the public interest. One of the first, one of the most essential, is the payment of the contributions established by your representatives, It is for the observance of engagements, which national honour has rendered sacred; for the internal tranquillity of the state; for its external security; it is for the stability of the constitution itself that I remind you of this indispensable duty.

Citizens armed for the maintenance of the law, National guards, never forget that it is to protect the safety of persons and of property, the collection of public contributions, the circulation of grain and of provisions, that the arms which you bear have been delivered into your hands; it belongs to you to feel that justice and mutual utility demand, that, between the inhabitants of the same empire, abundance should be applied to the aid of indigence; and that it is the duty of the public force to promote the advancement of commerce, as the means of remedying the intemperance of seasons, correcting the inequality of harvest, uniting together all the parts of the kingdom, and establishing a community of the various productions of their soil and industry.

And you, whom the people have chosen to watch over their interests; you also, on whom they have conferred the formidable power of determining on the property, the honour, and the life of citizens; you too whom they have instituted to adjust their differences, members of the different administrative bodies, judges of tribunals, judges of peace, I recommend to you to be impressed with the importance and dignity of your

functions; fulfil them with zeal, with courage, with impartiality; labour with me to restore peace and the government of laws; and by thus securing the happiness of the nation, prepare for the return of those whose absence has only proceeded from the fear of disorder and violence.

And all you who from different motives have quitted your country, your king invites you to return to your fellow-citizens; he invites you to yield to the public wish and the national interest. Return with confidence under the security of law; and this honourable return, at the moment when the constitution is definitively settled, will render more easy and more expeditious, the re-establishment of order and of tranquillity.

And you French people, a nation so illustrious for so many ages, shew yourselves magnanimous and generous, at the moment when your liberty is confirmed; resume your happy character; let your moderation and wisdom revive among you the security which the distur bances of the revolution had banished; and let your king henceforth enjoy, without inquietude and without molestation, those testimonies of attachment and fidelity which can alone secure his happiness.

Done at Paris, the 28th Sept. 1791.

(Signed) Louis,

(and underneath) DE LESSART.

The King's Speech to the National. Assembly, the last Day of their Meeting, September 30.

Gentlemen,

YOU have terminated your labours: the constitution is finished.

I have promised to maintain it, to cause it to be executed: it is proclaimed by my orders. This constitution, from which France expects prosperity, this fruit of your cares and watchings will be your recompence. France, made happy by your labours, will communicate her happiness to you.

Return to your homes, and tell your fellow-citizens, that the hap piness of the French ever has been, and ever will be, the object of my wishes; that I neither have, nor can have, any interest but the general interest; that my prosperity consists only in the public prosperity; that I shall exert all the powers entrusted to me to give efficacy to the new system; that I shall communicate it to foreign courts; and shall, in every thing, prove that I can be happy only in the happiness of the people of France.

Tell them also, that the revolution has reached its period, and that the firmest support of the constitution is now the re-establishment of order. You, gentlemen, in your several departments, will undoubtedly second my vigilance and care with all your power; you will give the first example of submission to the laws you have framed; in the capacity of private citizens you will display the same character as in the capacity of public men; and the people, seeing their legislators exercise, in private life, those virtues which they have proclaimed in the national assembly, will imitate them, discharge with pleasure the obligations which the public interest imposes on them, and cheerfully pay the taxes decreed by their representatives. It is by this happy union of sentiments, of wishes, and exertions,

that the constitution will be confirmed, and that the nation will enjoy all the advantages which it guarantees.

The President's Answer.

Sire,

THE adherence of the nation ratifies the constitution decreed by the assembly of the representatives of the nation. Your majesty has accepted it, and the public joy is a sufficient testimony of the general assent. It promises that your majesty will no longer desire in vain the happiness of the French. On this memorable day the national assembly has nothing more to wish, and the nation, by its tranquil confidence, is ready to co-operate for government. the prompt success of its internal

Speech of the King of the French to the New National Assembly, October 7.

Gentlemen,

ASSEMBLED by virtue of the constitution to exercise the powers which it delegates to you, you will undoubtedly consider as among your first duties, to facilitate the operations of government; to confirm public credit; to add, if possible, to the security of the engagements of the nation; to shew that liberty and peace are compatible; and, finally to attach the people to their new laws, by convincing them that those laws are for their good.

Your experience of the effects of the new order of things, in the several departments from which you come, will enable you to judge of what may be yet wanting to bring it to perfection, and make it

easy

easy for you to devise the most pro. per means of giving the necessary force and activity to the administration.

