public tranquillity and fafety, and to inform him of all that had happened. The next day the king went himself to the national affembly, to make them fenfible how repugnant thefe proceedings were, even to the new conftitution; but new infults were the only fruit which the king derived from these two measures: he was obliged to confent to the removal of his chaplains, and the majority of his great officers; to approve a letter which his minifter had written in his name to foreign courts; and, in fine, to affift at the mafs on Eafterday with the new vicar of St. Germain l'Auxerrois. With all these incitements, and finding it impoffible for him to effect any good, or to prevent any evil, is it furprising that the king has fought to recover his liberty, and to place himself and his family in a place of fafety? Frenchmen, and you above all, Parifans! you inhabitants of a city which the ancestors of his majesty took a pleasure in calling the good city of Paris, learn to fufpect the fuggeftions, and the untruths, of your falfe friends: return to your king: he will always be your father, your best friend. What pleafure will he have in forgetting all his perfonal injuries, and in feeing himfelf again in the midst of you! when a conftitution, which he fhall have accepted freely, has made our holy religion refpected; when government fhall be eftablished on a footing fteady, yet allowing useful action; when the property or condition of no man fhall be troubled; when the laws fhall be no more infringed with impunity; and, in fine, when liberty fhall be fettled on a firm and immoveable foundation. At Paris, the 20th of June, 1791. The king forbids his minifters to fign any order in his name, until they have his farther orders: he enjoins the keeper of the feal of the flate to fend it to him, when it fhall be required on his part. At Paris, the zoth of June, 1791. • The following Account of the Manner in which the foregoing Decla ration was communicated to the Affembly, is taken from their proceedings of the 21st of June. Mr. la Porte, intendant of the civil lift (being at the bar, in confequence of a decree, requiring him to bring the king's declaration) faid, that that morning at eight o'clock, there was tranfmitted to him, on the part of the king, a packet, in which he found. a memorial written in his majefty's hand, of which he had read only the first and the last pages: that he immediately carried this memorial to the minifter of justice, who advised him to take it to the prefident of the national affembly; that he had with this view fought for the prefident, but could not find him. The prefident demanded of him, whether he had the memorial; and by whom it was brought to him? He answered, that he had the memorial, and that it had been brought to him by a domeftic belonging ! longing to a valet-de-chambre of the king. On being interrogated, if he knew the name of that man, he answered, that he did not; but that it would be eafy to know it, if the affembly would give the order. A member demanded, that be fore the memorial fhould be read to the affembly, M. la Porte fhould be required to write down, and depofit on the table, the account which he had to give. M. la Porte in confequence wrote, and delivered to the prefident, the following declaration. "I the undersigned, declare, that at eight o'clock, a domestic belonging to the king's first valetde-chambre brought to me a fealed packet, on which my name was written, in the hand of his majesty. This packet in closed a memorial, written in the king's hand, and figned. I have not read it: but having feen a poftfcript, containing an order to the minifters, I went immediately to M. Duport-Dutertre, minifter of justice. This minifter advised me to go directly to the prefident of the national af fembly. Not finding him, I returned home, from whence I am now come, only in obedience to the orders of the national affembly, who have directed me to place the memorial on the table, and to fign the prefent decla ration. At Paris, June the 21st, 1791. LA PORTE." June the 22d. Proclamation of the National Affembly to the People of France. (In answer to the king's declaration.) N⚫ atrocious enterprize against the laws has difcovered itfelf. The National Affembly approached the end of their long labours; the conflitution was finished; the tumults of the Revolution were fubfiding; and the enemies of the public weal have refolved by one criminal act to facrifice the whole nation to their vengeance. The king, and the royal family, were carried off in the night between the 20th and 21ft of this month. Your reprefentatives will tri umph over this obftacle: they have measured the extent of the duties impofed upon them. Public liberty fhall be maintained; confpirators and flaves fhall be taught to know the intrepidity of the founders of French liberty; and we folemnly engage, in the face of the nation, to avenge the law or to die. The French are refolved to be free; and they fhall be free. Endeavours are used to make the revolution recede, but it shall not re The original is, Un grand attentat vient de fe commettre. It is impoffible to tranflate this; the English language has no one word that anfwers to attentat, which properly means, any act of an inferior jurifdiction, in contempt of a fu perior. Something like the general meaning of the paffage is attempted to be given above, but with great diftruft. cede. Frenchmen! fuch is your will, and your will shall be accomplifhed. The business then is to apply the law to the state of the kingdom at this moment. The king in the conftitution exercises the royal prerogative of refufing or fanctioning the decrees of the legislative body; he is befides the chief of the executive power; and in this laft capacity he causes the laws to be executed by ministers who are refponfible. If the first public functionary deferts his poft, or is carried off againft his will, the reprefentatives of the nation, invested with all the powers neceflary for the prefervation of the ftate, and for invigorating government, have a right to fupply his place. In pronouncing that affixing the feal of the ftate, and the fignature of the minister of justice, thall give to decrees the character and authority of law, the national conftituent affembly have exerciled an indifputable right. Under the fecond relation of the king to the conftitution, it is no lefs eafy to find a fubititute. In fact, no order from the king can be carried into effect unlefs counterfigned by the minifter, who remains refponfible for it: a fimple declaration, which fhould order minifters to act provifionally under their refponfibility, without the king's fignature, would be fufficient. After having provided the means of completing and fecuring the execution of the laws, the dangers of the prefent crifis are removed with regard to the internal af fairs of the kingdom. Againf foreign attacks, a first re-inforcement of four hundred thoufand national guards is ordered for the army. Thus internally and externally France has every means of fecurity, if men will not fuffer their minds to be panic-ftruck, but preferve moderation. The national conftituent affembly is in its place; all the public powers eftablished by the conflitution are in action; the patriotifm of the citizens of Paris, and its national guards, whofe zeal is above all