"Sire, "I inform your Majeſty, that my agents are now in motion. I have juſt been converting an evil ſpirit. I cannot hope that I have made him good, but I believe I have neutralized him.—To-night we ſhall make a ſtrong effort to gain Santerre, (Commandant of the Garde Nationale,) and I have ordered myſelf to be awakened to hear the reſult. I ſhall take care to humour the different intereſts as well as I can.—The Secretary of the Cordeliers club is now ſecured.—All theſe people are to be bought, but not one of them can be hired.—I have had with me one Mollet a phyſician. Perhaps your Majeſty may have heard of him. He is an outrageous Jacobin, and very difficult, for he will receive nothing. He inſiſts, previous to coming to any definitive treaty, on being named Phyſician to the Army. I have promiſed him, on condition that Paris is kept quiet for fifteen days. He is now gone to exert himſelf in our favour. He has great credit at the Caffe de Procope, where all the journaliſts and 'enragiſ' of the Fauxbourg St. Germain aſſemble. I hope he will keep his word.—The orator of the people, the noted Le Maire, a clerk at the Poſt-office, has promiſed tranquility for a week, and he is to be rewarded. "A new Gladiator has appeared lately on the ſcene, one Ronedie Breton, arrived from England. He has already been exciting the whole quarter of the Poiſonnerie in favour of the Jacobins, but I ſhall have him laid ſiege to.—Petion is to come to-morrow for fifteen thouſand livres, [This ſum was probably only to propitiate the Mayor; and if Chambonas, as he propoſed, refuſed farther payment, we may account for Petion's ſubſequent conduct.] on account of thirty thouſand per month which he received under the adminiſtration of Dumouriez, for the ſecret ſervice of the police.— I know not in virtue of what law this was done, and it will be the laſt he ſhall receive from me. Your Majeſty will, I doubt not, underſtand me, and approve of what I ſuggeſt. (Signed) "Chambonas." Extract from the Papers found at the Thuilleries. It is impoſſible to warrant the authenticity of theſe Papers; on their credibility, however, reſts the whole proof of the moſt weighty charges brought againſt the King. So that it muſt be admitted, that either all the firſt patriots of the revolution, and many of thoſe ſtill in repute, are corrupt, or that the King waſ condemned on forged evidence.
The King might alſo be ſolicitous to purchaſe ſafety and peace at any rate; and it is unfortunate for himſelf and the country that he had not recourſe to the only effectual means till it was too late. But all thiſ reſts on no better evidence than the papers found at the Thuilleries; and as ſomething of this kind was neceſſary to nouriſh the exhauſted fury of the populace, I can eaſily conceive that it was thought more prudent to ſacrifice the dead, than the living; and the fame of Mirabeau being leſſ valuable than the ſafety of thoſe who ſurvived him, there would be no great harm in attributing to him what he was very likely to have done.— The corruption of a notorious courtier would have made no impreſſion: the King had already been overwhelmed with ſuch accuſations, and they had loſt their effect: but to have ſeduced the virtuous Mirabeau, the very Confucius of the revolution, was a kind of profanation of the holy fire, well calculated to revive the languid rage, and extinguiſh the ſmall remains of humanity yet left among the people.
It is ſufficiently remarkable, that notwithſtanding the court muſt have ſeen the neceſſity of gaining over the party now in power, no veſtige of any attempt of this kind has been diſcovered; and every criminating negotiation is aſcribed to the dead, the abſent, or the inſignificant. I do not, however, preſume to decide in a caſe ſo very delicate; their panegyriſts in England may adjuſt the claims of Mirabeau's integrity, and that of his accuſers, at their leiſure.
Another patriot of "diſtinguiſhed note," and more peculiarly intereſting to our countrymen, becauſe he has laboured much for their converſion, iſ Talleyrand, Biſhop of Autun.—He was in England ſome time aſ Plenipotentiary from the Jacobins, charged with eſtabliſhing treatieſ between the clubs, publiſhing ſeditious manifeſtoes, contracting friendly alliances with diſcontented ſcribblers, and gaining over neutral or hoſtile newſpapers.—But, beſides his political and eccleſiaſtical occupations, and that of writing letters to the Conſtitutional Society, it ſeems this induſtrious Prelate had likewiſe a correſpondence with the Agents of the Court, which, though he was too modeſt to ſurcharge hiſ fame by publiſhing it, was, nevertheleſs, very profitable.
I am ſorry his friends in England are moſtly averſe from epiſcopacy, otherwiſe they might have provided for him, as I imagine he will have no objection to relinquiſh his claims on the ſee of Autun. He is not under accuſation, and, were he to return, he would not find the laws quite ſo ceremonious here as in England. After labouring with impunity for monthſ together to promote an inſurrection with you, a ſmall private barter of his talents would here coſt him his head; and I appeal to the Biſhop'ſ friends in England, whether there can be a proper degree of freedom in a country where a man is refuſed the privilege of diſpoſing of himſelf to the beſt advantage.
To the eternal obloquy of France, I muſt conclude, in the liſt of thoſe once popular, the ci-devant Duke of Orleans. But it was an unnatural popularity, unaided by a ſingle talent, or a ſingle virtue, ſupported only by the venal efforts of thoſe who were almoſt his equals in vice, though not in wealth, and who found a grateful exerciſe for their abilities in at once profiting by the weak ambition of a bad man, and corrupting the public morals in his favour. The unrighteous compact iſ now diſſolved; thoſe whom he ruined himſelf to bribe have already forſaken him, and perhaps may endeavour to palliate the diſgrace of having been called his friends, by becoming his perſecutors.—Thus, many of the primitive patriots are dead, or fugitives, or abandoned, or treacherous; and I am not without fear leſt the new race ſhould prove aſ evaneſcent as the old.
The virtuous Rolland,* whoſe firſt reſignation was ſo inſtrumental in dethroning the King, has now been obliged to reſign a ſecond time, charged with want of capacity, and ſuſpected of malverſation; and thiſ virtue, which was ſo irreproachable, which it would have been ſo dangerous to diſpute while it ſerved the purpoſes of party, is become hypocriſy, and Rolland will be fortunate if he return to obſcurity with only the loſs of his gains and his reputation.
* In the beginning of December, the Council-General of the municipality of Paris opened a regiſter, and appointed a Committee to receive all accuſations and complaints whatever againſt Rolland, who, in return, ſummoned them to deliver in their accounts to him aſ Miniſter of the interior, and accuſed them, at the ſame time, of the moſt ſcandalous peculations.
The credit of Briſſot and the Philoſophers is declining faſt—the clubſ are unpropitious, and no party long ſurvives this formidable omen; ſo that, like Macbeth, they will have waded from one crime to another, only to obtain a ſhort-lived dominion, at the expence of eternal infamy, and an unlamented fall.
Dumouriez is ſtill a ſucceſſful General, but he is denounced by one faction, inſulted by another, inſidiouſly praiſed by a third, and, if he ſhould perſevere in ſerving them, he has more diſintereſted rectitude than I ſuſpect him of, or than they merit. This is another of that Jacobin miniſtry which proved ſo fatal to the King; and it is evident that, had he been permitted to entertain the ſame opinion of all theſe people as they now profeſs to have of each other, he would have been ſtill living, and ſecure on his throne.