Images de page
PDF
ePub

constituting assembly, and came forth with great qualifications to avenge human kind of the outrages so long endured by the same. In the midst of hypocritical parties, who knew that the great mass of the People possess virtues, and that they find their greatest advantage in the applying of the most strict rules of eternal justice; in the midst of those men led by their passions who in consequence of that knowledge aped love to the great principles, with a view of securing the confidence of the People, and of acting the part of masters over the same after having made use of them to overthrow those powers in whose stead they themselves wanted to rule; that man of whom I am speaking came forth with the pure intention of seriously and sincerely working with the People to procure the same the reality of those things of which the great number of pretended defenders meant only to hold up a picture to their sight. Robespierre almost alone, desiring for the People something else than that which parties desired, had not however the appearance of being a very extraordinary, man and insulated in the midst of his colleagues: a considerable number actuated by craftiness delivered discourses of which the morality seemed not different nor less pure than his. It was in that time sufficiently difficult to distinguish between the tinsel of virtue and real virtue. For a long time people appeared to be uncertain whether Robespierre himself did not belong to some party: some also might take him to be an intriguer more dexterous than all the rest, and ambitious for himself separately; his perverse colleagues might have the last mentioned mistaken idea concerning him, because perverse persons, souls groveling in the dust, who judge of every thing according to their own feelings, have no conception that any other passion but selfishness can be capable to cause great schemes to be formed; (98)

Marat, men of uncommon qualifications and extended views, (especially Saint-Just) and conspicuous for their zeal and their devoting themselves unreservedly to the cause of the People.

(98) The piece from which this extract is made is not finished, but ends abruptly in the midst of a period.

[Vol. I. page 104.] (99)

[ocr errors]

It is equally wrong to take advantage of the circumstance that Robespierre, Couthon, and Saint-Just have taken a share in drawing up that constitution [of 1793].

The slanders against these men are not reasons; they were moreover only fellow-workers: Herault de Séchelles was the reporter of it; Guyton de Morveau, Berlier, Cambacérès, and others who at present(100) are members of the legislative body, had equally a share in drawing it up.

Besides, this charter is become the law of the People, having been accepted by them with joy and enthusiasm. We ought to judge of that constitution not according to the name of some men, but according to its contents, and according to the happiness of the People which has followed the proclamation of that constitution, and which has only ceased since the time when its slanderers and its enemies have been able to execute their project of throwing it aside.

That happiness of the People appeared to be on the point of being cemented for ever, when, on the ninth of Thermidor, the enemies of the People assassinated, SaintJust, who concluded that discourse which has brought him on the scaffold by demanding that those institutions should be given to the People by which the Republican constitution was to be brought into operation; Robespierre, who desired that true laws should be made, and who abandoned since a considerable time the committee of public welfare, because four men in that committee(*) did oppose, notwithstanding his endeavours, that the revolution, which began to become odious by its length and by some errors, should be brought to a close; and the virtuous Couthon, who never committed any other crime but that of detesting the villains that oppress us, and of thinking, with Robes

(99) The following extract is a part of the piece entitled, Quelques apperçus sur la révolution Française, &c.

(100) To wit in the spring of 1796, when this piece was written. (*) Carnot, Billaud-Varennes, Collot d'Herbois, and Barrère.

[ocr errors]

pierre and Saint-Just, that it was time the People should have institutions.

What conclusion must we draw from the facts which have been called to remembrance, and of which the verbal processes, the official communications, (†) the journals, contain the numerous proofs? This: That all kinds of calamities assailed the Republic previous to the constitution of 1793, and that that law has united again, and re-established, every thing.

.........

EXTRACTS

FROM THE WORK ENTITLED:

CATO'S LETTERS;

OR

ESSAYS ON LIBERTY, CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS,

AND OTHER IMPORTANT SUBJECTS.

The fourth edition.-London:
PRINTED FOR W. WILKINS,.

[Vol. I. page 96.]

Of freedom of speech:

1737.

That the same is inseparable from public liberty.

Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech: which is the right of every man, as far as by it he does not hurt and control the right of another and this is the only check which it ought to suffer, the only bounds which it ought to know.

[ocr errors]

Guilt only dreads liberty of speech, which drags it out of its lurking holes, and exposes its deformity and horror to day-light.

(†) In that time every thing was public. At present the councils will neither bear any petition, nor let the Nation know any thing.

Freedom of speech is the great bulwark of liberty; they prosper and die together and it is the terror of traitors and oppressors, and a barrier against them........

[Vol. I. page 111.]

What measures are actually taken by wicked and desperate ministers to ruin and enslave their Country.(101)

[ocr errors]

Few men have been desperate enough to attack openly, and barefaced, the liberties of a free People. Such avowed conspirators can rarely succeed: The attempt would destroy itself. Even when the enterprize is begun and visible, the end must be hid, or denied. It is the business and policy of traitors, so to disguise their treason with plausible names, and so to recommend it with popular and bewitching colours, that they themselves shall be adored, while their work is detested, and yet carried on by those that detest it.

Thus one Nation has been surrendered to another under the fair name of mutual alliance: the fortresses of a Nation have been given up, or attempted to be given up, under the frugal notion of saving charges to a Nation; and Commonwealths have been trepanned into slavery, by troops raised or increased to defend them from slavery.

[ocr errors]

They [these corrupt ministers,] will be ever contriving and forming wicked and dangerous projects, to make the People poor, and themselves rich; well knowing that dominion follows property; that where there are wealth and power, there will be always crowds of servile dependents; and that, on the contrary, poverty dejects the mind, fashions it for slavery, and renders it unequal to any generous undertaking, and incapable of opposing any bold usurpation. They will squander away the public money in wanton presents to minions,

They will engage their Country in ridiculous, expensive, fantastical wars, to keep the minds of men in continual hurry and agitation, and under constant fears and alarms; and, by such means, deprive them both of leisure and inclina

(101) This letter bears date, February 18th, 1720.

[ocr errors]

tion to look into public miscarriages. Men, on the contrary, will, instead of such inspection, be disposed to fall into all measures offered, seemingly, for their defence, and will agree to every wild demand made by those who are betraying them.

When they have served their ends by such wars, or have other motives to make peace, they will have no view to the public interest;

[ocr errors]

They will create parties in the Commonwealth, or keep them up where they already are;

They will not suffer any men, who have once tasted of authority, though personally their enemies, and whose posts they enjoy, to be called to an account for past crimes, though ever so enormous. They will make no such precedents for their own punishment; nor censure treason, which they intend to commit.

[ocr errors]

They will prefer worthless and wicked men, and not suf fer a man of knowledge or honesty to come near them, or enjoy a post under them.

[ocr errors]

They will promote luxury, idleness, and expense, and a general depravation of manners,.........

They will, by all practicable means of oppression, provoke the People to disaffection; and then make that disaffection an argument for new oppression, for not trusting them any further, and for keeping up troops; and, in fine, for depriving them of liberties and privileges, to which they are entitled by their birth, and the laws of their Country.

If such measures should ever be taken in any free Country, where the People choose deputies to represent them, then they will endeavour to bribe the electors in the choice of their representatives, and so to get a council of their own creatures; and where they cannot succeed with the electors, they will endeavour to corrupt the deputies after they are chosen, with the money given for the public defence; and to draw into the perpetration of their crimes those very men, from whom the betrayed People expect the redress of their grievances, and the punishment of those crimes. And when they have thus made the representatives of the People afraid of the People, and the People afraid of their representatives, then they will endeavour to

« PrécédentContinuer »