He had been appointed procureur of the commune; and as the municipality were compofed of Jacobins, and of others as weak as thofe were wicked, Chalier, fupported by the faction of Paris, be-came its principal director. Knowing the progrefs of the confpiracy in that city, he prepared his friends for the fame events at Lyons, by declaring openly in the popular fociety on the 27th of May,. that the prefidents and fecretaries of the fections, together with the rich egotists, fhould be beheaded on the following, day. The municipality on the 26th, in-fluenced by Chalier, had levied a revolutionary tax of fix millions of livres on the rich, to be paid in twenty-four hours. This municipal levy excited: murmurs, as was expected, and gave the anarchists pretences for raising tumults. The rich were deftined to be the victims, and Chalier's band prepared themselves to be the executioners. But the Lyonnaiss

might have crushed this infurrection in its birth, had not the narrow fpirit of traffic, which fees nothing beneficial in: fociety except the accumúlation of wealth,. made them feel that their country was. but a fecondary object, and fitted only to employ the attention of those whose time was of lefs mercantile profit than. their own..

Apprised of the intentions of the confpirators, who had made out the lift of the profcriptions,, and arranged the plan of the maffacre,, the citizens flew to arms,. and feized on the arfenal. The confpi-rators kept poffeffion of the town-hall,, and both parties prepared for action ;; for Lyons now confifted only of those who intended to murder, and those who did not like to be murdered. The combat was vigorously fupported on both fides; for the confpirators were aided by. a party of military whom they had previously engaged in their interefts. Vice.

tory

tory remained doubtful for a long time, as the battle was fought in the ftreets of the city, one quarter being in the poffeffion of the confpirators, while the re-. publicans were mafters of the other. It was not till midnight that the citizens took the town-hall, which was the head. quarters of Chalier's party. This event. decided the conteft, which had been fe vere and bloody. The confpirators were imprisoned, and their chief, after a long: and formal trial, was condemned by the. tribunal to death. Had the fame refift. ance been made to oppreffion in other; communes, that of Paris would have. been compelled to fubmit to the general. will; but as the departments had declined. the conteft, Lyons was left to withstand: alone all the refentment of the confpi-. rators, and was befieged a few weeks after this period.

LET

LETTER V.

THE chief point of accusation against the deputies who were arrefted on the fecond of June, was the continued oppofition which they were accufed of having made to the formation of a republican conftitutión. This calumny was contradicted by the fact; the profcribed deputies having, after the labour of some months, prefented a plan of constitution to the convention, which had been published by its order; but of which it was a part of the confpirators' plan to in terrupt and prevent the difcuffion.

As many believed that a conftitution was the remedy for every evil, moral and political, and even physical, that afAicted the ftate; and that, when once prepared and administered, all its mala

dies

dies would be cured; fome of the departments were appeafed by the affurance that their prefent rulers would give them in a fortnight what they were made to believe their predeceffors had fo long. withheld.

The appearance of this conftitution within the appointed time tended greatly to allay the difcontents, and gave an air of popularity to the proceedings of the confpirators; for, as long as the people obtained the bleffing, they were indifferent from what hand they received it. They were little aware of the purposes of their tyrants, who only giving them one short glimpse of this wished-for constitution, and having obtained their fanction of it, threw it afide, locked up this hallowed book of the law, fhrowded with a dark veil the tables of the rights of man, and boldly proclaimed a new-invented species of tyranny, under the denomination of revolutionary government..

That

;