abuses of the press. A revision of your labours has placed in the number of regulatory laws several articles which have been presented to me as constitutional. You have established legal forms for the revision of those, which you have placed in the constitution. In short, the sentiments of the people no longer appear doubtful to me: I have seen them manifest themselves, at once by their adherence to your work, and by their attachment to the maintenance of a monarchical government.

I accept, then, the constitution; I accept the engagement to main tain it within the kingdom, to defend it against all attacks from without, and to cause it to be executed by all the means which it puts in my power.

I declare, that, being informed of the attachment of the great majority of the people to the constitution, I renounce the concurrence which I claimed in this work; and that being responsible only to the nation, no other, after my renunciation, has a right to complain.

I should, notwithstanding, fail in my attention to truth, if I said, that I perceived in the means of execution and of administration all the which will be necessary energy to give motion and preserve the unity of all parts of so vast an empire; but, since opinions are now divided upon these subjects, I consent that experience alone shall remain the judge. When I have put into action, with fidelity, all the means which have been entrusted to me, no reproach can be directed to me; and the nation, whose interest alone should be the rule, will explain itself by the

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means which the constitution has reserved to it.

But, gentlemen, for the confirmation of liberty, for the stability of the constitution, for the_individual happiness of all the French, there are interests upon which an imperious duty prescribes to us the re-union of all our efforts; these interests are, respect to the laws, the establishment of order, and the re-union of all the citizens.Now that the constitution is definitively decreed, Frenchmen living under the same laws should know no enemies but those who break them.- Discord and anarchy these are our common enemies.

I will combat them with all my power: it is necessary that you and your successors should assist me with energy, in order that, without desiring dominion over the mind, the law may equally protect all those who submit to it in their actions; that those whom the fear of persecutions and troubles has driven from their country, may be certain, upon returning to it, of. finding security and tranquillity. In order to extinguish hatreds, and to soften the evils which a great revolution brings with it; that the law may from henceforward begin to receive its full execution, let us consent to forget what is past, that the accusations and prosecutions, which have originated only in the events of the revolu-, tion, may be abolished in a gene ral reconciliation. I speak not of those who have been influenced, only by their attachment to me; -can you think them culpable? As to those, who by excesses, in which I can perceive personal in-. juries, have drawn upon them

THE king has charged me to inform you of his earnest desire that you make known his sentiments respecting the revolution, and the French constitution, to the court at which you reside. The same orders are transmitted to the ambassadors and ministers of France at all the courts of Europe, to the end that no doubt may remain with regard to his majesty's intentions, his free acceptation of the new form of government, or his irrevocable oath to maintain it. His majesty convoked the states-general of his kingdom, and resolved in his council, that the commons should, in that assembly, have a number of deputies equal to those of the two other orders there existing, This act of provisional legislation, which the circumstances of the times did not allow to be more favourable, sufficiently anVOL. XXXIII.

nounced his majesty's wish to restore to the nation all its rights.

The states-general met, and took the title of the national assembly; and in a short space of time, a constitution fit to secure the happiness of France, and of the monarch, took place of the ancient order of things, under which the apparent power of the kingdom only served to conceal the real power of the abuses of certain aristocratic bodies.

The national assembly, the form of a representative government, conjoined with an hereditary monarchy, the legislative body, was declared to be permanent; the choice of the ministers of public worship, of magistrates, and judges was given to the people; the executive power was conferred on the king, the formation of laws on the legislative body, and the power of sanction on the monarch; the public force, both internal and external, was organized on the principles, and in conformity to the fundamental distinction of powers: such is the new constitution of the kingdom.

That which is called a revolution, is no more than the abrogation of numerous abuses, that have been accumulating for ages, through the errors of the people, or the power of the ministers, which was never the power of the king. Those abuses were no less prejudicial to the monarch than to the nation. Those abuses, authority, under happy reigns, had never ceased to attack, but without the power to destroy. They exist no longer. The nation, now the sovereign, has no citizens, but such as are equal in rights; no despot but the law; no ministers but public ministers, and of those mi

nisters

nisters the king is the chief. Such is the French revolution.

This revolution must naturally have for its enemies all those who, in the first moment of error, regret, on account of their private interest, the abuses of the ancient government. Hence the apparent division in the kingdom, which is daily becoming less; hence perhaps some severe laws and circumstances which time will correct: but the king, whose true power can never be distinct from that of the nation, who has no aim but the happiness of the people, and no authority but that which is delegated to him; the king has adopted, without hesitation, a happy constitution, which will at once regenerate his authority, the nation, and the monarchy. All his powers are preserved to him, except the dreadful power of making laws. He remains charged with the power of negociating with foreign powers, with the care of defending the kingdom, and repelling its enemies; but the French nation will in future have no external enemies but its aggressors, no internal enemies but those who, still flattering themselves with vain hopes, believe that the will of twenty-four millions of men, restored to their natural rights, after having organized the kingdom in such a manner as to leave only the memory of ancient forms and abuses, is not an immoveable and irrevocable constitution.

The most dangerous of those enemies are they who affect to disseminate doubts of the intentions of the monarch. They are much to blame, or much deceived. They suppose themselves the only friends of the king, and they are the only

enemies of royalty. They would have deprived the king of the love and the confidence of a great nation, if his principles and his probity had been less known. What has the king not done to shew that he considered both the revolution and the French constitution as his titles to glory? After having accepted and sanctioned all the laws, he has neglected no means of causing them to be executed. Since the month of February, of the year preceding, he has promised in the midst of the national assembly to maintain them. He has taken an oath to do so in the midst of the general foederation of the kingdom. Dignified by the title of the Restorer of French liberty, he will transmit to his son more than a crown-he will transmit a constitutional royalty.

