the oath to die faithful to your service. We will all perish rather than suffer the triumph of guilt, the degradation of the throne, and the overthrow of the monarchy.

Convention between his Majesty the Emperor and his Prussian Majesty. (Said to be in the hands of the Princes.)

HIS majesty the emperor, and his majesty the king of Prussia, having heard the wishes and representations of monsieur (the French king's brother,) and the count d'Artois, do jointly declare, that they look upon the actual situation of his majesty the king of France as an object of common concern to all the sovereigns of Europe. They hope that this concern will, doubtless, be acknowledged by all the powers, from whom assistance is required; and that, in consequence, they will not refuse employing, in conjunction with their said majesties, the most efficacious means relative to their forces, in order to enable the king of France to consolidate, in the most perfect liberty, the basis of a monarchical government, suitable both to the rights of sovereigns, and the welfare of the French nation. Then, and in this case, their said majesties, the emperor and the king of Prussia, are determined to act speedily, with mutual concord, and with necessary forces, to obtain the proposed end in common.

Meanwhile they will give to their troops necessary orders that they may be ready for putting themselves in a state of activity. Pilnitz, Aug. 21, 1791.

Letter from the King of the French to the National Assembly, announcing his resolution to accept the Constitution, Sept. 13, 1791. Gentlemen,

I HAVE attentively examined the constitutional act, which you have offered for my acceptance. I accept

I accept it, and will cause it to be executed. This declaration might be sufficient at another time; at present I owe it to the interest of the nation, I owe it to myself, to make known my motives.

From the commencement of my reign I have desired the reform of abuses; and in all acts of government have loved to take public opinion for a rule. Various causes, in the number of which should be placed the situation of the finances at my accession to the throne, and the immense expense of an honourable war, supported for a long time without increase of taxes, had established a considerable disproportion between the revenues and the expences of the state.

Struck with the magnitude of this evil, I did not only seek for means to apply a remedy to it; I also perceived the necessity of preventing its return. I formed a plan for insuring the happiness of the people upon a permanent basis, and for subjecting to invariable rules even the sovereign authority, of which I am the depositary. I called the nation around me to execute it.

During the events of the revolution, my intentions never varied. When, after having reformed the ancient institutions, you began to substitute the first essays of your labour, I did not wait to give my consent to them till the entire constitution should be made known to me; I favoured the establishment of its parts, even before it was possible to judge of the whole; and if the disorders which have accompanied almost all the periods of the revolution, too often occurred to afflict my heart, I hoped that the law would recover its force

under the hands of the new authorities; and that, as the period of your labours approached, every day would confer upon it that respect, without which the people can have neither liberty nor happiness.

I persisted long in this hope, and my resolution did not change till the moment when that abandoned me. Every one recollects the moment when I separated myself from Paris; the constitution was nearly finished, and notwithstanding, the authority of the laws seemed to weaken every day; opinion, far from becoming settled, subdivided itself into a number of parts. The most violent councils seemed alone to obtain favour; the licentiousness of the press was at its greatest height; no power was respected.

I could no longer recognize the character of the general will in the laws, which I saw were without force and without execution. I am free to say, that if you had then presented the constitution to me, I should not have believed that the interest of the people, the constant and only rule of my conduct, permitted me to accept it. I had but one sentiment; I formed but one plan; I wished to get at a distance from all parties, and to know what was the real wish of the nation.

The motives which would then have directed me do not now exist; since that time, the inconveniencies and evils of which I complain, have appeared to you as well as to me; you have discovered a wish for the re-establishment of order; you have directed your attention to the want of discipline in the army; you have acknowledged the necessity of restraining the

abuses