For my own part, called by the constitution to examine, as first representative of the people, and for their interest, the laws presented for my sanction, and charged with causing them to be executed, it is also my duty to propose to you such objects as I think ought to be taken into consideration in the course of your session.

You will see the propriety of fix ing your immediate attention on the state of the finances, and you will feel the importance of establishing an equilibrium between the receipt and the expenditure, of accelerating the assessment and the collection of taxes, of introducing an invariable order into all parts of this vast administration, and thus providing at once for the support of the state, and the relief of the people.

The civil laws will also demand your care, which you will have to render conformable to the princi. ples of the constitution. You will also have to simplify the mode of proceeding in the courts of law, and render the attainment of justice more easy and more prompt.

You will perceive the necessity of establishing a system of national education, and of giving a solid basis to public spirit. You will encourage commerce and industry, the progress of which has so great an influence on the agriculture and the wealth of the kingdom; and you will endeavour to make permanent dispositions for affording work and relief to the indigent.

I shall make known my firm desire for the re-establishment of or

der and discipline in the army; and I shall neglect no means that may contribute to restore confi dence among all who compose it and to put it into a condition to secure the defence of the realm. If the laws in this respect are insuffi cient, I shall make known to you the measures that seem to me to be proper, and you will decide upon them.

I shall in the same manner communicate my sentiments respecting the navy, that important part of the public force, destined to pro

tect trade and the colonies.

We shall not, I hope, be troubled with any attack from abroad. I have taken, from the moment that I accepted the constitution, and I still continue to take, the steps that appear to me the most proper to fix the opinion of foreign powers in our favour, and to maintain with them the good intelligence and harmony that ought to secure to us the continuance of peace. I expect the best effects from them. but this expectation does not prevent me from pursuing, with activity, those measures of precaution which prudence ought to dictate.

Gentlemen, in order that your important labours and your zeal may produce the effects expected from them, it is necessary that constant harmony and unalterable confidence should reign between the legislative body and the king. The enemies of our repose are but too studious to disunite us: the love of our country must therefore rally us, and the public interest render us inseparable. Thus the public force will be exerted without obstruction, the administration will not be harassed by vain alarms, the property and the religion of every man will

be

carry among them, not fire and sword, but liberty. It is for them to calculate what may be the consequences of the alarm of nations. For two years that French patriots have been persecuted on the frontiers, and that rebels have there found succour, what ambassador has spoken in your name as he ought? Not one.

If the French who were driven from the country by the revocation of the edict of Nantes had assembled

in arms on the frontiers, if they had been protected by the princes of Germany, sire, we appeal to you, what would have been the conduct of Louis the Fourteenth? Would he have suffered such assemblings?-Would he have permitted succours given by princes who, under the name of allies, act like enemies? What he would have done for his authority, let your majesty do for the safety of the empire, and the maintaining of the constitution.

Sire, your interest, your dignity, the insulted greatness of the na tion, all dictate a language very different from that of your ambassadors. The nation expects from your energetic declarations to the circles of the Upper and the Lower Rhine, the electors of Treves and Mentz, and the bishop of Spire.

Let them be such as that the hordes of the emigrants may be instantly dispersed. Prescribe an early period beyond which no dilatory answer shall be received. Let your declaration be supported by movements of the forces entrusted to you, and let the nation know who are its friends and its enemies. In this splendid measure we shall recognize the defender of the constitution.

You will thus assure the tranquillity of the empire, inseparable from your own; and you will hasten those days of national prosperity, in which peace shall restore order, and the reign of the laws, in which your happiness. shall be united with that of all the French.

ANSWER.

I WILL take the message of the national assembly into the most

serious consideration. You know that I have omitted nothing to secure the public tranquillity at home, to maintain the constitution, and to make it respected abroad.

Speech of the King of the French to the National Assembly, Dec. 14.

Gentlemen,

of

I HAVE taken your message the 29th of last month into deep consideration. In a case that involves the honour of the French people, and the safety of the empire, I thought it my duty to be myself the bearer of my answer. The nation cannot but applaud these communications between its elected and its hereditary representative.

You have invited me to take decisive measures to effect a cessa. tion of those external assemblages which keep up a hateful disquiet and fermentation in the bosom of France, render necessary an oppressive augmentation of expense, and expose liberty to greater danger than an open and declared war. You desire me to cause declarations to be made to the neigh

bouring