The enemies of the constitution are constantly repeating that the king is not happy; as if it were possible for a king to enjoy any happiness but the happiness of his people. They say that his authority is lessened, as if authority founded on force were not less powerful, and more precarious, than authority founded on law. They say that the king is not free-a calumny atrocious if they suppose that his will must be constrained: absurd, if they take for a want of freedom the consent repeatedly expressed by his majesty to remain among the citizens of Paris; a consent that was due to their patriotism, even to their fears, but above all to their love.

Those calumnies, however, have reached foreign courts; they have been repeated there by Frenchmen who are voluntary exiles from their country, instead of sharing its glory,

and

and who, if they were not enemies, have deserted their station as citizens. The king, sir, charges you to defeat their intrigues and their projects. The same calumnies, while they spread the falsest ideas respecting the French revolution, have rendered the intentions of French travellers suspected by several nations: and the king expressly orders you to protect and defend them. Represent the French constitution in the same light as that in which the king views it: and leave no doubt of his intention to maintain it to the utmost of his power. By securing the liberty and the equality of the citizens, that constitution founds the national prosperity on the most immoveable basis; it confirms the royal authority by the law; it prevents, by a glorious revolution, the revolution which the abuses of the old government would probably soon have effected by a dissolution of the empire; and finally, it will constitute the happiness of the king. To justify it, to defend it, and to consider it as the rule of your conduct, ought to be your first and most important duty.

I have frequently before communicated to you his majesty's sentiments on this head; but, after the information he has received of the opinion endeavoured to be established in foreign courts respecting what is passing in France, he has ordered me to make known the contents of this letter to the court at which you reside; and that it may be still more public his majesty has ordered it to be printed.

April 23, 1791.

MONTMORIN.

The King's Speech to the National
Assembly on accepting the Consti
tution, Sept. 14.
Gentlemen,

I COME to consecrate, in this place, solemnly, the acceptance which I have given to the constitutional act: in consequence of which I swear to be faithful to the nation and the law; and to employ all the power that is delegated to me, to maintain the constitution decreed by the constituting national assembly. May this great and memorable epoch be that of the reestablishment of peace and union, and become the surety of the happiness of the people, and the prosperity of the empire.

The President's Answer.

ABUSES of long standing which had triumphed over the good intentions of the best of Kings, and had incessantly braved the authority of the throne, oppressed France. Depositary of the wishes, rights, and power of the people, the national assembly has established, by the destruction of all abuses, the solid basis of public prosperity. Sire, what this assembly has decreed, the national concurrence has ratified. The most complete execution of its decrees, in all parts of the empire, attests the general sentiment. It deranges the weak plans of those whom discontent has too long kept blind to their own interests. It promises to your majesty, that your wishes for the welfare of the French will no longer be vain.

The national assembly has nothing more to desire, on this evermemorable day, in which you complete, in its bosom, by the most solemn

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solemn engagement, the acceptation of constitutional royalty. It is the attachment of the French, it is their confidence, which confers upon you that pure and respectable title to the most desirable crown in the universe; and what secures it to you, sire, is the unperishable authority of a constitution freely decreed. It is the invincible force of a people who feel themselves worthy of liberty. It is the necessity which so great a nation will ever have for an hereditary monarchy.

When your majesty, waiting from experience the lights which are about to be spread by the prac. tical result of the constitution, promises to maintain it at home, and to defend it from external attack, the nation, trusting to the justness of its rights, and to the consciousness of its force and courage, as well as to the loyalty of your co-operation, can entertain no apprehension of alarms from without, and is about to contribute, by its tranquil confidence, to the speedy success of its internal government.

What ought to be great in your eyes, sire, dear to our hearts, and what will appear with lustre in our history, is, the epoch of this regeneration; which gives to France, citizens to the French, a countryto you, as king, a new title of grandeur and of glory-and to you again, as a man, a new source of enjoyment, and new sensations of happiness.

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King of the French. To all citizens-Greeting:

I HAVE accepted the constitution-I will use all my endeavours to maintain it, and cause it to be executed.

The revolution is completed-It is time that the re-establishment of order should give to the constitution the support which is still most necessary; it is time to fix the opinion of Europe on the destiny of France, and to shew that the French are worthy to be free.

But my vigilance and my cares ought still to be seconded by the concurrence of all the friends of their country and of liberty: it is by submission to the laws; it is by abjuring the spirit of party, and all the passions which accompany it; it is by a happy union of sentiment, of wishes, and of endeavours, that the constitution will be confirmed, and that the nation will enjoy all the advantages which it

secures.

Let every idea of intolerance then be abandoned for ever; let the rash desire of independence no longer be confounded with the love of liberty; let those pernicious qualifications, with which it has been attempted to inflame the people, be irrevocably banished; let religi ous opinions no longer be a source of persecution and animosity; let all who observe the laws be at liberty to adopt that form of worship to which they are attached; and let no party give offence to those who may follow opinions different

By the Grace of God, and by the Constitutional Law of the State,

conscience. But it is not sufficient to shun those excesses to which you might be carried by a spirit of violence; you must likewise fulfil the obligations which are imposed by

the