praife, watch around your reprefentatives; the active citizens of the whole kingdom are enrolled, and France is able to expect her enemies. Ought France to fear the confe. quences of a writing, extorted, before his departure, from the feduced king, whom we thall not think inexcufable, except in the last extremity? The ignorance and the pretenfions of those by whom it was dictated can fcarcely be conceived. This writing, if your interefts require it, fhall hereafter be confidered more at large; but it is our duty to give fome idea of it here. The national afiembly have made a folemn declaration of political truths; they have discovered, or ra. ther re-eftablished, the facred rights of mankind; and this writing prefents again the theory of flavery. Frenchmen! it calls to your recollection the day of the 23d of June, when the chief of the executive power, or the first public functionary, dared to dictate his abfolute will to your reprefentatives, charged This expreffion of tenderness toward the king, "that they fhall not think him inexcufable but in the last extremity," is wholly fuppreffed in the falje anflation. by by your orders to renovate the conflitution of the kingdom. The writers of that paper have not been afraid to make mention in it of that army which menaced the national affembly in the month of July. They have dared to make a merit of having removed it from the deliberations of your reprefentatives. The national affembly lamented the events of the 6th of October; they ordered the guilty to be profecuted; and becaufe it is difficult to difcover fome brigands amidst a general infurrection of the people, the affembly are accused of letting them remain unpunished: great care is taken to avoid relating the outrages which provoked these diforders. The nation was more juft and more generous; they no more reproached the king with the violences exercifed under his reign, and under the reigns of his ancestors. They have dared in this writing to advert to the federation of the 14th of July in the last year; but what is the circumftance which remains impreffed on the memory of its authors? It is, that the first public functionary was placed only at the head of the reprefentatives of the nation. In the midst of all the deputies of the national guards, and the troops of the line of the kingdom, the king there pronounced a folemn oath: this is the circumftance which they have forgotten! The oath of the king was free; for he fays himself, that it was during the "federation he paffed the fweeteft moments of his ftay in Paris; "that he paufed with fatisfaction "on the remembrance of the proofs 66 "of attachment and affection there "given him by the national guards "of all France." If the king does not one day declare, that he was drawn away by the factious, his perjury ought to be published to the whole world. Is there occafion for running through fo many reproaches fo ill founded? They would fay, that the people are made for kings, and that clemency is the only duty of those kings; that a great nation ought to regenerate itfelf without any agitation, without diflurbing for a moment the pleafures of the king and his court. Some disorders have attended the revolution; but ought the antient defpotifm to complain of the evils which it has produced? And is it decent in that defpotifm to exprefs aftonishment, that the people fhould not always have kept within bounds in difperfing that mafs of corruption formed ir. a feries of ages by the crimes of abfolute power? Addreffes of felicitation and thanks have come in from all parts of the kingdom, and thefe, it is faid, are the work of the factious: yes, without doubt, of twentyfour millions of factious. It was neceflary that all the powers should be re-constituted, becaufe all were corrupted; because a frightful debt, accumulated by the ignorance and diforders of government, was precipitating the nation into an abyis. We are reproached for not fubjecting the conftitution to the king's refufal; but royalty is established for the fake of the people only; and if great na tions This feems to admit the moral neceffity of monarchy for a great nation; but be falfe tranflation links it to a voluntary obligation, and weakens the force of the fentence tions are obliged to maintain a kingly government, it is becaufe that form is the fafe-guard of their happiness. The conftitution has left the king his prerogative and his true character. Your reprefentatives would have acted criminally if they had facrificed twenty-four millions of citizens to the intereft of one man. The labours of the people fill the treasury of the ftate; it is a facred depofit. The first fymptom of flavery is to confider the public contributions as a debt paid to defpotifm*. France ought to be on this point more ftri&t than any other country. The national affembly has regulated the appropriation of thefe contributions with exact jultice; they have provided munificently for the expences of the king: by a condefcenfion of the affembly he himself has fixed the amount, and early thirty millions granted for the civil lift are reprefented as too moderate a fum. The decree on war and peace takes from the king and his minif ters the right of devoting the people to carnage, according to the caprices or the views of the court: and this feems to be a fubject of regret! A fucceffion of difaflrous treaties has facrificed the territories of the French empire, the treafures of the ftate, and the induftry of the citizens. The legislative body bet ter understand the interefts of the nation; and yet we are reproached for having referved to that body the revision and confirmation of treaties! What then! have you not had fufficiently long experience of the errors of government? Under the antient regimen, the promotion and the difcipline of fol diers and officers of the land and fea fervice were abandoned to the caprice of minifters. The national affembly, attentive to their welfare, has reftored the rights which be longed to them; the royal authority has no more than a third or fourth part of the appointments to difpole of; and this the authors of the paper do not find fufficient. They attack your judicature without even dreaming that the king of a great people ought not to interfere in the administration of juftice any farther than in caufing the laws to be obferved, and judgment executed. They are difpofed to excite diffatis faction concerning the right of pardoning offences and commuting punishment; and yet it is univer fally known how this right is exercifed, and on whom monarchs beflow fuch favours. To complain of being no longer at liberty to direct all the parts of the adminiftration, is to claim minifterial defpotifm. Certainly the king could not exercise it himself. The choice of their administrators fentence that follows. The whole paffage runs thus: "Does not royalty exift "for the people? and if a great nation obliges itself to maintain it, is it not foley "because it is believed to be ufeful?"-This fhews the aim of all the fraud prac tifed with these papers. It is levelled at the general principle of monarchy, in this and every country, as well as in France. As the falie tranflation was intended to operate here, this faving claufe in favour of other countries has been omitted; the preceding and fubfequent fentences have been alfo altered. |